Levelling up or down? Addressing regional inequalities in the UK

The UK has the widest regional inequalities among the advanced industrial economies. These regional inequalities are not new, but the persistence of the so-called North-South divide has become more prominent in the public eye. The post-Brexit landscape was aligned with the political rhetoric of ‘levelling up’, although this was only vaguely defined. While related to tackling regional inequalities, there has been much ambiguity around the various dimensions of ‘levelling up’, and the scale of its ambition. Moreover, the recent UK government White Paper provides little indication of which alternative paths (weaker) regions should take to address the country’s long-standing inequalities. Indeed, the approach seems to implicitly accept the status quo, especially given that the minutiae detail of achieving ‘levelling up’ and recognition of interregional dynamics was largely missing. ‘Levelling up’ clearly invokes huge challenges, not least because the UK’s regional inequalities are not only wide, but longstanding. The papers in this special issue highlight some of these challenges and some potential new policy directions. We offer this collection as useful food for thought for both academics and policymakers from across the political spectrum as we continue to tackle the issues surrounding uneven regional economic growth, development, and opportunity.</p

Using intellectual property data to analyse China's growing technological capabilities

Motives for foreign multinational investment in China are gradually shifting from being primarily either market-seeking or efficiency-seeking towards competence-seeking motives. Are such moves justified and what might Chinese patent data tell us about where such competencies are located and which domestic entities are generating them? Such information is useful to companies to identify areas of potential opportunities and threats. Aggregated Chinese patent data is used to highlight China's growing technological capabilities generally and disaggregated data to demonstrate how patents can yield more specific competitive intelligence of use to firms. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that whilst issues regarding the patent system in China are presented largely in a negative light and focus upon the lax enforcement issues, the existing Chinese patent system, although in its relative infancy in international terms, can also be viewed positively as a rich source of information which can be tapped to assist in location decision-making as well as in identifying potential indigenous collaborators or competitors in China.Patents China Chinese patent databases Domestic entities Technological capabilities Competitive intelligence

Towards a novel technology transfer office typology and recommendations for developing countries

Potentially, technology transfer offices (TTOs) can play a significant role in facilitating the successful transfer of technologies and knowledge between universities and industry. Many developing countries are currently developing technology transfer practices within their universities. However, many developing country TTOs operate inefficiently or are ineffective. The sharing of experiences can lead to improvements in this endeavour. Advanced nations can serve as a frame of reference and a basis of policy recommendations for developing countries due to the longevity of their technology transfer activities. The authors issued 234 questionnaires to European university TTOs, of which 54 usable questionnaires were returned. They combine the data from these questionnaires with 19 interviews conducted with university TTO staff from 9 countries in an attempt to create a typology of practices that developing nations could emulate to improve technology transfer in their own contexts. While ultimately a clear typology was not forthcoming, the authors found some relationship between the dominant focus in the mission statement of developed country TTOs, the activities they undertake, their position in the university governance structure and their level of maturity which may usefully inform the development of TTO practices in developing countries.</p