I have to begin by saying that whilst innovation is very much 'my thing', economics really isn't. However, the E of this PEST activity has had me looking at how innovation is linked to economic factors and obviously it absolutely is! After all my searching through websites and reading articles, the conclusion I came to is that innovation and the economy are intrinsically linked.
Much of my reading centred around research councils and how innovation is funded. Innovate UK popped up again, as a key source of funding. Of course this is a .gov.uk so there is serious overlap with politics too.
The universities also featured heavily, especially the Russell group ones, which are into research in a big way. Manchester University, on their website, rightly stated that "long term growth comes from investment in innovation."
So I don't need much convincing that innovation and economic factors are connected... but then I tried to think about where that fits with my project. I'm certainly not going to get any funding for it and I doubt that it will directly bring in any funding. Having said that, there is a longer term economic goal. Our learners are just regular members of the public - people who live around the county. Some get their courses fully funded but many pay for their courses. Long term, people are more likely to continue paying to learn with us, if we have a reputation for being relevant and up-to-date. If we are still using old systems in 5 or 10 years time, it's entirely possible that we will fade out.
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