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This case study relates to the impact of research by the University of Cumbria's Centre for Regional Economic Development (CRED) on the regional impacts of inward investors on supply chains and the effectiveness of policies designed to grow regional clusters. On the basis of publications, Professor Frank Peck (Director of CRED) was appointed Expert Evaluator for a sequence of EU FP7 "Regions of Knowledge" project proposals (2007-2011), and subsequently invited to join an EU Expert Group examining the role of clusters in Smart Specialisation Strategies in EU Regions. This work has demonstrated that existing cluster initiatives can justifiably be used as a means of implementing smart specialization. As a result, regions are being encouraged to retain cluster strategies as integral parts of EU regional and innovation policies for the 2014 - 2020 programming period.
The team has conducted research on environmentally friendly practices in furniture manufacturing for developing countries such as Bosnia, Ghana, Malaysia, Thailand, Romania and Vietnam in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and the European Union Erasmus Multilateral Projects programme. The developed practices were used to protect traditional skills in furniture-making crafts in areas affected by war, in the intensive labour furniture sector of tropical timber producing countries and in temperate countries. Such environmentally friendly practices have impacted on production and employment.
MMU's International Business (IB) impact case reflects the breadth and multi-disciplinary nature of the subject area: it demonstrates MMU impact in established and evolving IB areas, and in developed and emerging economies.
Primary impacts relate to policy development and policy outcomes at government, NGO, international organisation, and business association levels. Research has impacted by:
a) increasing understanding (for policy-makers, development agencies & companies) of drivers and attractors for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI);
b) shaping policy initiatives to support increased FDI volumes and improved outcomes;
c) increasing public awareness and informing policy with relation to requirements for successful, development-oriented economic reform; and,
d) influencing creation of new security governance paradigms to underpin expansion of (and equitable outcomes from) IB activity in emerging economies. Our research shapes international business frameworks, which, in turn, affects the strategy and practice of the business community for improved operation in the global economy.
Aston's research on inward investment has had considerable reach and significance, improving economic policy analysis on the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI). The research has:
Chang's research has covered a wide range of public policy, including industrial policy, trade policy, privatisation, and agricultural policy, as well as theories of state intervention. By successfully challenging the then prevailing orthodoxy on economic development, his research has had significant influence on the actions of many national governments, multilateral institutions (e.g., the UN, the World Bank) and NGOs (e.g., Oxfam). Chang's research has also had substantial impact on public debate concerning economic policies, especially but not exclusively those regarding development issues. He has had two best-selling mass-market books (together sold 1.15 million copies as of December 2012) and gained worldwide media exposure for his views.
Research undertaken within the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) since 2009, has been applied within Enfield Borough Council to change its economic renewal strategies from having a training and infrastructure focus, to one which focuses on re-building local supply chains, leading to job creation, and the re-investment of pension funds to fund the delivery of badly needed social housing. This change in policy has been achieved by encouraging major employers, such as utility companies, to think of corporate social responsibility in a more local frame; and the council to re-engineer financial flows from the local authority pension fund.
The North East Economic Model (NEEM) was designed and developed at Durham University Business School (DUBS) from 2003. Customized to the regional economy, the aim of the research was for NEEM to model intra- and extra-regional economic relationships to provide quantitative estimates/projections of the impact of both long-term economic trends and shorter-term economic `shocks'. Its application has had significant impacts on policy practitioners in the region by: (1) facilitating more robust evidence-based policy analysis; (2) giving rise to knowledge transfer to policy-makers regarding the structure and workings of the regional economy; and (3) acting as a catalyst for an extended regional policy-modeling capacity. By influencing professional practice, it has had demonstrable impacts on regional economic policy, regional economic restructuring and local planning.
In the early 2000s the increasing Chinese, Brazilian, Indian and South African multinational enterprise investments into advanced economies were greeted with genuine concern by policy makers in these emerging economies, where the fear was that this was a prelude to disinvestment and relocation to advanced economies. Many of these policy makers and their advisors went to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for guidance, which in turn harnessed the specialist expertise of University of Reading professors John H Dunning (joined Reading in 1964, now deceased) and Rajneesh Narula (at Reading since 2004).
Narula and Dunning wrote a key report, which transformed UNCTAD's technical assistance programme and reassured emerging market policy makers that this pattern of MNE investment was entirely predictable and not a prelude to disinvestment. The policy response in these countries was duly moderated.
Research by Lawton Smith into analysing firms' behaviour and the relationships between entrepreneurship and innovation and regional growth has impacted on policy-making by regions and governments with international reach though the OECD. An initial Oxfordshire focus of the research resulted in the establishment of the Oxfordshire Economic Observatory (OEO) (joint Oxford University/Oxford Brookes/Birkbeck) which facilitated the application of the results of the research. Since 2008 OEO has been commissioned to undertake policy-focussed research in a variety of national and international contexts. The research has led to Lawton Smith's involvement in influential policy advisory groups in the UK and overseas.
A major challenge to economic policy and public sector governance is how to provide a sustainable economic basis for less prosperous localities and neighbourhoods. Research findings demonstrated the need for a greater focus upon enterprise and jobs at a sub-regional level and improved co-ordination and integration of governance arrangements in order to tackle this issue. These findings influenced the development of national and local government policy and practice towards the economic development of deprived areas from 2004 onwards. Impacts were evident through shaping a significant re-orientation in policy approaches towards deprived neighbourhoods as well as the development of specific policies and governance practice.