Uniting for Impact: a Shared Vision for Whitechapel's Life Sciences Cluster
Developing a Social Impact Strategy and Mapping Community Connections in Whitechapel
Client
Whitechapel Life Science Cluster Partners
Date
2024
Whitechapel, London
Client
Barts Health NHS Trust, Queen Mary University, Lateral Property Investment, BentallGreenOak (BGO) and NHS Property Services (the Cluster Partners) are working to develop a new world class life sciences quarter in Whitechapel.
The Challenge
The Cluster Partners are keen to realise social impact in their development and delivery plans. They want to ensure that the surrounding Whitechapel community (one of most deprived wards in Tower Hamlets) can benefit from the various development opportunities that the project offers. However they lacked a collective social impact strategy to coordinate and communicate their long-term vision and activity as a partnership. Any current activity relating to social impact undertaken by the Cluster Partners is often isolated or siloed from other partner activity, leading to a lack of joined up impact.
Akou’s Impact
Collaborating with Montagu Evans, we set out to build a shared social impact strategy that could unite Cluster Partners, key local stakeholders and the community around a shared vision for the future. We started by creating a baseline view of Whitechapel, drawing a picture of the community’s local needs and challenges related to health, employment, education and social connection. This was complemented with an extensive social mapping exercise. Through the lens of social capital, the Akou team identified key local groups, organisations and individuals in the area that are working to support local challenges that could be alleviated by the new developments.
This local needs assessment was used to inform the drafting of an impact strategy. Together Akou and Montagu Evans shaped an impact vision built around 5 key impact ambitions relating to enhanced social connectivity, improving local health and wellbeing, promoting learning and skills development, and supporting local enterprise and the local economy.
Alongside the vision and suggested strategy, we mapped and identified key organisations and groups who should be engaged with by the partners to support and realise each impact ambition. This illustrates how a social capital informed approach can help to support
Key Outcomes
- Impact strategy created uniting all partners around a shared vision
- Place data, needs assessment and comprehensive insights compiled to support the impact strategy
- Cross-organisational delivery recommendations shared with partners to sustain impact now and in the future
- 195 key organisations and groups identified across Tower Hamlets and London to support the impact strategy
- Strategic relationships between the partners and key local organisations identified and visualised in Akou’s platform
End Result
The Cluster Partners now have a concise social impact vision for the Whitechapel Life Science quarter. They can state a more tangible anticipated set of outcomes and benefits for the local community beyond a count of new jobs. They also have access to Akou’s platform giving them an overview of their shared connections and visualisation of key target organisations to build relationships with in order to support delivery of impact.
