Scotland’s economy is operating in a dynamic global context. For smaller countries, the implication of recent changes is that the environment may become substantially less favourable: higher trade barriers, smaller flows of investment, and uneven growth could all make it harder to prosper. However, as well as risks there are also huge opportunities.

• We need to anticipate the changes which automation and artificial intelligence require from our education system.
• Scotland must find the ways to support its startups and scale up its small and medium enterprises, in order to tackle the productivity gap.
• The public sector must embrace innovation, and build on the great examples of people using new tools to meet the challenges of today.
• Perhaps most importantly, we must be rigorous in assessing what works. By better assessing the effectiveness of interventions, we can increase the impact of our work.

Read more about these areas below.