Research points to a productivity gap between the UK and some of its majorcompetitors such as France, Germany and the US. To close this gap, it is widelyaccepted that the UK must move towards competing on value and innovation ratherthan on low costs. So how can the UK boost innovation? How can...

Clusters are systems of localised economic activity and innovation. This report reviews current evidence on clustersand develops policy recommendations for the UK. It argues that clusters include multiple firms from related sectorsthat are co-located within a web of complex linkages and a...

Business schools, both in the UK and internationally, face serious challenges as to their future role and legitimacy.Questions have been raised about the value of the MBA degree, and its role as a preparation for management. Thegrowth of business schools as sites for knowledge production has...

In December 2003 Richard Lambert released his report on business-university collaboration, which highlightedmany examples of good collaboration, but called for further development and investment.1 The Lambert Review alsorecognised that the UK Government is pursuing an agenda of regionalisation...

On 30th October 2003, at a joint Forum of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) and the Councilfor Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) academics, practitioners and policy makers discussed dimensions of theUK’s skills challenge. This report, which summarises the discussions that...

Since the 1960s business schools have prospered in the UK. Now, however, there aresigns that the success story is coming to an end. The future of UK business schoolsis under threat from a number of directions. Their purpose is questioned – they areaccused of focusing on theoretical research at...

In a global economy, regional economies are exposed to greater economic threats,but also opportunities. In the UK several strategies have been introduced to improvelocal and regional competitiveness. One important strategy is the promotion ofclusters – geographic concentrations of expertise...

Business schools face significant challenges in terms of faculty recruitment, retention and development, with datasuggesting that there are worrying shortfalls in terms of numbers of PhD students graduating and taking up facultypositions in UK business schools (Francis, 2005). Add to this...

Many papers have documented wide variations in productivity even in narrowly defined industries. Some have argued that this primarily reflects measurement problems due to, for example, comparing across different products. Others argue this reflects persistent differences in performance due, for...

“Overall in the UK we do a lot of networking when trying to innovate, perhaps we don’t do enough to capitalise onit and our general infrastructure is not quite adequate to support it”.(AIM Review on Networking and Innovation, 2003).The major points discussed in the report are:On the...