SKOPE

Matthew Dixon has been serving as a link between Semta and SKOPE (Oxford), since 2003.  His contribution helps strengthen ‘real world’ awareness at SKOPE, and deeper analysis at Semta.  Following a Doctorate from Cambridge in Control and Systems Engineering, he has worked at the interface between industry, policy and research, in particular around knowledge transfer and training, in Information Technology and Engineering.  His research interests have focused on the dynamics of Engineering and IT labour markets, skills and professionalism at the UK national, and European, levels, including the development and effective use of skills/competence frameworks, and the clarification of skill shortages.  In skills policy he has championed an occupational focus and the importance of recruitment evidence in the work of sectoral skills bodies, and contributed to the objective assessment of skill shortages in the implementation of UK managed migration policy.  He has worked on international mutual recognition of professional engineering qualifications, and at the European level he led the development of a CEN ‘pre-standard’ for ICT practitioner skill frameworks, as well as a study on foresight scenarios for these skills for the European ICT industry.  As a result of this work he was asked by the European Commission to contribute to developments on the emerging European Qualification Framework (EQF).   Matthew can be contacted at md@the-eyrie.net, or by phone on 020 7722 4527.

Urban social policy. Area-based responses to deprivation. Urban governance systems. Community engagement and empowerment. International policy transfer. The reality and compromises of evidence-based policymaking and the intersection between policymaking and politics. The expectations and reality of community participation and tensions between local and strategic priorities.

My interest in urban social policy and tackling inequality draws from my experiences in developing and managing area-based responses to deprivation.  I am committed to exploring ways of securing more equitable and just outcomes for all members of society.  My professional experiences make me aware that urban policy attempts to tackle disparity and social exclusion are framed by issues of power at different scales.  I am interested in the reality of the subsidiarity principle regarding what is best addressed at what spatial scale of government or governance and the political and economic drivers of how government steers the processes of allocating powers and responsibilities.  In my PhD research I pursued this theme, locating neighbourhood governance within its political and economic context in the US and the UK.  My research explores the inherently political nature of governance in terms of the rhetoric and reality of how it is used, and the strategies this reflects.  My interests draw from my experiences of policy-making and politics in practice, which in turn inform my teaching, wherein I encourage students to question policies and to consider the context in which they have been formulated.  My work with local communities to plan for growth and change has also sharpened my interest in the expectations and reality of community participation and tensions between local and strategic priorities.

Ken Mayhew is the Director of SKOPE and is based at the Department of Education, University of Oxford and at Pembroke College. He is a labour economist and has published widely in this area. His research interests include: the economics of education, with particular emphasis on higher education; organisational strategy and the choice of product specification, associated production processes and human resource management practices; the measurement and the meaning of skill; the workings of the labour market; productivity; distributional outcomes. Currently he is working on: an international project on changing social models and their impact of change on the labour market; unemployment in OECD countries; skills, productivity and performance; the distributional outcomes of the expansion of higher education and its impact on vocational training; the alleged polarisation of the UK labour market and the implications for education and training.  Ken is chair of an Advisory Committee for the OECD’s  PIAAC survey, which is currently in the field, and a member of the international advisory committee for the OECD’s LEED project.  In recent years he has advised the DfES, the DTI, the European Commission, as well as a number of skills agencies at home and abroad. He is an editor of Oxford Economic Papers and of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, as well as being a member of the editorial board of the Oxford  Review of Education.   Ken can be contacted by email at: ken.mayhew@pmb.ox.ac.uk or by phone on: 01865 611010.

Susan James is a Research Fellow in SKOPE based in the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her research interests include: theories of learning, school-to-work transitions, VET systems, apprenticeship, work-based learning, on-the-job and off-the-job training, and low skill/low wage work. Current research projects include working with Ewart Keep examining models and theories of recruitment and selection (R&S) to try to understand R&S practices as a critical point in mediation and exchange between the labour market, a job and government policy. Susan is the Principal Investigator of an ESRC funded research project (RES-000-22-4343) titled, 'Graduates on the property ladder:  Skills, work and employment in a graduatising industry' researching the supply of graduates into the labour market and the impact on a focus profession: real estate agents. Susan has recently completed work on a study of low skill, low wage occupations, focussing on food processing operatives and room attendants in hotels in England, funded by the American-based Russell Sage Foundation. She was also involved in the second phase of this project which compared and analysed low wage work in the food processing industry, particularly meat and confectionary processing, in five European countries and the USA. Susan supervises master and doctoral students in the areas of her research interests. Susan can be contacted by email at: susan.james@education.ox.ac.uk or by phone on: 01865 611007.

Craig is interested in many areas of labour economics, particularly where related to public policy. His recent focus has been on the labour market mobility in segmented or increasingly polarised labour markets, and the role that skills and education play in creating or overcoming these barriers. He is also interested in the economics of higher education.

His doctoral research focuses on planning for retirement. He is interested in behavioural and experimental economics approaches to the analysis of retirement and saving policies.