LTW Fringe event: Technological Transformation and Regional Inequalities

Join us for lunch at Imperial College's stunning i-Hub at their White City campus - just a short walk from Olympia - to hear an expert panel discuss IFOW's 'Disruption Index' and a new report on skills clustering, both of which - as an election approaches - present a radical reframing of 'Levelling Up'.

With both main parties emphasising the potential of AI and automation to increase growth and improve productivity, the Disruption Index provides a crucial examination of the challenges and complexities associated with this.

Aggregating data from a wide range of public and private sources, the Disruption Index provides, for the first time, a deep dive into what is driving technological transformation across the country, how 'ready' each region is for it, and the wide-ranging social and wellbeing consequences of this fast-paced disruption of labour markets. It also reveals significant disparities in investment flows and diffusion of innovation – prompting important questions about the potential of AI to drive growth and the risk that these technologies might exacerbate regional inequalities.

In short, we are at a critical juncture in the structural transformation of the economy. This technological transformation is already having profound impacts on access to work, the quality of work, and workers’ wellbeing, but we need to better understand the mechanisms through which changes to work are taking place as a consequence of technological change, and access to good work is being distributed.

The Disruption Index changes how these societal challenges are perceived, assessed and addressed. It provides the first panoramic overview of the scale and trajectories of technological transformation across the country, tracking indicators across the technology lifecycle - including investment, R&D and the innovation ecosystem – as well as indicators related to innovation readiness, such as education and skills. The Disruption Index enables exploration of the primary components of technological transformation, our readiness for it and the wide-ranging consequences of it, helping policymakers identify the most impactful access points for intervention.

This work forms part of IFOW’s Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, and has been carried out in partnership with Imperial College London.

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