The RSA is pleased to announce the publication of the 13th Policy Impact book: Improving inclusive innovation outcomes: Lessons from post-industrial and post-conflict cities, by Michael R. Glass, Louise Kempton, David Marlow, Luke Green, Carlos Cadena-Gaitan, Sabina Deitrick and Diana Morales
There is now a consensus that innovation is vital for growth. Yet the distributional consequences of innovation create a major challenge, as the benefits of innovation-led growth can be unevenly distributed.
Urban innovation districts sit at the focal points of this tension. They combine close proximity to often deprived, formerly industrial, neighbourhoods and dense concentrations of innovation-intensive firms, research institutes and other actors. As a result, they both reveal the conflicts that innovation can create and also provide a testbed for potential solutions.
How can policymakers balance the need for innovation with the need for inclusion? This book, written by a world-leading group of policy-focused academics and practitioners, offers a route for policymakers wanting to address this question. Based on four detail-rich case studies, it provides a toolkit to understand inclusive innovation activity in innovation districts.
The book makes both conceptual and practical contributions. It offers a new definition of inclusive innovation based on the co-creation of new ideas, practices and technologies. But it also helps apply this model through the “i3o model” – a toolkit to show how policymakers can adapt the learnings of these four case studies to their own local circumstances. Such context-sensitive models avoid naive policy replication, but give policymakers structure and guidance based on what has worked elsewhere.
Yet perhaps the most important aspect of the book is that it shows that innovation and equity need not be in tension. By including workers from across deprived neighbourhoods who come from different backgrounds, efforts to make innovation more inclusive can result in more innovation overall. This book can help make this happen.
As a Regional Studies Association (RSA) Policy Impact book, we intend for it to be accessible and actionable for all members of urban innovation ecosystems, whether from the community, government, academia or industry. This book sets out what we intend to be a broader research agenda to assist innovation districts deliver broader social outcomes. Based on our first four case studies, we propose three insights:
- Place-leaders can define “inclusive innovation” and use their definition for existing or planned innovation districts and equivalents. The i3o method, toolkit and Innovation District 2.0 characteristics are a starting point. They can be tailored and adapted locally.
- i3o demonstrates replicable and scalable academic–policy exchange for this and other grand place-based challenges. It brought together local universities, policymakers, and community-role players to deliberate and develop inclusive innovation actionable insights. The four cities are all enthusiastic about an enduring community of practice. This will facilitate continued learning in and across places.
- The Innovation District 2.0 concept promises a viable, ambitious model we believe can be adapted to deliver improving inclusive innovation outcomes in any place.
Innovation has always been in the forefront of delivering change; this book seeks to ensure that all places have the methods and tools available to deliver that change inclusively and successfully.
Current Call for Applications
Please see the 2026 RSA Policy Expo grant funding scheme page for more information. The Policy Expo initiative is worth up to £16,500 to successful teams aiming to connect their work and wider communities to societal questions and policy needs. The deadline for this year’s applications is 24th November 2026.
The research should produce an article for our gold open access journal, Regional Studies, Regional Science and a short ‘policy facing’ book of no more than 30,000 words. The book will have a large distribution, as it will be sent in print copy to all RSA members and in e-book format to all those who subscribe to any of the journals of the RSA.