Over £4 million in funding has been awarded to two research programmes to improve people’s working lives.
The £4.3 million research projects, funded by the Nuffield Foundation’s Strategic Fund, will look at the impact of artificial intelligence and automation technologies on work and society, and ask how work will change, consider the inequalities that might arise, and what skills people will need for work and wellbeing in the future.
The projects will then provide evidence-led recommendations for how to meet future demand for essential employment skills and promote the health and wellbeing of people at work.
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Of the funding, £2.5 million is being given to the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) to lead a five-year strategic research partnership that will identify the essential employment skills people will need for work by 2035.
The team will investigate how these skills can be developed through the education system and other mechanisms, and establish which groups of people are most at risk of not acquiring the necessary skills and therefore being excluded from the labour market.
And £1.8 million has been awarded to the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) for the Pissarides Review, which will examine the impacts of technological disruption on people and communities across the country.
The three-year project will pilot a new, cross-disciplinary approach to evaluating disruption and reducing inequalities through better work, and produce the first national Disruption Index to map and track technological disruption across the UK, as well as surveying firms to explore the motives for, barriers to, and effects of, introducing automation technologies.
‘Complementary approaches to the pressing questions’
Tim Gardam, chief executive of the Nuffield Foundation, said: “We established the Nuffield Foundation’s Strategic Fund to encourage ambitious, multi-disciplinary projects that would re-frame the social policy agenda in the coming decades, with a focus on increasing well-being and opportunity for the most disadvantaged.
“These two research programmes, with their complementary approaches to the pressing questions about the future of work and skills, have the ability to do that. Technological advances are potentially hugely beneficial for people and society, but only if we identify ways to ensure such benefits are equitably distributed and to mitigate negative consequences.”
Jude Hillary, principal investigator and director of quantitative research at NFER, added: “The UK cannot afford the widespread social and economic consequences of stumbling into the next 10 to 15 years without supporting the existing workforce and young people in education to develop essential employment skills.
“Instead we need a long-term strategic plan to support the development of these skills through the education system and other mechanisms to ensure people can work and flourish in their jobs, helping to secure a prosperous future for our economy and society.
“We are thrilled to be working with the Nuffield Foundation and eminent colleagues on this vital research project.”
And Anna Thomas, director of the Institute for the Future of Work, said: “Covid-19 has hit communities across the UK at a time when technological transformation was already rapidly accelerating at a rate we haven’t seen since the industrial revolution. This transformation has the potential to impact large swathes of workers across a range of sectors, causing large-scale disruption throughout the economy.
“Our research will shine a light on how this transformation has and will impact different communities and groups of workers from different backgrounds. The Pissarides Review will be focused on building a strong evidence base and creating a roadmap for the UK to promote worker-focused, human-centred automation.”
