Blog
Understanding local patterns of volunteer activity during COVID-19: three ways to contribute your perspective
3 March 2021
Together with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), The Young Foundation and The Institute for Community Studies are conducting new research to understand the various ways in which volunteers have been (and continue to be) active within local authority
Doc Brown’s dream and the launch of ARIA
19 February 2021 | Authors: Helen Goulden OBE,
Today we saw the announcement of the long-awaited Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the new blue skies research agency to develop high-risk, high-reward technologies in the UK. As explained in the .gov website, ARIA will be “led by scientists who will
Undisciplined Spaces
5 February 2021 | Authors: Emily Morrison,
Students have been partnered with community researchers drawn from across the UK and together, are identifying issues of marginalisation or exclusion in a local area to tackle, deploying creative research approaches (e.g. digital diaries, visual arts, storytelling etc) to do
Welcome to the Museum of 2020
28 January 2021
In December last year, we asked you: What object sums up your experiences of 2020? What object will most remind you of 2020 in years to come? What ‘thing’ couldn’t you have coped without? Or has kept your spirits up?
The Need for Digital Skills
19 January 2021
Inevitably the current health crisis has dramatically increased the importance of us all being digitally connected. How we work, learn, play and connect with friends, family and our communities, relies on us being digitally included. 2020 will forever be the
A quick note on incentivising collaboration for social change
3 December 2020 | Authors: Helen Goulden OBE,
In the last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about how and when great collaboration happens, and the rising desire for more systemic forms of change.
Be more Michael
25 November 2020 | Authors: Helen Goulden OBE,
Helen Goulden pays homage to The Young Foundation’s founder, and calls for a modern-day reflection of his work, finding solutions government can get behind.
Torquay: the Covid challenge to a coastal community
29 September 2020
A recent report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies names Torbay – alongside the Isle of Wight – as the most vulnerable in England because of deprivation, an elderly population, and the high number of tourism and hospitality businesses. My
The shoebox and the season ticket
28 September 2020
Over the last three to four years we have collectively been increasingly focused on place; both as a way of framing the inherent complexity and interconnectedness of today’s social challenges but also because of the huge inequalities which exist across and within different regions across the UK.
Leaders are waking up to value of listening and humbleness
25 September 2020 | Authors: Lydia Ragoonanan,
At the third and final Inclusive Economy Partnership BOOST engagement event last week we heard something quite magical from the range of leaders who spoke.
The problem of language in collective evidence with communities
25 September 2020 | Authors: Caroline Yang,
The Institute for Communities model is challenging and inventing a new way of expanding what counts as evidence; bringing together: A rapid evidence assessment of the academic and grey literature A call for evidence of examples of innovative or unpublished practice,
Risk and Responsibility
28 August 2020 | Authors: Emily Morrison,
There is an urgent need to involve communities in post-Covid policymaking, but we must respect that rebuilding has to be a truly shared endeavour. Across communities of every type, the question of whose responsibility it is to tackle many of