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An enhanced appreciation of entrepreneurship, innovation and new enterprise growth has become crucial to economic policy around the globe. Led by Professor Gordon Murray OBE, research at the University of Exeter continues to play a significant role in broadening understanding of this increasingly important area. Murray's research and expertise have assisted in shaping policy in several countries, including the UK, and have underpinned the formation of an influential international academic policymaker forum. The effective delivery of Murray's research to the world of business and industry has strengthened the vital links with academia, and through consistent engagement with a wider audience in high-profile media appearances, Murray's research continues to influence economic policy.
Open University (OU) research into private sector investment and innovation processes in Africa and their equity implications has achieved wide national and global reach. The research has had direct impact on the health and agriculture sectors and in innovation policy, leading to requests for further policy-oriented research, the inclusion of research results into policy and practitioner publications, and direct implementation into policy. It has contributed to the integration of health and industrial policies, and has generated new policy approaches to strengthen health innovation systems, including science capacity building. Through the major Research into Use programme, it has influenced policy processes to improve food security outcomes, and been instrumental in achieving a Digital Emmy award in 2011.
The impact is on public health policy. Thomas Baldwin's research helped to develop a new way of characterising the responsibility of Government in the field of public health (`the stewardship model'), leading to the introduction of a way of assessing policy programmes in this area which has been widely adopted (`the intervention ladder'). The beneficiaries of this research have included independent public health policy formers, government departments and parliamentary committees.
Research at the Centre for Business Research (CBR) contributed to the 2010 Hauser report, which advocated the establishment of Technology Innovation Centres (TICs), and played a central part in subsequent discussions and decisions about the realisation of the report into legislation. This led to the UK government announcing a £200m programme to establish these centres, subsequently termed Catapult Centres. To date, seven Catapult Centres have been established (cell therapy, digital economy, future cities, high value manufacturing, renewable energy, satellite applications and transport) and the policy is set to expand in two further areas, energy systems and diagnostics for medicine. In July 2013, a further £185m was committed to the programme. Private sector funds are intended to bring public and private funding together on the programme to over £1 billion in the next few years.
Research conducted at the University of Sheffield on the `unbundling' of the state through the use of various forms of arm's-length bodies (or quangos), undertaken in association with a range of professional and regulatory bodies, has contributed to and informed subsequent governmental and parliamentary reforms. More specifically, research has shaped: core elements of the coalition government's `Public Bodies Reform Agenda'; the Public Bodies Act 2011; reforms within the Cabinet Office; the introduction of triennial reviews; and, a review of the public appointments system. Furthermore, research into the control and management of public bodies has led to the identification of a number of institutional and skills-based gaps being addressed by the coalition government.