Four years before London hosted the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games the UK was hit by the financial crisis of 2008, followed by a decade of austerity. Today we are faced with the fallout from COVID-19 global pandemic which has exposed and exacerbated the fragility and disparity in our national economy.
Yes, we need to bounce back —but we need to bounce back better. We need to reconnect growth and living standards. We need to develop economic strategies that are concerned with both the pace and pattern of growth. The inclusive growth agenda needs to be stronger than ever before. It is that same commitment to inclusive growth that has underpinned the legacy of the London 2012 Games.
Eight years on from the success of the 2012 Games, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a thriving cluster of global names in business (BT Sport, Ford Mobility, FCA...) education (UCL, UAL, Loughborough University...) leisure (Greenwich Leisure Limited, London Stadium, Westfield), culture (Studio Wayne McGregor, V&A, Village Vanguard, Sadler’s Wells, BBC), technology (Sports Interactive, Hobs Studio, MatchesFashion...) combined in an ecosystem of crucial start-ups and creative industries.
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The Park is a fast establishing as a real-world testbed and hothouse for innovation —from autonomous vehicle trials to group apprenticeship training schemes to providing a home for creative start-ups and a world leading innovation campus with Plexal at Here East.
, resulting in a new model of an Inclusive Innovation District. Key to this has been working with the right sort of partners from across all sectors, new and old, big and small —who share our ambition. We have targeted sectors that deliver growth in good quality, sustainable careers. We have jointly designed and delivered a demand-led employment and skills programme, ‘East Works’, which responds to employers’ current and future skills opportunities and challenges. We have worked hard to drive up wages and improve employment practices in sectors that are characterised by low pay, unpaid internships, and recruitment through closed networks. We have championed civic voice and participation for example with our Park Panel residents steering group and hundreds of Park Champion volunteers. We have emphasized Youth engagement via our Youth Board and outreach programmes.
We have developed an educational programme focused on Experimentation Arts Science and Technology. We support community activation and empowerment through projects that put the community as client such as Hub 67 and East Village Trust. We invest in diverse network building with initiatives like Echo. We protect natural assets with our environmental sustainability commitment and seek growth with net environmental benefit. Above all, we unashamedly celebrate the abundance of diverse talent, often untapped, that resides in east London.East London is home to one of the most diverse, young populations in the world, and with that comes a multiplicity of experience and thought that hold real value to the sorts of knowledge-based businesses making Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park their home. Nurturing this diverse talent pipeline, and opening access to it is a business imperative for knowledge-intensive originations, but also, a key to how these knowledge clusters can connect with local communities, building a mutual sense of belonging and prosperity.
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There is still further to go in achieving the generational uplift for this part of London that formed such a core part of the 2012 legacy commitments. Much has been achieved already, but perhaps one of the strongest successes has come from understanding and harnessing the power of what we call ‘purposeful collaboration’.
With partners across various sectors and sizes coming together to design and deliver a range of activities focused on social, economic and environmental benefits, the result can be more than an agglomeration effect; moving towards co-production and co-creation of new ideas, products and processes. It is with this intent, grounded by an inclusive growth mission that we start to create the inclusive economics of tomorrow that are so needed in the current global crisis of today.
Viewpoint by Emma Frost, Director of Innovation, Sustainability and Community, LLDC and Michelle May, Director of Inclusive Growth, Education and Skills, LLDC.
