For the first time in half a century, the UK is writing its own trade rules from scratch. The Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) brings together economists, lawyers, and political scientists to figure out how those rules should work—and for whom. This matters because trade policy now touches everything from the price of imported food and the regulation of digital services to the UK’s climate commitments. At the same time, income inequality is acute, power is devolved to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and the global trading system is under strain from digitisation and China’s rise. The CITP will create new data on jobs linked to trade, model how trade barriers hit different regions and workers, and run citizens’ juries to find out what the public actually wants from trade policy. If successful, the Centre could reshape how trade agreements are negotiated—making them more responsive to regional disparities and public preferences rather than just corporate interests. It may also help the UK navigate tensions between Westminster and devolved governments over who gets a say in trade deals. The research is applied and policy-facing, with direct implications for how trade rules affect people’s jobs, living costs, and local economies across all four nations.
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For the first time in 50 years the UK has 'sovereignty' over its trade policy. It must now decide, for example, how to configure its free trade agreements, its regulations for imported food and digital trade and its trade and climate policies. Simultaneously, income distribution has become highly sensitive in the UK, policy-making power is devolved over several UK entities and the world trading system is beset by a range of tensions such as digitisation and Chinese growth. How UK policies respond to this, and who is involved in making and scrutinising them, will shape economic outcomes for generations and affect all parts of society and all regions of the UK. The Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) will undertake INNOVATIVE, INTERDISCIPLINARY research at the frontier of knowledge, to help understand these challenges and opportunities and contribute to providing the UK with a modern trade policy. As well as being INTERNATIONAL in its approach, the CITP is designed to deliver IMPACT through targeted communications and sustained engagement with a wide range of non-academic stakeholders. Above all, our research responds to the view that trade policy should be INCLUSIVE in OUTCOMES for the people and regions of the UK, and in the FORMULATION OF POLICY by considering the views of all those affected. These five "I's" are core to the work of the CITP. Trade involves exchange and agreement between sovereign states and is thus at the interface of economics and international law; these disciplines form the core of the CITP, together with political science, international relations and business. CITP research is organised into three interrelated themes: 1. People, Firms and Places: focusses on the differential impact of trade (policy) across locations, firms and individuals (as consumers and workers) in the four nations of the UK. In this theme we will address how changes in trade barriers have differential impacts on productivity, the structure of supply chains, local labour markets and regions, and how knowledge of this can make trade policy more efficient and inclusive. 2. Digitisation and Technical Change: addresses the drivers and consequences of digitisation on geographical boundaries transforming what is produced and traded, how, where and by whom. Key here is how this impacts on trade practices and the rules governing them and the interaction between technical change, regulatory autonomy and international cooperation. 3. Negotiating a Turbulent World: considers the way that challenges to the trading system are testing the cooperation and trust that underpins open trade. CITP addresses these issues as well as regulatory coherence in trade agreements and how this may impact on domestic regulation. It will also focus closely on the stresses that trade policymaking is inducing between national and devolved administrations in the UK. Through the themes run genuine interdisciplinarity, the development of innovative methods (including in the economic modelling of trade, especially intra-UK trade), the creation of new data (e.g. on jobs in trade), major stakeholder and public engagement (citizens' juries) to identify what the UK as a whole seeks from trade policy, an Innovation Fund to encourage earlier career researchers to propose new trade research, and a commitment to communication and engagement to achieve impact and ultimately generate change. The CITP builds on the proven research and impact successes of its component Universities - Sussex, Nottingham, Strathclyde, Queens (Belfast), Cardiff, Cambridge, the European University Institute, Berkeley, Tel Aviv and Georgetown (USA). Each partner brings a distinct and complementary element to the CITP, extending its research expertise and its geographical reach and creating new synergies to establish an international centre of excellence for trade policy research.
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