Rebecca Riley is the Business Development Director of City-REDI and leads on all consultancy services and operational delivery of the Institute. She has recently carried out a Deep Dive of the Business and Professional Service Sector of the West Midlands and currently working on the research for the national sector deal for BPS for BEIS; a review of monitoring indicators for the West Midlands Combined Authority and rapid evidence review of the skills and productivity landscape in the West Midlands, and completed an ESRC secondment to Cabinet Office reviewing latest research on what works in terms of industrial strategy interventions. She was project director on the review of Knowledge Transfer Networks for KTN Ltd and has successfully secured funding from the Smart Specialisation Hub for a range of projects including advisory work for LEPs on Industrial Strategy. She is project director for the Midlands Engine Economic Observatory and sits on the Inclusive Growth Unit in the West Midlands. She is currently on a part time secondment to the West Midlands Combined Authority as their Head of Research and Office for Data Analytics.
She has worked in both the public and private sector and was previously lead the Northwest Regional Intelligence Unit, a regional Economic Observatory where she developed the evidence base for 3 Regional Strategies and the development of the economic monitoring process for the region which helped target and shape investment decisions and companies to invest in, her work received the highest rating possible of strong, from the NAO.
Research Alumni
Raquel Ortega-Argile
Chair of Regional Economic Development at City REDI at the University of Birmingham
Anne Green
Professor of Regional Economic Development at City REDI at the University of Birmingham
Paul Moore
Director of Future Screens NI (a part of AHRC's Creative Industries Clusters Programme) and a Co-Dir…
Rebecca Riley
Business Development Director of City REDI at the University of Birmingham
Caitriona Noonan
Lecturer in Media and Communication in the School for Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff Unive…
Juan Mateos-Garcia
Director of Innovation Mapping at Nesta
John Davies
Principal Data Scientist at Nesta
Cath Sleeman
Quantitative Research Fellow, Creative Economy & Data Analytics at Nesta
Eva Nieto McAvoy
Research Associate at the School for Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University
Tasos Kitsos
Research Fellow at City REDI at the University of Birmingham
Diana Gutierrez Posada
Research Fellow at City REDI at the University of Birmingham
Rebecca Florisson
Policy Analyst at the Work Foundation
Melanie Wilkes
Policy Advisor at the Work Foundation
Martha Bloom
Researcher at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex
Olivia Gable
Policy Analyst at the Work Foundation
Wessel Vermeulen
Lecturer in Macroeconomics at Newcastle University Business School
Ula Furgal
Research Associate at CREATe, University of Glasgow
Jorge Velez-Ospina
Research Fellow in Innovation and Creative Industries
Richard Sambrook
Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University
Oliver Cox
Heritage Engagement Fellow at the University of Oxford
Raphael Leung
Data Science Fellow at Nesta
Victoria Barker
Research Associate in Creative Economy, University of Manchester
Matt Lyons
Research Fellow at City REDI, University of Birmingham
Ania Ostrowska
Research Officer (Screen), Creative Scotland
James Davies
Research Fellow, City-REDI, University of Birmingham
Tom Chivers
Research Associate
Claudia Burger
Policy Insights Manager
Xiaoren Wang
Postdoc research associate at CREATe
Alejandro Ramirez-Guerra
Research Associate at Newcastle University Business School
