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East of England Development Agency - Website
RLN East works closely with the Skills and Employment team at EEDA. Based at EEDA’s Victory House in Histon, RLN East is creating a system of specialist business support for international communications for companies across the region. We are also working closely with the Europe and International team on European-funded programmes which support transnational language and culture initiatives.

East of England Regional Assembly - Website
We are working with EERA on ensuring that regional funding and business support for companies provides value for money and has even distribution across the six counties. We aim to see the importance of effective international communications embedded in sub-regional strategies and action plans. RLN East is particularly active in its work with both Norfolk’s Shaping the Future and joint business support activity with the Essex Development & Agency Agency (EXDRA), and is currently assessing the impact on tourism on the local economy with the Suffolk Development Agency.

UK Trade & Investment / East of England International - Website
RLN East act as the international communications team of UKT&I, providing businesses with support for international communications planning, signposting to providers of professional language services, and advice and guidance on language and culture. The EEDA 2003 Skills Capacity Audit identified inadequate language and culture skills as a barrier to competitiveness and effectiveness in international trade for many of the region’s businesses. Support is delivered through a small team of on-the-road specialist advisors. We also support overseas companies settling in the region by working with the investor development team in assisting these companies with communications with counterparts overseas.

CILT, the National Centre for Languages - Website
CILT is the government's recognised Centre of Expertise for Languages as detailed in 'Languages for All; Languages for Life.', the government's National Languages Strategy (DfES, 2002) and is represented in the regions by its Comenius (education) and RLN (business) networks. CILT is working closely with a range of partners including the DfES, National and local LSCs, RDAs and the Skills for Business Network (SfBN) to implement the Strategy. CILT is the recognised expert body for language and cultural skills for the SfBN. CILT is currently, at the request of the SSDA, developing a proposal for an integrated plan (Sept 05-March 07) for language skills for the SfBN. Through the RLN network, it builds on existing employer and provider networks to improve the articulation between supply and demand for language and cultural services and skills. It embeds awareness and action to enable employers and employees to make best use of available language and cultural skills.

Learning and Skills Council - Website
RLN East works in partnership with the LSC in supporting skills-based projects which help companies overcome language & culture barriers to international trade. We actively engage with businesses in signposting to the fully-funded LSC Bedfordshire World Class Skills project and the fully-funded Norfolk LSC E-urocom project. We are in discussion with the regional team to launch a small region-wide project for SMEs and pilot training programmes for larger employers, and advise on language & culture skills for the National Employer Training Programme.

Sectors Skills Development Agency - Website
RLN East works with the SSDA regional manager in seeking to embed international communications skills within individual Sector Skills Council activity. Of the 23 SSCs in the region, we work most closely with IMPROVE (food & drink), GO-SKILLS (passenger transport) and LANTRA (agriculture & environment). We are currently working with IMPROVE and LANTRA on creating a pan-European food & drink project.

Business Link - Website
RLN East works with Business Links in signposting companies to the match-funded Employer Skills Offer programme and other management skills programmes such as Skills to Lead (Herts), Columbus (Norfolk), Leadership & Management (Beds) and Winning Leadership & Management (Essex).

British Chambers of Commerce - Website
RLN East promotes the DTI-funded the Export Communications Review, a UK Trade and Investment scheme delivered by the British Chambers of Commerce managed and delivered through the British Chamber of Commerce. We also work with the international trade teams of individual Chambers, and have particularly strong links with Norfolk, Suffolk and West Herts Chambers.

BrightArc - Website

BrightArc is a not-for-profit, Chamber of Commerce backed consultancy practice. BrightArc provides specialist business development services to UK companies seeking to enhance their competitiveness through trade with Central Eastern Europe.

In conjunction with Partnership Sourcing Ltd (a Department of Trade and Industry and Confederation of British Industry joint initiative) BrightArc works with Chambers in the UK and overseas to support the building of sustainable trading relationships with Central Eastern Europe.

RLN East provides the language and culture component of BrightArc's supplier matching and relationship management support service. This ensures a well-rounded awareness of the cultural as well as business factors influencing the success of trading overseas.

European Partners
RLN East is working closely with a number of European partners in the creation of a pan-European food and drink and tourism project. Project activity, which includes skills audits, the creation of a diagnostic road map and the delivery of training pilots, will be replicated across 4 countries – England, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. Our main partners are the East of England Development Agency, Malopolska Regional Development Agency, Bulgarian Association of Rural Development Agencies, and Hungaricum.