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locality and join employer groups to establish connectivity at
every level. They are aware of what is making the most economic
noise at any given moment and are able to feel the pulse of their
metropolitan economy. This takes the college into research and
development activity, supporting the small enterprises that are
driving the regeneration of Belfast.
Coleg Gwent has more of a regional than a metropolitan identity.
This differs from a city college in that the various client groups
often come from specific geographical spaces. The footprint of
the college is different to the foregoing colleges, but the scale
and the relationship with the regional economy are similar. This
impact has grown in recent years as the college helps the city of
Newport to develop a new regeneration strategy, shifting from
seeking to reclaim lost industries towards a more careful study
of how the economy is reacting to the new economic order.
However, for much of its region, the college has to recognise that
its students are insufficiently mobile and their parents prone to
fiercely local affiliations. The college, as it heads towards being a
tertiary institution, serves a number of disparate but overlapping
groups, requiring a mix of duplication and specialisation, and
has to understand a number of distinct geographically based
sub-sets within the regional economy as a whole. Thus, the
college supports five campuses, each with a degree of autonomy.
The managers of these campuses form an important layer
in the college leadership structure as they not only manage
geographically, but also lead a particular curriculum area, thereby
interweaving a localness into a unified, whole-college approach.
Grimsby Institute is also a disparate institution with locations
spreading up and down the east coast and inland to Doncaster
and Leeds. It prides itself on bringing together differing
institutional types and, therefore, is not looking for homogeneity.
Its strategic intent is as to have a 'house of brands'. However, in
this study, looking at the role of Debra Gray we chose to focus
on its interaction with the economy of the immediate Grimsby
region, a distinct economic ecology beset by the decline, some