Join us for Insights North East's fourth annual conference on 10 June.
INE 2026: Powering Policy for Long-Term Transformation
About the conference
INE 2026 will explore how to ignite cross-system partnerships that can sustain the longer-term, evidence-based approaches that we know are necessary to tackle entrenched policy challenges and deliver transformation.
Who You’ll Meet
INE conferences bring together a diverse mix of people shaping inclusive growth and innovation across places and sectors.
You’ll be joined by people working in:
- Local, regional and national government
- Universities and applied research organisations
- Health, wellbeing and social care
- Voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations
- Housing, regeneration and place‑based partnerships
- Businesses, employers and representative bodies
- Innovation, enterprise and business support organisations
- Skills, education and workforce development
- Culture, creative and heritage organisations
Our conferences are designed for cross‑sector conversation, practical learning and collaboration – bringing policymakers, practitioners, researchers and community leaders into the same room.
INE 2026 will feature keynotes from:
- Helen Goulden OBE is the Innovation & Partnerships Lead at Lloyds Banking Group, where she develops partnerships to support the Group’s purpose of Helping Britain Prosper. A former CEO of The Young Foundation and Executive Director at Nesta, she has led social and public innovation across civil society, government and technology, and was awarded an OBE in 2023 for services to sustainable communities.
- Sam Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and writes regularly on politics and policy for the Observer the FT and others. Sam’s substack newsletter ‘Comment is Freed’ is the most popular in the UK and has over 85,000 subscribers. His first book “Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How to Fix It” was released in July, made the Sunday Times bestseller list and was named an Economist, FT and Daily Telegraph book of the year.
The full conference programme will be announced soon.