Events

CSEP conference on UK economic growth 2024

The Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance's annual conference brought together over 100 senior delegates from across government, industry and academia to discuss how the UK can harness and improve its competitive advantage in key technology-based sectors including medtech, biopharmaceuticals, telecoms and data science, aerospace, tidal power and fine chemicals.

Lord Sainsbury gave crucial insights into why the UK had been suffering from poor productivity performance since the global financial crisis and the challenges of increasing the UK's competitive advantage in high-value added sectors. He also spoke about the critical importance of collaborative and co-created policies between academia, industry and government in achieving success, guided by specific and focused objectives.

Led by Imperial’s world-leading academic researchers, CSEP is coordinating a number of studies that are assessing the strengths, barriers and opportunities for sectors and technologies in which the UK has key expertise, and that have significant potential to grow.

Of equal importance to the discussions were how these bottom-up sector strategies should feed into the UK’s overall industrial policy approach, where improvements to key growth sectors can significantly impact the UK’s economic and industrial output.

CSEP HealthTech Bootcamp: Empowering Innovation for the UK's Health Sector

Health, technology and investment policymakers came to Imperial's new economics and productivity centre to discuss growing the UK HealthTech sector.

The Imperial Policy Forum and the Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance (CSEP) hosted a ‘HealthTech Bootcamp’, bringing together industry, policymakers, regulators, and local government representatives to discuss strategies for bolstering the UK’s health technology sector.

This initiative is the first of a series of sector-specific bootcamps, aligned with CSEP’s core mission to improve the competitiveness of the UK economy by promoting evidence-driven policies that drive growth, enhance productivity and support the development of high-growth sectors like health technology.

Held at Imperial College London’s South Kensington campus, the bootcamp addressed critical challenges and opportunities for UK healthtech manufacturers, with a focus on enabling sustainable growth and leadership in international markets.

The day featured a range of presentations, group discussions and workshop activities emphasised the need for collaborative efforts between industry leaders, policymakers, and academics to align innovation with actionable strategies.

The bootcamp addressed the urgent need for improved investment strategies and pro-innovation regulatory frameworks in the UK, a priority also highlighted in the government’s recent Invest 2035: Modern Industrial Strategy.

Innovation and Growth Conference

Hosted by Imperial College Business School, the Faculty of Engineering and Lord Sainsbury of Turville at Imperial's White City Innovation Campus, we held a conference with senior figures from across academia, business and government to discuss how to increase UK growth and competitiveness in three key UK sectors: Biopharmaceuticals, Medtech and Telecommunications.

Following the conference, we hosted a launch event with policy makers, academics and media gathered to hear analysis from the three sector reports’ authors and convened a panel discussion between industry experts.