The document summarizes an Open Ideas Day event held in 8 northern English cities to crowdsource ideas around how to strengthen the northern economy. Over 200 people attended and generated many ideas. Some top ideas included developing smart, sustainable cities; improving governance; retaining young talent; and investing in transport and internet infrastructure to better connect northern cities. A variety of creative tools like world cafes, design thinking, and asset mapping were used to facilitate idea generation at the events.

1. Northern Futures
Open Ideas Day
16th Oct 2014

2. Contents
1 What is Northern Futures?
2
3
4
What happened during Open Ideas Days?
The ideas generated & tools used
Vote and comment on your favourite idea
on the Northern Futures platform
http://northernfutures.dialogue-app.com/join-the-
discussion-on-northern-growth

3. Northern
Futures
What is Northern Futures?
Northern Futures is an initiative by the Deputy Prime Minister. It has crowdsourced
ideas from the public at http://northernfutures.dialogue-app.com/join-the-discussion-on-
northern-growth with the question:
“How can we build on the strengths in the North to create an economic core
in the heart of the region that can compete with the biggest cities in the
world”

4. Open
Ideas Day

5. Open Ideas
Day
Overview of the day
On October 16th 2014, the Policy
Lab at the Cabinet Office
coordinated 8 open ideas days
across the north of England.
The all day sessions were held
simultaneously in Liverpool,
Lancaster, York, Sheffield,
Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds
and Hull, bringing around 200
people together to share ideas,
collaborate, and contribute to the
northern futures project.

6. Open Ideas
Day
Introduction
The Deputy Prime Minister
opened the day with a future-focused
challenge.
The challenge invited participants
to focus on the theme of ‘Great
North 2030’.
The film can be seen here

7. Open Ideas
Day
Participants
192 people took part
ranging from young people
to local leaders and
business entrepreneurs.
This equates to 1,152 hours
of ideas in one day.

8. Open Ideas
Day
Facilitators & hosts
● Mark Bailey and Joyce Yee at The
Toffee Factory in Newcastle
● Claire Coulton at Imagination
Lancaster
● Heather Niven and Ian Graham at
Aviva in York
● Dave Briggs at Hull History Centre
● Lucy Kimbell at ODI Leeds in Leeds
● Phillippa Rose at Interdisciplinary
Centre of Social Sciences in
Sheffield
● Esko Reinikainen and Nicola Wass at
1 Mann Island, hosted by
Merseytravel in Liverpool
● Robert Woolf and Kathryn Woolf at
Google Manchester.

9. Open Ideas
Day
How to run an ideas day?
1. It all starts with a challenge
2. Get into teams and find out your
skills
3. Think about the user
4. Get creative
5. Making is really effective
6. Swap and steal
7. When its over, its over
8. Have fun (but with a serious aim)
You can watch our introduction video here

10. What happened
on the day
This section highlights ideas that were
generated across the open ideas days

11. Ideas generated
Sheffield
Key stats
Attendees: 24
Venue: Centre for Social Sciences
Ideas:
• Really smart cities: creating green
sustainable cities that can act as
models across the North
• Pop up parliament: a decentralised
Parliament that rotates across
regional cities
• Resilient communities: Investing in
self-resilient connected
communities to determine the future
of the North
• #NCUK: Making sure that cities are
properly connected through proper
infrastructure and devolution
• Integrated strategy: A holistic
approach, integrating the best of all
four ideas above.

12. Ideas generated
Manchester
Key stats
Attendees: 26
Venue: Google
Ideas:
• Connect North: an integrated
transport and communication plan
• Enlightened cities: improving
governance & accountability
• Retaining young talent in the North:
a business and industry led career
service and network of employers
• Empowering communities and
entrepreneurship: a community
toolbox to allow people to make real
change

13. Ideas generated
Lancaster
Key stats
Attendees: 21
Venue: Lancaster University
Ideas:
● Deciding our Future:
Constitutional reform - strong
local and regional governance
● Call of the Wild: What is different
about 'the north' - how do we
harness the local and the 'wild'
● Lets be Onesie with politics:
Decentralisation and a less
adversarial style of politics
● Reverse the brain drain: How can
we ensure that the best and the
brightest know that the north can
provide them with all of the
economic opportunities they
require?

14. Ideas generated
Hull
Key stats
Attendees: 26
Venue: Hull History Centre
● a social network where young
people can meet businesses
directly, find out what businesses
are looking for and market their
own skills
● the 4Cs: cooperation,
communication, creativity and
commerce - invest in high speed
transport and internet to create
the conditions for business
● collaborate, rather than compete
with each other, to develop
centres of excellence in different
northern cities

15. Ideas generated
Leeds
Key stats
Attendees: 19
Venue: ODI Leeds
Ideas:
● LUSH: An open innovation
platform that allows users to
design services they need
● Northern Works Hub:
Providing job opportunities
for NEETs
● Mobile Yorkshire: Improve the
transport links throughout the
north of England, and create
a West Yorkshire Metro
● Maker Library Network: A
series of ‘makerspaces’
across the North

16. Ideas generated
York
Key stats
Attendees: 27
Venue: Aviva
Ideas:
● Rubic North: harness the power of
flexible working, by using the built
resources we already have
● A multi-centered economic hub:
improve digital and physical
connections between northern
cities, by devolving powers and
funds to key areas.
● Retain excellent graduate talent:
improve links between
universities and SMEs, and relax
planning laws to create affordable
city-centre accommodation.

17. Ideas generated
Newcastle
Key stats
Attendees: 28
Venue: The Toffee Factory
Ideas:
● Spark in 2020: An Innovation
Hub to help develop solutions
for emerging markets including
ageing, sustainability, digital,
offshore, life sciences and other
areas of strength
● Northern Lights: a business-for-business
trust designed to
provide financial power to
Northern businesses
● Great North Networks: 21st
century rail and internet
infrastructure
● Schuni: school, businesses and
communities focusing on
learners

18. Ideas generated
Liverpool
Key stats
Attendees: 21
Venue: Mann Island
Ideas:
• Entrepreneurial Seaturtles:
returning graduates acting as
advocates and support for young
people
• Magnetic North: a formal body
which can sell the north
• Live, work and play in the north...
one hour travel time between any
city in the north
• Empower: Creating a citizen-owned
energy hub across the
region to harness renewable
energy

19. Creative
tools used
This section contains a few of the tools and
techniques that were used

20. Ice breaker
Creative tools
Everyone has an envelope with a
name badge inside and they have
to go and find that person out of
all the others in the room – and
find out who they are!
Manchester

21. Ideas stimuli
Creative tools
Use local and national newspapers
to stimulate discussion about
current challenges northern cities
are facing.
York

22. Studio Design
Sessions
Creative tools
Come up with an idea and do a
quick 30 second pitch to get
immediate feedback from your
peers to improve the solution
Liverpool

23. Personas
Creative tools
A great way to really get into the
shoes of the people you are
designing for is to imagine who
they are, what they do and what
else is going on in their life
Newcastle

24. World Cafe
Creative tools
People sit in groups and generate
ideas to solve a particular
problem. One person stays on
that table, and everyone else
moves round every 5 minutes to
challenge and build the other
ideas.
Sheffield

25. Asset mapping
Creative tools
This activity involves participants
in collectively creating and then
describing a visual map of the
assets and resources in Leeds
and the North.
Leeds

26. Want to know more?
You can read more about it on our Open
Policymaking blog or see pictures from all
the venues at our Flickr account