Research

Reforming the formal childcare sector

Making childcare more affordable is a key priority of the current Government. This research examines the differences between private for-profit and not-for-profit provision in terms of affordability, quality, and sustainability. Ultimately, it will put forward original and credible policy proposals to promote the not-for-profit model within the formal childcare sector.

Project lead: Cyril Davydenko

A new deal for the self-employed

The UK is currently home to more than four million self-employed people: a number which has grown consistently over the past four decades. Their tax benefits more than outstrip the loss of publicly funded benefits that employees can access but the self-employed cannot. Even so, the majority of the self-employed think that their financial contributions are under-valued by the government and that the value of state income protections and enhancements they miss out on is more than they gain in favourable tax treatment.

Clearly, the current safety net for the self-employed does not have widespread support. This project will outline proposals to reform the system to give the self-employed better protection when underemployed, sick, retiring or having children while making it fairer, especially for employees and the low-income self-employed.

Project lead: Bartek Staniszewski

Populist push?

Populism — especially on the political right, but also to some extent on the political left — has proven increasingly popular in Europe in recent decades.

This project will seek to better understand the policies and tactics of prominent right- and left-wing populist in Europe, ultimately creating a typology of European populism. It will also examine what European centre-right parties and traditions can learn from populists or challenge them on.

Project lead: Will Prescott

Unlocking assets from work through employee ownership

In today’s economy, the acquisition of assets – not just increased income from work – is essential to achieving real economic security and mobility for low-income workers. Frequently, such assets are thought to be housing and pensions. But another way to acquire assets is through ownership of a business you work for. These are employee-owned businesses, which is a type of employment where a significant proportion of a company’s employees have a significant ownership stake and say in the running of the company. Becoming an employee-owner would allow millions of low-income workers to be better rewarded for their effort and contribution to making the company a success. This project will explore the trends, barriers, benefits and policies around employee ownership in the UK.

Project lead: Bartek Staniszewski

Young people as investors

Faced with stagnant earnings growth, a high cost of housing and low returns to safe investments, Britain’s under-30s are finding it increasingly difficult to accumulate wealth, which will have serious long-term consequences for their economic security and mobility, and for the UK’s public finances. This research will analyse the barriers to wealth accumulation amongst under-30s from low-to-middle income households in the UK, and will develop novel and effective policy proposals to address this issue.

Project lead: George Pickering

Deep roots: the future of centre-right environmentalism

Rising scepticism around net-zero demands for a refreshed prospectus for centre-right environmentalism. This project will put forward a case against destabilising policy reversals and simplistic answers to environmental complex problems. It will do so by bringing a range of centre-right political, academic, NGO, and private sector voices to reflect on the past present and the future of green policies and propose a credible set of solutions to the pressing challenges.

Project lead: Cyril Davydenko

Re-focusing masculinity

This project will outline how liberal policymakers and politicians can better argue for and introduce reforms to support young men and prevent radicalisation. It will, from a liberal perspective, develop a comprehensive typology of the private and public socio-economic impacts of modern isolation, economic insecurity and cultural displacement on young men, including specifying how much of a priority for policymakers each issue should be. It will generate and propose new liberal arguments and reforms for reclaiming masculinity, building community resilience, and countering the influence of extremist voices.

Project lead: Will Prescott

How social capital builds growth, safety and democracy

This project will lay the foundations for the ideas and coalition to draw out the importance of social capital as a crucial piece of infrastructure for addressing some of the key challenges currently faced by the UK: poor growth, high levels of crime and declining levels of political trust. It will bring together leading decision makers and thought leaders to build a case for the importance of social capital as a key piece of national infrastructure, developing it into a key priority for politicians across the political spectrum; and to formulate original and credible policy ideas for building up social trust across the UK.

Project lead: Bartek Staniszewski

Reducing England’s drought risks from climate change

Too little attention is given to climate adaptation policies relative to climate mitigation policies. This is despite the fact that the UK Climate Risk Assessment (CCRA3) indicates that increased drought severity is among the key climate-related risks facing the UK. Large areas of the Midlands, as well as London, could be in serious water supply deficit by mid-century with no further adaptation, meaning England needs to accelerate drought resilience efforts.

This project will use Natural Language Processing (NLP), to identify the specific geographies, infrastructure and ecosystems that have been and are likely to be impacted by droughts and flooding and to create a spatially explicit event summary of the real-world impacts of potential droughts.

Project lead: Ryan Shorthouse

Playing patriotically?

Since the 2005 Gambling Act, the gambling industry in the UK, and particularly online gambling, has grown and evolved significantly. This project will aim to analyse the consequences of these developments, reviewing the evidence on the different public and private socio-economic impacts associated with different forms of gambling, and proposing a range of novel and effective centre-right policies for reducing gambling-related harms.

Project lead: George Pickering

Reducing the UK’s electronic waste

E-waste is the fastest-growing source of waste worldwide, with an estimated 50 million tonnes produced every year. Phones and laptops are a particular problem as they are among the most frequently replaced electronic devices — in 2020 alone, the UK generated approximately 24.9 million discarded mobile phones. More recently, vapes have emerged as a growing source of e-waste, with some 260 million being disposed of in 2023.

This project will explore the growing problem of electronic waste (e-waste) disposal. It will examine how factors, including regulatory gaps, a lack of public awareness and a lack of opportunities for frictionless disposal of e-waste, have created dangerous risks to human, environmental and economic health.

Project lead: Ryan Shorthouse

The centre-right and economic security

There is increased precarity among a much wider spectrum of people. Real household disposable income (RHDI) has climbed by just 0.6% per year in the 16 years since the global financial crisis in 2008, compared with 2.3% in the 16 years before. Forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) from November 2025 indicate that stagnation is set to continue until the end of the decade, with RHDI per capita annual growth forecast not to surpass 0.8% per year until 2030 at the earliest.

It will be a political and economic necessity, therefore, for a future right-wing government to develop a compelling and successful policy prospectus that improves economic security for households on low-to-middle incomes in a context where state spending is at best strictly limited and at worst significantly cut.

Project lead: Bartek Staniszewski