Professor Raquel Ortega-Argilés to head Productivity Lab

Professor Raquel Ortega-Argilés

Professor Raquel Ortega-Argilés has been appointed as Director of The Productivity Lab which launches June 1.

“The Productivity Institute is excited about Raquel joining Alliance Manchester Business School where the Institute’s headquarters is located,” said Professor Bart van Ark, Managing Director of The Productivity Institute. “As part of her new appointment she will take on the role of Director of the Institute’s Productivity Laboratory, which will be launched on 1 June.

“The Productivity Lab will be the empirical engine of the Institute bringing together a diversity of data sources on productivity and facilitating researcher and other user access to those data. Raquel brings a long-standing experience in leading data infrastructures in Europe to this new activity of the Institute.”

Professor Ortega-Argilés has also been appointed Chair of Regional Economic Development at Alliance Manchester Business School and will work with the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR).

The award-winning academic previously held the Chair in Regional Economic Development at the City-REDI research institute at Birmingham Business School, and her current research work focuses on urban and regional inequalities and development, innovation and entrepreneurship. She also researches topical, current issues such as the regional impacts of Brexit and Covid-19 and the regional effects of the digital economy and automation.

“I am delighted to be joining the Alliance Manchester Business School as part of MIoIR and The Productivity Institute,” Professor Ortega-Argilés said. “This is a wonderful opportunity to further develop my work on the empirics on innovation, productivity and levelling up.”