Author Archives: Jenny

Brexit and the North East discussion event

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In our latest Institute for Social Renewal blog we look back at our recent discussion event focused upon the implications of the European referendum.

The impact of leaving the European Union (EU) and the North East region was a focus of discussion on 3rd July 2018 that attracted a large audience of members of the public, business leaders and academics as well as Political Reporter Fergus Hewison and subsequent BBC Newcastle radio coverage (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p069r1rq). We heard from an expert panel of speakers that included Professor David Bailey from Aston University who is a columnist, media commentator and influential business expert on economic restructuring and industrial policy, perhaps best known for his knowledge of UK and West Midlands car manufacturing; Professor Danny MacKinnon, Professor of Regional Development and Governance and Acting Director of the Centre for Urban Regional and Development Studies, Newcastle University, an economic and political geographer, with expertise in economic and regional development; Dr Cathrine Degnen, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Newcastle University, and successful Economic and Social Research Council award winner on Identity, Belonging and the role of the Media in Brexit Britain and James Ramsbotham, Chief Executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce, that represents 3,000 businesses in the region.

Panel members; Danny Mackinnon, David Bailey, Cathrine Degnen, James Ramsbotham, Mark Shucksmith

 

Nissan is the region’s largest private sector employer and Professor Bailey talked about the implications of Brexit on the car industry which will depend on a number of issues including what the final trading arrangements will be between the UK and the remaining EU countries and the economic policies of the UK post-Brexit.  Regardless of the terms of the exit deal, most economists consider that leaving the EU will have a detrimental impact on the UK’s economy but the risk to the economy is greater the more we deviate from current EU arrangements as the EU is the UK’s major trading partner.
The UK auto-sector is successful and has the highest productivity in Europe, it has attracted £8bn of investment over the last 3-4 years and the broader industry employs over 800,000 people, some of whom are highly skilled workers from the EU. Over half (57%) of our auto-exports are to the EU and the success of the auto-sector is linked with being a member of the Single Market and the recent falls in exchange rate depreciation. Risks to the car industry post-Brexit include slower economic growth and hence lower car sales, investment delays and export delays.  Although the lower exchange rate may help exports, there is the potential that the imported components for car manufacture are higher, risking the profitability of the UK plants and the current uncertainty of the Brexit deal may mean that auto-makers place work with non-UK plants.

Professor Danny MacKinnon outlined that the terms of the Brexit deal negotiations are heavily shaped by Westminster and there is a sense that Brexit is reigniting fundamental questions relating to England’s governance. There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the Brexit negotiations and some conflicting analyses and predictions about what this will mean for the economy and the regions.  Older industrial areas tended to vote strongly for leave and regional inequalities are likely to increase as a result of Brexit where there is the risk of increased marginalisation in the North East and Midlands post-industrial areas.  Additionally, the government’s proposal to remove direct payments to farmers also has potentially wide ranging implications beyond Brexit as 70% of farms will be loss-making without this subsidy and the proposed Industrial Strategy represents a science-led and sectoral approach rather than being place-based.
The Brexit vote has been linked with the rise in populism and economic nationalism internationally and the current Brexit negotiations reflect Westminster’s voice rather than those from the regions and their localities, although there is lobbying from the regions.

Dr Cathrine Degnen described the background to her forthcoming Economic and Social Research Council funded research, ‘Identity, Belonging and the role of the Media’ in Brexit Britain. Media depictions of the leave and remain voters are deeply polarised based, amongst other things, on region, age, education and income.  Much of the research about ‘Brexit Britain’ is based on large surveys and aggregated data. Survey data is useful but her forthcoming research will enable a deeper understanding to be gained as it will provide an opportunity to explore the complex national, regional and local histories and explore peoples’ views and feelings about the vote.  The role of the media and how everyday use of the media frames people’s identity formation and questions of immigration, national and European belonging will be explored.
Her research will be spread across six sites nationally (Newcastle and Sunderland, Exeter and Devon, and Leicester and Boston, Lincolnshire) and will involve 12 months of community-based ethnographic fieldwork involving participant observation and interviews with people of different ages, from different social classes, ethnicities and with a range of migration and citizenships. How participants’ attitudes are shared and reproduced (or not) within families, across generations, amongst friendship networks and neighbours will be explored.

James Ramsbotham, Chief Executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce represents the views of their 3,000 members’ businesses in the region that includes small and medium enterprises up to multinationals. Surveys of their members has enabled the Chamber of Commerce to fully engage with business leaders’ views, the majority of whom are in favour of remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union.  Smaller businesses are less likely to be in favour of this because they tend to have local / UK customers and supply chains than larger businesses so any effects of customs and border controls are considered not to directly impact on them, but any downturn in the economy due to Brexit will affect their businesses too as local people will have less money to spend on goods and services.

Brexit has potentially huge implications for businesses nationally and in the region and there is and a lack of guidance and a feeling of unpreparedness from the UK government, especially in the event of leaving the EU without a deal. As a region, we export a much greater percentage of our products to Europe than elsewhere in the UK and we are heavily reliant on the export market. Leaving the EU without a deal will mean an increase in customs staff will be needed, and no recruitment or training of UK customs appears to be underway. To support local businesses to prepare for Brexit, the North East Chamber of Commerce has produced a guide ‘Business Brexit Checklist’ (https://www.neechamber.co.uk/updates/knowledge/blog/business-brexit-checklist-cross-border-trade ) to help local businesses through the transition period.

Following the presentations, there was the opportunity to ask the expert panel questions and a rich and lively discussion followed. Key questions from the discussion are included in the Brexit and the North East Report. 

‘Work rest and play’? Looking ahead as we progress through the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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In the fourth of our blog series ‘Interactions, Interdisciplinarity, International’, Jenny Hasenfuss reflects on the rapid blend of technologies and innovation placing us in the midst of the fourth Industrial Revolution, and she asks how universities might conceive of three of life’s fundamentals; work, rest and play in this context.

Figurines on keyboard

Figurines on keyboard

The starting point for this blog is the recent “Future of Work” stimulus event at Newcastle University held in the Urban Sciences building on the Newcastle Helix site close to the city centre. The event was coordinated by Naomi Oosman Watts and the NU Careers Service and hosted by Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Julie Sanders and featured presentations and provocations from a wide range of speakers.

Work

The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics predicts that by 2030 millennials generation will make up 75% of the workforce. This demographic grouping is synonymous with technology, are typically always “connected” and are used to social media and expect flexibility. What can be done to consider education and learning in regard to this? Professor Sugata Mitra ,Newcastle University, gave an absorbing presentation of his Self-Organised Learning Environments and the propensity for groups of children to understand huge questions through self-learning with technology allied with the support and energy of the group. He posited that we need to be ready to consider bold approaches to learning through digital literacy and move towards gathering knowledge ‘just in time’ rather than ‘just in case’.

And what opportunities are presented for employers and for the workplace? Digital technology is having an impact upon business models, institutions, organisations systems and upon processes. Newcastle University Business School David Goldman Visiting Professor Alison Shaw and founder of the North East Futures UTC was compelling in her vision of innovative frameworks for education which must include an interdisciplinary emphasis and embedding of skills. She called for a ‘fluency of ideas’ and recognition of the importance of collaboration in higher education. By reminding the audience that work has social and cultural value as well as economic she set out an exciting agenda for higher education where we need to explore how we prepare for, experience and reward work in society and especially for our students.

Rest

The ‘work’ and ‘rest’ meaning and balance are changing, partly influenced by technology and the constant background hum of social media and round the clock news. And new business arrangements for working such as the “gig economy” and zero hours contracts are blurring lines for home and work.

RAND Europe has researched the importance of sleep for our health (physical and mental) and in turn actually for productivity. Their research in 2016 “Why Sleep Matters: Quantifying the Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep” Economic modelling of data from five OECD countries (including the UK) found that individuals who sleep fewer than six hours a night on average have a 13 per cent higher mortality risk than people who sleep at least seven hours. This is a stark reminder for individuals and for employers about the importance of rest for so many valuable reasons.

Play

In this digital and networked age how do we conceive of wellbeing and how do we find space for fun and to enjoy ourselves? How do we balance individual activities and those that are collective or communal? What is a ‘good society’? And what role do university staff, academics and students play in being part of and adding to a good society?

By 2030, the consumer class is expected to reach 5 billion people. This means 2 billion more people with increased purchasing power than today. Most of this growth is predicted in Asia: by 2030, China and India together will represent 66% of the global middle-class population and 59% of middle-class consumption. Population and climate effects are presenting water and pollution challenges. How can we best develop and nourish wellbeing of ourselves and others and of the earth’s finite resources in a commercial, often materialistic setting? Can we reconsider our ‘leisure’ time and how we ‘play’ and what can the social sciences and arts and humanities tell us about the value of ‘play’?

Where next?

At the ‘Future of Work’ stimulus event, Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Sanders encouraged us with a forward looking address drawing on the sincere and hopeful vision of Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of World Economic Forum “We can use the Fourth Industrial Revolution to lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny”.  In our roles in higher education with students, academic colleagues, staff and collaborators from beyond the University, let us go to work on this and be sure to contribute to this new collective.

 

Jenny Hasenfuss, Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal

Jenny Hasenfuss is Institute Administrator at Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal and her role involves supporting societal engagement with research and coordinating strategic projects. An experienced knowledge exchange professional and project manager, Jenny has worked in Higher Education for the past ten years and is passionate about developing impactful societally relevant research

Realising social innovation – reflections on NCCPE ‘Social Innovation Skills Share’ workshop

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In the third of our blog series ‘Interactions, Interdisciplinarity, International’, Jenny Hasenfuss explores the practice of social innovation and what it means for universities.

This blog will focus upon the recent ‘Social Innovation Skills Share’ workshop which took place last week coordinated by the NCCPE (National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement) and was held at the National at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations building in central London. The workshop was an opportunity to build upon the HEFCE funded “Social Innovation” pilot 2016-17 which funded six social innovation projects, and presented a great opportunity to hear about recent practice in community-university partnerships, emergent ways of working and frameworks to support high quality engagement and research outputs.

It was a richly packed day with six case studies shared and four workshops and it was extremely well facilitated by NCCPE Director Paul Manners and NCCPE Project Manager Maddy Foard from the NCCPE. The breadth of subject areas was impressive. But was even more exciting was to see and hear about the positive impact these projects are creating with external stakeholders beyond the Academy, and indeed back into the Academy.

Together we create

Graffiti image “Together we create”

Social innovation in action

Les Levidow, Open University, talked captivatingly about inter-generational community activism in London community based food growing initiatives, including Granville Community Kitchen . Having worked alongside community members at the Community Kitchen in a knowledge co-production process and funded by HEFCE, Les reflected in his humbling and inspiring talk about the ability of community groups to redefine societal problems, to work and develop collectively, and to devise inventive responses to those problems.

The ‘Parenting Science Gang’ project shared with us by Tamasin Greenough is involving parents (and mums in particular are really really engaging in this) in conversations about what research they need as new parents. This heartening and wide ranging project is empowering parents using a blend of online live Q&A with experts, events, the opportunity to get involved in studies and is now driving new research questions for academic researchers.

Another fascinating approach was shared by CUSE (Coventry University Social Enterprise CIC) who support University staff, students and local community members with their social enterprise ideas, training and business development and have helped to create more than 50 social enterprises in the last four years.

One project which particularly stood out for its aims and its ethos was the MoneyLab initiative designed by Ravensbourne and funded by the Money Advice Service. This project is being co-created with students from Ravensbourne and seeks to explore and understand students’ knowledge and experiences of money to develop a “more student-led approach to financial management, awareness and advice”. At the workshop session on this initiative Paul Sternberg, Head of Design at Ravensbourne and his colleague Simon Gough drew out the really sensitive considerations being undertaken within this project, elucidating the (often rarely spoken) social and emotional aspects of money and what it means for students (and indeed what the lack of money means for students). Through a thoughtful and reflective process the team are working with students. The positive intent of the team to be ready to step back from the project process was impressive as was their recognition of the subtleties involved in creating authentic ways of communicating with and listening to students. In this way Ravensbourne were engagingly honest about the challenges of co-design approaches but equally extremely positive about the real enduring quality of what can be achieved in collaboration.

The value of social innovation

At this point it is prescient to consider the provocations raised by eminent Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel, who in ‘What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets” (Sandel, 2013, Penguin) wrote “We have drifted from having a market economy, to being a market society”. Sandel articulates that the challenges of a market orientated society [which appears to provide a ‘neutral’ analysis of economic value of goods] are especially acute when some aspects of modern society (for example, fertility, value of teaching and learning, care for vulnerable groups, pollution reduction ‘quotas’), are condensed into a reductive market economy framework. Sandel argues that we need to be cautionary in our adoption of market principles to set value (and therefore meaning) on aspects of society, and thus we need to engage with a broader debate and paradigm to harness and celebrate value for the public good.

A common thread throughout the Social Innovation skills share day came to be the critical importance of an authentic sense of purpose, and the wider ideologies of social innovation as a practice in order to generate genuine benefit for the public good. The potential for social innovation to share knowledge and develop new insights. The potential for social innovation to be an important aspect of fulfilling the social and civic responsibilities of universities. The potential for social innovation to bring multiple benefits to multiple stakeholders.

Here in the Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal we champion co-produced research and support colleagues to undertake this with a funding call, tailored support, best practice resources and events and workshops. We have supported more than 30 co-produced research projects and have worked with 73 external partners from across the Quadruple Helix; Voluntary and community and social enterprises; Local authorities, Schools and Colleges and Businesses. Within our current European Horizon 2020 funded project ACCOMPLISSH, in the Institute for Social Renewal in partnership with University of Zagreb we have developed a set of principles and processes to underpin the co-creation research design and communication process in order to support effective partnerships and deliver mutually beneficial research.

To undertake authentic co-produced research one must utilise key principles to ensure quality and integrity of the process, being aware of power balances and the importance of creating trust. The exciting potential for co-created research is the development of university-stakeholder partnerships enabling academics to work with partners to exchange knowledge, create meaningful value and in turn nurture the potential for future impacts with and for society.

 

Jenny Hasenfuss

Institute for Social Renewal

Jenny Hasenfuss is the Institute Administrator at Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal and her role involves supporting societal engagement with research and coordinating strategic projects. An experienced knowledge exchange professional and project manager, Jenny has worked in Higher Education for the past ten years and is passionate about developing impactful societally relevant research.

 

 

 

 

 

The past in the present: a Reflection on music in the English reformation

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This blog piece is the latest in our New Voices in Social Renewal series and is by Daisy Gibbs, PHD student at Newcastle University and provides a fascinating insight into the music from an evocative period of history.

Photo of singers in Newcastle Universtiy event, featuring early music.

Simon Veit-Wilson Photography

When someone asks me what I study I usually say something like ‘Music in the English Reformation’. It may not be wholly true but people do tend to know what it means! In fact, I’m studying the music collections of Elizabethan amateurs, compiled after England officially became a Protestant country in 1559 but at a time of continuing religious change, negotiation and unrest. These collections survive in dozens of manuscripts scattered in libraries across the country, many of them copied by identifiable individuals. I’m using several case-studies to find out how and where they acquired their music and what encouraged them to choose the pieces that they did.

Helping me in my search is the fact that most of these books don’t just contain music. Many also contain marginal notes, drawings, and even poetry, and their combination of music and paratext carries a huge amount of information. Some copyists seem to have been motivated by concerns which today are all too ominously familiar: a jingoistic pride in Britishness and British art; an ‘island mentality’, and a consequent need to compete with the older and more established music industry of Europe. There are even a couple of references, in the manuscripts of the Oxford don Robert Dow, to ‘our race’, defining the British people not by citizenship but by blood. Sometimes moments like these just make you want to close the books, stop reading, and hope it all goes away. But at other times, even if we know next to nothing about the people who copied the music, we can sympathise with them, because their concerns were the same as ours are now. Among their number we find friends gathering after dinner to entertain themselves with wine and singing, students and schoolchildren copying music to learn before their next lesson, connoisseurs annotating their books with which pieces they thought the best and – in a couple of cases – rather ill-informed criticism.

But that’s not all. Some of the most intriguing books to survive are those which contain music written for Catholic church services, before the accession of Elizabeth I – music which it was now treasonous to perform in public. At this time Roman Catholics were reviled and persecuted: it was illegal even to be a Catholic priest in England and as the reign progressed, the fines for non-attendance at Church of England services were ramped up and up. Some Catholic families lived in constant fear. And yet. Although some of the copyists we can identify were Catholics, others were right at the heart of the conformist establishment, including a schoolteacher, John Sadler, and a singer in the Chapel Royal, John Baldwin. Their books show a love and appreciation for the cultural legacy of Catholicism. Though they might have strongly disagreed with what it stood for, these people could still understand its beauty and value. Even today – especially today – at a time when many are becoming increasingly intolerant of difference, we can learn from such open-mindedness.

My research will not put an end to extremism and it’s not trying to. But, in our study of these Elizabethan musicians, my colleagues and I are uncovering what must surely offer hope in times of change: a deep appreciation of a very different and at times hostile culture, its artistry and sophistication; a quiet love of the past without finding any need to revive or relive it; and the recognition that, however trying the times, those human constants of good music and good company can always provide us with an anchor of sorts; as it were, the calm in the eye of the storm.

Daisy Gibbs, student, Newcastle University

National Hate Crime Awareness Week

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A one-day conference to the highlight the impact of hate crime and explore how the North East can work together to tackle has been hosted by Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Vera Baird and the North East Racial Equality Forum (NEREF), as part of a week-long programme of events to mark National Hate Crime Awareness Week.

A crime is considered to be a hate crime if someone has been targeted because of a protected characteristic, these include: race, faith, religion, gender, disability, gender identity, age or sexual orientation.

The conference which was held yesterday was attended by an invited list of delegates and featured a line-up of prominent national and regional academic, practice-based and community speakers who will focus on ways to combat hate crime.

Also taking place at the conference were a range of participative workshops run by key local organisations on topics such as addressing hate crime in the community.

Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Vera Baird, said: “Putting victims first and tackling hate crime are important priorities for me and that’s why I was very keen to help fund a conference for people in the region to come together – to share best practice and ways to advance it.

“We are delighted to have a line-up of leading academics and practitioners on board from a range of organisations, who can provide valuable insight on the latest developments in challenging hate crime.

“I am committed to ensuring that Northumbria Police listen to all our communities and meet regularly with a range of advisory groups to hear the thoughts of members of communities including LGBT, Disability and Belief, BME and Faith.

“I will continue to work with the Chief Constable to ensure Northumbria Police addresses all concerns and offers the best possible help and support to victims so they feel assured that they will be protected by the Criminal Justice System.”

Detective Chief Inspector Deborah Alderson from Northumbria Police, who will be speaking with Caroline Airs from the CPS on prosecutions in relation to hate crimes, said:

“This event is a great opportunity to get people who can have a real impact on the way that hate crimes are dealt with together in one place and share information and ideas on how to do it better.

“I think the victims that have volunteered to come along and share their experiences with those at the conference are incredibly brave and they are really helping improve the way that police and partners deal and respond to hate crimes.”

Throughout the week police will be running the ‘Being you is not a crime. Targeting you is’ campaign encouraging people to come forward and speak to police and partners about hate crime.

Further information on Hate Crime is available on the Northumbria Police force website.

Reducing inequality…in national wealth

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The next in the blog series from Newcastle University Societal Challenge Theme Institutes giving recommendations for targets and indicators of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, is from Dr Andrew Walton, Lecturer in Political Philosophy in School of Geography, Politics and Sociology.

In the current proposal for the Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 10 states the aim to ‘reduce inequality within and among countries’.  For many (good) reasons, much articulation of this goal has focused on its first component – reducing inequality between co-citizens within countries.  But it is important also to consider what should be the appropriate target for the second component.  What should be our aim and measure in reducing inequality amongst countries? My suggestion is to lessen the gap in per capita national wealth – the value of each country’s financial and physical assets.

Measures of (in)equality

The basic idea of measuring (in)equality involves comparing the circumstances of certain actors.  Thus, any conceptualisation of equality must specify an answer to two questions:

  1. Which actor should be compared?
  2. What aspect(s) of their circumstances should be compared?

There are different ways to conceptualise and measure (in)equality historically [1]:

Model Actor Aspect(s)
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Countries Final value of goods & services produced within nations’ borders
GDP/capita ‘Average’ citizen (country ÷ population) Final value of goods & services produced within nations’ borders
Income Persons or households Disposable income / expenditure
Wealth Persons or households Assets, including financial holdings and physical goods, such as real estate

Perhaps obviously, these models ask us to think about (in)equality in rather different ways.  For example, on current figures using GDP suggests that China is better-off than Switzerland, whereas GDP/capita suggests the opposite [2].  Similarly, both GDP and GDP/capita suggest that Brazil is a relatively well-off country, but measuring income and wealth highlight that it is home to individuals who are worse-off than almost the entire populations of similarly well-off countries [3].

What these differences highlight is that asking which model we should use to measure (in)equality pushes us to explore deeper philosophical questions about our underlying reasons for being concerned with (in)equality, and to find a measure that is tailored to these concerns.  My suggestion here is that some of our underlying concerns point in the direction of exploring how countries compare in per capita wealth [4].

Why compare countries and why compare them per capita?

For many people it will seem obvious that there is something important about whether their country is well-off.  It is sometimes thought important for ensuring that their country is respected by others and very commonly because it has a significant impact on whether its citizens have comfortable lives.

Some argue that comparing national circumstances is a mistake. They suggest that, ultimately, it is only the welfare of people that matters and, as noted above, cross-country comparisons can hide that some individuals within countries are badly-off.  Advocates of this view might argue that Goal 10 should be collapsed into one goal: measuring (in)equality amongst individuals worldwide.

We should reject the conclusions of this argument.  Because the SDGs also consider (in)equality within countries and have other goals targeting aspects of individual welfare, they will not overlook the worry mentioned above.  Meanwhile, because one thing that benefits people’s welfare is to participate in the collective decisions and development of their nation, even this individual-centred view can acknowledge the importance of a world involving country groupings and, thus, the additional relevance of cross-country comparisons.

However, we should accept the point that countries are, in essence, valuable only insofar as they benefit their populations and our comparisons between them should reflect this concern.  It is for this reason that our cross-country comparison should focus on a per capita measure, which looks at how some aspect of a country’s circumstance relates to its people.

Why compare wealth?

Some possible ways we could make per capita inter-country comparisons would be the following:

Model Actor Aspect(s)
GDP/capita ‘Average’ citizen Final value of goods & services produced within nation’s borders
Wealth/capita ‘Average’ citizen Assets, including currency, stock, bond holdings and physical goods, such as land, natural resources, and rights to global commons
Capabilities ‘Average’ citizen Human development indicators, such as life expectancy, education, income

A reasonable case could be made that reducing inequality between countries in any of these respects would be a worthwhile target.  Nevertheless, I proposed at the beginning of this post that the goal should be to focus on wealth/capita.  Two related points support this view.

First, neither GDP/capita nor capabilities takes full account of the aspects of a country’s circumstance that affects the welfare of its population.  To take two clear examples, currency reserves and natural resources, which are considered in wealth/capita, but not these other measures, both allow a country to provide its population with economic security and future consumption [5].

Second, many of the assets that countries hold are a matter of luck.  For example, no country did anything to entitle it to the oil or gold that lies within its borders and, indeed, much of their economic wealth arises from the fortunes of the market.

In cases where there is a good that many actors desire and which no actor is entitled automatically to own, it seems sensible to distribute that good equally.  If Isaac and I are sat beneath a tree feeling hungry when an apple falls on his head, it seems reasonable for us to share it.  Similarly, insofar as it is valuable for countries to hold financial and physical assets and their current holdings have arisen from good fortune, there is a reason to aim for equalising their shares.

Moving towards international equality

A more fully fledged case for measuring inter-country (in)equality in terms of per capita national wealth is that achieving parity in this regard can, under certain conditions, represent a truly idealistic aim.  There is a moral argument that a distribution of assets is fair if it mirrors what each relevant actor would have bought with equal purchasing power in the context of all goods being priced at a market-clearing equilibrium [6]. Such a distribution, in the international context, would entail equality in per capita national wealth and it is fair because it reflects the equality of all parties in their access to these goods and allows them to shape their holdings according to what they believe is worth having.

Realising this aim is perhaps a more long-term project than for the framework of the SDGs.  Nevertheless, it helps show the value of building our understanding of (in)equality in national wealth and beginning to reduce it, whilst casting light on some important steps for moving towards this goal:

Pursue (the second component of) Goal 10 by:

  • Establishing a national wealth index and collect data on countries’ standings.
  • Setting a target of reducing inequality in per capita holdings.

Connect these targets and their longer-term aim to:

  • Adding impetus to Goal 16.7 of ensuring responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making, in order for countries’ choices about asset holdings to reflect the collective interests of their people.
  • Helping articulate Goals 17.10-17.12 on shaping international trade towards an equal and equilibrated market.

Dr Andrew Walton is lecturer in political philosophy at Newcastle University. His main research interests are in global justice, liberal-egalitarian and socialist thought and questions of justice in public policy.

 

[1] The essential ideas used to construct this table are taken from Milanovic, B., Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005)

[2] These figures can be found via UN, ‘National Accounts Main Aggregates Database’, available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/selbasicFast.asp [Accessed 17th June 2015].

[3] See, for example, Credit Suisse, ‘Global Wealth Report 2014’, available at https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=60931FDE-A2D2-F568-B041B58C5EA591A4 [Accessed 17th June 2015].

[4] This suggestion is elaborated in more detail in Walton, A., ‘On the Currency of International Equality’, forthcoming.

[5] It is worth noting that Capabilities also seems to point towards important aspects of human welfare.  However, many other SDGs will pursue these kinds of concerns anyway, leaving space for the second part of Goal 10 to speak to the concerns I mention here.

[6] This view is most commonly associated with Dworkin, R., Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).

 

Labour’s future lies in co-operation and solidarity, not managerialism and party politics

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David Webb is a Lecturer in Town Planning at Newcastle University. His research has explored the governing principles behind urban management, in particular New Labour’s ‘top down’ housing market renewal programme. More recently, his interests lie in co-operative influences on the heritage conservation movement and the cultural heritage of co-operation.

This May’s election news was crushing for the Labour Party and the left. And yet the political promise of the leadership contenders looks uninspiring. In choosing its next leader, to inspire a comeback, Labour faces a choice between a left wing stalwart ready to stick to their principles and debunk the myth that Britain’s economic fortunes were caused by state ‘profligacy’ or a return to the Blairite vision of a socially tempered devotion to market governance. But there is another way, perhaps the only route available to Labour if it wishes to exploit the opportunities created by a politically fractured and polarised UK: cooperation and solidarity.

Working together

The Guardian’s election round-up offered a shrewd analysis of the relationship between the SNP’s landslide and the appeal of Labour to swing voters in the south. The SNP’s rise may not, it seems, have just been exploited by the Conservatives and the Murdoch press. It could actually have been actively encouraged as part of a deliberate electoral strategy. This amounts to a divide and rule approach aimed at undermining the solidarity of those opposed to the Tory party alliance of landed interests and financiers. But political pluralism can be used to strengthen solidarity as well as break it. The roots of solidarity do not lie in us all thinking the same, but in strengthening core values through mutual working while allowing freedom and diversity to flourish.

Co-operative working could be the key to realising strength from political diversity. As Johnston Birchall argued in the 1980s, in his book ‘Building Sustainable Communities’ , co-operatives are a highly malleable form of organisation capable of appealing as much to individualism as to collectivism (Birchall, 1988). Phillip Blond, architect of the Conservatives’ ‘Big Society’, also understood this. He hoped to use co-operatives as a means of promoting Anglican Conservatism and ‘family values’ over corrosive privatisation (Blond, 2010). With retrospect, Blond’s agenda never seriously challenged the Tory party’s neoliberal core. But the Coalition did demonstrate the ability of co-operatives, in different guises, to appeal across the spectrum, with 75% of neighbourhood planning initiatives having taken place in Conservative controlled areas (Geoghegan, 2013).

Co-operative Socialism, on the other hand, gave birth to the Labour Party, with many more members of the First International supporting Proudhon and Bakunin’s mutualism than Marx’s problematic dictatorship of the proletariat. John Ruskin and William Morris both demonstrate the potential for co-operatives to have a romantic appeal to the affluent classes, these days obsessed with local food and organic produce. Co-operative working, then, is a word than can be mobilised in conservative or radical guises to respond to the political challenges being faced.

Right to left

A retreat to the left by Labour now will lose them the election in 2020: they simply cannot match the weight of tabloid papers and Conservative ministers insistent on pinning austerity on reckless spending policies. All Blair’s new public sector management tools offered was a double whammy of conformist, bureaucratic service delivery and preparations for future privatisation.

Labour needs a new concept that will allow it to start on the right and draw the electorate to the left. This is, in fact, what David Cameron has been doing with his discourse on austerity. During the 2010 election he was much more circumspect about the causes of the economic crash. This time, backed up by a raft of neoliberal converts in the Lib Dems, he went all guns blazing to pin austerity on profligate state spending. Ed Miliband, meanwhile, offered an inconsistent message that veered between apologising for his party’s economic record and offering price control policies in areas like energy that came across as more of the same.

There have been occasional Conservative attempts to challenge market concentration which the Labour party might learn from. Their plans to increase house building will not work because of market concentration in land ownership and the development industry. But rather than confront these industries with regulation, gentle efforts have been made to encourage new market entrants, focusing on areas such as custom build where new building technologies and approaches already have the potential to challenge the big players. Labour could do the same, continuing the Coalition’s encouragement of co-operative local service delivery and exploring a range of ways to promote co-operative energy producers, house builders and utilities providers using innovative organisational forms rather than giant nationalised companies.

Co-operatives can be deployed as a means of market regulation, as a replacement for some rail services for example, thus helping to highlight the inherent failures of heavily regulated, privately delivered services. They have the potential to reduce the huge expenses currently directed at regulating bodies, contractual arrangements and business failures not to mention profit margins. But they also have the potential to maintain a basically neoliberal form of market delivery: something that will be essential in Labour’s early fight back against the Tories. In the longer term, examples like the anarcho-communist village of Marinelada in Spain show that radical forms of organisation can provide realistic and sustainable solutions (Hancox, 2013).

Rebuild

Co-operation has one last virtue that may prove crucial in 2020, which is that an alliance around co-operative principles may be stronger than a party system where Labour expends valuable resources fighting against the Greens and the SNP. If the south wants light touch regulation, give it to them by using co-operative thinking to inspire ethically conscious consumerism and regulation through local accountability. If Scotland wants progressive Socialism, then encourage a form of co-operative ownership of large public services and infrastructure akin to the Netherlands’ housing association sector. Solidarity from diversity. Yes, this is a vision that has neoliberal tinges, and that is why it offers the best base from which to rebuild.

 

References

Birchall, J. (1988) Building communities : the co-operative way Routledge & Kegan Paul: London.

Blond, P. (2010) Red Tory : how the left and right have broken Britain and how we can fix it Faber and Faber: London.

Geoghegan, J. (2013) Poorer areas see few neighbourhood plan applications. Downloaded 21st July 2015 from: http://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1175787/poorer-areas-few-neighbourhood-plan-applications

Hancox, D. (2013) Spain’s communist model village.Downloaded 21st July 2015 from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/marinaleda-spanish-communist-village-utopia

PROJECT TEACH: Applying Intelligence to Teacher Education

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Project Teach

As part of our ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ series, Rachel Lofthouse from the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLaT)within the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, writes about the pressing need for supportive improvements to the current teacher training infrastructure.

What is the problem?

A change is needed in our education system. Rapid policy developments prioritise the role of schools as providers of workplace learning, affecting the experiences of and infrastructure for teacher training. Even those professionals who support ‘on the job’ training for teachers appreciate that meeting the learning and social needs of children and young people has to be every school’s priority. In the current system new teachers are immediately exposed to the performative culture of schools, having their individual successes and failures measured and graded from the moment they arrive.

In some cases this creates significant anxiety. Student teachers may not be encouraged to innovate and instead they simply learn how to survive. Instead of new teachers being a source of inspiration and innovation, they adopt normative practices, and their potential and energy is not garnered for their individual benefit or that of the schools.  In the worst cases, instead of building the necessary professional capacity to work flexibly to meet ever changing demands of the job, they become less resilient to the stresses of the job.

The solution

Student teachers should be educated not only individually but also in teams, tackling real-life workplace challenges through projects based on research, development and practice. The teams would be supported by co-coaches (experienced teachers and academic tutors working together) who enable their team to develop collaborative, empowering and supportive relationships, as well as the knowledge and skills required for them to tackle the genuine challenges of teaching.  The responsibility for the professional learning of all student teachers in a team becomes a collective one; each team is aiming for the best possible outcomes in terms of professional learning, pupil outcomes, and school development.

Through PROJECT-TEACH, intelligent thinking would be applied to teacher training, drawing on the principles of successful learning organisations, coaching and project-based learning:

  • Post-graduate student teachers would form project teams hosted by, and learning on behalf of, an alliance of schools, supported by ‘co-coaches’ – providing combined professional and academic expertise and drawing on principles of servant leadership. The motto of this approach is to ‘gather intelligence and use it intelligently’.
  • The project teams would work through a number of core projects spanning the school year, based on the principles of ‘project-based learning’.  Each project would include the need to teach, and as the year progressed this would be over more sustained periods and include working with learners across the relevant age range and with complex needs.  This teaching comes as a culmination of research and development, making it more evidence-based and allowing for systematic evaluation of outcomes. Student teachers would be registered as post-graduate students, and gain academic awards as well as evidence of meeting professional standards as a result of PROJECT-TEACH.
  • Learning is a social process, and PROJECT-TEACH would enable new teachers to develop skills and knowledge through collaboration on authentic and rich learning tasks set in the context of the workplace. The project briefs would be planned by drawing on the combined expertise of the professional and academic co-coaches who would design them to meet the ambitions of the host schools as well as to take account of the development stage of the new teachers. New teachers would meet the Teacher Standards through coherent development opportunities rather than through atomised practice.  The ‘standards’ would develop significance in terms of long-term occupational capacity, rather than simply as a checklist of time and context limited competencies.

PROJECT-TEACH sits firmly in the current Department for Education policy of creating a ‘Self-improving school led system’, in that it would be ‘evidence based, data rich, sustainable, focused, attract and retain talent and create a collective moral purpose’.  It does however challenge some of the current practices of teacher education.  While the Carter Review of Initial Teacher Training (DfE, 2015) recognised that the ‘challenge for the nation is to maintain a supply of outstanding teachers so that every child has the opportunity to be taught by inspirational, skilled teachers throughout their time in school’ (p.3), it lacked imagination in its proposals for re-creating teacher education.  PROJECT-TEACH can be afforded within current budgets; student teachers pay their training fee, and gain DfE bursaries according to prior qualification.  It is a matter of ensuring that the resource is deployed differently to support the approach and ensure excellent outcomes.

 

The evidence 

  • Billett (2011) identifies three dimensions to workplace learning; the practice curriculum, the practice pedagogies, and the personal epistemologies.  PROJECT-TEACH would act on each dimension by developing a curriculum based on project-based learning and by addressing the student teachers’ learning needs through more open engagement with authentic complex tasks.
  • Student teachers would be supported by expert co-coaches drawing on the principles of effective teacher coaching (Lofthouse et.al, 2010) and servant leadership through which they prioritise the needs of the student teachers as their main professional role. . This would counter the impacts of the pervasive performativity culture (Ball, 2003) and detrimental practices of judge mentoring (Hobson & Malderez, 2013) in which judgements made by experienced teachers are rapidly revealed to the novice student teachers undermining the potential of mentoring processes to support development.
  • PROJECT-TEACH would develop new teachers’ resilience by enabling them to develop positive collective teacher efficacy and beliefs, which can help to mitigate the deleterious effects associated with socio-economic deprivation (Gibbs & Powell, 2012) and as such would help to address the problems in teacher supply and retention in England.
  • PROJECT-TEACH would support schools to become learning organisations where staff and students ‘continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free’ (http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/).
  • PROJECT-TEACH would build a ‘culture of trust (and challenge) in schools to enable professional learning of teachers to prosper’ which was recognised as key by the 2015 Sutton Trust’s ‘Developing Teachers report and thus encourage the essential components of professional learning of ‘creativity, innovation and a degree of risk-taking’ (Major, 2015).

We need to put energy and vitality back into educating (not simply training) new teachers, ensuring that those that enter the profession gain relevant expertise but also the experience and insight to fulfil their potential role to transform schools for the next generation, not simply replicate the working practices of yesterday’s schools.

 

References:

  • Ball, S. J. (2003) The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215-228
  • Billett, S (2011) Workplace curriculum: practice and propositions, in F. Dorchy, D Gijbels. Theories of Learning for the Workplace, Routledge, London (pp.17-36)
  • DfE (2015) The Carter review of initial teacher training (ITT)
  • Gibbs, S., & Powell, B. (2012) Teacher Efficacy and Pupil Behaviour: the structure of teachers’ individual and collective efficacy beliefs and their relationship with numbers of children excluded from school. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 564-584.
  • Hobson, A.J. (2013) Judgementoring and other threats to realizing the potential of school-based mentoring in teacher education, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Vol 2 [2] 89-108
  • Lofthouse, R., Leat, D and Towler, C., (2010)  Improving Teacher Coaching in Schools; A Practical Guide, CfBT Learning Trust
  • Lofthouse, R. & Thomas, U. (2014) Mentoring student teachers; a vulnerable workplace learning practice, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education Vol. 3 (3) pp. 201 – 218
  • Lofthouse, R., Thomas, U. & Cole, S. (2011) Creativity and Enquiry in Action: a case study of cross-curricular approaches in teacher education. Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal, Vol. 2(1), pp.1-21.
  • Major, L.E. (2015)  Developing Teachers; Improving professional development for teachers, The Sutton Trust

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Linking Higher Education and Local Communities

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In this blog series ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ Emeritus Professor John Goddard OBE, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, Newcastle University, writes about the role universities play within their communities.Civic uni

Many communities are facing difficult times in terms of slow growth, lack of jobs and entrenched poverty, but growing numbers now have links to one or more higher education institutions (HEIs). These can be ‘anchor institutions’, contributing to local job generation directly as an employer across a range of occupations and indirectly through new business formation, providing advice to existing businesses, attracting inward investment and developing skills in the local labour market.  They also can contribute to social cohesion through work with the community and voluntary sectors, with schools in deprived neighbourhoods and within the cultural and creative sectors. HEIs, working alongside the local public and private sector, can play a key leadership role in local civil society. We define such institutions as civic universities or colleges, tackling societal challenges on a local as well as global level, such as poverty, health, environmental sustainability and demographic change.

What is the problem?

Unfortunately the national and international higher education market place within which HEIs operate does not incentivise them to operate in this way and their potential as anchor institutions may not be fully realised. For most universities the highest priority is position in the national and international league tables. These are strongly influenced by academic research ratings and student satisfaction scores. Community engagement is relegated to a ‘third mission’ after research and teaching – by definition an inferior position. Colleges may be more locally involved but are not incentivised to be part of a local higher education system complementing the work of universities. And within the rapidly evolving market place there may be financial winners and losers; some institutions will struggle to attract sufficient numbers of students, particularly full fee-paying overseas applicants. This could leave them vulnerable to bankruptcy, with insufficient resources from the Funding Council to provide assistance. This problem could be especially acute in smaller cities with a weaker economic base, highly dependent on the university as an anchor institution.  In the future, regulation of this market must be sensitive to the contribution HEIs can make to meeting the needs of different places over and beyond the current focus solely on widening participation in higher education.

What is the solution?

To mobilise the full potential of HEIs we recommend a national fund is established, subscribed to from various central government departmental budgets to which HEIs wishing to be designated as civic institutions can have access. Such institutions should be required to introduce institution wide strategies for civic engagement embedded into teaching and research based on a self- assessment with the help of peers and partners.  HEIs in receipt of this funding should have a  civic university ‘contract’ with government defined in terms of delivery of local, national and international societal impacts.

In parallel, local authorities, LEPs and other centrally funded bodies such as Innovate UK and the Arts Council should be incentivised to establish formal partnership agreements with  HEIs designed to underpin their role in local social, economic, cultural and environmental development. Central government should establish a cross-departmental group to monitor the impact of universities as anchor institutions in local communities arising from a wide range of non-geographically specific policies (e.g. science, culture, health, immigration, trade). The group should establish a national leadership programme to develop a cadre of people with the boundary spanning skills to work in this area.

There are a range of current national policies that contribute to this agenda, such as HEFCE’s Higher Education Innovation and Catalyst funds, Innovate UK’s Catapults and RCUK’s Beacons of Public Engagement, but these lack any geographical specificity. More, therefore, needs to be done to formalise the link between universities local business and civil society in order to address societal challenges on a regional and national level.

The evidence

The OECD has gathered extensive evidence based on 40 case studies of the link between HEIs and city and regional development summarised in its report Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged. This work has informed a new European Commission guide on Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, which in turn has influenced many member states in mobilising universities to contribute to the design and delivery of their national and regional smart specialisation strategies.

Until recently, the focus of evidence gathering has been on the contribution of HEIs to business development but a recent large scale survey by the UK’s Innovation Research Centre (led by Cambridge and Imperial College) has demonstrated that the bulk of academic engagement has been with a much wider range of interest groups in civil society.

This has been confirmed by a survey of the intended impact of academic research in six universities in three English cities, carried out for a book on The University and the City[1]. In- depth interviews for this book have revealed significant contributions of universities to urban challenges of environmental sustainability, public health and cultural vitality made possible by regional funding streams that no longer exist.

Recent analysis linking the potential vulnerability of universities in the higher education market place has revealed some institutions to be located in vulnerable places highly dependent on HE. But in all these studies it is clear that civic engagement is not fully recognised and rewarded. Such evidence is leading to a re-appraisal of the triple helix model of universities working exclusively with business and government and instead to propose a quadruple helix model which embraces civil society and social as well as technological innovation.

[1] Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

Notes to editors: The views stated are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Newcastle University.

Further Information

Recent Publications:

Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

 Articles in refereed Journals:

  • Goddard, J and Puukka, J. (2008) ‘The engagement of higher education institutions in regional development: an overview of the opportunities and challenges’ Higher Education Management and Policy 20, (2) p. 11-42
  • Goddard, J., Vallance, P. and Puukka, J. (2011) ‘Experience of engagement between universities and cities: drivers and barriers in three European cities’, Built Environment 37, (3), p.299-316.
  • Goddard, J., Robertson, D. and Vallance, P. (2012) ‘Universities, Technology and Innovation Centres, and regional development: the case of the North East of England’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 36, (3), p.609-627
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘Universities and Smart Specialisation: challenges, tensions, and opportunities for the innovation strategies of European regions’, Ekonomiaz  38, (2), p. 82-101.
  • Goddard, J., Coombes, M., Kempton L. and Vallance, P (2014) ‘Universities as anchor institutions in cities in a turbulent funding environment: vulnerable institutions and vulnerable places in England’ Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society  7 (2),  p. 307-325

Official reports:

  • Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged, OECD, Paris, 2007
  • Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, European Commission, Brussels, 2011
  • Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), European Commission, Brussels, 2012

Book chapters:

  • Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2011) ‘Universities and Regional Development’, in Pike, A., Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J. (eds.) Handbook of Local and Regional Development. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘The Civic University: Connecting the Global and the Local’, in Olechnicka, A., Capello, R. and Gorzelak, G. (eds.) Universities, Cities and Regions. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton,L. and Marlow, D. (2014) ‘LEPs, universities and Europe’ in Hardy, S. and Ward,M,.(eds.) Where next for local economic partnerships? Smith Institute, London

 Research Reports:

  • Goddard, J. Re-inventing the Civic University  NESTA, London
  • Goddard, J., Howlett., Vallance, P. and Kennie, T. ( 2010) Researching and Scoping a Higher Education and Civic Leadership Development Programme.  Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, London
  • Goddard, J., Burquel, N. and Kelly,U. (2012) Universities and Regional Innovation: a toolkit to assist with building collaborative partnerships. Final Report of the EU-Drivers for a Regional Innovation Platform, European Centre for the Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU), Brussels
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Ideas for an Incoming Government

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Newcastle University is known around the world for its vision “to be a world-class civic university”. Our guiding principle – excellence with a purpose – helps us to focus on not just what we are good at, but what we are good for. Much of the research we do has relevance for policy and practice, and so the Institute for Social Renewal tries to help bring colleagues’ findings to the attention of policy makers and the general public. For example, in 2014 we organised an event in Westminster to showcase our Queens Anniversary Award winning work on rural economies and societies.

“Meeting colleagues from across the University and hearing about their research, I’m struck by how much of what we discover has relevance for policy, and could help inform better decisions by government,” says Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE, Director of the Institute. “We are working to find new ways in which to bring these findings into discussions about future policies, underpinning their evidence base.”

With the general election approaching, there is a heightened opportunity to contribute to public debates, campaigns and policy formulation, and to engage with voters and parliamentary candidates. With this in mind, Newcastle University academics are now taking part in a series of blogs during February and March to inform election debates and the political parties’ thinking.

Examples of work that has already made a difference can be found on the Highlighted Projects section of the NISR website.

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