The Bennett Institute leads the Cambridge hub of the UK’s national Productivity Institute.
The University of Cambridge is one of the partners of The Productivity Institute exploring what productivity means for business, for workers and for communities – how it is measured and how it truly contributes to increased living standards and wellbeing. Alongside the Productivity Institute, we are exploring in depth productivity in different sectors of the economy.
Professor Diane Coyle, is one of the Institute’s Directors and leads one of its eight major research themes on Knowledge Capital: the ideas that drive productivity and progress. The work will investigate the way that ideas and know-how – “intangible assets” not easily defined or measured – permeate our society and the economy. This work will lead to better understanding the links between productivity and things that are important but hard to pin down, whether that’s how businesses adopt new technologies and ideas or the role of social networks in determining how well different areas perform.
Professor Michael Kenny leads a project on devolution, governance and productivity to address the “challenges posed by the productivity puzzle” in the UK, with a focus on ensuring notions of “place” are brought to the fore.
To gain insight for the work, the Bennett Institute oversees the running of the Regional Forum for East Anglia comprised of representatives from the area’s key sectors including agriculture, life sciences and the energy industry, as well as from the public sector and academia.
The Productivity Institute is headquartered at the University of Manchester, and, along with colleagues working across Cambridge, other members of the leading consortium include the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and the universities of Glasgow, Sheffield, Cardiff and Warwick.
Publications
- Industrial Policy: Learning from the past
- The Idea of Productivity
- Uber and Beyond: Policy implications for the UK
Blogs
- Can the UK learn from past failures to develop an effective industrial policy?
- How is productivity in UK healthcare really performing?
- Uber ruling: What are the wider policy implications?
Events
Podcasts
It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (part of UK Research and Innovation).
