Rethinking the Uk's Growth Model: Industrial and Skills Policies for the ‘Knowledge Economy'

This article critically examines approaches taken by the UK government and the EU to foster the knowledge economy. The Europe 2020 agenda encourages policymakers in Europe to use public policy to shift their economies and labor markets towards high-technology industries requiring high skills. The UK approach conforms strongly with the European Commission’s ‘best practice’ in key areas of skills and innovation policy. However, failures in training policy rooted in the liberal institutions of the UK economy, as well as a bias towards science and technology in industrial policy have tended to skew the results of these efforts towards a relatively small tranche of high technology firms. Other parts of the economy have benefited less and this has, probably unintentionally, exacerbated skills and occupational cleavages. While certainly not invalidating the Europe 2020 approach to the knowledge economy, the UK’s problems may cast some doubt on assumptions about its transformative possibilities.