Navigating New Trade Horizons: Supporting Exporters in a World of Change

In a dynamic global landscape, the role of UK Export Finance (UKEF) and other export credit agencies (ECAs) has never been more important. Access to finance is critical for exporters as it enables them to invest in production, expand operations, manage cash flow and mitigate trade risks. However, businesses face challenges in securing export finance and trade credit insurance as geopolitical and trade megatrends lead to increased political, market and credit risks. Drawing on qualitative data from 35 semi-structured interviews and expert discussions and based on the Futures Triangle analytical framework, this white paper analyses the geopolitical and trade megatrends that UKEF and other ECAs will face in the coming years. It presents novel findings about the implications for ECA mandates, strategies, products and operations: The evolution of mandates towards a “growth promoter”, the need to further scale up operations, the use of big data and artificial intelligence for risk analysis and forecasting, and the need to balance multiple and conflicting priorities, including export growth, support for small and medium-sized exporters, inclusive trade, climate action, and positive impact in developing markets

De-escalating aggression in acute inpatient mental health settings: a behaviour change theory-informed, secondary qualitative analysis of staff and patient perspectives

Background: De-escalation is often advocated to reduce harm associated with violence and use of restrictive interventions, but there is insufficient understanding of factors that influence de-escalation behaviour in practice. For the first time, using behaviour change and implementation science methodology, this paper aims to identify the drivers that will enhance de-escalation in acute inpatient and psychiatric intensive care mental health settings. Methods: Secondary analysis of 46 qualitative interviews with ward staff (n = 20) and patients (n = 26) informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework. Results: Capabilities for de-escalation included knowledge (impact of trauma on memory and self-regulation and the aetiology and experience of voice hearing) and skills (emotional self-regulation, distress validation, reducing social distance, confirming autonomy, setting limits and problem-solving). Opportunities for de-escalation were limited by dysfunctional risk management cultures/ relationships between ward staff and clinical leadership, and a lack of patient involvement in safety maintenance. Motivation to engage in de-escalation was limited by negative emotion associated with moral formulations of patients and internal attributions for behaviour. Conclusion: In addition to training that enhances knowledge and skills, interventions to enhance de-escalation should target ward and organisational cultures, as well as making fundamental changes to the social and physical structure of inpatient mental health wards. Psychological interventions targeting negative emotion in staff are needed to increase motivation. This paper provides a new evidence-based framework of indicative changes that will enhance de-escalation in adult acute mental health inpatient and PICU settings

Stay Home: Mapping the New Domestic Regime

This paper argues that a new ‘domestic regime’ has taken hold in Anglo-American economies since 2008. The combination of austere fiscal policy and loose monetary policy produced sustained house-price inflation in an otherwise stagnant economy. This combined with broadband-enabled digital platforms, a highly flexible labour market, and a routinely undervalued social reproductive sector transformed how capitalism operates in these economies. Taking the United Kingdom as a central case, our goal in this paper is to articulate what constitutes a ‘domestic regime’, and to locate this concept within wider sociological and political-economic debates. To adequately grasp the contemporary regime, we suggest that it needs to be considered in all its multifaceted, interlocking dimensions: the financial, the infrastructural, the reproductive and the productive

How to Reduce Microaggression and Other Negative Racial Experiences at Work with Continuous Improvement

While government regulation or company policy can be used to curtail discrimination at work, it is hard to regulate away negative experiences such as microaggression or perceptions of discrimination in hiring and promotion in the workplace against minority employees. Using interview data from interviews of minority ethnic staff at a UK university, I present evidence of microaggression and minority employees feeling excluded and posit that perceptions of discriminatory policy engender negative perceptions of the organization. I also show the link between employee engagement and organizational performance and propose that negative minority employees’ experiences and perceptions lower job and organizational engagement and, eventually, organizational performance. I then offer a solution through enterprise-wide CI programs to improve organizational performance directly by improving business processes and indirectly by improving minority employees’ experience, perceptions, and engagement

Three Approaches for Winning the Platform Competition

The notion of platforms isn't novel, yet digital platforms have become the dominant business models across various industries. Today, many of the world's most valuable companies are platform-based, deriving their success from disrupting conventional businesses and innovating new products and services in emerging areas. Digital platforms are not exclusive to tech giants or digital startups. Companies in established sectors, such as banking, automotive, pharmaceuticals, airlines, and retail, are increasingly leveraging digital platforms to transform their operations and industries, with many already delivering remarkable results. Digital platforms are fundamentally reshaping strategy and competition. Unlike traditional manufacturing or product-centric organizations, the unique attributes of platforms, like network effects and winner-takes-all market dynamics, create a fiercely competitive environment, making it particularly challenging when competing against platform leaders with formidable capabilities and resources and dominant market positions. This study delves into critical questions: What are the main strategies used by platforms to gain market dominance? How do emerging platforms challenge and overtake established ones? Under what conditions are these strategies successful? Addressing these questions is essential for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, and they constitute the central focus of this research

A Phase Error Correction System for Bioimpedance Measurement Circuits

Bioimpedance sensing is widely used across a spectrum of biomedical applications. Among the different system architectures for measuring tissue impedance, synchronous detection or demodulation (SD) stands out for its lock-in amplifier utilising in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) demodulation signals to derive real and imaginary impedance components. Typically, the current injected into the tissue is controlled by a voltage-controlled current source (VCCS). However, the VCCS can introduce phase shifts leading to discrepancies in real/imaginary outputs, especially at the highest end of the operating frequency bandwidth. Such discrepancies can significantly impact diagnostic accuracy in applications reliant on precise tissue phase profiling, such as cancer and neuromuscular evaluations. In the present work, we propose an automatic phase error compensation stage for bioimpedance measurement systems to minimise this systematic error. Our experimental findings demonstrated a considerable reduction in phase error, with the Phase Error Compensated Synchronous Detection (PECSD) system exhibiting a maximum phase error of 2° (≤5% error) compared with the uncompensated SD system where error exceeded 20%. The improvements made by our proposed SD system hold great potential for enhancing the accuracy of impedance measurements, particularly in clinical diagnosis and disease detection

Developing technologies to assess vascular ageing: a roadmap from VascAgeNet

Vascular ageing is the deterioration of arterial structure and function which occurs naturally with age, and which can be accelerated with disease. Measurements of vascular ageing are emerging as markers of cardiovascular risk, with potential applications in disease diagnosis and prognosis, and for guiding treatments. However, vascular ageing is not yet routinely assessed in clinical practice. A key step towards this is the development of technologies to assess vascular ageing. In this Roadmap, experts discuss several aspects of this process, including: measurement technologies; the development pipeline; clinical applications; and future research directions. The Roadmap summarises the state of the art, outlines the major challenges to overcome, and identifies potential future research directions to address these challenges

Bringing aquatic foods into UK food systems debates Workshop Report

On March 7th 2024, The Marine Conservation Society, the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED), and the Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London convened a workshop on ‘bringing aquatic foods into UK food systems debates’. This document provides a detailed account of the discussions, and presents the outputs of the activities. Finally, it also provides some suggestions for next steps. The aims of the workshop were to: 1. Identify policy-relevant research gaps preventing blue foods from being included in work on the UK food system transition. 2. Highlight areas and opportunities for collaboration. 3. Scope interest in creating a UK network to share insights, secure research funding and advocate for aquatic foods in the food policy landscape. The half-day workshop brought together 23 people from 17 organisations. Workshop attendees came from a mix of backgrounds, including academia, non-governmental organisations and campaigning organisations, donor organisations and funding bodies, and independent consultants. A list of participant organisations is provided at the end of the report. The workshop was run under Chatham House rules. The workshop aimed to build on existing work at the international level, including by colleagues based in the UK, to bring greater attention to the contribution of aquatic foods to food system outcomes, and to advocate for their inclusion in food systems decision-making. We aim to build on work by the ‘Blue Food Assessment’, a global coalition of scientists and experts who have conducted original research into the production, consumption and trade of aquatic foods, including their nutrient composition and environmental performance. The workshop addressed two high-level questions through three facilitated sessions: • What are the barriers to integrating aquatic foods in debates about UK food systems? • What research gaps need to be addressed to bring aquatic foods into these debates? Below, we summarise the discussions in each of the three moderated sessions. Finally, in Section 5, ‘Next Steps,’ we suggest 3 initiatives to take forward through collaboration

Intimate partner violence and children's health outcomes

A growing body of literature has established that childhood health is a crucial determinant of human capital formation. Shocks experienced in utero and during early life may have far-reaching consequences that extend well into adulthood. Nevertheless, there is relatively little evidence regarding the effects of parental behaviour on child health. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on the child's health production function. Using data from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study and leveraging information on both child health and IPV, our analysis reveals that exposure to IPV is negatively associated to child's health. Children witnessing IPV in their household see their probability of being in excellent health reduced by 7 percentage points. Our results also suggest that children exposed to IPV are subject to increased morbidity, manifested in elevated risks of hearing and respiratory problems, as well as long-term health conditions and are less likely to get fully immunised