The project, entitled ‘the political economy of knowledge-based growth’, will be led by Dr David Hope, from the Department of Political Economy at King’s, with King’s colleague Dr Hanna Kleider, Dr Niccolo Durazzi (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Sebastian Diessner (Leiden University).

King’s has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant for £287,299, with the project due to begin in October and run for 24 months.

Dr Hope said: “The transition to the knowledge economy has fundamentally transformed the political economies of the advanced democracies since the 1980s.

“We have seen a marked shift away from manufacturing and into services, the rise of mass systems of higher education, more liberalised industrial relations, and the increasing centrality of information and communications technology (ICT) to firms’ production strategies.

“Recent scholarship has certainly greatly improved our understanding of the causes and consequences of the transition to the knowledge economy, but there remain serious gaps in our knowledge and understanding.

“Given the ubiquity of the rise of the knowledge economy across the advanced capitalist democracies, it is crucial that we devote time and resources to filling these gaps. That is the key motivation and overarching aim for this research project.”

The project will also be recruiting two postdoctoral research assistants. For more information about the roles, contact david.hope@kcl.ac.uk.

Since its foundation in 1925, the Leverhulme Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education, funding research projects, fellowships, studentships, bursaries and prizes; it operates across all the academic disciplines, the intention being to support talented individuals as they realise their personal vision in research and professional training.

For more information about the Trust, visit www.leverhulme.ac.uk and follow the Trust on Twitter @LeverhulmeTrust.