Institute for Policy Research Launch Conference Videos and Photo Slideshow

Professor Paul Gregg

 

 

The Labour Market in Winter: Unemployment and its Legacy

Youth unemployment is one of the key social challenges facing the UK, with about 40 per cent of all those unemployed being aged under-25. Evidence from previous recessions has highlighted that the economic dislocation from youth unemployment lasts much longer than any spell out of work when young.

In the last two recessions, those experiencing a year or more out of work, before the age of 25, have gone on to experience an extra two months out of work, every year through to their mid-30s, and they have 10 per cent lower wages when in work. This forms the basis for viewing youth unemployment as an investment, with upfront costs that then produce a steady stream of future returns, which can more than pay for these costs, even to the Exchequer.

The presentation will highlight promising strategies for tackling youth unemployment.

Speaker overview

Paul Gregg is a Professor of Economic and Social Policy, in the Department of Social & Policy Sciences, University of Bath. He has just been appointed to the new statutory Commission on Poverty and Social Mobility.

He was also a member of the recent ACEVO Commission on Youth Unemployment and undertook a major review of Personalised Support and Conditionality in the Welfare System for the UK Department of Work and Pensions.

He was formally a member of the Council of Economic Advisors at HM Treasury 1997-2006, where he worked on unemployment, welfare reform and child poverty.

Paul is director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy at Bath and his research has covered youth unemployment, workless households, child poverty, intergenerational mobility and the drivers of social disadvantage.

Professor Anna Gilmore

 

 

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: The Corporate Subversion of Public Health

Research conducted by the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath has examined the political strategies tobacco companies have developed to gain access to policy élites and shape public health agendas. Tobacco companies constantly innovate in the techniques they use to influence policy that affects their interests.

The findings show that seemingly benign initiatives - such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes and the European Union (EU) Better Regulation agenda - have provided mechanisms for tobacco companies to progress their own interests and subvert public health concerns and priorities.

As a result, the research stresses the vital importance of critically assessing and monitoring how such initiatives are used, in order to ensure balanced and effective policymaking.

Speaker overview

Anna Gilmore is Professor of Public Health and Director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath.

She is European (previously Senior Editor) of Tobacco Control, the leading journal in her field, currently holds a prestigious Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellowship and has recently received two awards for her research – the World Health Organization’s World No Tobacco Day Medal and the Public Health Advocacy Institute International Award.

Her research interests are corporate influence on health and health policy and evaluating the effectiveness of public health policies.

She has been a member of various international expert groups including the WHO Expert Committee to Examine Tobacco Industry Interference with Tobacco Control and sits on various national expert groups including the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group.

Professor David Galbreath

 

 

Firm Ground or Quick Sand? Intervention and Security in the Sahel

The Sahel hangs in the balance, between a region set aflame with civil war and arguably one of the greatest political transitions since the 'third wave' democratisations in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. The challenge for Europe, its member-states and its institutions, is how to respond to these complex processes that would make for a more stable, democratic, and liberal region.

With talk of prolonged military intervention and the threat of international terrorism, there is an assumption that we, Europe and Europeans, must do something. Any action though is highly contested and challenged. Any policy coherence is made ever more difficult by the lack of a grand strategy towards the Middle East and North Africa, during a time of global financial crisis, following withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the slow melting of the Euro-Atlantic security community.

This presentation argues that the complex nature of the challenges facing the Sahel requires a complex approach that mixes intervention, insulation, and inaction.

Speaker overview

David Galbreath is Professor of International Security at the University of Bath. His research expertise is the role of international organisations in providing security governance in Europe and the world.

The main contribution to this literature and policy field is on international organisations in the role as security, defence and rights providers and their implementation and effectiveness at nation-state level.

He has worked with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the US Department of State on issues concerning the future of European security. He is the editor-in-chief of European Security, an academic quarterly.

Professor Iain Stewart

 

 

Climate Change – What is to be Done?

Climate change is the major threat we face during the 21st Century. Unless we take drastic action, it will disrupt food production and cause drought and starvation; it will undermine our housing and transport infrastructures; it will force large-scale migration and provoke warfare and civil unrest; it will devastate the ecosystems and habitats for many of the species with which we share this planet; it will leave an impoverished legacy for our descendants.

In face of this threat, what can our research offer? And how can we work with our local communities, with business and other organisations and with governments?

Scientists and engineers at the University of Bath are undertaking research on a wide range of green technologies. We need these green technologies, but we must also consider the social, economic and political trade-offs that are involved in addressing climate change.

This will be a major focus for the new Institute for Policy Research.

Panel Chair overview

Iain Stewart is Professor of Geosciences Communication at the University of Plymouth.

He is well-known as the presenter of several BBC TV series, including 'Earth – The Power of the Planet' (2007); 'Earth - The Climate Wars' (2008); 'How to Grow A Planet' (2012); and, most recently, the Horizon special 'The Truth About Meteors' (March 2013).

He is a Member of the Scientific Board of UNESCO’s International Geological Programme (IGCP).

Professor Graham Room

 

 

Plans for Future Development of the Institute

The Institute for Policy Research is a major new initiative for the University of Bath. Graham Room has led the development until now. He will present the ambition for the Institute and the distinctive role it aims to develop.

Speaker overview

Graham Room is Professor of European Social Policy at the University of Bath. He is author, co-author or editor of twelve books, the most recent being Complexity, Institutions and Public Policy: Agile Decision-Making in a Turbulent World, Edward Elgar, 2011.

He was Founding Editor of the Journal of European Social Policy and is a member of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Will Hutton

 

 

Policy and the Role of Research

Speaker overview

Will Hutton is Principal of Hertford College, Oxford. He was previously based at the Work Foundation.

He has been involved in a wide range of public reports on social and economic policy. He chaired the Public Sector Fair Pay Review which published its final report in March 2011 and whose recommendations the government has agreed to implement.

His best-known book is probably The State We’re In, which was seen at the time as setting the scene for the Blair revolution. Since then he has published The State to Come, The Stakeholding Society, On The Edge (with Anthony Giddens), a groundbreaking analysis of globalisation and The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century.

His latest book, Them and Us: Changing Britain – Why we need a fair society, was published by Little, Brown in 2010 and is already said to have influenced Labour leader Ed Miliband.