The South West RDA has created Beacon South West to promote success and spearhead regional economic growth. The scheme identifies the best of the region's businesses and links them first to each other and then to new, emerging companies so they can share their knowledge and experience. The idea is that the region's leading firms act as 'beacons' to guide smaller companies safely through start-up and expansion.

Firms are awarded beacon company status if they can demonstrate outstanding achievement across a range of criteria, and show commitment to the scheme at the highest level. Once awarded the status, they must be willing to talk about their aims and successes to a business audience at events, workshops and seminars, and handle enquiries about themselves from smaller businesses looking for guidance through the scheme. Use of the service is free.

They benefit from media exposure and access to the Beacon Boardroom, where managing directors and CEOs share ideas and strategies and discuss possible projects with the RDA. There's also a scheme for mutual mentoring, work shadowing and exchanges. The Beacon website provides details of contacts and trading opportunities. The bi-annual Beacon for Growth awards celebrate and promote the achievements of firms and individuals involved in the initiative.

The £1bn marine and maritime sector is vital to the future of the region's economy, so South West RDA worked with a range of partners to create Marine South West, dedicated to increasing the sector's business competitiveness.

The sector is about to be hit by a skills shortage, so the Agency and Marine South West are supporting marine skills development in higher education and building marine skills centres. They have a bold mission: by 2010 they want the regional marine industry to be the most competitive, innovative and coherent in Europe.

The first three centres are being built at Poole, Plymouth and Falmouth in partnership with local businesses. In Poole people aged 14 to 24 are beginning apprenticeships and professionals are updating their skills. Plymouth is focusing on composite materials development and yacht building, and Falmouth will be offering courses ranging from port-facility security officer training to welding and marine plumbing.

The LDA has created a programme that helps new businesses develop products in collaboration with research professionals, survive the tough early years, and expand and prosper. It provides ways of including people who normally would have little chance of taking their product ideas to market. The programme, JumpStart, consists of a number of elements.

The Connect strand offers a match-funding grant to businesses that want to develop an innovative idea, helping them link up with experts in universities and other research institutes to produce top-class products. The Engage element joined up, extended and strengthened existing innovation and knowledge networks across London, allowing more small and medium-sized businesses to become involved. One project provided innovation skills training for business people from non-technology backgrounds. The HEI Networks Project united existing networks in west and east London with universities located more centrally.

The Inspire strand is about helping London's disadvantaged communities develop innovative businesses. One programme has been set up to help female entrepreneurs get their ideas to market, providing sources of information in fields such as intellectual property, access to finance, marketing and commercialisation, and a forum where women can network. It focuses particularly on black minority ethnic women innovators, but serves all London's inventive women, whatever their ethnic origin. The programme worked with Lydia Montoute, who developed an idea for a mask to protect make-up when you're trying on clothes during a shopping trip - the Kim Mask (Keep Immaculate Make-up). In 2004 she set up her award-winning company, and dozens of boutiques have installed Kim Mask dispensers in their changing rooms. She also received funding under the Connect strand of the JumpStart programme to work with the London College of Fashion on developing a new product idea.

JumpStart has also helped fund Cultural Lifestyle Innovations, a programme to assist artists and creative entrepreneurs (who have already built a reputation for their work) to sell music, movies, books, cartoons, etc on the web. Aimed at minority-led businesses, women and disabled people, it provides training in creativity, protecting intellectual property, managing accounts and even how to collect payment securely online. The project will eventually create an online 'shopping mall', where firms can sell their products.

Tackling skills shortages in the West Midlands ceramic industry is at the heart of the University on the Shop Floor, a programme for employees to increase their skills and craftsmanship while in the workplace.

The scheme began with a partnership of large ceramic organisations working through the Association of Ceramic Training and Development, facilitated by AWM. The organisations created learning centres in their factories, with computers linked to a central website. They trained employees to use the computers to find solutions to their problems.

The idea was to make it possible to hone a new skill in the morning and implement it in the afternoon. An employee might notice a high rate of flaws in a production run of china bowls. By using the University on the Shop Floor portal, the employee can read about the cause of such flaws and then improve techniques.

The University also offers training to national vocational standards, and includes bite-sized training on specific skills. The scheme acts as a network, so that training providers can offer new learning opportunities to all the firms involved. Courses include second language skills, how to write a CV and how to pass a job interview. The scheme has helped 3,000 people gain new qualifications.

Yorkshire Forward has come up with an £8m programme called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) created to encourage children of both sexes to develop engineering and science skills.

STEM brings together a wide range of organisations to promote science thinking including schools, universities, museums, businesses and the voluntary sector. Projects encompass teacher-training programmes and activities for children designed to generate a passion for science. There's also an initiative called Let's Twist, which aims to encourage more women to enter and stay in science, engineering, construction and technology jobs.

Among other initiatives, Yorkshire Forward has invested £6.5m in the first airport and aviation employment and training academy in the UK. Directions Finningley caters for budding airline and airport staff, offering niche training courses and specialised equipment. Directions Finningley is operated as a partnership between Doncaster College and North Nottinghamshire College at Robin Hood International Airport.

In its first year, Directions Finningley received over 28,000 calls from people interested in working at the airport, had 8,000 visitors enquiring about or applying for training, arranged training for 2,300 people and helped 600 people, about 80% of them locals, gain employment at the airport. It also ran recruitment exercises for 65 companies, including Thomsonfly, Ryanair and Serviceair.

The Centres of Industrial Collaboration (CIC) network places the region's eight universities at the heart of economic development and provides a means through which businesses can access university research and development departments to create and improve new commercial materials, products and services. The £11m project offers access to knowledge and equipment which, small businesses especially, could never afford to buy outright.

The network consists of 11 CICs plus one affiliated centre with world-class research teams, led by internationally recognised academics. They cover the engineering, medical and healthcare, materials, food, chemicals, environmental technologies, digital and electronics sectors. Should one CIC be unable to solve or support a specific business issue, companies are transferred to another centre, or a more appropriate research team within a university. CICs also give students experience in industry and commerce; each CIC runs a marketing campaign aimed at communicating its services to the immediate business community, and has a full-time commercial manager who understands industry needs and can communicate on industry terms.

Since their launch, CICs have worked on more than 1,500 projects, grossed more than £38m of income and created or safeguarded around 1,400 jobs. The Materials Analysis and Research Services (MARS) CIC at Sheffield Hallam University and Medical House PLC developed the first needle-free insulin injection system, now available free to Britain's 500,000 diabetics. Briton Engineering Developments worked with the Polymer CIC at the University of Bradford to develop and improve Snowflex, an innovative ski and snowboarding surface. The Polymer CIC was able to ensure Snowflex mimicked real snow more closely - sales have since gone up by 80%.

CICs are committed to collaborating on innovative products that get to market quicker, are more cost-effective and are created to succeed in increasingly competitive global marketplaces. The impact of the CICs has been significant - not only in the UK but also overseas. At home, the project's success has created a model for how research platforms can be used to help industry. Further afield IonBond AG, the international leader in machine coatings technology, is collaborating with the Mars CIC to pioneer the next generation PVD coatings. This will open new markets and maintain their leading edge.

In March 2005, Nottingham was designated one of the UK's six Science Cities. One of its success stories is the growth of BioCity Nottingham - a thriving community of bioscience and healthcare sector businesses.

BioCity was made possible by a gift of laboratory and office buildings and equipment from global chemical company BASF to the Nottingham Trent University in 2001. The BioCity concept was then established through a partnership involving Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham and emda. It is now the UK's largest bioscience incubation and innovation centre, a catalyst of innovative business growth and home to over 40 start-up and spinout companies.

BioCity is an ideal location where innovative companies can grow, creating highly skilled and knowledge-dependent jobs which benefit the whole economy. Three years after its inception, BioCity opened a second building on the Nottingham site offering an additional 3,000 sq m of high-quality laboratory space. Funding for Phase Three has been identified to redevelop another facility.

A brand-new £5m open access research facility, EMINATE (East MIdlands NAnoTEchnology), is based in BioCity, helping companies develop new 'nano' products and promising huge steps forward in fields ranging from medicine to textiles. This business-led project, supported by the DTI and emda, involves research expertise from many of the region's universities.

The RDAs have joined forces with other development agencies and the DTI to create the Micro and Nanotechnology (MNT) network, designed to promote and develop the sector and oversee funding throughout the UK, offering access to capital, equipment and assets to each region, eliminating unnecessary duplication and ensuring a wide range of commercial activity is covered.

SWRDA, SEEDA, and the NWDA have teamed up with the Welsh Assembly Government, Scottish Enterprise and some of Europe's largest defence companies and research establishments to form ASTRAEA, the Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation & Assessment consortium. It will develop existing technology, regulations, systems and procedures to bring uninhabited vehicles into non-segregated operation in UK airspace.

YF, SWRDA, SEEDA and NWDA have joined the Welsh Assembly to form the National Composites Network, transferring knowledge between the UK materials industry and supply chain. RDAs are investing £14m, and the DTI £5m - levering in £30m from the industry itself. Each region benefits because it has unique capability; the South East specialises in automated lay-up and assembly, the South West in large high-integrity composite structures, Wales in the validation of non-destructive testing technology, the North West in rapid curing of performance and technical textiles, and Yorkshire in machining and joining of composites.

The £7m Serious Games Institute (SGI) - the first of its kind in the UK - will be based at Coventry University Technology Park. Currently under construction with £3.3m from AWM, the SGI will be fully operational by autumn 2007, linking into satellite centres at Coventry University and the University of Warwick.

Computer games are a major part of the West Midlands' IT sector, with major names Codemasters, Blitz Games and Games Domain, as well as 160 interactive media companies, located in the region. The West Midlands also has a leading position in the creative digital media, encompassing TV, film, animation and music. The SGI will build on these areas of excellence to diversify into non-entertainment uses, such as simulation, education and training.

Serious Games are a way of learning and working designed for the digital generation. More importantly, serious gaming is a tool that will evolve as new communication and education technologies emerge in the years to come. NATO and policy heads for defence, education and health in the US and Europe have already invested heavily in this sector's potential.

The SGI, along with the fact that the West Midlands is the most connected broadband region in the UK, will put Coventry in a position to take advantage of these new industries. The SGI is an opportunity for the West Midlands to become a global leader in an emerging market place with huge potential.

A business initiative where one company's waste is used to benefit another company has been so successful in the West Midlands that it became the world's first industrial symbiosis initiative to be launched on a national scale.

The National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) in the West Midlands was a pioneering approach to industrial recycling and is supported by Advantage West Midlands.

The programme positively contributes to the environment, assisting in diverting materials that would otherwise go to landfill or be stockpiled and utilising them as more useful resources. This not only has the advantage of creating local jobs, but also contributes to the environmental sustainability of the region.

The range of different businesses that have joined NISP shows that there is almost no limit to the kind of waste that can be turned into valuable products. The national programme has succeeded in reducing CO2 emissions by 1.6 million tonnes, eliminated 202,000 tonnes of hazardous waste and diverted 1.1 million tonnes of industrial waste from UK landfill sites.

NISP in the West Midlands has received further funding from Advantage West Midlands to target the region's biggest sectors automotive and construction - a UK first. It shifts the understanding of industrial symbiosis up a level within the West Midlands and brings its benefits to the mainstream business community

NSIP has been recognised by the European Commission as an exemplar programme and the project is also being transferred to the US and China.

The West Midlands is known for its excellence in the production of luxury cars. The Premium Automotive Research and Development (PARD) programme, supported by AWM, consists of research and development projects aimed at enhancing the manufacturing and design capabilities of West Midlands companies supplying the luxury car sector.

Regional companies from both inside and outside the automotive sector are encouraged to look at the programme's research projects via a special website. Projects include advanced body joining techniques, materials integration, craftsmanship, e-business, hybrid vehicles' development and wireless tracking systems.

Supported by Warwick University and Jaguar Land Rover, PARD is expected to have up to 300 partner companies involved by the end of the programme. Operating out of the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the university, it supports technologies that underpin component engineering and manufacture. It's connected by footbridge to the Group's International Manufacturing Centre, which houses a fully equipped shop floor with flexible manufacturing systems, robot cells and rapid prototyping facilities, plus a 200 seat auditorium and high-tech demonstration suite for communicating new research.

PARD is set to be of immense importance to the regional economy. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is promoting PARD as a best practice example of a RDA's innovative approach to supporting manufacturing R&D.

Enterprise Local is UK's first support system for home based entrepreneurs. Initially operating in Shropshire and then expanding in 2008 to cover Herefordshire and parts of Worcestershire, it is supported by £450,000 of funding from Advantage West Midlands.

Homeworking in the UK is predicted to increase at an annual rate of 18% and by 2010 it is estimated that one third of the British workforce will either run a business from home or be spending part of the working week based in an office at home.

Barriers to success in home enterprise include isolation and detachment, poor perceptions of 'professionalism' from customers (that if the business is based at home it will be amateurish), lack of suitable work space and poor access to peer networks.

Building on a test project that was operated in Shropshire between July 2005 and January 2006, Enterprise Local will provide an 'Enterprise Directory' showcasing local home based businesses, networking events and a central hub in Shrewsbury, known as Enterprise HQ, to work, meet and access front desk services.

As well as providing home based businesses with the support they need to grow and flourish, this project will encourage more people to take the plunge and set up a business from home.

Just one of the home based entrepreneurs who will be supported by the new scheme is Bruce McMichael, who runs a magazine from his home near Shrewsbury. They business employs a team of five staff, including local writers and photographers, who all work from home too.

Yorkshire Forward's Renaissance Towns and Cities programme is about involving the community in regeneration, encouraging communities to form Town Teams - made up of the public, architects, town planners, consultants, developers and town councillors - to decide what they want and take ownership of development. The objective is to ensure that towns and cities are well designed, connected and accessible and offer an attractive blend of housing, services, facilities and social activities. The programme is active in 19 towns and the city of Leeds.

Barnsley was one of the first towns to join the programme. Remaking Barnsley is about creating the ideal 21st century market town - a modern community that provides employment, arts and culture, accommodation, leisure, retail, all focused in its town centre. Masterplans and development frameworks have been drawn up in close consultation with local political, business and community interests.

Yorkshire Forward is investing more than £6m in the Barnsley Digital Media Centre to support the creative and digital sector, and working with Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council on the £180m Barnsley Markets project, featuring an indoor market, retail development and apartments. Investment in Barnsley's Transport Interchange will ensure easy access to public transport, combining bus, rail, coach, taxi and visitor information points in a single new complex.

Business Link West Midlands was launched by AWM in April 2007, reforming the way business support was provided in the region. The new streamlined, more accessible service is being introduced to tackle underperformance in productivity and business start-ups, which are the two key challenges facing the region's economy.

Research showed that businesses wanted more from public sector support and that too few companies were accessing the support that was on offer. The new service offers a single access point for all business, skills and manufacturing advice. A single regional provider - instead of the previous five sub-regional providers - will ensure a more consistent delivery of services and increasing the number of business advisors will mean better service. In terms of value for money, the efficiency achieved by consolidating back office costs will mean more of the funding that goes into business support will be reaching those who need it.

As the driving force behind the new set-up, AWM has tasked the organisation with adding an additional £400m to the regional economy. It is forecast that the service will help 89,000 businesses each year with basic information and provide intensive support for a further 16,000 - tripling the number helped at the moment.

The North West was severely affected by the 2001 Foot-and-Mouth disease outbreak. Cumbria alone had 44 % of the cases. Gross domestic product was expected to drop by £270m as a direct result of the crisis, with over 12,000 jobs thrown into jeopardy.

Rural Renaissance, the NWDA's six-year, £100m programme, aims to broaden agriculture's economic base, making it more capable, adaptable and competitive. The plan also focuses on diversification, including developing and promoting countryside produce, developing rural skills and strengthening and modernising the tourism sector, while protecting the environment and delivering regeneration.

The Agency realised that successful restructuring could only be achieved through co-operation between existing agencies and partnerships, making their programmes more efficient. This approach enabled more stakeholders to have a say and help develop an action plan. It also helped persuade the private sector to contribute a further £10m.

At the midpoint of delivery more than 4,400 jobs had been created and/or safeguarded, over 70 new businesses had been created and another 7,000 assisted. Over 69,000 square metres of new/upgraded floor space had been produced. Analysis shows that the agricultural sector is now becoming more efficient and productive and that there has been a rise in voluntary activity and some skills levels.

edma's New Business New Life campaign is helping entrepreneurs start new companies, create jobs and raise productivity. The campaign offers starter packs tailored to specific sectors, containing introductory advice on creating a business plan, financial planning, money and risk management, information technology and communications.

New Business New Life is supported by Business Link and a range of sub-regional partnerships. A programme of free roadshows has demonstrated how starting a business can be a realistic option, typically including seminars on what makes an entrepreneur, accounting advice, and how to market products on a tight budget. The roadshows have attracted support from banks, business support organisations and government institutions, such as HM Revenue & Customs, and local chambers of commerce.

edma is also helping existing firms exploit new markets - Leicestershire's China Trade Bureau has been transformed into a regional body, the East Midlands China Business Bureau, a single point of contact for East Midlands' companies. It offers a range of services, including expert information on the Chinese market and new business opportunities there, and runs training courses about the cultural aspects of doing business in China. The bureau is also developing strategic links between regional bodies and their Chinese equivalents.

In April 2005, MG Rover collapsed. More than 6,300 workers at the company and within the companies that supplied it lost their jobs. The DTI asked the RDA to form the MG Rover Task Force. Made up of public and private sector partners, MPs and trades unions, the Task Force was provided with £175m over three years to help the workforce, suppliers and local community recover from the closure.

The Task Force ensured advice was immediately available both online and in brochures, and used a media campaign to guide people towards it. Within seven days, all workers were able to begin claiming Jobseekers' Allowance. The Task Force ensured redundancy payments were made quickly and pensions made as secure as possible. Job matching and training courses began within weeks.

The Task Force wanted to avoid losing expertise, so it established the Skills Hub, offering employers £50 per week for 12 weeks as a wage subsidy, and training plus travel subsidies of up to £75 a week for 20 weeks. More than 1,000 who received training through the Learning Skills Council are now in work, and by late 2006, fewer than 500 people were still seeking work, out of more than 6,300 who lost their jobs.

It was feared many of the 350 companies dependent on MG Rover would collapse. 150 were in and around the West Midlands. To encourage companies to keep their staff, the Task Force provided £3.4m for a wage replacement scheme. This helped retain over 1,300 jobs. Companies were allowed to defer payments for VAT, PAYE and National Insurance. This fund, which amounted to £12m, helped 106 companies. A Transition Loan Fund was set up and by 2006, 17 companies had loans approved for a total of £5m. By late 2006, only 11 companies had closed.

The AWM-led Task Force helped the region recover from MG Rover's closure and saved a lot of people a lot of pain. The response is seen as an example of best practice in how to handle a major economic crisis.

One NorthEast has been working with NewcastleGateshead councils to transform both cities. Such is the success of the collaboration that, increasingly, the area is being referred to as NewcastleGateshead. There has been so much regeneration work that it's a challenge to list it all. Perhaps most iconic is the famous Millennium "blinking eye" Bridge that provides a pedestrian link between the cities.

As part of a general aim to improve the Newcastle cityscape, One NorthEast decided to buy and demolish Westgate House, once voted one of the most hated buildings in Britain. This was just part of the Grainger Town project, which has used £40m of public sector investment to lever £160m of private money for the regeneration of the historic heart of Newcastle. One NorthEast is also supporting the development of Newcastle Science City, a collaboration between the Agency, the city council and Newcastle University to create high-value businesses in the city centre. The partnership has invested £30m in 'Science Central' - one of the most significant investments in scientific facilities in Europe. Northumbria University is investing £103m on their new campus on the Manors site.

On the Gateshead waterfront, the Sage Gateshead is a £70m centre for live music designed by Lord Foster, featuring two auditoriums, rehearsal spaces, training facilities, studios, bars, cafes and a restaurant. Gateshead also boasts the Baltic, a landmark industrial building that is now the world's biggest art gallery for new work and community projects. GQ2 (Gateshead Quays Phase Two) will see more residential, hotel, business and leisure facilities between the Baltic and the Sage. Linking the town centre to the waterfront is the Baltic Business Park, where Gateshead College is building its campus. Both cities have invested in green transport technology, including environmentally friendly electric buses linking into the existing Metro system.

The Agency has brought private and public sector partners together, provided gap-funding and co-funded major projects, but in many cases the private sector is contributing so much that taxpayer's money is becoming less and less necessary. This is in part due to One NorthEast's promotion of NewcastleGateshead as an ideal place for investment, employment and residence, and a quality destination for visitors. NewcastleGateshead stands to benefit from some £2bn in investment over the next five years.

People studying successful regeneration projects are coming to see the work being done in the North East. The Agency is working with partnerships in Tees Valley, County Durham, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland to deliver a range of projects aimed at improving the environment, transport and communication links, and increasing the numbers of high-quality business premises. Others projects focus on the redevelopment of Middlehaven in Middlesbrough with waterfront architecture by Will Alsop, and transforming the banks of the Wear into a thriving economic heart for the city.

Liverpool's 'downtown' and waterfront is being completely transformed thanks to a strategic plan drawn up by Liverpool Vision, the UK's first urban regeneration company, in concert with the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA). Rising private sector confidence in Liverpool's ability to become a prosperous, competitive city-region has sparked a building boom without parallel in the last half century.

The Agency has helped trigger a flood of private money into Liverpool - cranes crowd the skyline as the £2.5bn physical and economic regeneration of the waterfront, central business and shopping districts steps up. New hotels, residential, public and retail areas, a new museum and a new shopping centre are springing up, much of which will be ready for 2008, when Liverpool becomes the European Capital of Culture.

The Liverpool project is happening alongside the regeneration of East Manchester. The region lost 13 % of its population in the 1990s, and 52 % of households receive benefit. New East Manchester Ltd, a partnership between NWDA, Manchester City Council, English Partnerships and the communities of East Manchester, has created a strategic framework for regeneration, integrating community and economic initiatives. The 10-year plan is reviewed annually to check expenditure is fairly spread and projects are focused on deprived areas. It is estimated East Manchester will benefit from £2.2bn over the programme, with £1.2bn coming from the private sector. NWDA is also providing £38m towards the restoration of four spinning mills and helping develop an urban village in Ancoats. The package includes gap-funding for restoration and development and compulsory land and buildings purchase. New East Manchester Ltd is working with ING Real Estate to create a canal-side complex incorporating apartments, business centres and leisure facilities.

In July 2002, UK COAL announced that the closure of the Selby coalfield was to be completed in the spring of 2004. They warned it would lead to the loss of 2,000 direct and a further 2,000 indirect jobs, hit 600 companies who supplied the complex and a further 150 businesses who partially depended upon the site.

Yorkshire Forward set up The Selby Task Force to minimise the impact of the closure. Made up of representatives from regional and local councils, government offices and business, employment and training agencies, the task force produced a plan proposing action on four fronts:

1. To re-skill individuals by ensuring good quality guidance and relevant training;

2. To help small and medium-sized businesses deal with lost custom and find new ways to grow;

3. To create new opportunities for business and jobs through financial incentives and bring forward sites for development;

4. To put in place extra projects and experts to help local communities help themselves prevent and deal with adverse impacts.

The DTI offered to fund the plan's implementation in addition to aid redirected from organisations including Yorkshire Forward, English Partnerships, local authorities and Learning and Skills Councils. The task force drew up a £35m package of measures to ensure workers were offered training, advice and support. Yorkshire Forward funded enhancements to the services. £4.2m in additional support was found for voluntary, community and social economy organisations.

A Business Opportunities Development Fund provided grants to help new or existing businesses grow and key sites for development were brought forward. The task force met for the last time in 2003. Its work is being continued by local and sub-regional agencies and monitored by the York and North Yorkshire Partnership Executive.

By mid-2006, the programme had helped 68% of Selby mine workers into employment. 8% were self-employed, 6% were retired and 1% in training. 14% are still unemployed, but prospects are good. Selby has been growing faster than the EU average for the past six years. Traditional industries have become more productive and growth industries are thriving. Yorkshire now has a booming science base, with expanding universities producing more research than Oxford or Cambridge, and 50,000 graduates every year.