The state of the levelling up agenda – Head of UWL’s Centre for Inequality and Levelling up shares opinion
Intro
Since 2019, politicians have used the phrase ‘levelling up’ to describe initiatives to overcome disparities in outcomes and productivity – and the consequent impact on opportunities and life chances for the population - between and within different regions of the UK.
Main body
Professor Graeme Atherton, Head of the Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up (CEILUP) at the University of West London, has contributed to a special focus on levelling up which is being published on The Leaders Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland website on 30 November. The Leaders Council is an organisation that promotes and fosters thought leadership for business in the 21st century. Its special report considers whether the levelling up agenda is likely to be carried out as intended in the wake of the current cost of living and energy crises and rampant inflation that the UK faces.
Levelling up has stimulated a renewed discussion on inequality in the UK and regional differences but it has yet to move much beyond a presentational exercise,”
Graeme says in his opinion piece.
The unique mission-based approach to addressing inequality represents the best hope that levelling up has of having a real impact, but it must become the centre of what levelling up means from here on in."
The Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up (CEILUP) is a research centre based at the University of West London that aims to produce policy-relevant research that can shape approaches to addressing inequality and to level up the UK. The Centre has produced research over the past year on the allocation of levelling up funding and approaches to delivering levelling up.
- Find out more via the CEILUP page.
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