Posted By
Laura O'Brien
24 April 2012
The squeeze on bank lending to SMEs shows no signs of abating. February saw a drop in bank lending to UK companies of £4bn, the biggest fall in two years, according to the Bank of England’s quarterly lending report. The rate of decline has been higher for SMEs than for other classes of business.
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Posted By
Spencer Thompson
18 April 2012
One feature of recent changes in the labour market is a growth in involuntary part-time and temporary workers, those working on a temporary or part-time basis when they would rather find a permanent job or full-time work. In the year to February 2012 the involuntary temporary workforce grew by 10%, the involuntary part-time by 19%. This could be interpreted as a positive sign, with employers cautiously taking on workers under more flexible arrangements or with fewer hours in response to tentative indications of an economic recovery.
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Posted By
Gareth Quested
12 April 2012
This morning’s trade figures appeared to be disappointing reading, with the UK’s deficit on trade in goods and services rising to £3.4bn in February from £2.5bn in January. January’s figure itself was an increase from a previously estimated £1.8bn deficit.
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Posted By
Hilary Sutcliffe, Director, MATTER
12 April 2012
“Responsible research and innovation means taking collective care for the future, through the stewardship of innovation in the present”
Jack Stilgoe, Responsible Innovation Group, University of Exeter
This definition of responsible innovation is the starting point for the current work being undertaken by the UK Research Councils on Responsible Innovation.
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Posted By
Prateek Sureka
11 April 2012
Facebook's billion-dollar valuation of Instagram makes the less than two year old startup more valuable than the 161 year old The New York Times Company. Only yesterday it had a closing price on the New York Stock Exchange of $946m...
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Posted By
Vicky Pryce
05 April 2012
How do we configure and structure innovation systems in ways that deliver “responsible innovation”? First, we need to define “responsible innovation”. Different views exist regarding what it is and what the importance of “responsibility” is, compared to the other benefits that innovation delivers. Citizens have different views about social or environmental goods and bads and their relative importance. So there is a political dimension to this issue that needs to be recognized, although I am not going to dwell on this. But putting that to one side, the question then becomes how the different players within innovation systems can be appropriately incentivized and encouraged to deliver [more] “responsible” innovation?
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