Northern Ireland (NI) faces many unique contextual challenges. A key strategic challenge is the high levels of economic inactivity, the highest across all UK regions.
NI’s future growth and prosperity rely heavily upon the ability to reactivate individuals to participate in the labour market. Such individuals have been referred to as the ‘hidden unemployed’. Economic inactivity has many social and economic effects on a region and, therefore, is a significant cross-departmental challenge.
However, NI’s inherent political and structural nuances have challenged collaborative working. The key purpose of the ‘EPIC Future NI’ hub is to support NI stakeholders and communities to work collaboratively and holistically to develop policy and programmes which support the ‘hidden unemployed’.
The hub has the following aims:
1) to fill research gaps and understanding of skills and employability in NI, holistically and at sub-regional levels;
2) to analyse trends and behaviours in the current and future labour market in NI;
3) to collaboratively identify, and co-create, evidence-based interventions and develop policy recommendations which aid NI’s skills and employability challenges; and
4) to facilitate partnership building and collaborative working towards shared goals designed to alleviate economic inactivity and improving economic and social prosperity across NI.
Key partners
Lead partner/Director:
Ulster University (Principal Investigator/Hub Director – Professor Kristel Miller)
Co-directors:
- Ulster University Economic Policy Centre (Mr Mark Magill, Principal Economist)
- Department for Communities (Ms Deirdre Ward, Director of Work and Wellbeing)
- Department of Finance (Ms Rachel Singleton)
Co-investigators/Partners:
- Queen’s University Belfast
- Disability Action
- Business in the Community Northern Ireland
- Women’s Resource Development Agency
- WomensTech
- Centre for Cross-Border Studies
- Involve
- Northern Ireland Confederation of Health and Social Care
- Social Enterprise Northern Ireland
- Chief Executives Forum
