In this episode, Jana Javornik speaks to Paul Hayes, Senior Policy Fellow at Leeds University Business School, about his experience as a policy manager at a local council and what it is like working in local government. They also discuss how local government engages with academics and how academics can get on policymakers’ radars and build networks with those working in local councils. 

If you would like to get in touch about this episode, please contact Jana Javornik at research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available: https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/317/the-business-of-policymaking-podcast---transcripts

For more information about Leeds University Business School’s work with policymakers visit the website. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/research-innovation

About the speaker: Paul Hayes is a Senior Policy Fellow at Leeds University Business School. He was formerly corporate policy manager at Wakefield Council and policy lead for the Key Cities Group, an association of 27 mid-size UK cities. This role encompassed policy advisory work to local, regional and national politicians; development and authorship of local and regional strategies and plans; engagement with and representation on working groups of UK government and national bodies; and responses to consultations. The role also included scoping, commissioning and joint development of academic and think tank research and engagement with business and voluntary and community sectors.

In conversation with Paul Hayes

Jana Javornik speaks to Petra Petan, a policy assistant in the cabinet of Paolo Gentiloni, the European Commissioner for the Economy. Petra gives some useful insight into the daily work of the European Commission, as well as providing some advice on how academics can work with members of the Commission. 

If you would like to get in touch about this episode, please contact Jana Javornik at research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/317/the-business-of-policymaking-podcast---transcripts

For more information about Leeds University Business School’s work with policymakers visit the website. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/research-innovation

About the speaker:  

Petra Petan is a political economist with a Masters from the London School of Economics and a degree in English language and literature from the University of Ljubljana. 

After her first job in finance, she realised that policy and EU affairs are where her heart lies and got her first taste for both during a give-month Blue Book traineeship at the Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission in 2017. She later moved to a different part of the European Commission, getting acquainted with the European Semester. 

Petra later returned to her hometown of Ljubljana to join the Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development as a Senior Advisor on social and employment topics. 

At the end of 2019, she joined the newly formed Commission of President von der Leyen, as Policy Assistant in the Cabinet of Paolo Gentiloni, Commissioner for Economy. Ever since, she’s worked in the cabinet on a vast array of topics, from the European Semester to the Customs Union, with ECOFIN and Eurogroup coordination and Sustainable Development Goals in between. Drawing on her previous experience in employment and social issues, she’s been responsible for the coordination these topics with the cabinet of EU Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights. She’s also been covering financial affairs, international partnerships, and foresight.

In conversation with Petra Petan

Lena Jaspersen and Tony Morgan talk about their pedagogical research on the development of employability skills in students engaged in challenge-based learning in diverse teams. Drawing on assignments produced for their own module “Innovation, Thinking and Practice”, Tony and Lena analysed reflective diaries that the students wrote throughout the module. Findings provided useful insights into how team-based learning can be designed to improve inclusivity and enhance learning outcomes, including employability skills. Lena and Tony discuss how pedagogical research can connect research and teaching activities in mutually beneficial ways.    

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in December 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/325/transcript---designing-management-and-innovation-courses-for-team-based-learning   

Useful resources: 

LITE Research Project: https://teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk/research/fellowships/i-de-es-project/ 

Diverging and Converging for Team-Based Learning: https://teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk/diverging-and-converging-for-team-based-learning/ 

Design Thinking for Student Projects book: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/design-thinking-for-student-projects/book276875 

About the speakers:  
Lena Jaspersen is an early-career researcher with a multidisciplinary background in international sociology and organisation studies. Lena’s overarching research interests are in collaborative innovation processes, in particular in the context of global development, and qualitative research methods.  

Tony Morgan (FHEA) is an Associate Professor in Innovation Management Practice at the University of Leeds in the UK, where he teaches interdisciplinary and team-based innovation modules. He previously held senior innovation and technology roles at IBM. Tony's primary interests include design thinking, innovation and innovation management, emerging technology, pedagogy and student skills development. Research areas include how students learn when working in diverse and interdiscplinary teams. Tony is the author of multiple books, and co-author with Lena of Design Thinking for Student Projects.

Designing management and innovation courses for team-based learning

Dr Jo Cutter is joined by Sam Perry, Green Bargaining Officer for Yorkshire and the Humber Trades Union Congress (TUC), to discuss the work the TUC is doing in the region to support a Just Transition for workers. 

This project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – Just Transition: Aktivitäten im internationalen Vergleich 2021-582-2.  

Visit the project webpage. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/dir-record/research-projects/1990/just-transition-action-concepts-debates-and-strategies-an-international-comparison-across-11-countries

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in November 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. To find out more about the TUC’s Just Transition work, or to join the Yorkshire and Humber Just Transition Network, email Sam Perry sperry@tuc.org.uk.  

A transcript of this episode is available. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/294/podcast-just-transitions---a-global-exploration

About the speakers: 

Dr Jo Cutter is a lecturer in Work and Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School. Her research focuses on employment relations, social dialogue and the regulation of work with a core focus on skills, education and training. She is currently researching these themes concerning two contexts: workers and the just transition and labour mobility. 

Sam Perry is the Green Bargaining Officer for Yorkshire and the Humber TUC. He is focused on raising the profile of environmental action within the labour movement and building capacity in trade unions to bargain for justice as organisations adapt to the need to decarbonise. His special interest is in making the case for a massive growth of energy efficiency retrofits to homes across Yorkshire and the Humber, where he brings together a background in social housing and political and union activism.

The Trades Union Congress on climate change and workers’ voices

Dr Olga Ustyuzhantseva speaks to Mattia Dessì about Russia’s energy situation and the state's views on it; the ecological impact of coal in Russia; and the role of the labour movement in Russia's coal industry. 

This project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – Just Transition: Aktivitäten im internationalen Vergleich 2021-582-2. 

Visit the project webpage. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/faculty/dir-record/research-projects/1990/just-transition-action-concepts-debates-and-strategies-an-international-comparison-across-11-countries

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in May 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/294/podcast-just-transitions---a-global-exploration
 
About the speakers: Mattia Dessì is a Postgraduate Researcher at Leeds University Business School. His PhD research focuses on new technologies and the future of work in the South African mining industry. 

Dr Olga Ustyuzhantseva is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa). Her recent research focus is on the sociotechnical transition to the sustainable development of coal-mining countries (South Africa and Russia), particularly climate, energy, and just transition policies and their impact on the coal phase-out trajectory.

Just Transitions – a global exploration: Russia

Professor Vera Trappmann, Dr Janina Myrczik and Dr Justyna Kajta discuss their paper - “Becoming a young radical right activist, biographical pathways of the members of radical right organizations in Poland and Germany”. 

Read the paper here. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00113921241239644

“Becoming a young radical right activist, biographical pathways of the members of radical right organizations in Poland and Germany.”, Current Sociology, Janina Myrczik, Justyna Kajta, Arthur Buckenleib, Mateusz Karolak, Marius Liedtke, Adam Mrozowicki and Vera Trappmann. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in May 2024. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available.  https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/328/transcript---becoming-a-young-radical-right-activist   

About the speakers:  

Vera Trappmann is Professor of Comparative Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School. Her research engages with the comparison of labour relations across Europe, focusing on the dynamics of economic and organisational restructuring and its impact on working biographies, and organized labour.   

Justyna Kajta is a Professor Assistant at the Institute of Social Sciences, SWPS University (Warsaw, Poland). Her main research interests concern youth, social movements, class (im)mobilities, and social and political changes in Central and Eastern Europe. She is the author of several publications, including the book (in Polish) Young Radicals? On the Identity of the Polish Nationalist Movement and Its Participants (Nomos, 2020). 

Janina Myrczik is a Lecturer in Qualitative Methods and a Researcher at Medical School Berlin. Her research centres on rehabilitation, ageing, and the radical right. She is particularly interested in qualitative research, social inequality and political sociology.

Becoming a young radical right activist - an analysis of Poland and Germany

Drs Gabriella Alberti and Jo Cutter are joined by Caroline Keohane and Tanya Barringer from the Food and Drink Federation to discuss how the workforce in the UK food and drink sector has been affected since the end of the free movement of labour from the EU, and other subsequent crises. 

This episode has been recorded as part of the Labour Mobility in Transition (LIMITS) project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Visit the project webpage (https://business.leeds.ac.uk/faculty/dir-record/research-projects/1870/labour-mobility-in-transition-a-multi-actor-study-of-the-re-regulation-of-migrant-work-in-low-skilled-sectors-limits).

You can read the manifesto discussed in the episode here (https://www.fdf.org.uk/globalassets/about-fdf/powers-our-nation/fdf-2024-manifesto.pdf), and the LIMITS project Employer Survey report here (https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/332/employers-post-brexit-workforce-strategies-and-their-use-of-migrant-workers). 

This episode was recorded on 11 June 2024. If you would like to get in touch regarding this episode, please contact research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk. A transcript of this episode is available. https://business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/333/podcast-transcript---labour-shortages

About the speakers: 

Dr Gabriella Alberti is an Associate Professor in Work and Employment Relations. Her research interests revolve around the conditions of workers at the bottom end of the labour market, whether on non-standard contracts, engaged in gig/platform work, excluded from social protections, migrants and minorities workers facing multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination and exclusion. 

Dr Jo Cutter is a lecturer in Work and Employment Relations. Her research focuses on employment relations, social dialogue and the regulation of work with a core focus on skills formation and training. She is currently researching these themes in relation to two contexts: workers and the just transition and labour mobility. 

Caroline Keohane is Head of Industry Growth at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) which is the voice of the UK’s largest manufacturing sector. Caroline leads FDF’s policy work on growth, productivity and investment and works closely with senior government officials within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). She is also a Non-Executive Board member of the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink. 

Tanya Barringer is a Senior Industry Growth Policy Executive at the Food and Drink Federation.  Her areas of focus include skills (apprenticeships and skill shortages), employment and migration, the uptake of automation and digitalisation and supply chain fairness.

Labour shortages, automation, and upskilling in UK food and drink manufacturing

Leeds University Business School’s Research and Innovation podcast brings you insights from our expert researchers. From the future of work, to disruptive technologies; green behaviours to emerging markets, we’ll be covering a wide-range of topical issues and novel ideas. 

Listen to the podcast to find out more about our research and how it’s inspiring business managers, informing policymakers and influencing society.

If you have any comments regarding any of these episodes, please contact research.lubs@leeds.ac.uk.

Becoming a young radical right activist - an analysis of Poland and Germany

Leeds University Business School

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