Overview
The materials in this hub have been produced through the activities related to our Economic Strategy programme, and the hub is updated on an ongoing basis as we publish new materials and findings.
This programme involved four Working Groups who explored the following areas in detail:
- International trade and geopolitics
- R&D and innovation
- Skills
- Sustainability and social value.
The Synthesis provides a summary of the main policy insights and conclusions from each Working Group’s discussion paper:
International trade and geopolitics working group
This working group sought to explore how a medium-sized economy like the UK could carve out a prosperous space for itself in a rapidly changing world.
Discussions focused on the implications of emerging geopolitical events and longer-term trends and how the UK could best respond to and shape them. Particular attention was paid to changing national economic strategies and their underpinning logic, and the emerging dynamics in international institutions.
A new strategic narrative for British trade in turbulent times
This paper argues that in an increasingly turbulent international environment the UK would do well to position itself as a dependable and imaginative broker both within existing international institutions where it continues to maintain outsized leverage, but also with new and emerging coalitions in Europe and the Global South that will allow it to navigate US-China geostrategic rivalry and its economic implications.
Trade in an uncertain world: deep advantages and nimble responses
This paper argues that as the global economy undergoes profound structural transformation, the UK needs to invest in the institutional, human and physical capital that makes a place ‘investable’ for the private sector - boosting trade and productivity.
This means targeted investment in public and private knowledge-based institutions and the connective tissue with well-functioning cities and their associated business and skills networks that enables nimble and dynamic responses to the major structural economic transformations on the horizon.
Working group discussion summaries
This working group met four times between January and June 2024 to discuss and analyse specific themes and trends including: emerging challenges, geopolitical alignment, industrial policy and economic strategies, and the architecture of international trade and relations.
Summaries of the group's meeting discussions can be found below.
R&D, Technology and Innovation working group
This group sought to explore the reasons why the UK has had relatively weak productivity growth since 2007, despite having an R&D system that is, by international standards, high quality.
It started from the premise that R&D is only one of a number of inputs to innovation. In a modern service economy, a significant share of innovation is not high-tech R&D (or traditional definitions of R&D), but process and service-oriented.
This is particularly the case in sectors such as logistics, retail, education, health and finance which are more reliant on innovative research in fields such as mathematics, psychology, history, economics, law, sociology and data science.
Generating coherent and effective R&D and innovation policies
Given the important role innovation plays in productivity growth, policies to support R&D, technology and innovation are vital components of any effective economic strategy. This paper outlines five components to address what the UK government can do to better utilise and leverage the potential of R&D and innovation to improve economic outcomes in the long-term.
Working group discussion summaries
This working group met five times in 2024 to discuss and analyse specific themes including the role of the UK’s political institutions in innovation policy measures of success and the potential processes (and pitfalls) of picking winners.
Summaries of the group's meeting discussions can be found below.
Skills working group
The Skills working group sought to examine skills policy right across the life cycle, looking at individuals’ interactions with the education system, workplaces, and government.
Discussions incorporated several different analytic lenses, including examining the distribution of education, skills, and the provision of resources.
The working group took the perspective of students, employees, firms, and policymakers into account and were also interested in what can be learnt from other skills systems, and in looking to the future, examining the potential impacts of technical change and innovation on skills development.
A joined-up approach to UK skills policy
This paper argues that the UK urgently requires a more joined-up approach to skills policy that considers the needs of learners, workers and businesses, is adaptable to rapid changes in technology and the economy and is flexible to local needs.
This necessitates carefully designed improvements to the skills system such that people develop the right skills at the right time throughout their lives, as well as facilitating better trajectories for young people in post-secondary and tertiary education.
Working group discussion summaries
This working group met four times in 2024 to discuss and analyse specific themes including routes through the secondary and tertiary education system, skills in working life and demand-side factors of skills development.
Summaries of the group's meeting discussions can be found below.
Sustainability and Social Value working group
This Working Group focused on the crucial relationship that sustainability and social value have with economic growth, exploring the deep interconnections between economic, social and environmental policymaking, the concept of the ‘socially-embedded economy’, as well as the roles that social protections, ‘good work’, and social infrastructure can play in economic strategy and promoting economic security.
The importance of social investment for UK economic strategy
This paper argues that the UK’s economic, social and environmental systems are deeply interconnected. Policymakers have an opportunity to make these interconnections the basis of a long-term, holistic economic strategy, in which investments in health, education, wellbeing and social cohesion are a powerful foundation to improve the nation’s economic performance.
Working group discussion summaries
This working group met eight times in 2024 to discuss and analyse specific themes relating to why sustainability and social value are crucial to long-term prosperity and how these can be incorporated into a new economic strategy.
Summaries of the group's meeting discussions can be found below.
Economic Strategy Conference
In September 2024, the British Academy hosted a conference that brought together all four Working Groups, as well as Fellows, leading researchers from the SHAPE disciplines and officials from a range of government departments. The aim of the conference was to allow participants to take stock of the programme to date, identify and explore points of connection and contention across the groups, and generate and share new insights and ideas, particularly in light of developments in the political, geopolitical and economic landscape since the start of the programme.
A summary of the conference discussions (held under the Chatham House Rule) can be found below.