TPI 2025,

Manchester

The Productivity Institute: Investment in Places Fellowship

The Productivity Institute (TPI) is an exclusively efficient think-tank, marked with academic excellence and profound national & international connectivity. TPI implements a UK-wide research that explores what productivity means for businesses, workers, and communities - how productivity is measured, and how it contributes to improved living standards and wellbeing.

I have been fortunate to be a TPI Fellow on the Investment in Places ESRC-UKRI funded fellowship programme, which had all us fellows meet on 3rd of July 2025 in Manchester. The meeting was followed by a stellar panel of local policy makers working on the devolution of government throughout the UK.

Why did I take the CBD book launch to this 3rd-July TPI meeting? For two reasons:

The research on our TPI Fellowship Project (MApping THE Road Ahead - MATHER) shows that the endogenous forms of capital: cultural capital, social capital and institutional capital (of which cultural capital is causally the first and the root of the other two) are very unevenly tapped on in Wales: cultural capital is under exploited, while social capital is stretched to the limit, thus leading the social cohesion fabric to get tarnished and unstable as a fundament for local development in our times of growing economic uncertainty. We have to provide administrative capacity building on how cultural capital leads to social cohesion and to equip the policy implementing bodies on the ground with the necessary resource to invest in this endogenous form of capital: culture, in order to preserve the social cohesion of places.
Apparently, policy makers, especially the ones working in London area, just like their colleagues in Rotterdam, have already started to tap on culture as a source for social cohesion, intuitively, through the wisdom of practice. They truly deserve our full-fledged support - they are our true pioneers and heroes on the ground. We need to equip them for their big quest at our best with tools and blueprint. For starters, I am linking them with their sister-spirit team in Rotterdam. Unity brings the might to step firmly in opening the new road ahead.

Last, but not least, devolution itself is a sensitive process, heavily dependent on economic interests, power fights and the curse of pioneership (which is marked with so much uncertainty). Thus, devolution is yet another domain where the UK will growingly keep facing the challenge to preserve the social cohesion, unity and togetherness of places. Managing to see the win-win aspect of the situations ahead rather than getting stuck in win-lose mindset is a challenge, as Harvard economist Stefania Stancheva writes in the latest issue of The Economist (Stancheva, 2025). Cultural capital and its impact on cooperation and cohesion are a fundamental but slow solution to this challenge (see Tubadji 2022, 2023; Tubadji et al. 2025). UK needs to better understand this crucial endogenous, slow burning but powerful capital: culture, which will allow it to avoid the numerous likely slips into the abbess of social demise and will allow it to build healthily from strength to strength, if invested in timely (see Tubadji 2022, 2023; Tubadji and Rudkin 2025).

Many thanks to Prof. Phil McCann (whom I deeply respect among all else for he long rang the bell about how much trouble Brexit will bring), and the wonderful Dr Marianne Sensier who together make the TPI miracle happen, and their fascinating data lab, led by regional economist Prof. Raquel Ortega-Argiles and her brilliant data squad. You are the hope for a safe exodus from the troubled socio-economic waters of todays UK. Keep spreading your wisdom!

References

Stancheva, S. (2025) To understand America today, study the zero-sum mindset, writes Stefanie Stantcheva The Economist, July 2025. https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2025/07/07/to-understand-america-today-study-the-zero-sum-mindset-writes-stefanie-stantcheva

Tubadji, A., & Rudkin, S. (2025). Cultural gravity and redistribution of growth through migration: Cohesion lessons from spatial econometrics and topological data analysis. Papers in Regional Science, 104(1), 100064.

Tubadji, A. et al. (2025) PASCAL Briefing Paper 30 - Aesthetic Education and Learning Cities, International PASCAL Obsrevatory & CARDALL, https://cradall.org/content/pascal-briefing-paper-30-aesthetic-education-and-learning-cities

Tubadji, A. (2023). You'll never walk alone: Loneliness, religion, and politico‐economic transformation. Politics & Policy, 51(4), 661-695.

Tubadji, A. (2022). UK Witches: Subversive Narratives and Radicalization. Available at SSRN 4212249.

p.s. And once again - the archetype figure of the reading girl appears - a statue in the Central Library of Manchester. Many things to connect us with Rotterdam on the cultural wave... This time, it is an Italian girl with a secret poem.. Because culture is always exciting and... moving!

Join the conversation: #CultureBasedDevelopment #CBDParadigm #CulturalEntropy #CulturalEconomics #AestheticEducation #CultureMatters #PolicyInnovation #HumanFlourishing

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