Ideas factories

Universities are helping to shape industrial strategy

It’s been more than 10 weeks since the government fired the starting gun asking for reactions to its industrial strategy green paper. Consultation responses are coming in, and, given the central role expected of universities, two institutions have joined forces to create their own Industrial Strategy Commission.

The initiative, from the universities of Manchester and Sheffield, has as its chairwoman the economist Kate Barker. It has already identified a gap—the lack of a monitoring and evaluation framework—and is considering how this might be filled (see Related article).