Among the UCL representatives at the special one-day conference were Dame Professor Henrietta Moore (UCL Institute for Global Prosperity), Professor Naomi Fulop (UCL Epidemiology & Health Care) and Dr Karen Schucan Bird (UCL IOE Social Research Institute).
They joined political grandees Michael Gove, former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and Lord Blunkett, former Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Education, to discuss the cross-cutting issues facing public services today.
The conference came at a critical time for Britain, with a renewed focus on how public services will evolve under the new Labour government.
With grounding in science and research, the UCL experts offered their insights, analysis and evidence-based suggestions for meaningful public services reform across a number of discussion panels.
Reflecting on the urgency of meaningful public service reform, Professor Geraint Rees, UCL Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation & Global Engagement), said:
As a world-leading university with expertise across the range of academic disciplines, UCL is uniquely positioned to use its insight for public benefit. Our academic experts across the university, including the UCL Policy Lab, the Institute for Global Prosperity, and the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, are working to address major societal challenges.
Today’s conference highlights our commitment to collaborating with policymakers and others to ensure that our research is delivering benefit to citizens across the UK.
The conference underlined UCL’s commitment to bring multidisciplinary expertise to the worlds of policy development and government to support the UK’s national renewal.
Prof Dame Henrietta Moore argued for greater community involvement in managing and delivering public services.
She said:
If you are going to have a growth agenda and a growth envelope, what do you want to do with the wealth that you generate? Where are you going to put it and how do you know if it is value for money?
She called for more place-specific consideration when tackling systematic problems.
We have to move now from thinking about massive levers with one great big top-down approach, to thinking about how we can do this better in the places it really needs to be done”.
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