In the UK, there is a constant refrain about “fat cats” in the southeast of the country. The truth is that the bit of England between London and the south coast also has some run down areas, where unemployment is high and investment low. But the myth is so well engrained that policy rarely shines on these pockets of relative poverty with development money.
So while the Regional Development Administrations (RDAs) in the northern parts of the country are awash with money, sometimes backed up with regional support from the EU, for new ventures and even to support R&D, the southeast has limited access to such funds. (Unlike the recent decision on Scotland, the EU isn’t likely to agree to state aid for broadband in the southeast.) With so many people commuting to London, and old those clusters of high-tech businesses – think Reading, Ashford or Crawley – perhaps the view is that the southeast is devoid of anything that smacks of “rural”.
Not everyone sees things like that, which is why we now have the Rural Research and Strategy Partnership (RRSP). According to their press release, RRSP brings together “five of the region’s leading research institutions to help find ways to solve its most pressing rural problems”.
The idea is to support that well worn concept “multi-disciplinary research collaborations” and to bring together “research teams and key regional policymakers and rural stakeholder groups” to “encourage the generation and use of new research evidence to provide practical and innovative solutions to rural issues”.
Why bother? There may be a lot of people living in the southeast – please move to another part of the country if you can – but “more than 80% of its land area is classified as rural. One third of its countryside is protected for its landscape quality, and it holds 10% of the UK’s farms.”
Peter Bunyan of the University of Surrey sums up the issue “The South East is the economic powerhouse of the UK, and our rural heritage and assets play an important role in that. But one of our big problems is in understanding how we can maintain and improve rural sustainability alongside the demands of economic progress. The South East is a local exemplar of this global paradox.”
The cash to run the show comes at first from the local RDA, SEEDA, the South East England Development Agency. But the research community shouldn’t hold out too much hope of seeing a flood of new money. The RRSP’s web site warns that “Funding for research projects formed as a result of RRSP researcher workshops - and for other Partnership activities - will be secured from the normal research funding sources.”







