EEDA - East of England Development Agency

The regional economic strategy sets out guiding principles for the region's economic direction. EEDA responds by developing its own corporate plan to align closely with the region's overarching objectives for the next 20 years.

More than this, EEDA is structured to best deliver these goals and priorities with a clear set of interventions. During 2007/08, EEDA's four delivery areas – or "products" – were:

• Business Support
• Enterprise Hubs
• Investing in Communities
• Regional Renaissance.

These four products are supported and complemented by a range of other activities that either:

• contribute to or support delivery of specific regional economic strategy goals – such as skills development
• provide a focus for themes that cut across all core products and activities - for example, mainstreaming and promotion of digital content and take-up
• support and influence regional policy strategy initiatives - including regional partnerships and research and intelligence

With a new RES receiving stakeholder approval in 2008, EEDA will move forward during the remainder of the year and beyond with a new focus to ensure we best deliver for the region in the following areas. Our new corporate plan for 2008-11 sets out the following key areas of activity:

• Business Support: enable and encourage businesses to access publicly funded business support services
• Science, Innovation and High-Level Skills: build on the region's science base and increase the commercial exploitation of ideas.
• Regional Infrastructure: prioritise and enable increased investment in the region's infrastructure.
• Economic Participation: improve the employability and increase opportunities for individuals unable to participate in the region's economy.
• Sustainable Economy: enable businesses and individuals in the region to improve their efficient use of resources and supporting the land-based renewable energy and environmental sectors to grow.
• Strategy and Intelligence: deliver high quality evidence-based policy making, evaluation and investment planning in the East of England.
• Partnerships, Advocacy and Communications: undertake a successful programme of partnership working to implement national policy and act as advocates for the region both nationally and internationally.

EEDA will now move forward with this challenging programme – and we look forward to reporting progress in 2008/9.