• Project Dates: 2009 - 2010
• Project Leader: Jane Atterton
• Staff: Carmen Hubbard and Arthur Affleck

Jane Atterton was successful in a bid for HEIF4 funding (£34,000) to undertake a project entitled 'Centre for Rural Economy Science City Activities'. Through a desk-based literature and policy review, further analysis of the 2009 Rural Business Survey database and a series of interviews and focus groups with individuals from key organisations in the 'regional innovation system', the project explored the following three aims:

• To explore the results from the 2009 Rural Business Survey in the North East of England to establish the kinds of innovation undertaken by rural businesses; 
• To explore the extent to which, and ways in which, actors in the 'regional innovation system' currently work with rural businesses
• To develop recommendations as to how rural businesses might engage better with NSC (and other actors in the regional innovation system) in future.

The final report from this project is available as a CRE Research Report 2010-2014 (No 53)