Logics of marginalisation in health and social care reform:integration, choice, and provider-blind provision

The period 2010–2013 was a time of far-reaching structural reforms of the National Health Service in England. Of particular interest in this paper is the way in which radical critiques of the reform process were marginalised by pragmatic concerns about how to maintain the market-competition thrust of the reforms while avoiding potential fragmentation. We draw on the Essex school of political discourse theory and develop a ‘nodal’ analytical framework to argue that widespread and repeated appeals to a narrative of choice-based integrated care served to take the fragmentation ‘sting’ out of radical critiques of the pro-competition reform process. This served to marginalise alternative visions of health and social care, and to pre-empt the contestation of a key norm in the provision of health care that is closely associated with the notions of ‘any willing provider’ and ‘any qualified provider’: provider-blind provision

One billion new city dwellers : how will they travel?

Series from publisher's list"Draft research paper, International Policy Forum, Eagle Lodge, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 28 June-1 July 1981.""May 1981.""UK-D-81-1-0.""#2359"--Handwritten on coverIncludes bibliographical references (p. 24-26

Relocating automobile production to the developing world : the multinational view

Series from publisher's list"Background paper, International Policy Forum, Eagle Lodge, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 28 June-1 July 1981.""June 1981.""#2358"--Handwritten on cover"US-B-81-5."Includes bibliographical reference

The decline of the American auto industry and the search for industrial policy

"Background paper, International Policy Forum, Eagle Lodge, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 28 June-1 July 1981.""February 1981.""US-B-81-2-0.""#2351"--handwritten on coverIncludes bibliographical reference

Voluntary business engagement in climate change: A study of the ClimateWise Principles

There is an expectation that the insurance sector should be leading business efforts in responding to climate change due to their inherent exposure to increasing risks. However, insurance companies normally operate on a one year time horizon - underwriting risks through policies which change each year to reflect new knowledge of these risks. The ClimateWise principles is a voluntary initiative of the insurance sector that was launched in 2007 to provide a basis for insurance companies to engage with climate change risks. This paper introduces the ClimateWise initiative and explores progress made since its launch. The paper presents new knowledge on whether this voluntary initiative provides a useful structure for the insurance sector in responding to the challenge of climate change. It finds that while the insurance sector has engaged with climate change, there is much more to do and we welcome the recent changes to ClimateWise that more accurately reflect this. The paper concludes that ClimateWise has been a useful initiative for the insurance companies and as a potential benchmark for the sector it offers some value. However, ClimateWise has not provided a strong enough engagement across the sector to embed climate action into business decisions

Global manifesto on forgotten foods

This Manifesto on Forgotten Foods1 is the result of a broad and intensive consultation process carried out in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East (see Annex 1 for the roadmap). It was facilitated by GFAR as part of its Collective Actions to Empower Farmers at the Center of Innovation; led by a coalition of Regional Research Organizations and their partners, in particular, AARINENA, APAARI, FARA; and supported by CFF, and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. The content of this Manifesto is a landmark by presenting a coherent, multi-faceted but systemic, collective action-oriented proposal that covers research and innovation, and development (policy). The Manifesto aims to serve as a guide for the present and the future of forgotten foods. Its proponents call for a transformation of the agricultural research and innovation system through: change in research methodologies/paradigm; professional change; changes in the governance/ organization of development, research and innovation; changes in institutions; and changes in training/capacity building approaches and curricula. The Manifesto places smallholder farmers center stage, as producers and custodians of forgotten foods and related knowledge, agents of change and co-producers of (new) knowledge and practices. The Manifesto calls for concrete actions that contribute to achieve several of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, and to the ‘Right to Food’ and the ‘Right to Health’ embedded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is also meant to be an invaluable input for the United Nations Food Systems Summit later in 2021

Large UK retailers' initiatives to reduce consumers' emissions: a systematic assessment

In the interest of climate change mitigation, policy makers, businesses and non-governmental organisations have devised initiatives designed to reduce in-use emissions whilst, at the same time, the number of energy-consuming products in homes, and household energy consumption, is increasing. Retailers are important because they are at the interface between manufacturers of products and consumers and they supply the vast majority of consumer goods in developed countries like the UK, including energy using products. Large retailers have a consistent history of corporate responsibility reporting and have included plans and actions to influence consumer emissions within them. This paper adapts two frameworks to use them for systematically assessing large retailers’ initiatives aimed at reducing consumers’ carbon emissions. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) is adapted and used to analyse the strategic scope and coherence of these initiatives in relation to the businesses’ sustainability strategies. The ISM ‘Individual Social Material’ framework is adapted and used to analyse how consumer behaviour change mechanisms are framed by retailers. These frameworks are used to analyse eighteen initiatives designed to reduce consumer emissions from eight of the largest UK retail businesses, identified from publicly available data. The results of the eighteen initiatives analysed show that the vast majority were not well planned nor were they strategically coherent. Secondly, most of these specific initiatives relied solely on providing information to consumers and thus deployed a rather narrow range of consumer behaviour change mechanisms. The research concludes that leaders of retail businesses and policy makers could use the FSSD to ensure processes, and measurements are comprehensive and integrated, in order to increase the materiality and impact of their initiatives to reduce consumer emissions in use. Furthermore, retailers could benefit from exploring different models of behaviour change from the ISM framework in order to access a wider set of tools for transformative system change

The utilisation of health research in policy-making: Concepts, examples and methods of assessment

The importance of health research utilisation in policy-making, and of understanding the mechanisms involved, is increasingly recognised. Recent reports calling for more resources to improve health in developing countries, and global pressures for accountability, draw greater attention to research-informed policy-making. Key utilisation issues have been described for at least twenty years, but the growing focus on health research systems creates additional dimensions. The utilisation of health research in policy-making should contribute to policies that may eventually lead to desired outcomes, including health gains. In this article, exploration of these issues is combined with a review of various forms of policy-making. When this is linked to analysis of different types of health research, it assists in building a comprehensive account of the diverse meanings of research utilisation. Previous studies report methods and conceptual frameworks that have been applied, if with varying degrees of success, to record utilisation in policy-making. These studies reveal various examples of research impact within a general picture of underutilisation. Factors potentially enhancing utilisation can be identified by exploration of: priority setting; activities of the health research system at the interface between research and policy-making; and the role of the recipients, or 'receptors', of health research. An interfaces and receptors model provides a framework for analysis. Recommendations about possible methods for assessing health research utilisation follow identification of the purposes of such assessments. Our conclusion is that research utilisation can be better understood, and enhanced, by developing assessment methods informed by conceptual analysis and review of previous studies

Health Research Profile to assess the capacity of low and middle income countries for equity-oriented research

BACKGROUND: The Commission on Health Research for Development concluded that "for the most vulnerable people, the benefits of research offer a potential for change that has gone largely untapped." This project was designed to assess low and middle income country capacity and commitment for equity-oriented research. METHODS: A multi-disciplinary team with coordinators from each of four regions (Asia, Latin America, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe) developed a questionnaire through consensus meetings using a mini-Delphi technique. Indicators were selected based on their quality, validity, comprehensiveness, feasibility and relevance to equity. Indicators represented five categories that form the Health Research Profile (HRP): 1) Research priorities; 2) Resources (amount spent on research); 3) Production of knowledge (capacity); 4) Packaging of knowledge and 5) Evidence of research impact on policy and equity. We surveyed three countries from each region. RESULTS: Most countries reported explicit national health research priorities. Of these, half included specific research priorities to address inequities in health. Data on financing were lacking for most countries due to inadequate centralized collection of this information. The five main components of HRP showed a gradient where countries scoring lower on the Human Development Index (HDI) had a lower capacity to conduct research to meet local health research needs. Packaging such as peer-reviewed journals and policy forums were reported by two thirds of the countries. Seven out of 12 countries demonstrated impact of health research on policies and reported engagement of stakeholders in this process. CONCLUSION: Only one out of 12 countries indicated there was research on all fronts of the equity debate. Knowledge sharing and management is needed to strengthen within-country capacity for research and implementation to reduce inequities in health. We recommend that all countries (and external agencies) should invest more in building a certain minimum level of national capacity for equity-oriented research

Globalization, uneven development and the North-South ‘big switch’

An apparent ‘big switch’ in attitudes towards and discourse over economic globalization has occurred since the turn of the Millennium. Economic globalization was formerly widely identified as being orchestrated in the interests of the global North. Sceptics, mostly left - leaning, expressed particular concern for its impacts in the global South. However, a recent backlash against globalization has emerged within the global North from the political right, while support for globalization has been expressed within the global South. This ‘big switch’ defies many theoretical predictions, and can be situated in relation to a shifting geography of global uneven developmen