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IAS launches research programme on the knowledge-based economy

10/14/2005 12:10:51

Institute of Advanced Studies
Institute of Advanced Studies

Lancaster’s new Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) is launching its first Annual Research Programme on The Knowledge Based Economy on the 19th October 2005.

The Knowledge-Based Economy (KBE) has become the dominant economic strategy for many countries, regions, and cities and is endorsed by many economic, political, and social forces. It has also been criticised for creating a digital divide, new forms of social exclusion, and restricting access to knowledge.

The Programme, directed by Dr Steve Fleetwood (Organisation, Work and Technology) opens with a two-day interdisciplinary colloquium, bringing together local scholars and national and international visitors to share their most recent thoughts on the present and future of the KBE. The colloquium aims to allow some of the best minds in the field to engage in a genuine dialogue based upon current, and perhaps ‘blue skies’, thinking.

Through a series of 18 workshops running from October 2005 to September 2006, a wide range of local, national and international participants will then consider the KBE as a leading economic and social paradigm, its widespread adoption by firms, cities, regions, states, and international organizations as the basis for economic and political strategies, its dynamics, its costs and benefits, and its repercussions for wider social and cultural relations. The Programme concludes in September 2006 with an international conference on "Debating the Knowledge-Based Economy".

IAS is dedicated to providing distinguished scholars and practitioners with ‘time to think’ on crucial contemporary issues around the Arts, Social Sciences and Management in a rich and supportive interdisciplinary environment.

Further details of the Programme, including contact details for individual workshops, are available on the IAS website http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/ias/annualprogramme/kbe/2005-06.htm>