20 December 2008 Financial Times. Drop in demand is chief concern. Small business owners are more worried about customer spending than acces to bank finance, reports Jonathan Moules. Access to bank loans is far less of a concern to most small business owners than the worsening outlook for customer spending, a study by Cambridge University's Centre for Business Research found.
To read the full article by Jonathan Moules click here.
7 August 2008 Cambridge News Online. Aids for Small Firms. A long-running campaign to books hi-tech companies in Cambridge is set for success. Leading city figures have been pressing to increase the number of Government contracts that go to small companies by reforming the Small Business Research Initiative.
Former Cambridge MP Anne Campbell worked closely with David Connell at the Centre for Business Research, and David Sainsbury recommended the Government adopt their proposal in his review of science and innovation carried out last year.
To read the full article click here.
11 June 2008 Business Weekly. Cambridge team to investiage how much R&D goes unrecorded by Lautaro Vargas. The missing links in the R&D performance of East of England companies are being sought in a new study by the Centre for Business Research (CBR). The CBR team is launching a survey of over 800 companies across the region to discover how much R&D goes uncrecorded in official statistics.
To read the full article click here.
21 April 2008 Australia's ABC Radio National's Counterpoint. Interview with Professor Alan Hughes
Where do companies get their good ideas? What drives productivity, creativity and innovation? And do universities have a role in any of this? Counterpoint's Michael Duffy puts these and other questions to Professor Alan Hughes.
More about Counterpoint. To listen to the programme and the interview click here (Interview starts at 13.15)
16 April 2008 The Australian Higher Education. This is innovative: teach by Luke Slattery. AUSTRALIAN higher education, along with competitor systems in the global knowledge economy, is fiercely preoccupied with university-based research and development, its commercialisation and its contribution to the innovation agenda.
But when business leaders are asked what they want from higher education, according to international innovation researcher Alan Hughes, they invariably stress the need for universities to deliver on their founding goal: education.
To view the full article, please click here.
6 April 2008 AusInnovate. Experts names for Innovation Review. INNOVATION, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr has named four prominent international experts to act as advisors to the review of the Australian National Innovation System.
The experts are Professor Alan Hughes from the University of Cambridge, Professor Richard Lester from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Stan Metcalfe from the University of Manchester, and Professor Keith Smith from the Australian Innovation Research Centre.
To view the full entry, please click here.
2 April 2008 Business Day. Global flavour for innovation review by Tim Colebatch. FOUR international experts will join the Federal Government's innovation review to advise chairman Terry Cutler and his panel on how to redesign the support for Australian business and lift global competitiveness.
Dr Cutler, a technology and management consultant, and a nine-member panel are to identify "gaps and weaknesses" in Australia's innovation system, to review 169 government programs targeting innovation, such as the 125% R&D tax break and to redesign Australia's innovation policy.
They will soon be joined by industrial innovation specialist Richard Lester, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, small and medium enterprises innovation expert Alan Hughes, of the University of Cambridge, and science and innovation economist Stan Metcalfe, of the University of Manchester.
To view the full article, please click here.
1 April 2008 R&D Info. International Experts appointed to Innovation Review
Four international innovation experts have agreed to provide advice to the review of Australia's National Innovation System. The international experts are CBR's Director Professor Alan Hughes, Professor Stan Metcalfe of the University of Manchester, Professor Richard Lester of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Professor Keith Smith from the Australian innovation Research Centre.
To view the full article, please click here.
8 February 2008 ON LINE opinion. Cargo cult innovation by Tom Quirk.
What are we to expect from our new minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research?
A helpful critique of "The Innovation System" was recently given at a forum on innovative leadership by Professor Alan Hughes from Cambridge University.
He started his talk with a photograph of Melanesian cargo cult aircraft to illustrate one of the problems of constructing innovation policies. It is the difficulty of trying to understand how innovation occurs.
To view the full article, please click here.
20 September 2007 Time Magazine's website. Enlightened Self-Interest by Thomas K. Grose. In their new book, Multi-nationals in their Communities, CBR project leaders Ian Jones, Michael Pollitt and and CBR researcher David Bek look at well-run CSR projects and how they help the communities where they operate. To view the full article please click here.
21 August 2007 Cambridge Evening News. Risky business up for debate at city event. Dame Deirdre Hutton, chairman of the Food Standards Agency and deputy chair of the Financial Services Authority, plus Sir Paul Judge, who chairs the RSA Risk Commission, will be speaking at a special event in the city next month. The conference entitled The End of Zero Risk Regulation: risk toleration in regulatory practice takes place at Peterhouse on September 12. CBR's Senior Research Fellow Dr Paul Sanderson, one of the organisers of the event, explains that due to regulators being urged by government to tolerate certain levels of risk, this poses the question "What is an acceptable level of risk - and acceptable to whom - and how can such ideas be translated into practice?".
To view the full article please click here.
26 July 2007 New Statesman. The end of Risk by Lois Rogers.
A growing anxiety about what one might call the dangers of fearfulness has led Gordon Brown to ask the government's Better Regulation Commission (BRC) to produce a document presenting a "fully and more rounded presentation of public risk" as soon as possible. It is not clear whether anyone has dared to ask him exactly what he means, but the raw material he wants built on is a BRC report called Risk, Responsibility and Regulation: Whose Risk Is It Anyway?, produced last autumn.
The report warned that concern about risk in all aspects of life, and the ensuing plethora of bureaucratic regulation, were endangering Britain's economic performance. It is not a redundant concern. The US is the only country in the world that shares our risk paranoia, and last year another report, com missioned by Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, warned that the city's pre-eminence as a financial centre was under threat from too many directives and risk "regs".
Others are doubtful that anything much will happen at all. "There have been loads of these reports in recent years," says Paul Sanderson, a senior fellow at the University of Cambridge Centre for Business Research. "The government message is: 'Learn to love risk - we can't protect you from everything for ever,' but there is not much evidence so far of any change in practice." Nonetheless, he himself is organising an academic conference in September, optimistically entitled "The End of Zero Risk Regulation". The intention is to propagate the message that elimination of risk is not only undesirable, but unattainable.
To view the full article please click here.
19 July 2007 Business Weekly. New Research aims to put a price on UK brain power.
The Centre for Business Research (CBR) at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE), has been awarded a half-million pound grant by the Economic and Social Research Council to carry out research which will be used to draw implications for public policy aims to determine the factors affecting the incidence, form and effectiveness of knowledge exchange activities between the business and HEI sectors in the UK, and the way these and their impact vary across regional and sub-regional space.
To view the full article please click here.
31 May 2007 CNN.com.The good corporate citizen.
"Multinationals in their Communities: A Social Capital Approach to Corporate Citizenship Projects" by Ian Jones, Michael Pollitt and David Bek won the prize for best paper at a recent European conference on business ethics and has now been expanded into a book of the same name.
"Our findings have shown that multinationals offer a rare ability to link local, national and global communities and have the capacity to impact significantly on the quality of social relations within the communities in which they operate," said Dr Michael Pollitt.
The article is available here.
26 April 2007 New Zealand Herald. Maximum hope on minimum pay.
The gap between rich and poor has widened. A New Zealand researcher at Britain's Cambridge University, [CBR's] Colm McLaughlin, says wages in the main low-wage sectors of retailing and hospitality have fallen behind other sectors since the early 1990s because they are almost completely de-unionised. Fewer than 4 per cent of their workers now belong to unions. He suggests that industry bargaining mechanisms may be one way of addressing both equity and productivity issues in low paid sectors.
The full article is available here.
2 April 2007 "The Business" New Zealand Herald. The state of the unions. What's happened to New Zealand industrial relations? While on the surface employer and unions are determined to be seen as constructive and genial, the reality may be somewhat different. Dr Colm McLaughlin, a New Zealander based at Cambridge's Centre for Business Research, recently interviewed 50 union and business leaders, civil servants and academics in New Zealand and Ireland. His research uncovered deep ideological differences.
The full article can be viewed here.
20 March 2007 Times Online.
John Armour has been appointed Lovells Professor of Law and Finance at Oxford University. He is the first to hold the chair. Armour, a senior lecturer in law and Fellow of Trinity Hall at Cambridge, takes up his appointment in July and will become a Fellow of Oriel College. The article can be viewed here.
2 March 2007 10 Downing Street Website.
Professor Alan Hughes has been re-appointed for a further three years to membership of the Council for Science and Technology.
The news story can be viewed here.
23 February 2007 Financial Times.
In response to widespread distrust of Britain's official statistics, a bill now making its way through parliament proposes to make their production "independent", with a statistics board replacing the current Office for National Statistics.
CBR Research Associate Bill Martin's article The puzzle behind Britain's lamentable statistics can be viewed here.
6 February 2007 Cambridge Network Connection - Issue 26.
CBR's report Secrets of the World’s Largest Seed Capital Fund is to be the focus of the next Network Connection Open Meeting. The report argues that the UK should urgently introduce a US scheme that has successfully converted billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research into highly valuable products and helped build hundreds of successful companies.
The article can be viewed here.
12 October 2006 The Independent.
CBR research on Enron used in teaching Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to MBA students.
As business schools are trying to ensure that graduates understand the impact business has on society, Simon Deakin, Acting Director of the Centre for Business Research and Faculty member at Judge Business School in Cambridge, confirms: "Students now see companies making a big deal of CSR and they want to understand its technical aspects by exploring real case study evidence. We use the Enron case as an excellent example of the ethical and legal problems managers face in producing value for shareholders while remaining as competitive as possible."
The article by Martin Thompson can be viewed here.
September 2006 Library House PCI Executive Briefing Issue 4. 'The cry that Britain is good at science, but poor at exploiting it is as relevant today as it
was in Harold Wilson’s time, 40 years ago', says David Connell, senior research associate
with the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge University. 'The funding gap persists for
early stage science and technology companies despite repeated highlighting of the problem since
then.' David Connell is guest columnist in this month's issue. To view the the article please click here.
The CBR report Secrets of the World's Largest Seed Capital Fund by David Connell published in July 2006 explains how the United States uses its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Programme and Procurement Budgets to support small technology firms and
argues that the UK should urgently introduce this US scheme that has successfully converted billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research into highly valuable products and helped build hundred of successful companies.
It received widespread press attention
including the following articles:
- 29 July 2006 Financial Times. 'Small businesses in the US are receiving up to 10 times as much government financial support as their British equivalents, according to a report by Cambridge Centre for Business Research.' The article US businesses 'get more aid' than UK by Jonathan Moules can be viewed
here. (Login required).
- 30 July 2006 Observer. Article by Heather Stewart reports that 'As Tony Blair flies to California to meet Silicon Valley entrepreneurs this weekend, the report from the Centre for Business Research argues the US is far ahead of Britain in using public procurement contracts to nurture innovation'. The article Britain lags in funding start-ups can be viewed here.
- 31 July 2006 Management-issues Ltd.
Funding gulf drives UK entrepreneurs across the pond. 'According to Cambridge University's Centre for Business Research, the UK should urgently introduce a US scheme that has successfully converted billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research into highly valuable products and helped build hundreds of successful companies.' The full article can be viewed here.
- 1 August 2006 Cambridge Evening News - Business & Finance section. Article by Cameron Ramos Firms lack the funding of US rivals. 'Secrets of the World's Largest Seed Capital Fund, a report by Cambridge University's Centre for Business Research argues the UK should urgently introduce a US scheme that has given a leg-up to thousands of firms.'
October 2005, Synergy - the bi-annual magazine of
the Cambridge-MIT Institute, issue 5.An article about the
Innovation
Benchmarking study that is being conducted at the CBR with the sponsorship of the Cambridge-MIT Institute. The article
previews the forthcoming publication of the research findings in February 2006.
Issue 5 of Synergy can be downloaded
here.
May 2005, Public Service Director.
An article on activities aimed at stimulating more university-industry collaboration includes a description of
some of the early findings from the Innovation
Benchmarking study that is being conducted at the CBR with the sponsorship of the Cambridge-MIT Institute.
May 2005, Synergy - the bi-annnual magazine of
the Cambridge-MIT Institute, issue 4. The article,"Responding to Globalisation", reports on
The Globalising Behaviour of
UK Firms in a Comparative Context, a project that is being conducted at the CBR with the sponsorship of
the Cambridge-MIT Institute. Issue 4 of Synergy can be downloaded
here.
April 2005, Insight - The newsletter of the Cambridge
University Corporate Liaison Programme. An article about the two Cambridge-MIT Institute-funded studies - the
Innovation
Benchmarking study and the The Role of
Universities in Innovation Systems - on the complex role universities play in the UK innovation process and the
attitudes of businesses towards collaborating with universities.
2 March 2005, AltAssets.Net - The private equity news
and research service from Almeida Capital. An article about the
Innovation
Benchmarking study that is being conducted at the CBR with the sponsorship of the Cambridge-MIT Institute, and which
is casting new light on the role of universities in the UK innovation process. The article can be read online
here.
March 2005, Aim News - the newsletter of the Advanced
Institute of Management Research. An article about the competitive AIM and EPSRC 'Productivity Ideas Factory' held
in January 2005, in which CBR researcher Dr Xiaolan
Fu participated. As a result of their participation, Xiaolan and a group of her fellow experts from Aston,
Nottingham and Sheffield Universities subsequently jointly won a £500,000 research grant to study
The Role of Management Practices
in Closing the Productivity Gap. The article can be read online
here.
Spring 2005, Science in Parliament.
A feature article represents the views of CBR Director Professor Alan Hughes, and US policy adviser Dr
Charles Wessner, on ways of tackling the innovation challenge. Both men were speakers at the Cambridge-MIT
Institute annual Competitiveness Summit in November 2004, where Professor Hughes was talking about the early findings
from the Innovation
Benchmarking study that is being conducted at the CBR with sponsorship from CMI.
3 December 2004, The Times Higher Education Supplement.
A news story about the first findings from the Cambridge-MIT Institute funded Innovation
Benchmarking project, which show that UK universities are enjoying greater links with businesses than was
previously thought. The story, which quotes CBR Director Alan Hughes, can be read online. (Login required.)
30 November 2004, Financial Times.
A news story about the first findings from the Cambridge-MIT Institute funded Innovation
Benchmarking project, which are showing that smaller businesses in the UK are twice as likely to collaborate with
universities as their US counterparts. The story, which quotes the CBR's Dr Andy Cosh, can be read online here. (Login required.)
30 November 2004, Cambridge-MIT Institute website.
A news story about the first findings from the Cambridge-MIT Institute funded Innovation
Benchmarking project, which are showing that smaller businesses in the UK are twice as likely to collaborate with
universities as their US counterparts. The story can be read online
here.
29 April 2004, London Evening Standard.
'City Comment' editor Anthony Hilton, discussing why it is acceptable for an entrepreneur to go bankrupt in America but
not in England, refers to research by John Armour and Doug Cumming of the Centre for Business Research in Cambridge that
has "found a real-world correlation between bankruptcy law and the demand for venture capital..." The article
quotes "The Legal Road to Replicating Silicon Valley",
CBR
Working Paper 281.
March 2004, Professional Manager.
A news story on CBR research indicating that not all high-tech small firms fit a stereotypical mould. This is the project
conducted by Dr Thelma Quince and Hugh Whittaker, entitled "The Beer beneath the Froth: Preliminary findings from case
studies of 25 small high-technology firms" and published as CBR
Working Paper 272.
March 2004, Professional Manager.
News article about the conclusions of CBR
Working Paper 282 on Catherine Barnard's and Simon Deakin's research into the use of the opt-out from the
48-hour working week.
23 March 2004, Business Weekly.
A news story about the Prime Minister's appointment of CBR Director Alan Hughes, along with two
other Cambridge academic and business figures, to the Government's revamped Council for Science and Technology.
2 March 2004, The Guardian, 2 March 2004. Economics
editor Larry Elliott, writing about the
practical difficulties of exploiting the UK science and technology base, quotes the views of CBR Director Alan Hughes,
that the technology transfer process is far more complex than simply pouring money in to
universities at one end and extracting finished products from cutting-edge companies at the other. Professor Hughes had
given a presentation about his ongoing CBR research, into Universities and Their Role in Systems of Innovation, at a
conference in Cambridge in February 2004.
6 January 2004, The Financial Times.
An opinion piece by CBR assistant director Simon Deakin, with his Cambridge colleague Catherine Barnard, on their research
into the impact of the Working Time Directive, and the complexity of Britain's long working hours culture. Their research was published by the CBR in April 2004 as
CBR Working Paper 282.
6 July 2003, The Sunday Times.
A feature in the small business pages of the Sunday Times about the pressures faced by small firms on many fronts, which quotes the CBR's
'Enterprise Challenged' survey.
July 2003 Professional Manager. A report on the CBR's 'Enterprise Britain' survey
mentions the evidence in the report, and quotes the supporting statistics, that although the small firms sector is
commonly seen as the main engine of the UK economy, smaller firms have a less innovative outlook than larger companies.
July 2003 Professional Manager. A report on Jude Browne's CBR Working Paper 251, on
gender and pay inequity, and her conclusion that it would help close the existing pay and gender gap if working parents
were allowed to share paid parental leave, rather than simply extending paid maternity leave.
30 June 2003 The Telegraph. A news story quoting the findings from the CBR's
'Enterprise Challenged' report that the numbers of failures of small and medium-sized businesses has tripled between
the periods 1997-1999 and 1999-2002.
26 June 2003 Business Europe.com. A news story features findings from the CBR's
'Enterprise Challenged' report about the increased rate of business failures.
(Login required to read the story online)
26 June 2003 The Times. A news story about the rate of failure among Britain's small
businesses quoting findings from the CBR's 'Enterprise Challenged' report that the rate of business
failure has risen from 7.1 per cent to 21.8 per cent between 1997 and 2002. (Read the story
online )
8 June 2003 The Sunday Times. A report on the CBR's 'Enterprise Challenged' survey.
It focuses on the chapter devoted to small firms and the sources of
business support and advice they use, and quotes the chapter's co-authors, Professor Bob Bennett, and Paul Robson.
8 June 2003 The Mail On Sunday. A news story about the rising number of
small and medium firms complaining that legislation is so onerous that it creates unnecessary bureaucracy and
is becoming a barrier to hiring. The story features findings from the CBR's report, 'Enterprise
Challenged', and quotes co-author Dr Andy Cosh.
(Read the story
online )
23 April 2003 Cambridge Evening News. This story in the Business pages
highlights Jude Brown's research into pay and gender equity, featured in CBR Working Paper 251 ("Gender Pay
Inequity: A Question for Corporate Social Responsibility?").
(Read the story
online )
11 March 2003 Cambridge Evening News. The story quotes findings from the
forthcoming CBR British Enterprise survey of UK small and medium-sized firms, which will be published
in full in June 2003. (Read the story
online )
27 January 2003 BBC1, 10 O'Clock News. BBC Economics Correspondent
Evan Davies, covering the unprecedented 11th successive day of stock-market falls, interviews CBR Research
Fellow Jonathan Ward about the implications for financial institutions. Jonathan works on the International Financial
Regulation project.
26 January 2003 The Mail on Sunday. Paul Guest, co-author of CBR
Working Paper 252 ('Do takeovers create value? A residual income approach on UK data.') is interviewed
about research findings that takeovers destroy shareholder value and fail to improve profitability. (Read the story online)
29 November 2002, Cambridge Evening News.
(Technology clusters 'can cause problems', November 29, 2002).
Ron Martin and Peter Sunley's Working Paper
244 forms the basis of an article on how "Technology clusters 'can cause problems'." Download a pdf of the
article here
The Times. The venture capital
'roundtable' event organised by John Armour and Simon Deakin is reported in the paper's Law Supplement.
1 September 2002, The Observer. ("One of Our
Governors is Missing", by Faisal Islam). Quoted CBR researcher Kern
Alexander Details
23 June 2002, International Herald Tribune.
Simon Learmount, Corporate Governance gets a Japanese twist.
24 June 2002, Asahi Shimbin. Simon Learmount,
Corporate Governance gets a Japanese twist.
11 May 2002, Financial Times. ("Synergies,
strategies and all that jazz", by Edmond Warner.) Quoted CBR Working Paper No. 215.
March 2002, The Financial Regulator.
("Extraterritorial Financial Controls and the Patriot Act", by Kern Alexander).
Details
March 2002, Reinsurance Magazine. CBR researcher
Lilach Nachum's research written up under the heading 'City must mend its ways'.
18 Feb 2002, The Guardian. CBR project leader
Michael Kitson writes on the the balance of payments, 'We can't keep spending',
Details.
5 January 2002, Insurance Day. CBR researcher Lilach
Nachum's research written up in 'The London market and the effect of foreign ownership'.
The CBR report "The Governance of Mutuality", published in early
spring 2001 called on government urgently to review and overhaul the legislation
governing mutual societies. It received widespread press attention
including the following articles:
25 February 2001, The Financial Mail on
Sunday ("Mutuals make a mockery of people
power", by Personal Finance Editor Jeff Prestridge.)
February 2001, Building Society News
("Vast Majority of Population Needs Mutuals".)
19 February 2001, Peterborough Evening Telegraph
("N&P chief calls for code of best practice", by Business Editor Michael Cooke.)
5 February 2001, Eastern Daily Press
("Mutuals in Danger", by Trevor Burton.)
4 Febuary 2001, The Independent on Sunday
("Mutuality must not be left to die", by Personal Finance Editor Melanie Bien.)
4 February 2001, The Observer
("More competition - but more mergers", by Maria Scott.)
4 February 2001, The Financial Mail on Sunday
("A Mauling for Mutuals" and "Feelings are mutual on the internet battlefield".)
3 February 2001, The Financial Times
("Endangered Species. Mutuals are under threat. But are they worth saving?" by Personal Finance
Editor Simon London.)
1 February 2001, The Cambridge Evening News
("University group wants protection for mutuals".)
31 January 2001, Business Weekly
("Meltdown for the mutuals, fear", by Alice Walker.)
Around the same
time, our project for the (then) Department of Education and Employment
on the link between training and job creation in small firms also featured
in the press. (The Relationship between Training and Employment Growth in
Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.)
25 April 2001, EMTA Matters
("Job creation for small firms".)
28 February 2001, Trainingzone weekly e-zine
("Training plays a crucial role in employment in SMEs - new study".)
12 February 2001, The Daily Telegraph
("Cambridge wants you to get a first in training", by Business Monitor Editor Michael Beckett.)
24 January 2001, This Is Money website
("Training boosts employment growth", by Jo Thornhill.)
Press coverage later
in 2001 was clustered around our book "British Enterprise in Transition",
published in September 2001. Of particular interest to journalists were
the CBR's findings on the continuing existence of a North-South divide in
the performance of small firms, and the first study into the impact of the
National Minimum Wage on small businesses. Press coverage included:
25 September 2001, The Guardian
("How paying the minimum raises the stakes", by Mike Kitson and Frank Wilkinson, Debate column.)
29 August 2001, The Independent
("New wealth gap opens as urban small firms outpace rural rivals", by Economics Correspondent Philip Thornton.)
28 August 2001, The Times ("North-South
divide widening", by Economics Editor Janet Bush.)
September 2000, Finance & Management ("Why banks are back in favour with small businesses", by Andy Cosh and Alan Hughes, issue 67.)
