Good synthesis results in higher-value options and actions. This paper focuses on how governments should synthesise inputs from many...

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...

I've done a blog with Rachel France looking at the role of social capital and civil society through the pandemic - to kick off a...

I’ve spent a fair bit of my life as a bureaucrat. This may be why I have a deepening antipathy to unnecessary bureaucracy. I keep seeing...

I did a piece for Project Syndicate on how AI could contribute to action on climate change ahead of the COP gathering in Glasgow. I'm...

The New Institute has just published my paper on exploratory social science - how social science could play a more central role in...

Boris Johnson has announced a UK inquiry into COVID-19 to start in 2022, a parallel one is being planned in Scotland, and many more will...

This is a piece run by the Conversation - looking at how we think of risk, before, during and after the pandemic Life is risky and tends...

When I was younger I was often impressed with people who could speak confidently, in sweeping, quite abstract terms about big questions....

I was committed to write a paper for the recent Progressive Governance Summit that brought together leaders like Justin Trudeau, Helle...

The most powerful clique in the UK at the moment are linked to the Spectator magazine. They congregate around it and the Telegraph,...

I've been working over the last year on a new framework for public finance - helping it to cope with long-term tasks, such as education,...

I've been working quite a bit over the last few years on applying collective intelligence methods to global challenges, partly through...

The COVID-19 crisis has seriously damaged mental health all over the world. A high price has been paid by many children who’ve missed...

This is a boring blog. You can jump a few paragraphs down to the punchline if you like (and the latest update, from October 2021). It's...

This draft paper describes methods for understanding how vital everyday systems work, and how they could work better, through improved...

This is my blog introducing the new International Public Policy Observatory on COVID: https://medium.com/policy-postings/putting-knowledg...

My new blog on what philanthropy could be doing differently is published in Alliance: https://www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/fixing-the-pl...

This week brings the publication of an interesting new collection, website and programme - creativityculturecapital - which looks at...

HOW GOVERNMENTS CAN - AND SHOULD - STEER THEIR SOCIETIES Can a society be steered? Should governments even try to do that? Or should they...