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BC KNOWLEDGE | BC REPORTS
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March 2010

Welcome to Black Country Knowledge

Black Country Knowledge is the name we have given to our state of the art web-based Knowledge Management System. This system is home to over 120 data sets and will be useful for anyone who wants information. You may be involved in regeneration and looking for statistics on topics such as employment or crime, or you may want to know more about where you live or work.

To access the system directly simply click on the logo:



The system is very easy to you. However if you are a first time user we recommend you download the 'Instructions for First Time Users' for a very quick overview or if you have some more time the 'Black Country Knowledge Training Notes' are a very useful way to understand the system. Simply click on the name of the file below to download. If you have any questions or would like a personal training session please telephone: 01902 518911.

If you are interested in seeing the full list of indicators that are currently on the system click on 'Indicator List for 2010':

If you utilise any of this data we would really appreciate if you could use the 'BC Observatory Acknowledgement Logo' which you can download below.

We're interested in hearing your views on Black Country Knowledge. Please fill out the survey below and email it to M.Salmon@wlv.ac.uk

Related Documents

  • BC Observatory Acknowledgement Logo
  • Black Country Knowledge Flyer
  • Black Country Knowledge Training Notes
  • Black Country Knowledge User Survey
  • Indicator List for 2010
  • Instructions for First Time Users

    • Folly at Barr Brecon

    Sandwich Year Placement Factsheet

    Many Higher Education courses now include an option for students to gain employment for 12 months in a sandwich year. The link below provides access to a factsheet that details how employers can do this. As well as general information regarding the process for employing a student it includes a comprehensive list of contacts for local University's Placement Officers in various departments.

    Sandwich Placement Factsheet

    'Apollo Fountain', Dudley

    Black Country Reports

    One of the key roles of the Black Country Observatory is to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of Black Country regeneration policies. We regularly produce intelligence reports which report on this progress. To access these reports please click here: Black Country Reports

    THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

    Within the Black Country Consortium there are a variety of initiatives. The Black Country Observatory is one of these initiatives and is linked closely with another which is called ‘Building the Black Country Knowledge Society’. This was set up to help the Black Country Consortium achieve its vision of bring a premier league player in the knowledge economy by 2010 and create a thriving knowledge society in the sub region. The ‘Building the Black Country Knowledge Society’ Programme is working to establish a strategic ICT framework of interlinked building blocks that will build upon existing local good practice and enable greater joined up working, cohesion and direction at the Black Country level. For further details on 'Building the Black Country Knowledge Society' please click here.

    One of the building blocks of the BC Knowledge Society program is managed by the BC Observatory and looks at benchmarking the BC knowledge economy. This is done by using a series of models called ‘architectures’ which provide related perspectives on the Knowledge Economy in the Black Country:

  • Economic Architecture is a human capital perspective, using employment and the skills of the workforce


  • Business Architecture is a business perspective using large, SME and micro firms by sector and enterprise


  • Community Architecture is a community perspective using combinations of human, social and environmental capital


    • The analysis of these ‘architectures’ enables us to benchmark the Black Country rates against national and regional averages as well as any others.

    The indicators from these architectures form part of Black Country Knowledge and are monitored and reported annually by the Observatory. The Knowlege Economy Barometer reports are accessible via our reports section:

    Knowledge Economy Reports