Boosting Basque regional leadership

The Management School's Entrepreneurship Unit and it's partner the University of Deusto have secured 150,000 euro of funding from the Basque government for a four-year research programme into regional leadership development. The initiative is designed to bring fresh perspectives through international region-to-region exchanges and to boost leadership capability and innovation capacity.

The Entrepreneurship Unit will be working in partnership with the Department of Strategy and Organisational Policy of the University of Deusto, the Department of Psychology of the University of the Basque Country, "Otalora", the management development arm of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation and the Chamber of Commerce of Gipuzkoa (one of the Basque provinces).

The programme is based on the lead2lead model of leadership exchange. It will adapt the approach to the regional SME context through a cyclical process of coach preparation, pilot programmes and in-depth post exchange interviews aimed at assessing impact at individual, organisational and regional levels.

The work is funded by the Basque government's Department of Industry as part of their strategy to build regional leadership capacity and knowledge exchange mechanisms. It sits alongside the regional cluster strategy (launched in the early 1980s with involvement from Michael Porter) as a learning bridge between individuals, SMEs and regional productivity.

The Basque government is actively developing close working relationships with other regions, particularly around clusters, but also more widely in education, health and government.

The project runs from September 2002 to July 2005.