Franco-Scottish Policy Seminar 2 October 2012

Summary Report
by Professor Michael Keating FBA FRSE, University of Aberdeen

The event was supported by The Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Conseil rgional Bretagne and the French Consul General in Edinburgh This was a round-table meeting for academics and policy practitioners from Scotland and from France, to exchange ideas on policy innovation and on youth employment and training policies. The convenors were Michael Keating (RSE and University of Aberdeen) and Romain Pasquier (University of Rennes). Participants included academics from Scotland and France, public servants and civil society representatives. A senior ofcial of the Regional Council of Brittany joined by Skype connection. The morning session was devoted to policy innovation in general. It was noted that innovation was a concept that started in the business rm, focused on technology, but gradually extended to the organisation of business and into society more broadly. Participants noted that both Scotland and France had been slow in adopting and practising innovation. The difculties are cognitive, in understanding social problems and devising solutions; organisational, in that public institutions are often not designed around problems and policy issues; and political, as politicians are often risk-averse and not open to evidence. There is a focus on short-term thinking and insufcient evaluation of policy. Government structures are pillarised, making a response to new issues difcult. There have been efforts both in Scotland and in Brittany to overcome these problems. The Scottish Government has laid out a set of strategic objectives in its performance framework. In Brittany, a focus on territory has been used as a way of cutting across divisions among policy elds and thinking about innovation. There is a need to engage all the stakeholders in innovation, but there is also a risk that this can lead to policy blockages and stasis as everyone defends their own position. The afternoon session was on youth unemployment, labour markets and training. It was noted that economic policy, labour markets and education are policy spheres with their own distinct logic and ways of thinking, and their own policy communities. New approaches to youth

employment require policies that encompass all three elds. There is a need to link levels of government and the private and public sectors. It was remarked that more successful countries engage employers more fully in training, placing obligations on them. Another comment was that the world of education is characterised by the culture of equality, based in citizenship, while the economy is marked by a culture of inequality and competition. This makes collaboration difcult, but there may be good reasons for preserving these distinct values. In the evening, the French Consul General hosted a dinner for academics and practitioners. This provided the opportunity for a wide-ranging debate on the potential for, and problems in, collaboration between academics and policy practitioners. There was an exchange of experiences in the two countries and an agreement that, in recent years, we have learnt much about how to improve these links. There is more of a common vocabulary and we have organised some successful seminars, but it has proved difcult to follow through these initiatives or engage in long-term dialogue and collaboration.

Opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the RSE, nor of its Fellows The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotlands National Academy, is Scottish Charity No. SC000470