Whose Business Growth hub is it anyway? Co-production of a new approach to Business Support for the North of England

This chapter briefly outlines the literature relating to business support, presents a case study which explores the initial response of a Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) to the challenge of providing a ‘Business Growth’ hub. It then reports on a project the authors were engaged in which applied co-production approach to a sociotechnical system framing approach to development and change of a ‘Growth Hub’ and suggesting that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have a key part to play in the shaping of SME support programmes to meet the challenges of a post-BREXIT business environment.

The challenge to be addressed concerned the engagement of a core set of stakeholders in a co-production process, with a local LEP and other stakeholders, to work with the ‘installed base’ of business support activities in a region of northern England. The approach we adopted supports long-term planning based on the interests of the members of the wider network, rather than on the often narrow prescriptive, understandings and interests of policy makers or of the organisations enacting programmes. The proposed model seeks to contribute to the current debate on the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in strengthening regional economic development and business support by enabling and facilitating changes in the role of the supported businesses from that of mere customers and recipients to potential co-producers of advice and services, based on shared vision and a common infrastructure.