The Centre for Science and Policy continued its series of in-person seminars on social infrastructure topics in collaboration with the British Academy on 26 May 2022, with a discussion on universities as anchor institutions.

Levelling up was an amorphous policy pledge in the Conservative Party’s 2019 manifesto. Since then, numerous academics and policy organisations have focused on what ‘levelling up’ means, and how it should be achieved. The upcoming Levelling Up White Paper is expected to specify a precise policy programme for this agenda.

In the last event of the Levelling up seminar series, Professor Michael Kenny (Director, Bennett Institute), Tom Kelsey (Research Assistant, Bennett Institute) and Owen Garling (Knowledge Transfer Facilitator, Bennett Institute) shared their views on the UK Government’s approach to levelling up and on the themes that have emerged from this CSaP seminar series.

As part of the ‘Levelling up’ seminar series, organised in partnership with the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Dr Saite Lu (Postdoctoral Affiliate of Trinity College and Research Associate for the Wealth Economy project at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy) discussed how human and social capital can help alleviate the regional disparity, and be better integrated into policy and investment decisions as part of the levelling up agenda.

The government's levelling up agenda has set aside funding, such as the towns fund, to help achieve this agenda. These funds require successful bids from local councils. After years of funding cutbacks, and skill losses, how do local regions bid for these funds, or develop the skills to bid?

How can we measure success in the UK government’s efforts to implement a levelling up agenda? What frameworks could be used to hold the government to account, and how might the UK2070 commission play a role in this?

Wealth Economy attempts to measure ‘what matters’ - the ingredients of economic welfare – such as natural capital. Are there ways in which we can measure the value of so-called natural capital? How does natural capital intersect with other forms? We explored these questions and more as part of our seminar series on Levelling Up.

Place matters in terms of culture and identity, yet nationally everything is connected. With this in mind, we asked: should levelling up be a central government agenda or a series of local tied-together agendas? Perhaps what really matters is that any interventions need to be ‘done with’, rather than ‘done to’.

Expenditure on social infrastructure may not provide the capital or jobs that show 'value for money' directly, but may head off social problems and economic costs in the future. Can and should we trust local areas to drive their own policy decisions? Or should we have a more 'joined up' national agenda?

The case for capital infrastructure investment is that it will provide jobs in the short term and improve livelihoods and business operations in the long term, although the long term benefits are not guaranteed. Should capital infrastructure investment be a space blind approach which allows people to move to more prosperous areas or a place based approach which seeks to correct existing spatial inequalities and improve prosperity of regions?