A research report published in the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which is both a summary of the research undertaken and a proposed regional strategy to tackle digital exclusion. There are useful recommendations in the section on the emerging strategy for the North East, the recommendations are tailored for different organisations to address this issue holistically. The report is hosted on JSTOR but it is open access, so there is no need to log in through an institution or pay any fees.

“Digital exclusion was a problem long before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, since the pandemic began, there has been increased reliance on access to digital services. Inequalities in access to digital and online resources and activities are closely associated with other dimensions of inequality, and in many cases exacerbate these. Altogether, this suggests a deepening of the impacts and inequalities associated with digital exclusion, and a pressing need for long term public policy solutions.”

Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep53537

Contents: -

1. The complexities of digital exclusion
2. What does it look like in the North East?
3. The evolving drivers of digital exclusion
4. What’s being done to address digital exclusion?
5. An emerging strategy for the North East

Authors: Erica Roscoe and Marcus Johns.

Published: 1 September 2021.

Reliability: IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research, is one of the UK’s leading think tanks and is known as the 'progressive policy think tank'.