Case Study 8 September 2018
North East prescription for success
NewcastleGateshead Convention Bureau’ s director of business events Paul Szomoru shares insights into its strategy for targeting associations.
NewcastleGateshead Convention Bureau’ s Conference Ambassador Programme involves 600 academics, researchers and professionals from across the region’ s universities.
It is 17 years old and, in 2015, we won Best Industry Partnership for our work on the programme at the ABPCO annual awards.
It’ s our number one source for new business and is absolutely key to attracting international association conferences to the region in areas of specialism that we excel in.
Our main sector strengths and expertise in NewcastleGateshead are sustainability and medical sciences, tech and digital, offshore and marine, plus professional business services and logistics.
We work hard to identify academics and professionals in these fields that may have an influence on where their next association conference is held. We’ ll then work closely – the ambassador providing the specialised knowledge and our team pulling together high-quality bid documentation, offering unbiased advice on venues, booking delegate accommodation, helping to create exciting social programmes and supporting throughout the whole process – all free of charge.
Our bureau works in close partnership with Newcastle and Northumbria universities; we hold joint events for academics and support staff to show them the benefits of bringing a conference here. We also profile the key research strengths of the universities. This has resulted in us bidding and winning recent major association conferences including The European Thyroid Association’ s 41st Annual Meeting, The Association of the Study of Obesity’ s 5th UK Congress on Obesity, The Association for the Study of Medical Education’ s Annual Scientific Meeting and the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference.
Newcastle University is best recognised for its strengths in ageing, biomedicine and clinical trials – it has one of the UK’ s leading medical schools and is also home to the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing( NUIA), the largest facility of its kind in Europe.
Meanwhile, The International Centre for Life is the UK’ s first biotechnology village, a landmark £ 90m development which houses Life Knowledge Park and the Institute of Human Genetics. Here, the first licence was granted by the fertility regulator to create a baby with three genetic parents, a development that will be used to prevent children dying from genetic diseases.
Newcastle University is also one of the key partners in Newcastle Helix, Newcastle ' s £ 350m flagship project that brings together
academia, public sector, communities, business and industry in order to create a global centre for urban innovation in the heart of the city. The National Innovation Centre on the site will be home to the National Innovation Centre for Ageing, the National Innovation Centre for Data and the National Institute for Health Research Innovation Observatory( NIHRIO).
NewcastleGateshead is also a major centre for the renewable, offshore and subsea energy industries and is one of six Centres for Offshore Renewable Engineering( CORE) in England.
The region is home to the world’ s most advanced steel tube facility, Newcastle