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- What is the feasibility, benefits and road safety risks of relaxing driving licence regulation and training qualifications so people can drive certain heavy vehicles with less additional testing or professional development?
- Where have bus services been a success (either in the UK or internationally) and why were they successful? How is it related to history, socio-economic and demographic factors, alternative travel modes and financial and other incentives?
- How can policing capitalise on geospatial technologies to deliver new information forms that can enhance situational awareness and decision making?
- How can we best communicate and understand the public’s perception of autonomous vehicles and drone usage in policing?
- What are the risks to UK interests if the industry led, multi stakeholder nature of the global internet is weakened in favour of greater state- or multilateral control?
- Evaluate the extent to which the emerging regulatory landscape and the implementation of relevant regulation can be harnessed as a driver to support growth.
- Evaluate current growth barriers or opportunities, understand where action is needed (by the Government or others) to address these barriers, and understand the impact of any interventions.
- How would a shift towards interoperable / decentralised social media (aka ‘the fediverse’) alter how disinformation spreads, and the ability to be able to address it?
- What risk is there that generative AI evolves such that the content it generates can avoid detection faster than tools can be developed to detect it? How can international and industry collaboration limit this risk?
- Where are the opportunities for international collaboration to increase the UK’s role and influence over the development of next generation telecommunications technologies - including advanced 5G and beyond?
- How can we better join up digital standards with UK research and innovation sectors to ensure that digital standards are a valued element of the innovation lifecycle in the UK?
- How can the UK effectively assess and mitigate semiconductor supply chain vulnerabilities?
- What incentives need to be put in place to ensure that the UK semiconductor industry remains competitive?
- How can the UK retain and expand its strategic advantage in relation to semiconductor IP, design, R&D and compound and advanced materials?
- A taxonomy of economic and national security risks with likelihood impact assessments to determine relative severity.
- What are the most effective policies and approaches taken by platforms to counter disinformation?
- How do we ensure that AI adoption in the public sector is safe?
- What would happen to casualty trends if there were no policy interventions?
- What are the potential opportunities and issues associated with the development and deployment of open telecoms solutions such as Open RAN, and how should government intervention be targeted to utilise or mitigate these? How is Open RAN adoption progressing and what is the likely trajectory? What are the barriers to adoption and acceptance of open architectures for 5G deployment and how are they changing? What are the economic benefits associated with this?
- How can various data sources inform how we identify, address and resolve market access barriers relating to goods, services and foreign investment?
- What is the best/most appropriate indicator of financial health and sustainability of AHT organisations? At what point do AHT organisations become at risk and might require government intervention to secure their long term survival?
- Analyse the most significant factors that create barriers/risks to financial health for AHT organisations. What policy interventions can reduce financial risk for these organisations?
- Does international regulatory cooperation help reduce regulatory barriers to trade in innovative products and services?
- How can policing ensure transparency in decision-making, so it is open to challenge?
- What are the infrastructure, airspace, regulatory and skills requirements for the UK space industry and what are the impacts of existing government interventions?
- How can geospatial analysis and mapping help monitor trade patterns during recovery and target business support?
- What barriers, if any, impact the media literacy sector's delivery of effective and wide-reaching media literacy activities? What are the potential intervention opportunities for government in this space?
- What interventions are effective at building strong media literacy capabilities in UK citizens (including building resilience to harms such as misinformation and disinformation)? Are there examples of interventions from other countries that could inform the UK's approach?
- How can we best evaluate the impact of DIT’s campaigns and events on businesses?
- In what ways do security interventions (under the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021) in the telecoms market have an impact on investment within the sector? How is this broken down, in a quantitative manner, by fixed and mobile infrastructure?
- How can the UK foster international influence in digital policy, and what should the priorities be for cooperation over such policy?
- What does research tell us about the impact of interventions that the Government has put in place to strengthen the UK's capabilities in digital and emerging technologies, and about possible future trajectories?
- Comparative studies on international strategic advantages now and in the future.
- What is the nature of international investment in science and tech related R&D?
- What are the most relevant potential changes in the external security and resilience risk environment?
- How can government funding be used most effectively to support future adoption of important technologies?
- Identify factors which inhibit UK telecoms research and development in terms of: (i) skills and talents (education, jobs), (ii) R&D (lack of IP knowledge, facilities), (iii) investment (private sector / venture capital), (iv) coordination, (v) market dynamics (barriers to entry, commercialisation, international policies and subsidies).
- Identify factors which inhibit UK telecoms research and development in terms of: (i) skills and talents (education, jobs), (ii) R&D (lack of IP knowledge, facilities), (iii) investment (private sector / venture capital), (iv) coordination, (v) market dynamics (barriers to entry, commercialisation, international policies and subsidies).
- What are the potential unintended consequences of digital technology (5G, ORAN, Fibre, etc) policies and to what extent could the market mitigate them?
- Identify the policy intervention options for mitigating barriers to UK capability, including analysis of how policy could stimulate or support (e.g. research and publications, start ups, investments, commercialisation). What can we learn from other countries’ approaches, or what are the ecosystem benefits we can emulate from the practice of leading international companies?
- Which of the future technologies will the UK have a comparative advantage in or face particular challenges in regard to global competition? How can the UK build strategic advantage in key technologies and how can the benefits be measured?
- What are the biggest chemical, pesticide, and hazardous waste-related risks to the environment and human health, both in the UK and globally? What are the costs of inaction? How are these risks most effectively monitored and managed, and what is the role of government?
- To what extent will mobile market consolidation impact: (i) mobile coverage, (ii) consumer choice, (iii) consumer behaviour? How might the government or regulatory body need to prepare or intervene?
- What research and social experimentation can quantify harms and impacts of harmful online practices with a view to develop best practice principles and regulation?
- How can the government facilitate data-driven innovation and boost competitiveness in data intensive sectors without adversely disrupting markets and investment in data capabilities?
- What measures and prioritisation tools can be used to better evaluate and target cyber risks with government interventions?
- What could the government and/or industry do to help improve the cybermedicine of software supply chains?
- How effective is UK government messaging and guidance on adopting cybersecurity? Do some messages land better than others? Why? With whom?
- What are the barriers and opportunities for external investment in UK cyber sector companies? To what extent are these specific to cyber versus reflecting the UK investment landscape overall? What can be done to encourage investors to look at cyber companies based outside London and the South East?
- What are the critical emerging technologies on the 5, 10, and 15-year horizon which have the potential to change cyberspace or impact on the UK’s cyber-power and strategic advantage? What novel critical applications of existing technologies could have the potential to transform cyberspace? How should emerging technologies be prioritised for cyber security research?
- What is the trade-off of cost compared to security that companies are seeing? Could the cost of security cause businesses to minimise or abstain from effective security protocols and codes of practice that are produced by governments, regulators and international organisations/bodies? If so, what could be done to mitigate this risk?
- What evidence is there for not embedding adequate cyber security in highly commercialised or direct-to-consumer tech? What evidence is there on cybersecurity not being embedded adequately in sectors with lower regulation?
- What cyber interventions that DSIT or NCSC runs are the most effective at reducing cyber incidents and improving cyber resilience? How effective are the NIS Regulations at securing operators of essential services in the UK? How effective is carrying out each of the 10 Steps to Cyber Security at reducing cyber risk?
- What are the (aggregate) impacts of current digital regulations implemented by the UK Government? What are the best/potential measures that can evaluate impacts? What could a best practice monitoring and evaluation framework look like?
- How can we ensure use of AI is ethical?
- How can we best stress test the UK’s playbooks for different risks becoming crises in an ongoing way?
- How can ‘systems science’ be used by government and regulators to improve their understanding, making their policies better targeted and more effective? How can ‘behavioural science’ be used to influence the behaviour of key stakeholders (regulators, businesses and/or policymakers) to achieve better policy outcomes?
- How can we scan the regulatory horizon to identify opportunities to improve the regulatory environment? What role can regulators play in helping government identify areas of regulation in need of reform (and what information could they provide)? As new technologies develop, how can we more effectively anticipate and ‘roadmap’ the need for regulation and/or standardisation? How can we estimate what/when risks will occur (based on TRL) and when regulation is needed?
- Estimating the climate change impact of the space sector, across the entire value chain. Analysing and proposing methods and mechanisms to reduce this impact. Estimating how space sector products (e.g., earth observation) can support broader climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. What is the role of government in this context?
- What are plausible scenarios and what role could/should the UK play in them?
- RDI outside of the Greater South East: How can the government boost RDI outside of the Greater South East to boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards? Also, how can the UK attract RDI investment in these clusters from private actors?
- How is the space sector changing our society? What will this look like in the future? What is the role of government in this context?
- Innovation diffusion and adoption: How can we measure and understand the adoption and diffusion of new ideas and technologies across regions and sectors? How can we support more widespread adoption of existing and new innovations?
- How can government effectively champion UK-led space science, exploration and innovation which expands our horizons and inspires the next generation?
- How to increase bilateral and multilateral partnerships with other spacefaring nations, forging the best relationships to achieve our goals in space?
- How to make the UK a partner of choice in space activities?
- What is the evidence for the effectiveness of UK intervention in the space sector?
- What is the role of government in this context?
- What enables UK space sector companies to thrive – and what stops them from thriving?
- How best to draw on collaborative research and innovation, international opportunities, and global talent to be resilient and competitive?
- Marginal value of RDI: What is the marginal value of RDI in a programme? Many different research projects are funded in open research calls - how does the average value of these research projects compare to the marginal value of the last research project chosen?
- What evaluation methods are appropriate for comparing reputation and influence impacts across programmes?
- How do investments in R&I (e.g. infrastructure, partnerships) contribute to reputation and influence?
- What data and metrics exist which could be used to estimate the return on R&I activities?
- AI sector: What are the key opportunities for HMG to intervene that will support the growth of the UK AI sector?
- "R&D : In which areas of AI R&D is the UK strongest? What are the most significant AI R&D opportunities for the UK? Which government interventions are most effective for boosting UK AI R&D (relative to such goals as economic growth, productivity and security)?"
- How will AI impact societal cohesion, including through trust in institutions and the government and through factionalism?
- What does reputation and influence mean for international R&I?
- How should the UK position itself in terms of the global AI market? What sort of AI businesses should we particularly be looking to attract?
- How can we monitor prevalence of COVID-19 and similar viruses through our water systems to act as an early warning system and inform public health decisions?
- Using regional and local studies, what is the impact of export finance services on localised markets? How does export finance services support regional growth and development?
- How can we evaluate best practice intervention for addressing climate change and gender equality?
- Analyse and explain the common features of organisations that are making the largest economic contribution within an AHT subsector (e.g. type, size, location of businesses). What lessons can be learnt to drive future growth policy?
- What are the key factors that could drive improved productivity and efficiency in the delivery of DWP services? How can DWP services be designed to effectively identify vulnerable groups and those with complex multiple needs, in order to facilitate early intervention in partnership with other organisations?
- What are the barriers and opportunities for recruiting and retaining teachers, and how does this vary by subject, school type, area, and region?
- If digital identity solutions become more widespread, what are the impacts this could have on marginalised groups? What further interventions could be implemented to improve access for these groups?
- To what extent do international trade expos help build the reputation of the UK and its regional strengths as a destination for international projects?
- Wider evidence landscape: How are statistics valued and used in the wider evidence landscape, such as in comparison to privately produced statistics, anecdotal evidence or management information, and what influences this? What sets official statistics apart within the wider evidence landscape, how well is this understood, and how does this influence confidence in them, their use and how they are valued?
- Misuse of statistics: What makes a statistic or data vulnerable to misuse, in what contexts is this more likely (including who is most susceptible to this and why), and how is this best addressed? What are the impacts when statistics or data are misused, how does misinformation propagate? How can public confidence in statistics or data be maintained in the face of misuse?
- Use of statistics: Who is using official statistics, where do they find them, how are they being used, and what influences this? What do people look for in statistics or data being used as evidence to have confidence in using them, and how can we build this confidence?
- Value: Building on the work of others, how should we understand and measure the value of statistics and data used as evidence, and what influences this?
- Trustworthiness: What influences perceived trustworthiness of statistics or data being used as evidence, and how can those across the statistical system increase it? To what degree do people trust official statistics or other data used as evidence, and how much do perceptions of trustworthiness influence this?
- How can DWP best contribute to net zero by driving reductions in emissions through work and pensions policies, estates and operations?
- To what extent are trade remedies effective in protecting domestic production and employment? How regionally specific is this relationship?
- How can DWP ensure all those entitled to claim benefits or access DWP services are reached? What barriers to accessing support services are faced by individuals from disadvantaged groups?
- How can the benefit system best help low income and vulnerable households with their housing costs? What is the impact of DWP’s expenditure on housing support? What factors impact on evictions, homelessness and rough sleeping? How effective are policies designed to reduce homelessness?
- We also need to look internationally: How does our domestic approach compare internationally? How does implementation differ between developing and developed countries?
- To what degree do barriers to procurement affect UK export and investment performance?
- How can it be ensured, that regulatory reform promotes safe workplace practices and
does not introduce or amplify risks?
- To what extent does the use of international standards particularly facilitate trade with developing, low and middle-income countries?
- What approaches will best empower rural communities to develop social, economic, and environmental interventions appropriate to their own local circumstances?
- What cyber interventions that DSIT or NCSC runs are most likely to be adopted and what is the positive impact of these? What drivers exist for the adoption of these? What are the barriers to adoption? Do sectors with more stringent regulatory measures see higher adoption of cyber security principles than non-regulatory driven protocols? What other non-UK government frameworks matter most to organisations?
- How can policy action best support decarbonisation of aviation? What is the most appropriate role for market-based measures compared to other policy measures? How should market based measures and other policy measures be designed to mitigate the risk of unintended consequences?
- How can we value non-FTA agreements (including the Government Procurement Agreement and mutual recognition agreements), in terms of total impact?
- Risk management: Novel approaches to assessment and analysis of risk and resilience
- What are the likely changes to our agricultural sector following COVID-19 and how can the agricultural system transition be best guided towards a sustainable trajectory while ensuring food security?
- What are the audience insights across Secretary of State and Government priorities as well as ongoing marketing projects (Build Back Better, etc.)?
- How can we assess the impact of the National Adaptation Programme and Adaptation Reporting Power on improving resilience?
- What are the big strategic questions in relation to ‘Pro-Innovation Regulation’ that the government should be focused on? Do regulatory mandates and remits need to change and if so how, as markets and the economy continue to shift? Is sector-focused regulation struggling to cope with changing markets, and how should it interact with horizontal regulation? Should innovation be made an explicit part of regulators’ remit, without diluting their responsibility for consumer safety? How far should regulation be used to create new markets or shape existing ones?
- What impact are the governments ‘Pro-Innovation regulation’ policies having (including the Regulatory Horizons Council and Regulators Pioneer Fund) and how can we better evaluate such policies in the future? Can we create an evaluation system specifically designed to help businesses and regulators monitor and evaluate the impacts of different regulatory approaches to create a coherent consistent library from which lessons can be learnt?
- What approach should central Government take to best manage and organise road freight / logistics in the UK to make it more efficient, resilient and reduce its environmental impact and what would be its likely impact on costs and competition in the supply chain?
- How can the interests and economies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland best be supported by the UK government?
- What are the infrastructure, airspace, regulatory and skills requirements for the emerging aviation technologies and what are the impacts of existing government interventions?
- What tools can we best use to reflect Levelling Up objectives within transport appraisal: for example, improved data visualisation, local prosperity metrics, place-based analysis, or distributional weights.
- What are good policies, interventions, and strategies to improve the capability and capacity of local authorities to deliver transport provision?
- How do different models of funding, planning and decision-making result in different outcomes for transport e.g., centralised vs. devolved; public vs. private operation of networks/asset management; short vs. long-term?
- What conditions need to be in place for transport investments to transform local economies? These conditions may relate to demographic factors, complementary investments, or government policies for example. What are the micro mechanisms that underpin how workers move across space due to better transport connections?
- In what ways is the UK regulatory environment helping / hindering the plans and activities of innovators? Is it becoming more friendly or less friendly to innovators over time? Methodologically, what is the best way of measuring the health of the UK regulatory environment over time?
- Horizon scanning assessments of the future landscape for space.
- How to assess the costs and benefits of existing international collaborations?
- How can trade agreements effectively incorporate the interests of regulatory agencies?
- How can we evaluate economic impact of customs and trade facilitation procedures following trade agreements?
- Establishing competitive advantage in attracting international talent to the UK: How best to attract and retain international RDI workers and talent? What factors work as enablers and barriers to attracting talented researchers and innovators? How do those factors vary for different types of RDI workers (e.g., occupations, disciplines, etc.)? What is the impact of the current visa regime on the RDI workforce and attracting and retaining global talent?
- What levers are most effective for the Gambling Commission to use in regulating towards a socially responsible industry?
- What are the risks to creative industries international activities from changes in the global political landscape?
- To what extent does local authority spending in England on preventative services reduce spending on demand-led services? (e.g. the relationship between ‘early help’ spending and children’s social care spending in Children’s Services). How can this best be measured?
- What barriers exist to building sustainable business models in the press sector and what action is required to remove these?
- Optimisation of strategy and priority setting institutions and governance in the RDI system: Do we have the right institutional model for strategy and priority setting at all levels across the UK RDI system to deliver the ambitions of the Science and Technology framework?
- What works across our prisons to increase safety and security and reduce levels of violence?
- What activities and outcomes contribute to improving reputation and influence?
- International comparisons: How do UK capabilities compare to international leaders (such as the US, China, France, South Korea, Singapore, Israel)?How do these governments’ interventions and capabilities policies compare to the UK’s?
- The elements of preventative programmes that are most effective, with whom, when and why.
- Understanding the current and future demands on fire and rescue services and the capability needed to meet those demands.
- Analysis of how public trust in democratic, religious and social institutions is evolving in different countries and communities
- What are most effective ways to appropriately account for displacement effects (meaning where the expansion of an activity, such as economic activity, in one location has the effect of bringing about a reduction in that activity elsewhere) of levelling up policies and interventions?
- What are the best ways to measure the ‘softer’ outcomes, such as changes in wellbeing, and how to attach a value to such interventions?
- What can we learn from COVID-19 about helping local areas to be more resilient to economic, and other, shocks? And what is the impact of changes in demand for land, such as office, retail, housing etc in particular locations?
- What impact do food insecurity and other disparities have on the consumer and the food system?
- How will the health and economic impacts of coronavirus affect the attitude of governments and publics to the illegal wildlife trade
- Assess and evaluate the most effective methods of measuring the impact of tourism marketing, to demonstrate its effectiveness and value for money.
- What is the impact of coronavirus on the multilateral and international alignments on climate change consensus? What opportunities are afforded the UK in its efforts to tackle the global threat
- What’s the best way of tracking the impact of different funding streams on a place?
- What is the impact of micro individual behaviours and interaction with neighbourhood infrastructure and community spaces in creating the conditions for wider societal outcomes (e.g. health outcomes, crime reduction, climate change)? How can we understand where the marginal gains are to be had, i.e. what is the minimum behaviour change needed that creates significant accumulative impact?
- Identify the key drivers/determinants of productivity within AHT sectors, including which policies can increase the economic productivity of organisations.
- What innovative methods are being developed on evaluation approaches, which could be applied to our different policy areas? Which experimental and quasi experimental methods can we look to which could be applied to our areas? Are there examples we can showcase and learn from?
- What is the best way to track and measure the value of DIT’s service interventions?
- What can we learn from best practice in public service delivery from across the UK?
- What is the role of transparency and data in driving high quality local public services? What is the evidence of the difference they can make, and what are the resourcing implications?
- What is the evidence on how local government spending translates into outcomes? And what drives better, more accountable, public services?
- What does the evidence show was more or less effective about the particularly intense engagement between local and national government during the pandemic, and what we have learnt about the key enablers developed between the tiers of government in this last period? Which of these would most helpfully be sustained in future (e.g. data sharing)?
- What does good procurement of public services look like, and what is the role of central government within that?
- What has the pandemic taught us are the necessary pre-conditions for effective devolution of a public service to the local tier? Within that, what has the pandemic taught us about how accountability, such as managing public money, should be managed? And where does the evidence show that centralisation is more appropriate?
- How should high performing and efficient local government and local public services be incentivised?
- What does the evidence show about the most appropriate ways of developing and supporting local public services across the UK?
- How can we develop and exploit new methodologies to ensure cost-effective monitoring of climate change and adaptation actions and impact on climate risk? How do we measure resilience to test the success and cost effectiveness of actions, and incorporate resilience indicators into decision making?
- What are the barriers to the building industry investing in better data management (generating information, saving it, and making it accessible) and how can these be addressed? What sorts of government incentives/interventions are effective to achieve digital transformation of the building industry?
- What pressures will there be on global natural resources - especially energy, food, water and critical elements - in the short, medium and long term, and with what strategic policy implications for the UK in a changing world?
- What interventions are most effective at helping people to sustain tenancies after receiving support?
- What does international evidence tell us about effective combinations of government and devolved support for local growth? How important is this in tackling productivity differentials between areas?
- What are the most effective interventions governments can implement to increase housing supply where most needed?
- How can we better understand flows into the courts and tribunals system, reasons for entry, and the impact of external organisations and their activities?
- What can we learn from the COVID-19 shielding programme and other programmes that supported our most vulnerable groups during the pandemic? What were the costs and benefits of different interventions?
- What are the likely longer-term consequences of COVID-19 for vulnerable groups and communities in terms of the volume and type of need? What new considerations does this introduce in terms of central government’s role, and that of other levels of government and other providers?
- How does well-being matter in the context of levelling up? What are the most effective levers for government (central and local) to affect well-being? How does well-being interact with other place based interventions such as housing and regeneration?
- How might we compare the impacts of acute and chronic disaster risks to inform prioritisation for policy intervention?
- Institutional capacity and capability – what are they, how should they be measured, and which dimensions best advance desired outcomes?
- What do different parts of the country need from central, devolved and local government interventions? What does that tell us about where funding is most needed?
- How can we evaluate additionality of government support in investment promotion?
- How do businesses adapt their delivery of services between the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 4 Modes of Supply? To what extent are the four GATS 4 Modes of Supply compliments or substitutes?
- What impact do restrictions on data flows and data localisation requirements have on trade?
- How can we best evaluate the barriers to trade in services and their impact on trade flows?
- What is best practice in developing the international classifications underpinning trade measurement – including product codes for goods, classifications for services and their relationship to sectors?
- As the gambling reforms are introduced, we want to gather evidence as to how they are providing benefits and analyse their impacts as the sector continues to change.
- How can we effectively evaluate countries’ relative technology readiness levels (TRL), by technical area, sector and overall strategy? To what extent does the commercial, regulatory and legal environment impact on TRLs? To what extent can market access restrictions to some sectors have wider impacts on trade within other sectors?
- What further data sources could help us build a more complete picture of the exporter journey?
- Better understand and quantify the extent to which investment in grassroots facilities improves participation, including for underrepresented groups and in different parts of the country.
- With growing preference for greener investments, how should sustainability goals be balanced with ensuring all sectors can continue to access financial markets?
- What measures could help minimise the risks of de-forestation, biodiversity, and habitat loss in producer countries, without creating excessive trade distortion?
- Examine how sport, and interventions in sport, affect pride in place, levelling up, and other wider societal outcomes.
- How useful is comparative advantage when identifying and evaluating opportunities across UK regions and sectors?
- How can we best evaluate the impact of non-tariff, regulatory measures to trade in goods, including technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary measures?
- How can we best evaluate the trade restrictiveness of different categories of non-tariff measures (at both bilateral and multilateral levels, across goods, services and investment)?
- How have different sectors (aerospace, financial services, telecoms), sizes of business, regions and the self-employed been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, and how might they be impacted differently by the recovery phase?
- To what extent does regulatory divergence affect bilateral trade flows?
- To what extent can market access barriers in some sectors have wider impact on trade in other sectors?
- To what extent do the impacts of market access barriers have varying effects according to the size of firm? How does this vary by the type of barrier?
- How can we measure the impact of a trade agreement on value added trade? How does this differ by sector?
- Which elements of trade agreements have historically had the greatest impact on trade flows?
- How should the predictive accuracy of CGE models be assessed?
- What are the long-term impact of provisions that bind in existing market access and reduce uncertainty?
- To what extent are the provisions in trade agreements utilised in practice? Which sectors or businesses are most likely to use them?
- How effective have existing trade agreements been in reducing the trade restrictiveness of non-tariff measures?
- How do we incorporate the full spectrum of natural capital and the value of the benefits it provides into policy development, analysis, and appraisal? What are the tools we need to make use of robust economic values easier for everyone – across government and beyond?
- How can global demand shocks (including for emergency and medical supplies) be best modelled, accounting for uncertainty?
- How can government policy best foster supply chain resilience, and incentivise businesses to develop supply chain resilience strategies?
- How effective is trade and investment policy in creating economic security and resilience that safeguards against shocks? What can we learn from comparing different country responses?
- How can the UK best uphold the global rules-based system to support trade recovery?
- To what extent and how does the UK government’s investment in overseas cultural heritage protection impact on international trade flows between the UK and recipient countries?
- How should mitigation of other greenhouse gases and pollutants be compared to and combined with CO2 mitigation (i.e., what is the balance of action and what are the appropriate metrics to compare them), and what do these mean for the timing of the requirement for net zero emissions?
- Can other land-based approaches to greenhouse gas removal, such as enhanced weathering and biochar, help achieve net zero without negative environmental impacts?
- What are the competing pressures, trade-offs, and synergies of different land-uses in relation to climate change in a post COVID-19 world?
- What data and evidence are needed to inform policy and delivery and what are the best sources to meet these needs? How can we improve broad access to this data and enhance knowledge exchange across the agri-food industry?
- What are the social, economic, and cultural impacts of marine policy, management, and interventions on stakeholders and coastal communities?
- What types of governance may improve resilience of the water system?
- Endemic animal diseases undermine agricultural productivity, negatively impacting animal welfare, farmers’ livelihoods, public health, and threaten trade. Increased research into improved methods of detection and control of bovine TB and other such endemic diseases remains a priority for Defra
- How can the UK protect and increase its standing stock of organic carbon: trees, peat, soil, and salt marshes? How can these habitats most efficiently be distributed spatially given limited land and other needs (for example urban space, food production, recreation)? How can increases in carbon stocks be achieved while maximising co-benefits such as biodiversity, clean water, and nutrient balance?
- What are the emerging drivers of change and what might future change look like? New thinking, analysis, and data can improve our understanding, and our ability to anticipate how economic, social, and environmental drivers might change in the future. How these affect the trajectory of environmental outcomes and the future state of rural communities and businesses?
- How can we assess and mitigate systemic risks involving environmental factors? What are the best approaches for monitoring that tracks system dynamics based on key ‘watchpoints’ to trigger mitigation actions?
- Systems analysis that considers human-environmental systems as a complex set of interactions, and the novel use of systems thinking to consider the feedbacks and consequences of action in this system
- What do we know about the public acceptability of necessary restrictions such as counter disease measures? What lessons are applicable from public acceptability of the coronavirus restrictions to the animal and plant health domain?
- How can rural communities and businesses contribute to and benefit from the attainment of national economic, social, and environmental objectives?
- What actions would most effectively and efficiently improve the status of the natural environment and secure economic, social, and health benefits domestically and globally?
- How can different mixes of ‘responses’ – such as regulations, taxes (for example polluter pays), subsidies (for example public money for public goods), and spatial planning – impact the delivery of environmental, economic, and social outcomes at different spatial scales?
- How can we encourage or incentivise behavioural change to achieve positive outcomes for the environment, and how can we enable appropriate informed adaptive management with communities?
- Analysis of social and economic interactions with the environment and natural resources. What are the links and trade-offs between biodiversity, climate, sustainable management of forestry, soils and peatland restoration, economic development, food, health, wellbeing, and global poverty?
- Global drivers of declines in nature are well documented but we need to understand how drivers interact in the UK and globally, as well as the global impacts of UK activities. We also need to understand how our actions to address declines (such as policy responses, intervention and environmental management) impact drivers
- How can we best develop an inclusive societal vision for a just transition towards sustainability? At what spatial scale should such visions be developed and how to reconcile across scales? How can we best manage the polycentric governance to implement these visions?
- How can local governance best be coordinated with national?
- How can we encourage or incentivise behavioural change among businesses, communities, and individuals to achieve positive outcomes for the environment? What models of societal change might be used to underpin these behaviour change initiatives?
- Advanced electronics: How will sensors, omics, geographical information systems, internet of things, be used to support regulation and enforcement needs across the agri-envrionmental and food sectors?
- How will different groups of society, particularly in rural communities, be affected by changes associated with the move towards Net Zero and the goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan? How can positive effects be adopted more widely and negative impacts be mitigated?
- What makes communities resilient to natural hazards and other crises? What can we learn from the coronavirus pandemic about the loss of resilience and protecting vulnerable communities to inform future response to crises? What are the important social dimensions for achieving environmental and infrastructure resilience?
- How can we balance devolved responsibilities with the need to avoid a weakening of national guidelines/ standards?
- Which techniques are best for estimating the effects of interacting risks? How do we ensure that communication of risk is relevant and effective? What lessons can we take from the response to the coronavirus pandemic about the communication of risk and of the need for behavioural change?
- How can local planning for nature-based solutions be best reconciled with regional and national strategies? What are the most effective ways to combine place-based participatory approaches with evidence and analysis of the likely effectiveness of nature-based solutions?
- What criteria should we use to determine acceptable sectoral climate resilience scenarios across government departments, and when building preparedness externally?
- What are the impacts of greenhouse gas removals and negative emission technologies on climate and the environment? What are the trade-offs of negative emissions techniques and other interventions?
- What is the role of the consumer in delivering net zero and how can changes be achieved equitably? What are the potential market responses to such changes and how do we avoid unintended consequences?
- How will agriculture affect the resilience to climate change of surrounding habitats and communities- for example water availability, flooding, land use change, chemical harm on ecosystem functions related to climate resilience?
- How is climate change affecting the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases, and how can we become more resilient to these outbreaks?
- How will crop, livestock, and woodland resilience alter in the future, impacting optimal agricultural and forestry practices for the UK? What practices and policies can we develop to drive adaptation?
- How can society and government act to protect and enhance nature, thereby sustaining the ecosystem services (including mitigation and adaptation to climate change) it provides, under a changing climate?
- What are appropriate adaptation actions to climate change across government, now and as change progresses, and when is it reasonable to implement these? How can we better understand the risks and opportunities around the policy drivers for adaptation (and mitigation)? How do we avoid maladaptation and ensure resilience to a range of possible futures?
- How can we balance different interests at local and national levels, to provide the resources we need, reduce degradation of natural capital and improve the state of the environment?
- What are the real-world barriers that prevent land-users (for example farmers) taking up low/negative carbon measures, and how can these be overcome? How can we improve the estimation and validation of take up for these practices?
- How do we better consider and adapt to the effects of climate change at regional and local levels, to develop a better understanding of conflicting demands?
- Climate projections (for example UK Climate Projections 18) indicate increased climate variability and extreme events (storms, heat waves, drought) in the future. How will these changes impact natural and human systems? How can we protect against damage caused by such increased variability?
- How can we address barriers to action on adaptation, including behavioural change, and how can government policy best encourage these changes?
- How do you incentivise collective efforts to improve resilience capabilities locally (and in a context of scarce resources)?
- The world is changing at an ever increasing pace. How can we exploit opportunities from new and emerging technologies in policy-making across government; and can we capture their risks and security vulnerabilities including to government? Does our current model of developing and implementing policy require work in this agile, technology driven, environment? What changes might be required?
- How should government balance intellectual property with reproducible research in order to enable efficient digital innovation?
- What policy actions can the public sector take to better attract, recruit and retain people from a wider range of social backgrounds than it currently does? What role can the public sector take to help other sectors also attract people from a wider range of social backgrounds?
- Undertake cost-benefit methodologies to assess economic and wider societal value of a broad range of potential interventions on gambling?
- Which policies and initiatives have been effective in increasing the non-economic/monetizable value delivered by the creative industries?
- How can we best measure and track media freedom in the UK context building upon existing international work including the RSF’s Media Freedom Index? What does a more detailed development and analysis reveal?
- What kind of mix of business models for PSB and non-PSB broadcasters might the market sustain going forwards?
- What supply and demand side interventions would be appropriate and what could be their impact?
- What are the underlying causes of the financial challenges facing the press sector and how does that vary across the national and local sub-sectors? What impact are the financial challenges having on the economic, social and cultural value of news provision in the UK?
- In what ways do governance, regulation and regulatory frameworks support or hinder public service broadcasters in providing a public service?
- What drives spatial inequalities in relation to CSY’s policy responsibilities?
- Do different interventions work for different groups and in different contexts?
- What are the benefits of increased levels of civil society participation and of pride in place, overall and in more localised areas?
- What are the knock-on effects of lower levels of civil society and pride in place both overall and in local areas?
- How can collaboration between organisations, commissioners and other funders across CSY sectors and actors be enhanced at local levels to support better outcomes?
- Which policies and interventions have the greatest potential to reverse the lack of progress in road casualty reduction since 2010?
- What are the drivers and barriers of other funders of the sector, including social and mainstream investors and commissioners?
- To what extent does the distance from and/or density of AHT assets determine engagement rates among specific groups? What does this mean for public investment into AHT infrastructure?
- Analyse to what extent the AHTassets/offer act as push and pull factors in people and business decisions to move, stay or leave for a different location? What does this mean for public investment policy in culture, heritage and tourism and growth of cultural clusters?
- How does the UK’s digital offer for international cultural activity compare to other markets around the world? Where have there been market failures for digital policy in relation to international arts and culture activity and what are effective intervention options?
- Analyse and explain the interactions across the cultural sector value chain and the relative importance of parts of the value chain to growth and sector resilience to understand how future policy interventions should be targeted.
- Analyse and explain the barriers to the growth of the UK art market and assess what government interventions would be effective to help overcome these barriers.
- What outcomes do public service broadcasters (PSBs) bring about as a result of their distinct public service remit including economic, societal, security, democratic, environmental and international considerations? What is the role of the PSBs in the wider media market?
- Analysis of the impact of coronavirus on key constituencies’ approach to global governance and to particular institutions or groups of them within the multilateral system
- Quality: How does the quality of statistics and communication of this quality influence public confidence in the statistics? How should the quality of statistics be conceived, measured, and communicated to support users in selecting statistics that are most appropriate for their needs?
- How can innovative forms of commissioning and effective cross-sector collaboration improve outcomes at local levels?
- What are the regional disparities across CSY’s policy responsibilities?
- How do issues related to CSY’s policy responsibilities affect pride in place and social capital at the local level?
- How do we ensure a sustainable economic recovery post COVID-19 with environmental outcomes built in; and what is the potential for rural communities and businesses to contribute?
- What principles should be used to delegate responsibilities to local communities, and how can these areas be empowered to deliver?
- What forms of funding and support have been shown to be effective for this sector, to maximise sector health and beneficial outcomes?
- To what extent does greater voluntary, community and social enterprise participation in procurement lead to better outcomes for people and communities including young people?
- What methodologies could be applied to AHT sectors and subsectors, which would allow for information to underpin policy interventions in those sub-sectors?
- What is the relative value of light touch, digital or automated support services in foreign investment support versus intensive face-to-face services?
- The compatibility of coronavirus related restrictions with human rights law obligations or with other obligations under international law
- Analysis of what new conflicts may arise and where there might be new opportunities to resolve conflict
- Consistent and long-term environmental monitoring: Time-series increase in value for ecology and policy making as they grow in length. Decades of data are required to answer emerging questions around, for example, climate change impacts on biodiversity and the efficacy of management measures
- How can a One Health approach promote a cultural change to curb the expansion of illegal wildlife trafficking and implement solutions that will ultimately benefit humans and the planet, galvanising the role of protected species conservation and biodiversity on disease prevention and mitigation?
- How can the UK manage the impact of additional demand for critical elements and materials, and potential price spikes?
- How might we gain evidence-based assurances about the effectiveness of capabilities linked to low-frequency high-impact events through use of experimental methods?
- How can we ensure devolution settlements are stable and sustainable over time and in a changing environment? What structures can facilitate this?
- How do surveyors and inspectors interact with MASS whether through Port State Control or regular survey?
- What impact will coronavirus have on global attitudes to traditional medicines derived from animal products
- How can it be ensured that regulatory regimes and interventions are coherent,
effective, proportionate, and agile, influencing transparency and understanding to
enable effective regulation thus offering confidence to industry to innovate?
- How are tribunals affected by the policies and services of other government departments, and how can we better understand upstream decision-making processes? For example, regarding welfare policy.
- What is the scale, scope and function of the unregulated legal services market in England and Wales?
- What works to promote and maintain competitiveness within the legal services market and ensure individuals can access quality services at a fair and accessible price, whilst growing the sector overall?
- How can policing best provide Chief Officers and deployed officers with real-time information about workforce and assets, including remote briefing capabilities and file transfer?
- What are the direct impacts of the harms of online mis/disinformation and what types of online mis/disinformation are most harmful? How do these impact individuals, wider society and the democratic process (whether physical, psychological health, civil unrest, UK security, elections)?
- What are the policy levers available in S&T to support and protect economic and national security How effective are they?
- How can the UK support firms to optimise the benefits of digital technical standards development? How can expertise of UK industry be better harnessed by government?
- How should global digital technical standards be understood and used, and how can we understand their costs and benefits? How do we work with global companies on this from a UK perspective?
- What regulatory solutions could be efficiently deployed to mitigate harmful practices for digital consumers online? How do we measure their effectiveness?
- How can governance and standards frameworks encourage greater inclusion and security across the ecosystem? What would a good framework for measuring inclusion in digital identity markets look like? How can we minimise security and privacy risks within digital identity solutions?
- Does the cyber security of AI models need to follow any novel principles that aren’t set out under existing policy and technology security principles? If so, what are these measures and how do the differ from what exists? How do the vulnerabilities/risk of AI model security differ from existing cyber threats?
- How can connected technologies can be secured when liability and responsibility of product security is unclear, due to convergence of technologies and systems. I.e., taking a system-of-systems approach, how can holistic and robust cyber security be ensured? What is the series of measures required to safeguard the whole system? For example, taxonomy of cyber security risks and threats from the research phase through to product development, deployment and embedding with other technologies and systems. How could the UK produce a world-leading approach to securing emerging technologies through an end-to-end process?
- Are there different hierarchies, professional groups or user types and behaviours that aid or block cyber security implementation? How do we best understand this both quantitatively and qualitatively?
- How could interventions be improved to reduce cyber risks posed by organisations and the economy? Do some interventions work better for some sectors, sizes or maturities of a company? How can we best visualise this and classify? Does organisational structure play a role in how effective certain interventions are? Is there a need for different types of intervention for different sectors and structures?
- What is needed to enable the public sector to adopt AI?
- Are international regulatory frameworks and technical standards currently helping or hindering UK innovators in achieving scale? How do key stakeholders rate our regulatory system compared to international competitors? How active / influential has the UK been in shaping international efforts to establish regulations and standards? Have UK industry and government built new capabilities / coalitions, effective in shaping global technical standards?
- How can we foster a Pro-Innovation culture among regulators and policymakers, and encourage / enable them to fully factor the needs of innovators / innovation in their work at the earliest stages? What would enable different parts of the institutional landscape to work together collaboratively and across traditional organisational boundaries? How can the use of performance reporting and metrics by regulators be used to drive their support for innovators?
- What approaches do regulators currently use to support innovators? How effective are these approaches? What are the underlying barriers stopping regulators from doing more to enable innovation (Capability, Opportunity and/or Motivation)? What opportunities are there for government to work with regulators to support innovation? How can grant funding be targeted at those regulator initiatives which will have the most impact on innovation?
- Local benefits/patterns: What is the local impact of different RDI interventions?
- What data and metrics exist which could measure reputation and influence benefits?
- What will the future of AI look like within the UK, and how can we monitor our progress towards the many possible scenarios?
- Occupations: What are the characteristics of occupations that put them more at risk of replacement/change or give them a comparative advantage? Over what time frame will they be impacted?
- How effective are current Local and Central Government planning systems and planning officers in shaping the efficiency and environmental impacts of road freight and what future improvements may be needed, including to capability, to ensure the planning system supports road freight to contribute to meeting Government ambitions?
- To what extent are the impacts of COVID-19 temporary and which represent permanent trends to supply, demand and business models? What opportunities and challenges do these changes in behaviour present for businesses across DCMS sectors, both in the short-run and longer-term?
- Which AHT sectors are growing, mature or contracting? What are the implications for targeting government interventions?
- Communicating statistics: How does the communication of statistics influence their use and how they are valued? What factors ought to be considered in the communication of statistics, for example the audience, uncertainty around the estimates?
- Statistics that serve the public good: What does it mean for statistics to serve the public good, and how might this be measured and communicated? What is unique about the way in which official statistics serve the public good compared to other sources of information? How can views from ‘the public’ be brought into this conversation, respecting that there is no single homogenous group and there will be many varied perspectives?
- What environmental and logistical improvements, including those related to road freight emissions, urban air quality and congestion, could we expect to see if the planning approval decision making process were more technocratic and gave more weight to wider improvements?
- To what extent has the UK’s competitiveness in transport infrastructure changed relative to other countries? And what lessons can we learn from short-term changes internationally that can be implemented long-term domestically? For example, how has UK’s transport WEF Competitiveness Index scores increased/decreased compared to other countries?
- How can government intervention promote UK trade and exports?
- How can the quality assurance of security systems and processes be improved?
- How can throughput of goods and people be increased cost-effectively through transport security systems?
- What are the benefits and barriers for devolved transport policy? How do we build on our current devolution policy to further maximise effective working practices?
- How can transport investment release additional land for housing and deliver wider economic benefits?
- How does the capability and capacity of Local Transport Authorities influence the delivery of transport policy developed by central government?
- What are the ethical considerations of LawTech and the enhanced usage of technology within the legal sector? What, if any, regulatory framework or guidelines are required to ensure the fair use and application of LawTech?
- How effective are industry mechanisms and frameworks in ensuring they resolve complaints and meet the wider regulatory needs of the legal services market and profession?
- How can we better understand how problems link, interact, and reinforce, and how people move through different systems as they attempt to resolve them? Including unemployment, debt, housing, or family issues.
- How can the FSA continue to be an innovative and effective regulator when developing and implementing food regulations?
- How can counterfactuals (against which to assess the impact of policy interventions across different spatial levels) best be defined and measured?
- What analytical approaches can best demonstrate the impact and value of policies that seek to prevent such problems arising?
- What examples are there of methods that can best help the department to manage future uncertainty (such as a pandemic), to improve its performance and resilience?
- What can we learn from international models of local social infrastructure, local governance and devolution of power to communities?
- How can government (central and local government) systems and processes work more effectively, to build a more integrated and socially cohesive society
- What work has already been done to bring together evidence and analysis comparing impact of policy variation in different policy areas across the UK?
- What interventions effectively incentivise and support local councils in England to improve performance?
- How is allocative efficiency (those activities that offer highest economic and social returns) in local government best promoted?
- What does the evidence show about the effectiveness of fair funding models?
- More generally, what international evidence could be relevant to inform decisions in the UK?
- How do the public view the trade-offs that trade agreements bring, in relation to consumer choice, prices and employment by sector? How do these perceptions vary by partner country?
- How are perceptions of international trade affected by the inclusion of sustainability and welfare provisions in trade agreements?
- What factors affect public perceptions of trade and how does this differ by specific groups, sectors and regions?
- How can we use novel datasets to understand capital investment needs across the UK, including by sector and region?
- Which statistical methods can help reconcile foreign investment and trade asymmetries between partner countries?