Productivity Insights Network

UK national productivity challenges can be analysed from many different perspectives, including firm-specific, industry-specific, organisational-specific, institution-specific or technology-specific perspectives. In the case of the UK, however, the extent to which productivity problems are regional in nature is almost unparalleled amongst the advanced OECD economies. London and the core regions of southern England exhibit very strong productivity performance by OECD and EU standards whereas the non-core regions of the UK consistently exhibit weak productivity performance by OECD and EU standards. These non-core regions consistently display a very long tail of poor productivity firms, operating alongside numerous high productivity firms in London and its hinterland. When compared to OECD and EU averages the non-core tail of poor performing firms hampers national productivity performance by largely cancelling out the stronger performance of the firms in the more prosperous core regions. The result is that UK productivity has barely changed relative to our international competitors in more than four decades. Yet, these longstanding and growing interregional differences in productivity performance are the very aspect of the UK's productivity performance about which we probably know the least. Therefore, in order to better understand the UK's productivity challenges, we employ a place-based lens to investigate the extent to which many UK productivity-enhancing and productivity-inhibiting processes are related to geography. The proposed Productivity Insights Network incorporates these analytical perspectives in a manner that explicitly uncovers the local, city and regional dimensions of productivity performance. This is achieved by developing an innovative multi-disciplinary network though with the thematic productivity challenges aim to unpack the complex interactions between factors of production across different institutional and geographical settings. The network is structured around seven thematic productivity challenges which are addressed and integrated by interdisciplinary teams of experts examining five sets of interaction mechanisms, all operating in a geographical setting. The thematic productivity challenges addressed are: a) Skills, education and training b) Employment, work and labour markets; c) FDI, capital and investment markets; d) Health, well-being, ageing and demographic change; e) Technology, innovation, competitiveness, and enterprise; f) Organisation, institutions and governance; and, g) Land use, transport and infrastructure. The five different interaction mechanisms we examine are: 1) knowledge spillovers and interactions; 2) financial interactions; 3) organisational interactions; 4) social interactions; and; 5) governance interactions. These different lines of enquiry are knitted together via four work packages (WPs), namely: WP1. Network Management; WP2. Thematic Productivity Challenges; WP3. Integrated Analysis; and, WP4 Engagement, Dissemination & Learning Activities. This Sheffield-led Productivity Insights Network proposal will co-produce new social science insights with a range of partners from the public, private and third sectors, with a view furthering our understanding of the UK productivity puzzle and develop actionable outcomes. Beyond generating new perspectives the Productivity Insights Network will also identify policy options best suited to responding to the UK's productivity challenges. This proposal has been developed in consultation with over 50 academics well as with other non-academic partners and networks, and if funded the NW+ will pursue a portfolio of new interdisciplinary activity. The multi-disciplinary Productivity Insights Network will see early career researchers and established scholars working together in order to develop and disseminate new insights through the network to government, businesses and other stakeholder organisations.