From education to employment

The next UK government needs to tackle these three challenges

Madeleine Gabriel, Head of Inclusive Innovation, Nesta

#Brexit is taking centre stage in the run-up to the election.

But the next government will also need to grapple with economic, social and political challenges that have faced the UK for much longer.

We are calling for the next government to:

  1. Build an inclusive economy: By creating better paid, more dignified work in all places and sectors, spreading innovation to every region of the UK, and by challenging new concentrations of power
  2. Prepare people for the future: By supporting people to learn and train throughout their lives, and giving them the skills and job security they need to navigate a changing world with confidence
  3. Transform democracy: By giving more people the power to shape the direction that new technologies and innovations take, supporting a vibrant, independent civil society and revitalising democratic institutions.

The last decade has seen the lowest productivity growth since the 18th century, keeping wages down and preventing standards of living from improving. Inequality remains stubbornly high. Voter turnout has started to increase after hitting a historic low in 2001, but weā€™re now grappling with a ā€œBrexit divideā€, threatening greater polarisation, tension, and disillusionment with democracy.

What links these problems? The idea that parts of the country are being ā€œleft behindā€ is a cliche, but it holds some truth. The issue is not just that people and places have been forgotten by a distant political elite, but that they are cut off from the economic frontier: the knowledge economy.

In the past, economic growth was driven by tangible products such as steel, coal and textiles. In 2019 the knowledge economy – data, networks, and digital products – is the most important driver of economic growth.

We canā€™t solve the UKā€™s big problems while the knowledge economy is cut off from most people

In a modern economy like the UKā€™s, knowledge plays a decisive role in production, distribution and consumption. Our most successful firms rely on creative and highly skilled employees, alongside sophisticated use of technology, to produce products and services, and get them to where theyā€™re needed. Unlike the huge corporations of the past, which owned physical assets like railroads and oil distilleries, knowledge economy leaders get their edge through ā€˜intangibleā€™ assets like intellectual property and data. Itā€™s these highly innovative businesses that are driving UK growth.

The problem is that this high-speed economy passes most UK residents by. While they might use the products it creates – smart devices, digital content, online services – they canā€™t take part as makers or shapers.

Thatā€™s because the knowledge economy is highly concentrated in some parts of the UK. For example, the so-called ā€˜golden triangleā€™ of Oxford, Cambridge and London attracts over 40% of government funding for research. And the problem is getting worse, not better. Weā€™re seeing innovation activity and resources become even more concentrated in leading places. At the same time, the biggest technology firms are getting more powerful. Their ability to hoard data and control access to markets and information makes them a potential threat to democracy.

The central task for policy in the next decade is to make the knowledge economy radically more inclusive

History suggests that new production methods donā€™t have to be concentrated in an elite frontier – they can transform whole economies. Fordist mass production spread to almost all sectors and helped to drive growth in rich and poor countries alike. We need the knowledge economy to spread in the same way.

Yet experience shows us that we canā€™t expect the benefits of an innovation-led knowledge economy to simply trickle down to the rest of the population. Neither can we solve the inequalities we are facing just by redistributing the gains.

Instead, we need to broaden access to the resources, opportunities, and capabilities of production. We need to create a new economic order that is more equal, by giving more people the capital and skills that will allow them to benefit from the knowledge economy.

Innovation can transform our society and economy for the better – but only if we shape it in the right way

Creating a radically more inclusive knowledge economy should be a priority for the next government. All the main parties have already signalled that they want innovation to be a priority. But so far, there is little evidence that any political party has really grasped the ways in which innovation is transforming our economy and society, still less proposed a coherent response to it.

The next government needs to recognise that the challenges we are facing are closely linked to the knowledge economy:

  1. Low productivity
  2. Increasing inequality
  3. Declining trust in politics

To solve them, we need to change how the knowledge economy works.

Look out for Nesta’s responses to each of the party manifestos. We will be analysing how each party responds to these three key challenges, and suggesting ways that they can use innovation to make the knowledge economy far more inclusive.

Madeleine Gabriel, Head of Inclusive Innovation, Nesta


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