This is a summary of a keynote given at the OECD on Monday 20 March 2023 at their conference on the social and solidarity economy. The social economy is not new – the world has thousands of examples of coops, mutuals, social enterprises of all kinds, not to mention businesses linked to organised religions, many kinds of commons and much more. Capitalism has never been a monolith – healthy economies always have had some pluralism. But it is a matter of choice and design whe

‘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 around attempts to digitize societies, to cut energy use and to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper has been prepared as part of a European Commission programme which I'm chairing looking at 'whole of government innovation' and working with national governments to help

I've worked for over two decades on decarbonisation strategies, including the UK's first commitments to serious action on climate change and renewable energy, and various designs for the C40 when it was set up. The International Public Policy Observatory (@ippouk, covidandsociety.com) which I help run, is now working on this topic with the governments across the UK. IPPO builds on many decades of experiment with ways to make complex knowledge useful and used, including progr