September 2019 highlights

Rachel Woolf: Political action

"On research, immigration and funding Boris Johnson’s government offers much for universities. Now they must be proactive too. The government could be forgiven for not having higher education reform at the top of its agenda as it commutes back and forth from the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this week.

But behind the drama of current debates on Brexit, the pressures that dictate the attitudes of the different political parties to universities and to their funding and regulation, remain. The instinct that drove the Labour Party to announce that only 7 per cent of people from private schools should go to university (each university or all of them? It’s unclear) won’t change."

Read in full here.

Rachel Wolf is a founding partner at the consultancy Public First and a former higher education policy adviser to Boris Johnson.

Enterprise Research Centre: Exploring the link between training and innovation using the Longitudinal Small Business Survey. Research Paper No 80

This paper explores the link between different types of training and innovation outcomes using the Longitudinal Small Business Survey. Much of the evidence on innovation and the link to the capabilities of the workforce is based on evidence from the Community Innovation Surveys and as a result emphasis is on larger businesses and on formal skills acquired in Higher Education Institutions. Read more here.

Download:

• Policy briefing
• Full paper
• Executive Summary

Funding for local growth what we've learned in phase 1.

Just over two months ago we (ODI Leeds) started our project to figure out how we could track local funding. Key questions they seek to answer:

Whose spending were we interested in? Whose definition of local funding were we going to use? Had we thought through the complexities and difficulties of the project? What even is local funding?

Read more here.

Research England: Independent Advice of Mike Rees on University-Investor Links

On 29th July 2019, NCUB played host to a launch event for a review of university-investor links, commissioned by Research England from Mike Rees, former deputy group CEO of Standard Chartered, start-up commercialisation expert and angel investor. In this blog, he lays out some of his high-level findings and sets them in their national policy context. See related reports below:

Financing inclusive climate action in the UK: An investor roadmap for the just transition

The transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions needs to be an inclusive process, delivering social justice for workers, communities and consumers: this is the agenda of the just transition. This report sets out the role that investors can play in delivering a just transition in the UK. It seeks to understand the growing momentum in favour of a just transition and to illustrate the implications through a set of place-based examples from Yorkshire and the Humber, before setting out recommendations for investor action. Please see full report and policy brief below:

Minister announces new direction for knowledge exchange funding

Universities Minister Chris Skidmore has announced a new strategic direction for university knowledge exchange funding to drive the high performance needed to deliver the government’s commitment to raise research and development investment to 2.4% of GDP.

The measures announced at the Research England Engagement Forum event in London, on Thursday 26 September, include:

• Confirmation that Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) will rise to £250 million by 2020/21
• Roll-out of the first iteration of the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), with the first results anticipated in 2020
• A comprehensive Research England-review of the current HEIF funding method, aiming to put the KEF at the heart of the approach
• The launch of a joint call with the Office for Students (OfS), making £10m available for projects that evidence the benefits to students of being involved in knowledge exchange

Read more

The MIT of the North? Building an innovation-driven economy

At a time of rapid economic and technological change, the places that will be successful in the knowledge economy are those that can create and commercialise innovation. The opportunity is to spin out and diffuse research and knowledge from universities and other knowledge intensive anchor institutions (such as teaching hospitals or major cultural bodies). By doing so places can support the start-up and scaling-up of more of the fast-growing, innovation-driven, high-export firms that are so important to more rapid productivity growth. Read more.

Fuelling the future of UK innovation

NESTA kicks off the debate makes a number of provocative recommendations on how the UK Government should spend its R&D budget, including:

• devolve £5 bn/yr of govt R&D budget to UK's nations & regions to rebalance current SE regional bias, building local capacity to use wisely
• £4 bn/yr for mission driven innovation, with missions reflecting public priorities as indicated through public engagement
• Revitalise Innovate UK, increase its budget to £2 bn/yr and give it a bigger voice in UKRI
• Ensure that the UK is a full associate member of EU R&D programmes such as Horizon Europe, and commit to an innovation-friendly immigration regime
• Make sure the UK has a constructive regulatory environment for emerging technologies by championing testbeds and pioneering anticipatory approaches to regulation
• More business support focusing on the diffusion of innovation, by expanding the "Business Basics" programme & looking at what currently incentivises - and de-incentivises - innovation in business.

Read more here.

Science superstars and small businesses could bring the next big innovations to market with £100 million boost

Government set to invest nearly £100 million to back the rising stars of science and innovative small businesses.

• From Southampton to Edinburgh, projects will help tackle climate change, chronic diseases and barriers to driverless cars
• Investment will support industries of the future to thrive, boost jobs and grow local economies

Read the press release.

Policy paper: The Grand Challenge missions - latest update 13 Sept

Read about progress so far in the areas of the four IS grand challenges

Universities Minister gives speech at Universities UK conference

Returning universities minister Chris Skidmore spoke at the UUK conference, reiterating the government’s target that 2.4% of GDP be invested into research and development.

Convention of the North with NP11 - 13 September

Innovation panel speakers (2.15 - 3.15 pm):

• Steven Fogg ( Chair), Chair, Lancashire LEP (and BAE Systems)
• Sir Chris Husbands, Sheffield Hallam/ Yorkshire Universities
• Professor Richard Jones, The University of Sheffield
• Nigel Watson, Northumbrian Water

Background papers: summary and policy paper

Nick Hillman: What issues will dominate higher education policy this autumn?

100 places to benefit from new Towns Fund

Towns across England will work with the government to develop innovative regeneration plans:

• £3.6 billion Towns Fund will support towns to build prosperous futures
• Towns across England will work with the government to develop innovative regeneration plans
• Town Deals at heart of the Prime Minister’s commitment to levelling up our regions

Out of the 100 sixteen towns and cities in Yorkshire and the Humber and 42 places within the Northern Powerhouse.

Philip McCann: Perceptions of regional inequality and the geography of discontent: insights from the UK

Abstract: This paper examines the issue of whether the UK displays high levels of interregional inequality or only average levels of inequality. The question arises due to major differences in public perceptions. Following on from recent UK public debates, the UK evidence is examined in the context of 28 different indicators and 30 different Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Answering this question involves a careful consideration of the ways in which we use different spatial units of analysis, different measures of prosperity and different indices of inequality in order to understand interregional inequality, and the issues that arise are common to all countries. In the specific case of the UK, the result is clear. The UK is one of the most regionally unbalanced countries in the industrialized world.

Spending Round 2019: what you need to know

The fastest planned increase in day-to-day departmental spending for 15 years was announced today (4 September 2019) by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid – ‘turning the page’ on austerity.

Today’s Spending Round set out departmental spending plans for 2020-2021 to deliver on the public’s priorities, including health, education, and security. Departmental day-to-day spending is paid for through resource budgets which covers things like schools and hospitals’ running costs, and public sector pay.

Thirteen things you need to know about the Spending Round - read more

GDP, UK regions and countries: October to December 2018

Quarterly economic activity within the countries of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and the nine English regions: North East, North West, Yorkshire and The Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, London, South East, South West. Main points:

• Of the four countries of the UK, in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018, gross domestic product (GDP) growth was highest in Wales (0.3%) and lowest in England (0.1%) and Northern Ireland (0.1%).
• Of the nine English regions and Wales, the area with the highest GDP growth was the South East (0.8%), with the biggest fall in the North West (negative 0.7%).
• Estimates of quarterly GDP in the English regions and Wales are published here for the first time, alongside data previously published by the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).

These estimates are designated as Experimental Statistics and should be interpreted with some caution.

Inclusive growth for cities: Fuzzy, functional or forsaken?

The challenge: Inequality in cities

Inequality is one of the pressing issues of our time. China’s growth has reduced inequality globally, yet within countries disparities have tended to increase. This increase in inequality has been most present in cities. Urban areas can be the most unequal: the benefits of scale and specialisation often failing to find their way to the poorest citizens’ pockets. Global narratives are useful in spurring action to reduce these inequalities. However, they must be used with caution. The catch-all nature of inclusive growth means targeting and measurement – the heart of evidence-based policy – can easily be lost in the fuzz. Read more.

NESTA: Policy & Evidence Centre: Creative Industries Call for Research Proposals

We are seeking projects that will contribute to producing independent evidence that can aid the development of policies to support the UK's creative industries. We have identified four areas of research need which we encourage applicants to focus on:

• The value of creative post-18 education and the measurement of this value
• How cultural institutions and the cultural sector contribute to the creative industries in their local areas
• How freelancers and micro enterprises contribute to the UK’s creative industries, and the particular challenges that they face
• Business models and business model innovation in the creative industries, relating for example to the creation and capturing of value within value networks

Applicants can also propose other areas that are ripe for research, and relevant to the policy and evidence needs of the creative industries. The deadline for applications is 16:00 on Monday 30th September 2019. Find out more

The Tech Nation Report 2019

Scaleups are driving UK global tech advantage. Ambitious tech entrepreneurs across the country are more networked than ever, and they are accelerating growth through international connections.

This report presents UK tech on the global stage. It shows that the UK is a critical hub in the global tech ecosystem, and a strong economic performer. An exploration of companies, communities and technologies uncovers the pioneers in this era of global tech.

TECH NATION REGIONS - Yorkshire in stats:

• £3.67bn Digital tech turnover
• 8,695: Digital tech business count
• 53,000 Employment in digital tech
• 115 Digital tech productivity per worker (£000s)

How can UKRI stimulate local economies through place-based research funding? by David Sweeney, Executive Chair of RE

The Strength in Places Fund (SIPF) – a new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) programme that targets funding to support significant economic growth in areas across the UK – straddles the domains of research and development, innovation and place.

There are relatively few examples of programmes, even internationally, that cover these broad domains; academic research and conceptual theories each address part of this terrain but seem sometimes to have contradictory perspectives or raise conflicting debates.

This is why, as part of my wider learning about how UKRI can engage with place, I benefited from discussion with a set of experts from different knowledge domains, organised by the University of Cambridge. The resulting academic think pieces are published today by the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI). Read more.