Manufacturing Renaissance in Industrial Regions: Firm Interviews and Survey, 2019-2020

Interview transcripts with a sample of advanced manufacturing firms(aerospace, electrical, pharmaceutical and automotive sectors), and related policy and business organisations, in the East Midlands, North West and Central Belt of Scotland. The results of a firm questionnaire survey with advanced manufacturing firms (aerospace, electrical, pharmaceutical and automotive sectors) in British manufacturing areas.The recession from 2008, and the persistent sectoral and spatial imbalances in the recovery, have provoked political calls to 'rebalance' the economy. According to Government representatives, Britain needs to 'reindustrialise', to rediscover its talent for manufacturing. Strengthening manufacturing in the Midlands and North will aid economic stability, raise productivity, and promote a more even distribution of growth. It has been argued that traditional industrial regions should develop new types of high-technology, 'advanced' manufacturing activities. Such calls for rebalancing have triggered a major debate on whether the British economy can in any way 're-industrialise'. Optimists point to resurgent clusters of manufacturing industries. Others are sceptical and argue that British manufacturing has been undermined by the 2008 recession, long-term weaknesses and an unsupportive institutional context. In this view, supply chains in British manufacturing are now too thin, fragmented and sparse to support industrial renewal on the scale required. There is evidence to show uneven regional trends in manufacturing, especially between the North and South of Britain and, according to some, advanced manufacturing is growing at a much faster rate in Southern England due to its research intensity and proximity to high-technology institutions. There is a pressing need to know how, and how far, industrial regions in Britain are developing advanced manufacturing. Relatively little is known about any potential regional manufacturing renaissance and the significance of location. There are several hypotheses. Some argue that advanced manufacturing develops best in specialised clusters and in local 'ecosystems' in which firms benefit from shared capabilities, resources, spill-overs and intermediaries. Others emphasise broader-scale external economies across sectors, so that location in cities and regions with a wide range of growing industries is more important to manufacturing performance. There is also debate about the degree to which location in traditional industrial regions aids or hinders advanced manufacturing. In a 'phoenix industry' view, manufacturing can be revived in traditional industrial regions by networks of small firms and by the diversification and branching of new sectors. This project tackles these questions. It places the performance of advanced manufacturing firms in the context of changes in supply chains and examines whether there is increasing specialisation of regions and locations in particular tasks, roles and functions rather than in entire industries. This project will examine the geographical, organisational and economic dynamics of four key manufacturing industries: electrical, computing and optical equipment; aerospace; pharmaceuticals; and motor vehicles. The project would proceed in three connected stages. The first stage would be to use and combine existing micro-data sources to examine the central issues on the relationships between manufacturing performance and location and investigate the key determinants of firm growth, performance and innovation in these industries. The project will use and combine several data-sets to provide a detailed analysis of change since the early 1970s. The second stage of the project will carry out a postal and online survey of firms in the four industries. This will explore the relationships between location and firm performance in more depth. For each industry, the survey aims to compare a set of firms within traditional industrial regions (in the North, Wales, Scotland or Midlands) with a similar group of firms in Southern regions. The final stage of the project will focus on manufacturers in these industries in four Midlands/Northern regions (selecting one region where each industry is well represented). In these areas, it will use firm interviews and focus groups to discuss findings, and identify and sound out key policy lessons and implications