This lunchtime event will provide a window into the work of Management Science and the IDeA Centre.

Today’s session will set out a view for rethinking the manufacturing industry in Scotland. The standard model of Scottish economic history remembers the early 20th century as the pinnacle of prosperity, built upon manufacturing activity including textiles, shipbuilding and steel. In the interwar period and beyond, the inability to implement structural changes within Scottish industry left it unable to compete internationally, and employment in manufacturing in Scotland today is less than one third of what it was in 1950. Reasons for this decline include local issues, widespread policies of protectionism, global inequities in resource costs and prejudicial corporate decision-making. Most manufacturing jobs have been replaced by public-sector employment, leaving the Scottish economy dangerously unbalanced. If we are inclined to reverse this trend, it is clear that a different approach is required.

The question is - what does ‘different’ look like?