Enterprise Research Centre - Phase 3

英国面临着巨大的经济不确定性。英国脱欧将带来新的挑战和机遇，同时生产力差距持续存在，贸易逆差持续存在。与此同时，与工业4.0和数字化相关的全球趋势正在挑战现有商业模式的可行性，并带来新的政策挑战。伦理委员会将通过以下方式帮助应对这些挑战：一个强有力的、与政策相关的研究项目；现有知识的综合；以及广泛的利益相关者参与。我们在2017年初与70多名参与者进行了广泛的利益相关者咨询，随后与资助者和其他潜在合作伙伴进行了讨论，我们概述了这些计划。研究和数据开发（计划第1个月至第20个月）在此期间，我们的研究计划分为四个主题和八个固定持续时间的项目：中小企业融资与投资——中小企业融资自成立以来一直是ERC研究的焦点，关注的是挫折和财务状况对绩效的影响。目前的担忧更多地集中在中小企业投资有形和无形资产的意愿，以及这可能如何影响公司和地方未来的增长。考虑到这些问题，我们在本研究主题中提出了两个初步项目，将中小企业的有形和无形投资与公司层面和基于地方的增长联系起来。创新，国际化和增长-了解创新的障碍和推动因素及其与国际化和增长的关系自成立以来一直是ERC的核心。最近的项目集中在大学与企业的合作、公共资助研发的增长效应和英国lep的创新活动分析。然而，到目前为止，对英国中小企业创新和成长的研究通常对知识产权制度的关注相对较少。在这一主题中，我们计划了两个相互关联的项目，探索公共和私人资助的小型公司研发的回报，并探索知识产权对增长和生产力的贡献。后一个项目将开发新的匹配数据资源。领导和管理（L&M）团队和中小企业绩效——长期以来，英国公司一直关注L&M的质量，这对增长和生产力有潜在的影响。我们提出了两项研究，重点关注管理实践如何帮助小企业利用外部资源和知识获取来促进增长和生产力。其结果将对管理培训和基于地点的商业发展政策产生影响。4.扩散和生产率升级——在生产率最高的“前沿企业”和其他更以国内为导向的“非前沿企业”之间，以及微型企业和大型企业之间，存在着创新和生产率的显著差异。本主题的项目侧重于调整部门和地方之间的生产率差异，探索其决定因素并制定适当的政策对策。综合：ERC前两个阶段的一个关键学习点是综合活动与新知识创造的价值。因此，现有知识的管理使其易于访问是我们建议的核心主题。我们的利益相关者咨询还提出了简短、重点突出的简报笔记的价值，它为严格定义的主题提供了专家和强有力的观点。说明性的话题可能是“质量标准如iso9000如何改变公司的创新能力？”或者“是什么让小企业有弹性？”SOTA评论将是3-4页，用非技术语言编写，并提供到源材料的超链接。SOTA评审将委托英国和国际社会科学领域的学术和政策专家进行。拨款用于ERC第三阶段的第一年进行20次审查，第二年和第三年进行10次审查。评审将在ERC网站上进行。

The UK faces significant economic uncertainties. Brexit will bring new challenges and opportunities, alongside the continuing productivity gap and persistent trade deficit. At the same time, global trends related to Industry 4.0 and digitisation are challenging the viability of existing business models, and creating new policy challenges. ERC will help address these challenges through: a programme of robust, policy-related research; synthesis of existing knowledge; and extensive stakeholder engagement. The plans we outline build on an extensive Stakeholder Consultation we conducted in early 2017 with over seventy participants, as well as subsequent discussions with Funders and other potential partners.Research and data development (plans for month 1 to month 20)Over this period our research programme is divided into four themes and eight projects of fixed duration: 1. SME Finance and Investment - SME Finance has been a consistent focus of ERC research since its inception with a focus on discouragement and the impact of financial status on performance. Current concerns focus more strongly on SMEs' willingness to invest in both tangible and intangible assets, and how this might influence firm and local growth in the future. Reflecting these concerns we propose two initial projects in this research theme linking SMEs' tangible and intangible investments to firm-level and place-based growth.2. Innovation, internationalisation and growth - understanding the barriers and enablers of innovation and its relationship to internationalisation and growth has been central to ERC since its inception. Recent projects have focussed on university-business collaboration, the growth effects of publicly funded R&D and profiling innovation activity across LEPs in England. To date, however, studies of SME innovation and growth in the UK have generally paid relatively little attention to the IP system. We plan two inter-linked projects in this theme which explore the returns to public and privately funded R&D in small firms and explore the contribution of IP to growth and productivity. The latter project will develop new matched data resources.3. Leadership and management (L&M) teams and SME performance - Concern about the quality of L&M in UK firms has been longstanding, with potential implications for growth and productivity. We propose two studies focussed on how management practices can assist small firms to draw on external resource and knowledge acquisition to boost growth and productivity. The results will have implications both for management training and place-based policies for business development. 4.Diffusion and productivity upgrading - Significant disparities in innovation and productivity exist between the most productive 'frontier firms' and other, more domestically-oriented, 'non-frontier firms', and between micro and larger companies. Projects in this theme focus on calibrating productivity differentials within sectors and localities, exploring their determinants and developing appropriate policy responses. Synthesis:A key learning point from the first two Phases of ERC is the value of synthesis activity alongside new knowledge creation. Curation of existing knowledge to make it accessible is therefore a core theme of our proposals. Our Stakeholder Consultation also suggested the value of short, focussed briefing notes which provide an expert and robust view of a tightly defined topic. Illustrative topics might be "How do quality standards such as ISO 9000 change firms' ability to innovate? or 'What makes a small business resilient?'. SOTA reviews will be 3-4 pages, written in non-technical language, and provide hyperlinks to source material. SOTA Reviews will be commissioned from UK and international academic and policy experts across the social sciences. Provision is made for 20 Reviews in Year 1 with a further 10 in Year 2 and Year 3 of ERC Phase 3. Reviews will be hosted on the ERC website.