Covid pandemic and recovery
Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, INLOGOV colleagues contributed to a range of work supporting policy and practice. INLOGOV convened the local government theme of the Government Office for Science’s Rebuilding a Resilient Britain programme, which developed medium and long term themes for future research. INLOGOV’s director, Jason Lowther, led the research on local government issues as part of the Supporting Services workstream. The Local Government section concluded that there is a relatively strong evidence base which shows how local government plays vital roles in responding to and recovering from the pandemic. The local government theme considered key areas of community empowerment, supporting services, devolution and funding.
The Living with Pandemics collection, co-edited by INLOGOV Associate Professor Louise Reardon, explored the relationships between people, place and policy and living with the pandemic, developing a framework for post-pandemic policy and research agendas. Interdisciplinary chapters written by social policy, geography, planning, policy, sociology and public health experts explore the broader impacts of COVID-19, positioning the pandemic in the context of wider trends and risks including climate change. Chapters highlight the importance of place and local contexts in understanding its impacts in different settings including Europe, Canada, North America, South Korea, South Africa, and Lebanon. In so doing, the book develops a pandemic preparedness, responsiveness and recovery research framework, with the aim of to informing post-pandemic policy development and research.
Smart cities and AI
Digital innovation, smart cities and Artificial Intelligence offer new opportunities and challenges for local places and public services. Governments around the world are rapidly deploying robots and virtual agents in healthcare, education, local government, social care, and criminal justice. These advances not only promise unprecedented levels of control and convenience at a reduced cost but also claim to connect, to empathise, and to build trust. INLOGOV Associate Professor Stephen Jeffares’s book, the Virtual Public Servant: Artificial Intelligence and Frontline Work, documents how—after decades of designing out costly face to face transactions, investment in call centres, and incentivising citizens to self-service—the tech industry is promising to re-humanise our frontline public services. This book should be of interest across the social sciences and to anyone concerned with how recent measures to digitise and automate our services are paving the way for the development of full-blown AI in frontline work.
Digitalisation in cities offers new opportunities and challenges for urban planners and managers to re-shape their roles and create public value through responsible innovation. Digital innovation needs social coherence and responsibility, but current leadership frameworks fail to address key aspects. Research conducted by INLOGOV Assistant Professor Timea Nochta, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction, highlights the need for a new integrated competency framework which covers all three key dimensions: digital and technical, governance and management, and ethical and responsible innovation. The framework can be used to identify competency needs for local public, private and community stakeholders to steer place-based digital innovation and contribute to public value creation.
Sustainability
How can we better understand and tackle climate change? INLOGOV researchers and colleagues have been addressing arguably the most important challenge facing the planet. Reflecting on the COP26 conference, INLOGOV Associate John Bloomfield and Fred Steward observe that both public awareness of global warming and the profile of the environmental movements seeking to halt it have gained political momentum while climate denialists are in retreat. They argue that such is the scale and urgency of the climate emergency that the time is ripe for cross-ideological ‘green new deal’ coalitions to emerge. A policy framework is proposed that can bring together a range of political and social forces in a common endeavour over a protracted period of time.
On a practical level, new research shows that consumers’ reasons against green consumption impede good intentions, despite positive attitudes. China, as a rapidly developing economy, contributes to an unsustainable food system as its consumption of animal products and meat has continued to grow in recent decades. A study led by INLOGOV Assistant Professor May Chu showed that the traditional constructs of behavioural attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and the additional construct of perceived quality are significant factors influencing consumers' intention to purchase sustainable food in China. The results however suggest that governments can take action to positively tip the balance. Appropriate regulation and monitoring can increase customers’ trust towards sustainable food choices.