An increasingly challenging global economic environment calls for an evidence-based discussion of the next stage of the UK’s strategy for the attraction and retention of Foreign Direct Investment to fast-track sustainable growth and productivity.
The recently published Harrington Review of Foreign Direct Investment offers a set of evidence-based and achievable recommendations for the UK to provide a tailored, responsive and comprehensive offer that meets foreign investors’ expectations and factors in the speed of the modern world.
This panel discussion will push the debate on FDI attraction and retention forward and consider how the Harrington Review’s recommendations can be put into practice and what impacts they will have. The panel will discuss how best practices from around the world should inform new strategies to link FDI, Global Value Chains and sustainable and inclusive development in the UK and beyond.
Meet our speakers and chair
Laura Citron () is Chief Executive Officer of London & Partners. Prior to joining London & Partners, Laura was Managing Director of the Government & Public Sector Practice at WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communication services business. Laura is author of me.gov: The Next Generation of Digital Public Services. She taught communications for behaviour change at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Laura has spent her career at the intersection of public policy and communication. She spent several years as a UK public servant in London and Brussels, and has worked as a journalist in Russia and for an NGO in Germany.
Riccardo Crescenzi () is Professor of Economic Geography at ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳. He is the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Principal Investigator of a large collaborative research project on inequalities and global megatrends funded by UK Research and Innovation. His most recent book Harnessing Global Value Chains for Regional Development explores how regions, cities and clusters can build, embed and reshape FDI and global value chains for local enhancement.
Nigel Driffield () is Professor of International Business at Warwick Business School, and he is also Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor for Regional Engagement. As well as pursuing academic research, he also works with a number of stakeholders, both locally and nationally on issues relating to inward investment and economic development. He is also a theme lead, and the lead for the midlands for the ESRC Productivity Institute.
Richard Harrington () was Minister of State jointly in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Home Office. He was also previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and at the Department for Work and Pensions. He was elected as Conservative MP for Watford in May 2010. In 2023 he led a Review of the UK government’s approach to attracting foreign direct investment, co-sponsored by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.
Susana Mourato () is Vice-President and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) and Professor of Environmental Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She provides strategic leadership for ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳’s world-leading research, knowledge exchange and impact, as well as advancing collaborations with key institutional partners and funders. Susana is a leading expert in environmental valuation, developing and applying economic valuation techniques to a wide range of environmental, health, and cultural heritage goods and services
More about this event
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The Department of Geography and Environment () is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change.
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Podcast & Video
A podcast of this event is available to download from Growth through investment: what should the UK's FDI strategy look like?
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