Vital Topics: The UK’s regional productivity disparities and the “levelling up” agenda – what’s the role of research and development?
Richard Jones, Vice-President for Regional Innovation and Civic Engagement at the University of Manchester, will discuss how research and development links with productivity at a regional level in this Vital Topics event.
- Event Time
- 7 Oct 17:30 - 7 Oct 19:00
- Event Location
- Online and Alliance Manchester Business School
- Event Type
- Business speakers, Online
The UK has a profound problem of regional disparities in productivity performance, with second tier cities that underperform compared to expectations based on their size, and deindustrialised towns and urban areas that have failed to find productive new economic roles. The distribution of research and development investment in the UK – especially in the public sector – is also highly skewed to the prosperous Greater South East.
He will go on to reflect on recent policy development in the UK, as the current Government’s “levelling up” slogan is turned into concrete policy. We have seen the idea of “place” become a new theme in the Innovation Strategy, and a transition from an “Industrial Strategy” driven by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to a HM Treasury driven “Plan for Growth”. We now await the imminent arrival of a Levelling Up White Paper, driven by a joint No 10/ Cabinet Office unit.
Finally, Richard will consider how best devolved nations, regions and cities in the UK should respond to this agenda, and discuss the role of GM’s new initiative, Innovation Greater Manchester.
This event will be facilitated by Elvira Uyarra, Professor of Innovation Studies at Alliance Manchester Business School.
Sponsored by DWF and Capita, Vital Topics is Alliance MBS' series of prestigious business lectures, bringing powerful ideas and original thinking to audiences from the Manchester city-region and beyond.
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