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In June, I-X hosted the public launch of two reports recently published as part of the Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing, a project carried out under the auspices of the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) in partnership with Imperial College London, University College London and Warwick Business School, and led by Professor Sir Christopher Pissarides, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics. This 4-year project funded by the Nuffield Foundation focusses on the study of the UK labour market, and its different regions, in the face of innovation and the requirement for new skills from the workforce.
The launch event was co-organised by the IFOW and Imperial academics, Professor Mauricio Barahona and Dr Jonathan Clarke from the Department of Mathematics and I-X research initiative leads, who are Co-I’s in the Pissarides Review project. Dr Clarke is a main co-author of the “Disruption Index”, a quantitative tool that measures the scale of technology adoption of UK regions and their readiness to implement future innovations. First presented in April 2024 at the House of Lords, the June event launched the “Disruption Index Interactive Report” and an accompanying online Dashboard, which offer a comprehensive overview of the trajectories of technological transformation across the country, providing insights into the challenges of building an innovation ecosystem on the national scale. Prof Barahona and Dr Clarke are also authors of the “Patterns of co-occurrent skills in UK job adverts report”, a working paper that analyses an extensive dataset of around 60 million job adverts and has revealed the complex co-requirements of skills for diverse occupations across the UK labour market with specific variability across different parts of England.
The highlight of the event was an expert panel featuring Professor Sir Chris Pissarides, Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE HonFREng, Phil Smith CBE FREng, and Dr Clarke. The panellists discussed the impact of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), on the labour market and their potential to drive productivity across the country, as well as the risks and opportunities of framing new technologies as the ultimate means of stimulating economic growth. Bringing together academics, policymakers, and business leaders, the event provided a platform to reflect on how tools such as the Disruption Index Interactive Report can facilitate the creation of more effective policies addressing regional inequalities, and the role that a responsible implementation of AI can play in these developments.
Prof. Mauricio Barahona said:
“In welcoming policymakers and business leaders to I-X, we saw the power of sharing Imperial’s research to inform the ongoing debate on how new technologies are changing the requirements of skills in the UK. Harnessing our current capabilities to access and analyze data not only deepens our understanding of the social and economic consequences of technological adoption, but also provides invaluable insights that could inform more sustainable policies.”
Dr Jonathan Clarke said:
“We know that new technologies are changing the world of work, but our reports reveal that these changes are not happening equally across the country. It is vital that regional administrations have the knowledge to understand their local skills shortfalls and put policies in place to help both employers and employees bridge emerging skill gaps.”
The work on the Pissarides Review is nearing completion, with additional outputs to be published in the coming months, including a report on how the skills employers require vary across cities of varying size and geography in the UK. The final report, summarizing four years of research, will be published early next year coinciding with a public policy conference.
