This piece on a ‘Democracy of Citizens’ is #8 in the ‘Visions for the Future of Democracy’ series curated by Involve for its 15th anniversary. We have asked authors to... Read More
A new paper examining Shared Future’s Leeds Climate Change Citizens Jury highlights the co-benefits of deliberation, writes SF Director Jez Hall. Local authorities wanting to achieve meaningful carbon reduction, are increasingly turning... Read More
Levelling up is never going to be one size fits all. To support the development of areas that currently have poorer economic and social outcomes, we need to recognise... Read More
How can local people build control and take action on things that matter to them? Our research shows that there are five main components of collective control: social connectedness;... Read More
In November 2021, a group of ten people gathered together in Letchworth Garden City for two days of conversation. We began with a clear sense of our collective failure... Read More
Written at the outset of the pandemic, #BuildBackBetter showed how being forced to slow down had made people want a different future. Having a profound sense of vulnerability made... Read More
In December, Nesta and Citizens UK published their new report, Democratising Innovation Policy: How community organising can help build a more inclusive economy. It states that innovation policy has... Read More
The Levelling up White Paper was finally published last week. But despite 332 pages of what was a rather chaotic document (part text book, part policy, part analysis), when... Read More
Carnegie UK published their report GDWe: A spotlight on democratic wellbeing last month. Gross Domestic Wellbeing (GDWe) is an alternative measure of social progress to the dominant measure GDP, as set... Read More
As we know from long experience, Plymouth is a world-class powerhouse of social and civic enterprise – and it’s richly demonstrated in the Plymouth Octopus latest newsletter. POP (as... Read More
At the close of the 2021 Community Wealth Building Summit, we reflect on remarks by our opening keynote speaker Tom Arthur MSP and the work that CLES has undertaken... Read More
With COP 26 starting in Glasgow on 31st October 2021, we have brought together the recommendations from six citizens’ juries and assemblies run by Shared Future over the last... Read More
The politics of localism is shifting and developing, at all levels. We hear about a new national campaign being launched in the last few days. The We’re Right Here campaign is... Read More
The Kendal Climate Change Citizens’ Jury, commissioned by Kendal Town Council gave us at Shared Future, as the facilitating team, an opportunity to reflect on the importance of instituting... Read More
This is an article on levelling up and the Green New Deal from the fourth issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here. ‘Levelling up’... Read More
Katy Rubin reflects on Democracy Pioneers, a project she facilitated for Shared Future to engage Glasgow’s policymakers on climate change through the medium of theatre. On 14 September, eight young... Read More
Adam Lent and Jessica Studdert look at the practical ways to make community power an everyday practice, not just a long-term ambition. How can community power be embedded in... Read More
In this week’s German elections, Berliners voted with a resounding majority (56.4%), supporting a bill to expropriate 226,000 homes from private landlords, and take them into public ownership. It’s... Read More
Today is my final day at Involve, the public participation and democracy charity, which naturally brings with it a time of reflection after 11 years spent at the organisation, and... Read More
At the Conservative Party Conference last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson remarked that ‘wages are going up faster than before the pandemic began’. These comments were made against the backdrop of... Read More
The UK faces an uneven decarbonisation challenge, with some regions and industries under particular pressure to reduce emissions. Many of the places and communities most acutely affected are also... Read More
History tells us that periods of great disruption are often followed by periods of massive social change. But last year’s’ flurry of ‘build back’ and ‘build forward’ reports and... Read More
Children are routinely thought of as our future and take a symbolic place in our culture when considering innocence, hope and imagination. But we also have a societal tendency... Read More
At the start of the pandemic one women told her support worker “I’ve been told what to do for years, this is nothing new”. We know that policy decisions... Read More
Thirteen years ago, the global financial crisis prompted human suffering across the world. In the wake of this, community wealth building emerged as an alternative approach to local economic... Read More
Newham citizens assembly Newham, the East London borough: home to the 2012 Olympics, birthplace of Danny Dyer and the most ethnically diverse place in England and Wales. Soon Newham... Read More
Economic recovery from COVID-19 will be a long and painful process. When the pandemic struck, we at CLES argued for a new common-sense approach to economic development based on the... Read More
The one thing we all need after the pandemic is a new beginning. Change is in the air, whether that be ideological, legislative, or deeply personal. The theme for... Read More
We have the ideas for change It is now more than three years since Rethinking Poverty began to compile resources to support the development of a good society without... Read More
Other than being Bernie Sanders’ Congressional seat, we have picked up at A/UK on the singular qualities of the state of Vermont – as a “laboratory for democracy”, in... Read More
What should Kendal do about climate change? That was the challenge tackled by a diverse group of local residents of Kendal during the summer and autumn of 2020. Commissioned... Read More
The COVID-19 pandemic, with its many challenges has tested our ability to innovate. Many of us associate the idea of innovation with bright, new objects or processes, and this... Read More
Across the country in communities, in health services and in local authorities, a change has been happening. From East Ayrshire and Cambidgeshire to Leeds and Plymouth, leading public service innovators have been redefining the relationship between... Read More
The impact of Covid-19 has been a powerful reminder of the leverage workers could collectively hold. Care workers, supermarket cashiers and couriers – usually dismissed as “unskilled” – have demonstrated... Read More
When we think about building back better, we are thinking about power and how we make decisions, said Compass’s Frances Foley, introducing a webinar on citizens assemblies called Deliberating and doing:... Read More
In the first of its kind in the UK, a National Citizens Assembly has deliberated and this week produced a detailed set of recommendations to get the UK on... Read More
Sometimes, when times seem unlike anything we have known before, we need to reach for ideas that are not new. The current crisis does not necessarily mean that we have... Read More