At ARU, research across business, economics and the social sciences examines how work is changing and how organisations can combine productivity and innovation with human dignity, inclusion and wellbeing.
The Centre for Business and Society, for example, focuses explicitly on fair work, inclusive growth, productivity, skills, sustainable production and resilient supply chains, working with businesses, unions, government and communities to translate research into action.
Up-Skill: creating a human-centred Industry 5.0
As automation, AI and digital technologies reshape manufacturing, Up-Skill: Up-Skilling for Industry 5.0 Roll-Out asks how businesses can embrace innovation without simply replacing skilled work. Funded by the European Union and UK Research and Innovation, the project brings together 12 university and private-sector partners across five countries to examine how human skills and technological capabilities can complement each other. Through detailed industry case studies, researchers are examining changing job roles, skills and management practices, with the aim of helping businesses achieve productivity and growth while maintaining the value of skilled work.
Decolonising the Future of Work through Afro-Futurism
What should the future of work look like, and whose vision of that future counts? In 2025, Dr Kathleen Hughes received a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship for Decolonising the Future of Work through Afro-Futurism. The project uses Afrofuturist and Afro-diasporic science fiction to challenge dominant Western narratives about automation, AI, organisation and technological progress. By foregrounding questions of power, inequality and collective wellbeing, the work is opening up alternative ways of thinking about more inclusive, democratic and meaningful futures of work.
Improving productivity through partnership with Wealmoor
ARU is putting research into practice through an Operational Excellence and Data Analytics Knowledge Transfer Partnership with fresh-produce business Wealmoor Ltd. Researchers are combining Lean approaches with data analytics and ERP-enabled performance dashboards to improve labour efficiency, reduce yield loss and strengthen transport and distribution. Crucially, the partnership works alongside frontline teams and builds internal capability through training and continuous improvement. The project will also produce a transferable framework designed to help other fresh-food supply chains improve operational performance, extending the potential impact beyond a single company.
Creating fairer and more inclusive public-service workplaces
ARU's Centre of Excellence for Equity in Uniformed Public Services is examining how working conditions, organisational cultures and leadership can be improved across uniformed public services. Its current research includes projects exploring psychological safety within UK Helicopter Emergency Medical Services and the reasons on-call firefighters join and leave the service, with findings intended to inform policy, practice and future research. Underpinned by collaboration with practitioners and people with lived experience, the Centre focuses on equity, wellbeing, organisational justice and transformational change.
Researching fair and meaningful futures of work
The Futures of Work research cluster at our Centre for Business and Society investigates how economic change, technological development and changing labour relations are reshaping employment. Rather than viewing greater automation and flexibility as automatically beneficial, researchers ask how these changes redistribute power, risk and responsibility between workers, employers and institutions. Particular attention is given to worker voice, trade unions, precarious and platform work, workplace culture and the effects of automation. This human-centred research puts dignity, agency, inclusion and wellbeing at the heart of debates about productivity and the future labour market.
Using data and innovation to strengthen SMEs
ARU research also supports smaller businesses to become more innovative, sustainable and productive. The Centre for Business and Society brings together expertise in supply-chain analytics, skills and training, sustainable consumption and circular economics, working with external organisations to address practical business challenges. Its research includes the use of big-data analytics and machine learning to improve supply-chain performance, resilience and decision-making, alongside work on green, circular and ethical supply chains. This creates a direct bridge between academic research and the productivity, resilience and responsible growth of businesses operating in increasingly uncertain markets.
Last updated: October 2026
To request additions, corrections or changes to the information in these pages, please contact: Dr Zareen Bharucha: [email protected]. Please use the subject line ‘ARU SDG’.