Current projects
The current major focus of our GovernUp project is the Commission for Smart Government which launched in August 2020 and will run for approximately a year. This builds on GovernUp’s report in 2019 Ten reform priorities for the new PM and our earlier work.
Our Global Development Challenge project, sponsored by the Gates Foundation, is investigating the effectiveness of foreign aid in promoting international development. Our first report surveyed the academic evidence on the effectiveness of development aid. Next month we will publish a second report on the history of UK development policy and direction for the future, including priorities for the new department created by the merger of the FCO and DFID.
Our Global LGBT Rights and Citizenship project is evaluating how active and engaged citizenship can be enhanced through improved rights for LGBT+ people around the world. We will be publishing our first report later this year. We are also hosting the new Global Equality Caucus which launched in June 2019 at the UN, and which is playing a major role in Safe To Be Me, the UK Government’s forthcoming International LGBT Conference which Nick Herbert is chairing.
Our Planning Change project is considering the radical planning reform needed to enable more homes to be built while maintaining essential countryside protections. The Government’s manifesto set a target of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s, or at least a million more homes, over the next Parliament. Later this year we will publish two papers, one on the importance of good design and a second on self-build, as two routes to help increase housebuilding.
Earlier projects
Our Justice and Security project explored the reforms needed to deliver justice and keep citizens safe in a world of changing threats. Our first report, a major study of magistrates and local courts including radical proposals for reform, was published in 2019, sponsored by the Hadley Trust. We also published Ten crime and justice priorities for the new government.
Our Morality and Markets project considered how capitalism and free markets can be made to work for everyone in the age of globalisation. We published a number of blog posts and discussion papers as part of the project.
New projects
We are always interested to discuss ideas for new research projects which are consistent with our mission to produce impartial, high-quality research to inform public debate, offering robust and original policy solutions to promote more efficient government and good citizenship for the benefit of all.
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