Economic resilience - addressing the challenges to come: Policy Briefing

Economic crises have happened long before the great recession of 2008 and unfortunately will happen again in the future. Maybe not as bad as the 2008 one but they will happen. We can spend years discussing why recessions happen and we can use plenty of insights in psychology, economics as well as ideological arguments.

This policy briefing is not about this. It is about preparing to face the negative consequences of a downturn, commonly known as resilience. With what we know, the policy recommendations for increasing local economic resilience are to:

Recognise and promote the role of anchor institutions such as universities for increasing skills locally.
- Identify the importance of amenities for attracting talent in different areas.
- Motivate university-industry collaborations and cross-industry innovation
- Create a place-based industrial strategy that will use local assets and pursue resilience enhancing growth.
- Fund further research on resilience and promote the creation of local plans that explicitly address resilience.
- Provide leadership guidance and foster effective institutions to cope with external shocks.