Briefing: Infrastructure business models, valuation and innovation for local delivery

The UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council have launched a £3·5 million, 4-year research programme to develop innovative business models for delivering infrastructure. Richard Dawson, Claire Walsh, Phil Purnell and Chris Rogers introduce infrastructure business models, valuation and innovation for local delivery (iBUILD). A growing population, extreme weather, decarbonisation, a proliferation of new technologies and their integration with ageing, existing systems are just some of the pressures on modern infrastructure. Unfortunately, the rate of investment in infrastructure has not kept up with the pace of change, and this is further complicated by fragmented, often reactive, regulation and governance arrangements. The UK Treasury Select Committee noted that existing infrastructure business models provide poor value (HM Treasury, 2011), but few alternatives are available; a point picked up by Infrastructure UK (Infrastructure UK, 2011) who called for research centres to be founded to address this. The iBUILD Centre will address this through development of a suite of alternative infrastructure business models, ranging from reforms to existing approaches to radical new models, each enabling more effective delivery of local infrastructures

Assessing relative spending needs of devolved government: the case of healthcare spending in the UK

The system used to allocate resources to the UK's devolved territories, known as the Barnett formula, takes no account of the relative expenditure needs of the territories. In this paper we investigate the prospects of developing a needs based model for allocating healthcare resources to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We compare the method used by the National Health Service in England to allocate resources geographically within England with the method used by the NHS in Scotland to allocate resources to territorial Health Boards. By applying both approaches to the UK's devolved territories, we are able to examine similarities and differences in the two methods, and explore implications for an assessment of the relative healthcare expenditure need of each territory. The implications for the way in which revenue is distributed to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are discussed

The UK Transport Carbon Model : An integrated life cycle approach to explore low carbon futures

Peer reviewedPostprin

e-Social Science and Evidence-Based Policy Assessment : Challenges and Solutions

Peer reviewedPreprin

Public education institutions as providers of private training programs: Degree apprenticeships in the United Kingdom

The Humboldt model of higher education describes two main missions of universities, i.e. teaching and research; however, this has increasingly been complemented with the third mission of connecting with business and communities through knowledge transfer, valorisation, engagement and training. One important dimension of this third mission is the provision of training programmes which bring numerous benefits to universities and their constituent communities. Yet, closer inspection of this training reveals a complex array of provision and it is argued that the term ‘knowledge transfer’ provides a more accurate picture from a learning perspective. In recent decades, the UK has maintained a laissez-faire approach allowing industry to respond to the market; however, recently there has been a significant change with a new interventionist industrial strategy. The Industrial Strategy document described the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) as a role model for innovation and economic growth. The AMRC Training Centre will be discussed to provide a practical context with regard to degree apprenticeships and other training which is delivered to employees of approximately 300 companies, including Boeing, McLaren and Rolls Royce which have established manufacturing facilities at the AMRC

Transport appraisal revisited

Cost-benefit analysis has become a widely used and well developed tool for evaluation of suggested transport projects. This paper presents our view of the role and position of CBA in a transport planning process, partly based on a survey of a number of countries where CBA plays a formalised role in decision making. The survey shows that methodologies, valuations and areas of application are broadly similar across countries. All countries place the CBA results in a comprehensive assessment framework that also includes various types of non-monetised benefits. An important advantage with using CBA is that it is a way to overcome cognitive, structural and process-related limitations and biases in decision making. Some of the main challenges to CBA and to quantitative assessment in general lie in the institutional and political context. There is often a risk that CBA enters the planning process too late to play any meaningful role. This risk seems to increase when planning processes are centred around a perceived "problem". If the problem is perceived as important enough, even inefficient solutions may be viewed as better than nothing, despite that the definition of what constitutes a "problem" is often arbitrary

Knowledge generation about care-giving in the UK: a critical review of research paradigms

While discourse about care and caring is well developed in the UK, the nature of knowledge generation about care and the research paradigms that underpin it have been subjected to limited critical reflection and analysis. An overarching synthesis of evidence – intended to promote debate and facilitate new understandings – identifies two largely separate bodies of carer-related research. The first body of work – referred to as Gathering and Evaluating – provides evidence of the extent of caregiving, who provides care to whom and with what impact; it also focuses on evaluating policy and service efficacy. This type of research tends to dominate public perception about caring, influences the type and extent of policy and support for carers and attracts funding from policy and health-related sources. However, it also tends to be conceptually and theoretically narrow, has limited engagement with carers’ perspectives and adopts an atomistic purview on the care-giving landscape. The second body of work – Conceptualising and Theorising – explores the conceptual and experiential nature of care and aims to extend thinking and theory about caring. It is concerned with promoting understanding of care as an integral part of human relationships, embedded in the life course, and a product of interdependence and reciprocity. This work conceptualises care as both an activity and a disposition and foregrounds the development of an ‘ethic of care’, thereby providing a perspective within which to recognise both the challenges care-giving may present and the significance of care as a normative activity. It tends to be funded from social science sources and, while strong in capturing carers’ experiences, has limited policy and service-related purchase. Much could be gained for citizens, carers and families, and the generation of knowledge advanced, if the two bodies of research were integrated to a greater degree

Carbon regulation and pathways for institutional transition in market-led housing systems : a case study of English housebuilders and zero carbon housing policy

In this paper, we argue that current research on carbon regulation neglects the complex interactions of institutional norms and market behaviour that characterise responses to regulatory change. We draw on empirical research undertaken with English housebuilders and housing market stakeholders to examine how transitional pathways towards a low-carbon housing future might be advanced and consider the implications of such for carbon regulation and low-carbon economies. Our core proposition is that carbon regulation research can no longer ignore the impact of institutionally constituted market behaviour in shaping pathways and transitions towards low-carbon futures