Over the last few months there has been a frenzy of interest in the plans of Dominic Cummings, and his boss Boris Johnson, to reshape the British state. There’s been talk of bringing in brilliant...

Should politicians be trained to do their jobs better? Or is it fine that they learn on the job? In this piece I look at why they should be trained; current examples of training around the world; and...

A paper exploring the rise of challenge-driven university models.

There is a fever of excitement about AI and government at the moment, part of the wider fever around AI’s implications for just about everything. Unfortunately, much that’s been written about the...

Should the social sciences only analyse the past and present? Or should they also try to help design the future? The recently created New Institute in Hamburg aims to support faster and closer...

What kind of government might emerge after austerity and after the paralysis of Brexit?

‘Whole of government’ approaches - that aim to mobilise and align many ministries and agencies around a common challenge - have a long history. There have been notable examples during major wars, and...

Wars are always dramatic accelerators of change. So are crises of any kind. Coronavirus could turn out to be just be a one-off blip, with normal service resuming once the worst of it is over. But it...

Economists find a striking correlation between the density of ancient Roman roads and levels of modern economic activity in Europe.

Is it possible for an organisation, a system or a society, to become wiser? If so, how could we make this real and not just a vague invocation – like wishing people would be kinder or more loving? In...

Financial inclusion and capability, transitions to work for young people, and mental health in the workplace require a concerted effort to fix.

The COVID-19 crisis has been an extreme stress test for governments around the world, with widely varying performance so far. I’ve already described in another blog some of the early lessons and the...

Social Innovation book launch with Geoff Mulgan

Some lessons about learning, and thoughts on why many courses and events are less impactful than they could be

Our innovation mapping team transforms innovation policy with new data sources, analytics and ways to present information. This report presents the problem we want to solve, the methods we use and...

High-tech, creative, ‘knowledge’ businesses drive growth, but most people and places are cut off from the knowledge economy. How can we open it up?

Learning how to combine human and machine intelligence at scale

This blog is about better meetings: it sets out some of what is known about how meetings can make the most of collective intelligence. I'm sharing it now because too many Zoom,Teams and Hangouts are...

With billions about to be spent on the refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster, what would a more ambitious plan for public engagement in the future of our parliament look like?

GDP is not a good measure of human value or happiness. But what's the alternative? Nesta tries to answer that big question a new report.

Calls for an imaginative surge to fix our battered societies, fusing bold ideas and practical experiment.

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance explores the concepts, methodologies, and implications of collective intelligence

The world of artificial intelligence is full of very smart people. Its pioneers are justly treated like rockstars, as breakthroughs continue to be made in fields as diverse as games and diagnostics.

An event about a landscape of 13 innovative ways to bring good ideas to life

We are used to the idea that knowledge progresses, and that fields cumulate understanding over time.  This is normal in science, medicine and many other fields.  Each era knows the best knowledge of...

It’s easy to be dismissive of the government’s long-awaited plans for levelling up, published this week. Earlier statements were feeble. Political rhetoric ran far ahead of action. And any moves now...

The second of IPPO's series of public, online events on new methods for mobilising evidence for greatest impact.

I've written a draft overview of how skills for running governments are provided around the world - by governments' own colleges, universities and online - and how this provision might be improved....

I’ve just finished watching the fascinating TV series on Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, screened on BBC. I’m one of the handful of people who worked for both of them. I was chief adviser to Gordon...

This is a fascinating time for philanthropy, with so many very intense short-term pressures. But there is also a hunger to address long term challenges, which are not so hard to see: dealing with...

How machine intelligence, collective intelligence and social R&D could transform the practice of social science

Transferability of Evidence: It Might Work, But Not For Everyone

The many people working around the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) badly need finance and political support. But all share another set of challenges that have not had enough...

Data has become a crucial battleground in the war against Coronavirus, as many countries have used sophisticated methods for gathering and analysing data to monitor and manage the pandemic. This...

Public Value: How can it be measured, managed and grown?

A TV series starring Toby Jones (Mr Bates vs The Post Office) is now introducing a big audience to the appalling Post Office Horizon Scandal, and reminding us that human stories are much more...

Since the arrival of ChatGPT there has been much debate about how AI can replace humans or work with them. Here I discuss a slightly different phenomenon which I increasingly notice, and probably...