As the work of the MPU developed, the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) was created in 1973 to oversee most of the UK landscape of employment and training, including that covered by the Industrial Training Boards (the EITB being the largest). I wrote a proposal for a research programme to produce a system for modelling the relationship between the macro-economy and the labour market in order to carry out medium-term assessments of employment prospects for different industries and occupations.

This proposal led to the establishment of the Manpower Research Group (MPRG) in 1975 under my directorship. By the end of the year, we had ten staff. All its researchers were economists of one kind or another.

Interdisciplinary research takes shape

However, labour market research questions are not easily answered by reference only to insights from economics. Indeed, there are traditions in labour economics that crossed boundaries into industrial relations, economic sociology and human geography.

Moreover, there was great scope for well-designed local and international comparative studies. The MRG was beginning its involvement in European research which became a major activity for IER. When I looked at the range of British and international research being carried out during the huge political economic change taking place during the late 1970s, there seemed to be the need for a UK research centre that was devoted to the broader understanding of how employment was evolving. At the turn of the decade, many may have thought that the external environment for academic research was not promising.

Mass unemployment of the 1970s and early 80s

The new Conservative government’s hostility towards the (then) Social Science Research Council had obvious implications for its public funding. However, the emergence of mass unemployment meant there was a need for a much better analysis of the UK’s employment problems. Moreover, the Commission of the European Communities was showing a growing interest in supporting collaborative research on labour markets in Member States.

In pursuit of externally-funded social science research

Here was an opportunity for a group of researchers who were willing and able to handle the inevitable ambiguities and uncertainties attached to pursuing externally-funded social science. They also needed to be committed to an organisational culture that was not largely project dependent but allowed for collaboration and sharing of risks. This required the development of high levels of expertise not only among researchers but also staff in administrative, data management and wider project assistant roles. That, in turn, meant tackling problems that often characterise academic research posts: insecurity of employment, lack of career structures, poor staff development opportunities - especially for support staff, and barriers to creating flexible hybrid roles where needed. All undermine both the sustainability of research and the wellbeing of the people involved.

Overall, experience during the 1970s and discussions with senior academic and administrative colleagues suggested that the Warwick environment provided a promising one in which to found such a centre. It did not mean that the process would be straightforward. How to make a really significant contribution to the University and how best to draw on its strengths would no doubt need continual attention. Moreover, sometimes creating and maintaining the kind of culture most conducive to the flourishing of research involves trying to resist some of the host organisation’s dominant values and practices – ‘keeping the organisation away from the team’ can be a legitimate response.

I saw the overall aim of IER as being to develop scientific knowledge about the socio-economic system rather than to promote one particular discipline. Doing so called for independence from conventional academic departments and the capacity to engage directly with the University. And in 1981, the Warwick Senate approved the establishment of the Institute for Employment Research on that basis."