AREAS OF RESEARCH INTEREST
South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) are pleased to launch our first pilot set of Areas of Research Interest (ARIs). ARIs are widely-used tools across the public sector, including in government departments, devolved administrations, local and regional authorities. ARIs aim to clearly articulate organisations’ key evidence needs aligned to their priorities, which academic expertise could address. This facilitates partnerships with academics, researchers and community organisations who may conduct research or hold evidence in this space, supporting the development of relationships wherein researchers and organisations can maximise their impact through policymaking grounded in evidence.
The development and publication of our ARIs comes at a critical time for SYMCA. Integrated Settlement funding from April 2026 means we have greater control and flexibility over how to allocate resources in South Yorkshire. Our South Yorkshire Growth Plan sets out our vision for the region around four missions and eight strategic objectives, which these ARIs have been structured around.
If you would like to submit a piece of completed, ongoing, or planned research, please consider completing the attached template and sending this to ARIs@SouthYorkshire-CA.gov.uk.
Purpose
Through ARIs, SYMCA aims to support researchers and the academic community to engage with our strategic priorities. This allows us to:
- Build our evidence base to inform robust decision-making with the greatest possibility for impact
- Develop our relationships with researchers in our community to build a regional hub of place-based insights
- Support the academic community to maximise the impact of their research on the local area
We are seeking evidence which allows us to develop policy which makes a difference to the lives of our residents within the context in which we currently operate so ARIs have been designed to produce applied insight The ARIs are specific to South Yorkshire, so we are seeking information that is place-based. This can include research and examples from other places that provide lessons that can be provided to a South Yorkshire context.
The ARIs do not cover everything SYMCA is interested in, and are not intended to be a comprehensive reflection of all of our evidence priorities. They are focused on questions where we do not already have significant research in train, and which the academic community – rather than our in-house expertise or consultancy – are well-placed to address. The publication of these ARIs does not preclude SYMCA or the four South Yorkshire Local Authorities engaging with the academic community over wider research priorities.
The 2026/27 Areas of Research Interest have been developed as a pilot, to assess engagement and impact and allow us to learn from this first year of implementation. We welcome feedback on all aspects of the ARIs to inform this process. We plan to review ARIs towards the end of the pilot to inform future iterations.
How these questions were developed
SYMCA developed ARIs internally through workshops with Directors, Assistant Directors and policy subject matter experts focused on the evidence required to utilise greater funding flexibility under Integrated Settlement as effectively as possible. We have aligned the research areas that emerged with SYMCA’s Local Growth Plan to provide a clear link to our strategic priorities and impact for people who live in South Yorkshire. We also worked with colleagues in networks such as Y-PERN (Yorkshire Policy Engagement Research Network) to develop ARIs on specific policy areas and to incorporate lessons learned from other organisations developing ARIs with academic partners.
We have focused our pilot ARIs on areas where we aren’t already substantially engaging with academic and research partners. Our pilot ARIs don’t reflect all of our priorities and where we want to continually strengthen our evidence base. We will continue to work with the broad range of partners we are currently engaging with, alongside engagement through ARIs. ARIs are intended to frame and start the conversation on additional areas of research, convening partners to bring in academic and research expertise where it can have the most impact.
We could not conduct evidence reviews as part of the process of developing ARIs. We expect there will be existing evidence that answers some of our questions, whilst other questions may need additional research to be conducted. ARIs are intended to improve our systematic use of existing evidence and convene partners around collaborating on new research that is a strategic priority. We welcome submission of existing evidence, as well as working together collaboratively on new research projects.
Questions
A strong, diverse business base
Research area | Research questions |
Resilience to economic shocks – access to markets and supply chains | How resilient is the SY economy to economic shocks and vulnerabilities across supply chains? Where and how can we strengthen local supply chains? |
Investment and business growth | How can SY businesses secure more investment to start, grow, and scale? What investments should SYMCA make to most effectively crowd in private sector investment? |
Innovation | How effectively are our research and translational research institutions driving innovation into the local economic base? How effectively is knowledge being diffused around the local economic base? |
Pathways to stay near and go far
Research area | Research questions |
Adult Skills | What are SY’s current and forecasted sectorial vacancies and related skills gaps? |
To what extent do SYMCA funded skills programmes impact residents who are ‘left out and left behind’? | |
System change – work and health | What are the demographic profiles/personas of unemployed residents and residents at risk of unemployment? What profiles should employment support target? |
What can we learn from successful interventions which aim to improve residents’ health where they are unable or at risk of being unable to work? |
Connected, vibrant places
Research area | Research questions |
Housing Development | What are the barriers and financial viability challenges across the region that need to be addressed to deliver building homes that support growth areas? |
Skills - construction and retrofit | What additional construction skills does SY need and how much does the workforce need to grow to build the homes and infrastructure we need? |
Housing and health | What are the housing (all tenures) contributions to public health (ill health prevention)? |
Homelessness | What can we learn from successful interventions which aim to prevent homelessness for cohorts identified to be at risk, including prison leavers, victims of domestic violence and young people? |
Active travel | Do people who switch to active travel see benefits in broader health and wellbeing? Can longitudinal research establish or disprove a connection between outcomes? |
What can we learn from successful interventions which aim to encourage active travel amongst children? |
A resilient South Yorkshire
Research area | Research questions |
Nature recovery | What can we learn from successful interventions which aim to support nature recovery? |
Assessing net benefits | What are the most effective methods for assessing and maximising the benefits of nature recovery interventions and addressing trade-offs and associated risks (to include consideration of topics such as species abundance, air quality, nature flood management, tree planting, active travel)? |
How to engage with us
We are interested in hearing from any organisation or individual who:
- Holds evidence or data which could contribute to answering one or more of our ARIs.
- Is planning to conduct research or analysis which could contribute to answering one or more of our ARIs.
- Has an interest in supporting research or analysis which could contribute to answering one or more of our ARIs.
- Is conducting or has conducted relevant research or analysis at national level, or in another region, which could be translated or tailored to the SY context.
- Works with or has experience of engaging with those too often left out or left behind in South Yorkshire and would like to help us to facilitate evidence collection or research with these groups to ensure their voices are at the heart of our policymaking, related to our ARIs.
We would be happy to engage with you at any stage of the research process and want ARIs to act as a ‘front door’ in order to facilitate new and/or deeper connections between SYMCA and the research community.
We cannot guarantee any funding for research through this process – these ARIs are not an invitation to tender, but offer an opportunity to collaborate and maximise the impact of research in the region.
If you would like to submit a piece of completed, ongoing, or planned research, please consider completing the attached template and sending this to ARIs@SouthYorkshire-CA.gov.uk. If you would like a more informal conversation, please send us an email and we would be happy to have a chat or connect you with the relevant teams in the organisation.
We are also engaged with UPEN, Y-PERN and Yorkshire Universities and will work with them to maximise the impact of this work.
What happens next?
All submissions will be forwarded to the appropriate team working in the relevant policy area to be reviewed as they are received. You will receive an automated email to acknowledge your submission. If the relevant team would like to discuss your research in more detail, we will contact you using the details you provided. If your research informs our work, we will let you know how it has been used and the impact it has had as much as possible.
Our 2026/27 ARIs are a pilot and will be reviewed in early 2027/28. An aim of this pilot is to understand how much engagement our ARIs receive. We don’t know whether we will be able to respond to all submissions, as this is dependent on the volume we receive and our internal capacity.
ARIs may also be added or removed at review points, depending on organisational priorities and the volume of submissions. If we receive a substantial amount of evidence for a specific question, we may choose to ‘retire’ it at the review point, especially if we have been able to translate the evidence into impactful policy. In this case we will provide a space on the website for archived ARIs which provides an overview of the evidence collected, the contributors, and the impact on SYMCA. We will seek your input into this process to align with academic publication processes.
As this is a new process for us, we would welcome any feedback on the ARI process by email at ARIs@SouthYorkshire-CA.gov.uk. We may also contact you in spring 2027 to feed into our review of ARIs, if you consent to being contacted for this purpose.
How SYMCA will work with partners on ARIs
SYMCA will use ARIs actively to convene and collaborate with partners, including Local Authorities, the Sheffield Policy Campus, central government organisations, Yorkshire Universities, UPEN, Y-PERN, the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, and universities nationally.
ARIs will form part of our wider approach to research and insight, which will include how we identify and share insight with Local Authorities and work to increase collaborative working and avoid duplication across the region.