Since Autumn 2012 and under strict regulatory obligations, the biggest corporations in the UK have been offering a pension to any employee who earns more than GBP10,000. Now the challenge falls on smaller employers. This compulsory measure has far-reaching consequences for all players: not only have many new pension customers been brought into the market, but companies face strict deadlines and major fines if they do not comply. The Handbook of Work-based Pension Schemes takes a practical approach to the many issues and crucial decisions facing employers. Choose the right course of action and pensions can become a powerful element within a competitive package of benefits for attracting and keeping the right people, as well as opening up the potential for freeing up capital to invest back into the business. However make a mistake and the consequences can be far-reaching and expensive. Published in association with the Institute of Directors, this book will bring readers up to speed with how pensions are changing, then focus on the ways they will be able to design and manage better schemes at lower costs and at lower risk.

In fast-moving markets, no organization can expect to identify and keep the best ideas by working in isolation; innovation is now running on an open model, with input from a variety of disciplines and sources, including specialists, employees, suppliers and, in particular, customers and clients. But how can you stimulate new innovation? And how can you protect your best ideas once they are in a competitive and aggressive marketplace? Endorsed by the UK's Intellectual Property Office and the Technology Strategy Board, The Innovation Handbook offers advice and commentary from leading players in the technology, branding, design, intellectual property and innovation fields.

When managed well, IP can become the most enduring form of competitive advantage, creating streams of revenue well into the future. But for many in Europe, IP can still seem complicated to acquire, expensive to maintain and hard to enforce. Drawing on a wide range of expert contributions, The Handbook of European Intellectual Property Management is a practical and easy-to-follow account of how IP comes into play at various stages of ventures and delivers commercial success and real competitive advantage. Drawing out the commercial implications of the changes that are happening within Europe's framework for innovation, like the arrival of the unitary patent, this Handbook reviews how EU programmes such as Horizon 2020, the Innovation Union and the European Research Area are measuring performance against a target of creating more growth from IP ventures. In parallel, the contributors discuss the new terms on which leading players in business and research are looking to engage partners in sourcing ideas and fast-tracking innovation. Everywhere IP policies are being re-written to encourage open innovation and to source knowledge from wherever it may best be found. For those looking to take an innovation, a design, or a brand into the market, this handbook discusses the options in putting the right idea into the right format, highlighting challenges such as: - how to design an IP strategy - how to capture and secure IP - how to capitalise on new technologies - how to combine different types of IP - whether to adopt a national, European or global focus - how to engage in partnerships and competitions - how to source ideas from the research base - how to retain exclusivity within open innovation - which model to adopt in reaching the market - how to negotiate IP within contracts - how put a value on IP - how to raise funds with IP - how to resolve disputes

Through a mixture of innovation and regulation, a future is being mapped out free of carbon and pollutants. The consequences of these changes could be as far-reaching as those triggered in the last 25 years by the web. Just as many winners and losers are likely to be created by the squeeze on carbon and the growth of clean technologies. Designed for a wide management audience, Clean Tech, Clean Profits provides a practical guide to how organizations can re-think their operations, develop an innovative response, commercialize clean technologies and improve their efficiency. Its emphasis is on the specific steps that can be taken now in reviewing options, drawing up plans, upgrading a process, writing a specification or making an investment.

As the potential for discovering and commercializing innovation is transformed by data modelling and digital simulation, the rewards are going to those who can re-think their intellectual property, managing it more actively as a live asset and as a proposition ready for market. In this book, 24 top-level IP performers, including the innovation support team at the European Patent Office, discuss how IP is opening up new paths to growth, bringing you up to speed with the impact of transformative technologies, such as artificial intelligence, the metaverse, Industry 4.0, net zero and personalized medicine. Some ventures are just starting to adopt an IP mindset in growing their innovations, brands and designs. Others are struggling to switch, putting themselves at risk of sliding towards commodity status. For those who are learning to invent digitally, IP creates a powerful and flexible system for breaking into new markets, trading at a premium and building up future value.