Remember all the talk during Covid about the ‘new normal’? It seems that this year really has seen the embedding of it, with hybrid working in many (but not most) workplaces. IER is one of those workplaces, where staff now typically work 2-3 days each week in the office. In the past I worked most days in the office when not in London. I confess to not missing the daily commute on those days when I now work at home. On the other hand, I feel that I’m losing out on the important daily informal interactions with my colleagues in IER.

This lessened presence makes it a challenge to absorb new appointments to IER when they start, and IER needs to rise to that challenge having made four outstanding new appointments this year. We’re really pleased that two new Research Fellows, Jamelia Harris and Sangwoo Lee, have joined us as well as two professors, Trine Larsen from Denmark and Philip Taylor from Australia. This reflating of our complement of researchers is IER’s other new normal I hope.

In 2023, we also added three new learning units to our LMI for All. Funded by the UK Government, this longstanding project supports practitioners and teachers to access and use labour market information (LMI) as part of the careers education, advice, guidance and counselling process. We’re always keen to develop our LMI services and so welcome feedback and requests about this project. The project team can be contacted via email at lmiforall@warwick.ac.uk.

IER’s third new normal seems to be research projects examining green jobs and skills. What started as a trickle in 2020 has turned into a steady flow of projects over 2023 funded by devolved governments in England and Scotland. Led by Jeisson Cardenas Rubio, these projects typically examine the supply and demand for green jobs in particular regions using the new GreenSOC developed by IER with our colleague Pauline Anderson at Strathclyde University in Scotland.

By contrast, ReWAGE has been winding down. Originally intended to support the UK Government in building back better jobs post Covid, this independent expert advisory was awarded extended funding in 2023 by the ESRC but which finally ended in the summer. Led by IER Director Chris Warhurst and Leeds University’s Irena Grugulis, this initiative has proved to be an enormous success. Thanks to the generous buy-in of its 35 UK-wide experts, ReWAGE produced 40 evidence papers and policy briefs, made 8 submissions to government and parliament consultations and countless presentations to government not only in Westminster but around the UK. Its success offers a blueprint for UKRI investments in the future that want to take research to policymakers.

Since the Brexit vote, IER has continued to secure research funding through Horizon 2020 and now Horizon Europe. 2023 has been no different. Two new Horizon projects started. The first, Skills2Capability, led by 3s in Austria, examines labour market transitions, skills and training. The second, HE bridges 5.0, led by our Dutch colleagues at TNO, focuses on the green and digital skills needed for Industry 5.0. We also started an EU CHANSE funded project, called GIG-OSH that examines the physical and mental health of platform workers, which is led by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

All of these EU projects required co-funding from the UK Horizon Guarantee or UKRI, which added to our bureaucracy. However, the UK becoming a fully-fledged member of Horizon Europe in early 2024 will make leading projects and working with our continental European colleagues easier. That can only be a good thing and we look forward to what we hope will be our final new normal next year.

All in all, as Raymond Brigg’s Father Christmas might say, 2023 has been a “bloomin’ marvellous” year for IER and we’d like to thank all of our research partners and funders in the UK and elsewhere for their support. We look forward to continuing to work with you in 2024.

In the meantime, we hope that everyone has a wonderful Festive Season and Hogmanay.

Professor Chris Warhurst, IER Director