Knowledge Economy 2 Key Themes

The government can help ( the recovery) by supporting organisations to preserve as much as possible of their human capital and science base and by investing also in the physical and electronic infrastructure. But ultimately, it is today's strategic decisions of knowledge based organisations- both public and private- that will determine the state in which we find ourselves in ten years from now.
Ian Brinkley, director of the Knowledge Economy Programme

Four major research and policy themes:

The 2020 knowledge - based industrial structure:

Will knowledge - based service industries go on generating the new jobs?
Finance v the real economy – will finance be deliberately constrained or innovate its way back to a central role?
What’s the future of manufacturing – “manu-services”?
What happens to public sector - based knowledge economy industries?
Low carbon economy – what is it, what will it replace and how big is it going to be?

Intangible assets and innovation in an age of financial conservatism:

What is happening here and abroad to intangibles in this recession?
What is our view on the role of major intangibles in the 2010 economy?
Are we facing a “flight from intangibles” – how far will we repeat the Japanese experience?
What are the implications for innovation associated with intangibles?
How should the public sector account for intangibles and exploit them more effectively to maximise public value?

High - growth SMEs in cities:

High - growth SMEs provide a disproportionate share of new jobs but how many, which industries and where?
Urbanisation of knowledge economy services in the US is intensifying – what about in the UK and the EU?
What constraints will small, intangible rich future “gazelles” face post credit crunch?
What conditions are required in cities to encourage more embryonic gazelles and encourage more to develop into medium - sized firms?

Knowledge skills in a global economy:

Are the Leitch targets for 2020 still realistic? Who pays: individuals, corporate sector, philanthropists?
Can or should the UK still be a “magnet economy” for foreign high - skill labour?
Given an exodus/diversion of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) graduates away from financial services, would the rest of the knowledge economy gain?
Should we give priority to increasing the global reach of the UK higher education sector as a future export -oriented knowledge sector service industry?