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Economic development MUST professionalise

9 October 2008

By Paul Miller

I was in a session at the IED conference on the subject of skills for economic development professionals. There was a surprising readiness to knock academic study – the uselessness of endogonous growth theory to the everyday activity of economic development was one example.  I hadn’t heard this kind of stuff for some time. I don’t doubt that much academic endeavour is less than useful but a key issue for economic development is the failure to locate much of its activity in an appropriate theoretical context.  

This anti theory stance also works against the need for economic development to raise its professional status. The standing of economic development is nowhere near as high as its importance suggests that it should be. There is much discussion of the difficulty of recruiting and retention of staff but precious little attention to the root cause of that. The group in the session found it impossible to identify the skills that are captured by economic development - indeed, seemed quite proud of the 'broad church' skill set that this seemed to suggest.  However, if the profession can't identify their own skills, then those outside of it will assume that there aren't any - that anyone can do it.  And if anyone can do it, why should salaries be set to attract.  

A pre-requisite for professionalisation is the identification of the professional skills required to be 'admitted' and a programme for 'continuing professional development', to ensure that standards are maintained.

It might not be easy to identify the skills, but without this, economic development will languish below almost every function in the public sector - social work, housing, planning. All of these have jumped this hurdle and their practitioners have benefited.  

So the Institution of Economic Development should (in my opinion!) substantiially increase membership fees following a lobbying campaign to ensure that employers pick up the tab!  (And its tax deductible of course).  After that, the IED should acquire a full time staff, pursue Chartered status and begin work with its members and universities to develop a skills / knowledge set.  Of course, this will be highly multidisciplinary (law, planning, economics, sociology, psychology, organisation development etc).  And the multidisciplinary nature of the economic development profession will put it in good company. Can anyone think of a profession that isn't multidisciplinary?

Permalink: http://www.gavurin.com/prof (copy'n'paste)

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