Engaging students from traditionally underrepresented groups in knowledge exchange is an important part of widening participation; ensuring that individuals from all backgrounds are able to exploit fully the opportunities afforded by higher education. This podcast explores the role of student-focused knowledge exchange, how it links to broader equality, diversity and inclusion agendas, and provides insights on what works well in addressing barriers to participation.

What are the key themes, policy agendas and factors that will shape economic and social development in 2024? In this podcast, experts from SQW consider what the next twelve months might hold for health and social care, employment and skills, innovation and enterprise, and local economic growth.

Venture capital (VC) plays a critical role in starting and scaling innovative companies, and the scale and growth of VC overall is a success story for the UK. However, diversity in VC investment is low, and there are underlying problems in the market that are specific or more acute for underserved founders including in terms of gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background. SQW recently worked in partnership with the British Business Bank to investigate what works for improving diversity in VC. Podcast host Joe Duggett is joined by Osman Anwar and Imogen Sprackling from SQW to discuss the study, and the evidence-based actions that it identified that can and should be adopted by UK VC firms.

Work experience can help young people make decisions about their futures, ruling in (or out) possible routes after finishing school. However, accessing high quality work experience has tended to remain the preserve of pupils from more affluent backgrounds. In this episode, SQW Director and podcast host Joe Duggett is joined by his colleague, Associate Director Will Millard, and Dr Elnaz Kashef, Head of Research and Policy at the national charity Speakers for Schools. Joe, Will and Elnaz discuss a recent report, written by SQW for Speakers for Schools, examining what international evidence says about best practice in delivering – and the potential impact of – work experience.

Effective use of data analytics within adult social care has the potential to revolutionise care services and experiences, but its use has been hampered by a lack of available high-quality data, alongside skills and capacity challenges within the sector. This podcast explores learning from our evaluation of the Health Foundation’s Strengthening Social Care Analytics (SSCA) programme, which focused on the use of data analytics to support improvements in adult social care.

What are the key policy developments, drivers or events that will shape economic and social development in 2023? And what are the key implications for people, places and businesses? SQW experts across a range of policy domains look ahead in this first episode of Insight for Impact for the new year.

Research and innovation are recognised as crucial to economic growth, both nationally and increasingly, locally. However, there is a complex relationship between ‘research and innovation’ and ‘place’, which varies in different contexts. What are the lessons and opportunities for national and local policy responses?  And what is the link to the ‘levelling-up’ agenda? Joining SQW Director and podcast host Joe Duggett to discuss these issues are Christine Doel and Rebecca Pates. The podcast covers issues including: the increasing convergence of policy agendas across ‘research and innovation’ and ‘place’, and how this might influence local investments and behaviourshow areas can understand and exploit concepts of ‘stickiness’ and ’leakiness’, which help to explain the relationships between where ‘research and innovation’ activity takes places and where it actually generates benefitsthe importance of local leadership, commitment, and sustained investment to realise place-based outcomes from ‘research and innovation’ activity.

The new Shared Prosperity Fund aims to support the UK government’s commitment to levelling-up all parts of the country. What is distinctive about the Fund, and what the key opportunities, and the potential challenges for local places and partners as they look to develop their plans

The UK needs to build more new homes to meet the needs of a growing and ageing population, whilst minimising the environmental impacts of development. What are the opportunities and challenges in the delivery of sustainable new housing?

Innovation needs investment so that knowledge and ideas can be successfully identified, commercialised and exploited to support economic growth and address societal challenges. What is currently working well in the UK’s finance for innovation system, and how could it work better?

Personalised care is increasingly prominent in the UK’s health and social care landscape. What do we know about its benefits, and what are the issues that policy makers and service deliverers need to consider in designing and delivering personalised care approaches?

How can policy makers best support people into, or back into, sustained employment following a period of unemployment? This always matters, but is particularly important now given the uncertain prospects for the labour market as the UK economy looks to recover and rebuild following the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.

An introduction to the new podcast from SQW