Enterprise Councils Research Articles

Defining Digital Capital and Digital Poverty

Abstract Dave Donaghy MBCS FRSA CITP CEng, Lead Engineer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and BCS Council Member, explores how common language may help us to unify our approaches to problems in digital poverty.

Local employer engagement or distant elites? Local enterprise partnerships and employment and skills in England

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the responsibilities and membership of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in England in the light of devolution of employment and skills responsibilities. Through the theoretical lens of ‘hollowing out’ and a direct comparison with the late-Thatcherite Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) of the 1990s, the paper argues that LEPs represent a fresh, market-driven attempt by the government to alter the institutional framework for meeting local labour market needs through ‘local business leadership’. However, through a synthesis of publicly available data across all LEPs, the paper shows that while LEPs assume important strategic and practical roles, their structure, resourcing and sectoral affiliations are poorly aligned for the engagement of local employers. Rather, it is argued, LEPs may be characterised as distant business elites, with only weak connections to local employment and skills priorities. Conclusions are drawn about the implications of distant and elite LEPs boards for future employment and skills policy.

Biomedical research threatened by academic imbalances

The U.S. biomedical research enterprise is gradually crumbling under the weight of thousands of trained scientists who cannot get jobs in academia, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine says. Among its recommendations were that NIH should: Expand by five times the number of career awards available for postdocs. Extend grants for early-career scientists to at least five years. Phase in a three-year cap on the number of years a postdoc can work on a research project. Raise postdoc salaries to $52,700. Research institutions in general should: Collect more data on career outcomes and demographics for graduate students and postdocs. Create career counseling programs for all postdocs, and train primary investigators on how to better mentor postdocs. Create staff scientist positions to provide more nonfaculty job opportunities. Congress should: Establish a Biomedical Research Enterprise Council to regularly monitor the situation and recommend changes. Provide funding

Singapore applies itself to science

Despite its small size, the Lion City has become an influential exemplar of investing in science to promote industry.

Immunogens and Antigen Processing: Report from a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise Working Group

AbstractThe Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise convened a meeting of a Working Group in July 2009 to discuss recent progress in rational design of the components of an HIV vaccine, such as inserts, vectors and adjuvants,and in understanding antigen processing and presentation to T and B cells. This Report summarizes the key points of that discussion, and subsequent discussions with the Chairs of the other Enterprise Working Groups, the Enterprise Science Committee, the Enterprise Council and the broader scientific community during open sessions at scientific conferences.

Immunogens and Antigen Processing: Report from a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise Working Group

AbstractThe Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise convened a meeting of a Working Group in July 2009 to discuss recent progress in rational design of the components of an HIV vaccine, such as inserts, vectors and adjuvants,and in understanding antigen processing and presentation to T and B cells. This Report summarizes the key points of that discussion, and subsequent discussions with the Chairs of the other Enterprise Working Groups, the Enterprise Science Committee, the Enterprise Council and the broader scientific community during open sessions at scientific conferences.

The 2010 Scientific Strategic Plan of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise: A Roadmap for the Future

HIV/AIDS is arguably the most significant health challenge facing the world today. The 2008 numbers tell the story: 33.4 million were living with HIV, 2 million people died of AIDS and 2.7 million people were newly infected. Despite impressive scientific advances in developing over two dozen drugs to treat HIV infections, there is still no cure. In addition, only about one-third of those who need drugs have access to therapy.In 2003, recognizing the enormity of the scientific and humanitarian challenge of HIV/AIDS, two-dozen leading investigators and major funding organizations formed the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a voluntary alliance of independent organizations committed to working together to accelerate the development of an HIV vaccine.At the center of the Enterprise vision is a global research agenda,the Scientific Strategic Plan, a high level framework that represents the collective perspectives and shared accountability of the Enterprise Council, the Enterprise’s senior advisory body to work toward aligning their strategies and activities to help realize a shared vision for the field.

The 2010 Scientific Strategic Plan of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise: A Roadmap for the Future

HIV/AIDS is arguably the most significant health challenge facing the world today. The 2008 numbers tell the story: 33.4 million were living with HIV, 2 million people died of AIDS and 2.7 million people were newly infected. Despite impressive scientific advances in developing over two dozen drugs to treat HIV infections, there is still no cure. In addition, only about one-third of those who need drugs have access to therapy.In 2003, recognizing the enormity of the scientific and humanitarian challenge of HIV/AIDS, two-dozen leading investigators and major funding organizations formed the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a voluntary alliance of independent organizations committed to working together to accelerate the development of an HIV vaccine.At the center of the Enterprise vision is a global research agenda,the Scientific Strategic Plan, a high level framework that represents the collective perspectives and shared accountability of the Enterprise Council, the Enterprise’s senior advisory body to work toward aligning their strategies and activities to help realize a shared vision for the field.

The 2010 Scientific Strategic Plan of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise: A Roadmap for the Future

AbstractHIV/AIDS is arguably the most significant health challenge facing the world today. The 2008 numbers tell the story: 33.4 million were living with HIV, 2 million people died of AIDS and 2.7 million people were newly infected. Despite impressive scientific advances in developing over two dozen drugs to treat HIV infections, there is still no cure. In addition, only about one-third of those who need drugs have access to therapy.In 2003, recognizing the enormity of the scientific and humanitarian challenge of HIV/AIDS, two-dozen leading investigators and major funding organizations formed the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a voluntary alliance of independent organizations committed to working together to accelerate the development of an HIV vaccine.At the center of the Enterprise vision is a global research agenda,the Scientific Strategic Plan, a high level framework that represents the collective perspectives and shared accountability of the Enterprise Council, the Enterprise’s senior advisory body to work toward aligning their strategies and activities to help realize a shared vision for the field.

World class manufacturing and accountability

PurposeThe paper's aim is to establish how world class manufacturing (WCM) was diffused to some small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises in the NW of England and the network of institutions involved ranging from the state to firms, and to iterate the results with Miller and O'Leary's work on accounting practices and governance.Design/methodology/approachThis followed an actor network theory approach of “following the actors and actants” using interviews and documentation.FindingsThree accountabilities (financial, production, and idealised customer) at firm and state levels were linked through agencies like consultants, academics, and employer federations, and quasi‐governmental organisations like training and enterprise councils. New discourses and programmes of governance associated with competitiveness fostered changes in accountability locally and nationally. Competitiveness, WCM, and occasional allies like activity‐based costing lacked stable and consistent definition. They are adopted and circulate because their plasticity helps actors redefine themselves within translation and mediation processes.Research limitations/implicationsShop floor workers were not directly studied. Hence, observations on resistance and enactment are tentative.Practical implicationsContinual translations within large networks shape new techniques of management and governance.Originality/valueThe paper shows that programmes and discourses of governance over time are reciprocally linked in a constellation of state institutions and firms.

LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES AND THE TRANSITION FROM TRAINING AND ENTERPRISE COUNCILS TO NEW INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES IN ENGLAND

Current British government economic development policy emphasises regional and sub-regional scale, multi-agent initiatives that form part of national frameworks to encourage a ‘bottom up’ approach to economic development. An emphasis on local multi-agent initiatives was also the mission of Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). Using new survey evidence this article tracks the progress of a number of initiatives established under the TECs, using the TEC Discretionary Fund as an example. It assesses the ability of successor bodies to be more effective in promoting local economic development. Survey evidence is used to confirm that many projects previously set up by the TECs continue to operate successfully under new partnership arrangements. However as new structures have developed, and policy has become more centralized, it is less likely that similar local initiatives will be developed in future. There is evidence to suggest that with the end of the TECs a gap has emerged in the institutional infrastructure for local economic development, particularly with regard to workforce development. Much will depend in future on how the Regional Development Agencies deploy their growing power and resources.

Local Representations in Crisis: Governance, Citizenship Regimes, and UK TECs and Ontario Local Boards

In this paper I critically examine new forms of state–civil-society arrangements via a case study of non business stakeholder representation in UK Training and Enterprise Councils and in Local Boards for Training and Adjustment in Ontario, Canada. Drawing on insights from both poststructural and regulationist approaches, I situate their development and crises in what Jenson and Phillips term ‘citizenship regimes’. Local representation of labour and equity groups could be effective and reflected struggles over both recognition and redistribution. However, representation often depended on resources drawn from other scales and especially on the relationship of stakeholders with the provincial and national state. Local representation has some autonomy from macroshift in citizenship regimes, but in both cases there is strong evidence that the state is able to incorporate stakeholder representation into what Jessop terms ‘metagovernance strategies’, although it cannot necessarily control it.

A Complexity Approach To Co-Creating An Innovative Environment

The distinguishing characteristic of complex co-evolving systems is their ability to create new order. In human systems this may take the form of new ways of working or relating, new ideas for products, procedures, artefacts, or even the creation of a different culture or a new organizational form. This article will explore the creation of new order using the principles of complexity and the concepts of creativity and innovation. It will argue that innovation can be facilitated by an enabling environment based on the logic of complexity and describe how one organization (the Humberside Training and Enterprise Council) co-created an innovative environment and changed its culture, ways of working, thinking, and relating.

Being a Learning Organisation: Humberside Training and Enteerprise Council, UK

This article is not written from a scientific or academic perspective, but as more of a story — of how we developed Humberside Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) into a learning organisation using the concepts of complex adaptive systems. A word of caution: no matter how many times I tell this story and no matter how many caveats I put on it, it always sounds as though we knew where we were going and that we had some grand plan for becoming a learning organisation. But we didn't, and for those of you who have experienced complexity you will know that we couldn't have, because complexity just doesn't work that way. So please read this as a journey with success and failures, great surges ahead, blind alleys and steps back, and no clear idea of where we were going.

Managing retention under he new skills agenda

Colleges may be well placed to compete with industry training providers if retention continues to be a key factor in attracting and retaining funding under the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), but college managers will need to be proactive in their approach. Issues concerned with the retention and early leaving, or drop out of students have assumed renewed significance and emphasis in the further education (FE) sector since incorporation. Under the new LSC, where value for money is a key measure of success, increasing recruitment, improving retention and seeking to understand and address early leaving, from a wide range of education and training programmes, are set to remain high on the agenda, for managers working in FE and industry training organisation. This article summarises research carried out with training provider managers to explore strategies to improve retention on training programmes previously funded by the Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). The article concludes that, staff employed by training providers to support trainees and provide training, are a key factor in reducing the rate of early leaving. Provision of monitoring, support and guidance is a key factor for improving retention, although not all factors affecting retention can be controlled by training provider managers, especially when trainees’ decisions are influenced by financial considerations.

The End of TECs: A Challenge for Partners and Successor Bodies to Maintain Discretionary Activity

This paper examines the scale and form of discretionary activity in Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). Discretionary activity was a key aspect of TECs. In particular it underpinned their role to be flexible local agents offering leadership and finance to lever partnerships with other agents. The paper examines TEC discretionary activity at the peak of its development in 2000. This amounted to about 200m per annum. Their activity covered fields of economic development, business support, education and training, and workforce development. TECs were abolished from April 2001. The paper examines the challenges faced by successor bodies (the Learning and Skills Council, Regional Development Agencies, and the Small Business Service) in maintaining significant local initiatives. TEC projects chiefly depended on the TEC for both leadership and finance. Without a continuation of both, many local projects will disappear and employer commitment is endangered. Employer commitment is shown chiefly to have involved large national firms, or significant local and regional employers. Their commitments and the need for leadership appear to be the most fragile elements, which are hence most vulnerable.

The Impact of Collaboration Between Industry and Academia on SME Growth

One important aspect in the small firm sector is the increased provision of training available to encourage small businesses to expand and develop their knowledge base. In the belief that new small firms can generate a number of new jobs at a time of high unemployment, the UK government in the early 1980s developed public policy to encourage small firm formation and growth. Measures have been enacted to assist small firms in the UK in areas of taxation, education, funding and placement schemes. (Cross 1983). Although Curran (1986) describes this as a 'heading plunge' into a policy of discrimination in favour of the small enterprise, and is critical of the effectiveness of many of these actions, the measures are a clear indication that public policy and funds are firmly committed to support the small firm sector (Marlow 1992). Since then local support agencies, such as The Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs), and Local Enterprise Councils (LECs) in Scotland, funded by the Department of Trade and Industry and European Union offer professional consultancy advice and training to small firms and their owners. Such agencies offer help in the form of business start-up support and training, management skills and any aspect, which can aid growth in the small firm. However, the indications from the agency consultants have found that not enough owner/managers are utilising this enterprise network to assist business growth (Marlow 1992, Choueke and Armstrong 1998).

IIP and SMEs: awareness, benefits and barriers

This paper considers the impact of the Investors in People (IIP) Standard upon small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Midlands. The paper describes IIP, then considers the significance of SMEs and the impact of training and development in that sector. The paper then presents an analytical framework, firmly rooted in a literature review, that provides the basis for an examination of the reasons why SMEs might commit (or fail to commit) to IIP, the difficulties encountered and the benefits received. Our empirical findings are discussed in the context of this framework. These findings are based on questionnaire responses from almost 600 SMEs, and interviews with promoters of IIP. Some key responses are broken down according to size‐band and/or growth‐orientation. In addition, follow‐up interviews were conducted with selected firms, ranging from IIP enthusiasts to rejecters. This study therefore combines quantitative data with qualitative input. The attitudes and experiences of the respondents offer fresh insight into the appropriateness of IIP as an organisational development tool for the SME sector. The SME support network in England and Wales is undergoing a critical transition. The role of the Training and Enterprise Councils in promoting IIP to SMEs also comes under scrutiny, and our study has lessons for the promotion of IIP by the new learning and skills councils.

Investors in People and the Standardization of Professional Knowledge in Personnel Management

Professionalization, for personnel specialists, is accomplished through their organizational activities, and their ability to socialize others into particular ways of operating. The national people management standard, Investors in People (hereafter `IiP), has been promoted as a career vehicle for the personnel manager. From interviews with professional IiP advocates in a range of research case study organizations, this article illustrates some of the ways in which IiP implementation becomes a negotiated process, prone to the career interests of the managers concerned, and shaped by political-organizational contexts. The analysis indicates that IiP represents a codified body of knowledge which legitimates the personnel function and helps to make it recognizable to the rest of the organization. The role of the Training and Enterprise Councils (hereafter TECs), as local regulators of the IiP standard forms part of the broader socio-political context within which organizational recognition is achieved, and as the main external point of contact for the liP advocate. This leads to the conclusion that the origins of standards of best practice, on which IiP is based, are themselves influenced by a broader socio-political process.

The ‘learning society’, and small and medium-sized enterprises: empowering the individual?

At the heart of the United Kingdom Government's vision of the ‘Learning Society’ in the 1998 ‘Learning Age’ Green Paper is the individual citizen, equipped for employment in the ever-changing, ‘knowledge-based’ economy of the future. Integral to this is the need for individuals to have responsibility for their own learning throughout life. It is particularly tough in the context of small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – notoriously weak in terms of infrastructure and investment in training and development. Two initiatives deemed to carry the definitive marks of the ‘Learning Society’ are Employee Development (ED) programmes and Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs). Employees in SMEs figure prominently in Government ‘targets’ for ILA take up. Whilst ED schemes have received most notoriety amongst large organisations a number of the UK's Training and Enterprise Councils have sought to spread such activity into the SME sector. Drawing on in-depth research as part of a TEC sponsored evaluation of an ED initiative within SMEs and a pilot ILA programme, the article contrasts how three SMEs have engaged with such ventures and their relative impact. When put into practice in this taxing and unfavourable environment serious questions appear as to the extent to which ILAs are ‘fit for purpose’. ED, in contrast it is suggested, has the potential to be effective in SMEs and in ways that overcome the problems that beset ILAs in this same environment. ED, rather than ILAs, may offer the greater prospect of genuinely empowering individuals within an ongoing educational/developmental process.