Projects
BROWSE OUR CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
Good Business
The financial crisis revealed a series of underlying weaknesses in the economy, from an over-reliance on low-paid, low-skilled jobs to an underinvestment in productive enterprise. Led by Duncan O'Leary, this programme explores how companies can do ‘good business’, aiming for solutions that lead to the decentralisation of power – to employees, consumers and communities.
Welfare and public services
In an age of austerity, budgets are shrinking yet demand for services like education, health and social care is rising. Policymakers must establish what people’s real priorities are – and learn to do more with less. Led by Claudia Wood, this programme investigates those priorities through research on public attitudes to key areas of the welfare state.
The Power of Prepaid
Jo Salter, Claudia Wood, Ally PagetThis research is exploring the potential of prepaid card technology to achieve a personalised, integrated, empowering state.
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The Home Cure
Claudia Wood, Jo SalterThis project looks at the role social housing providers can play in helping people back to independent living following a period in hospital.
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Under One Roof
Claudia Wood, Phillida CheethamDemos is currently looking at how social housing providers can act as co-ordinators and hubs for support and earlier intervention for their clients.
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Advising Ambition
Eugene Grant, Jonathan BirdwellThis project will focus on school-to-work transition: how our education and training systems are preparing young people for employment.
MoreCitizenship and political participation
Britain continues to experience declining public trust and participation in formal politics, in addition to rising loneliness and social isolation. Led by Jonathan Birdwell, this programme explores the ideas and institutions that can help bring together a more fragmented society.
Families, parenting and harmful drinking
Jonathan Birdwell, Emma VandoreThis project examines how a parent's problematic relationship with alcohol can impact on parenting and children’s perceptions of alcohol.
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Ending Forced Marriage
Max Wind-Cowie, Phillida CheethamThis project aims to identify an effective cross-border approach to tackling forced marriage in Britain.
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Truth, lies and the internet
Jamie Bartlett, Carl MillerThis projects asks the extent to which young people can discriminate between the wealth of information found online.
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Open Society Dialogues
Dan LeightonThis project explores the tensions, hidden assumptions and challenges to the ideals and institutions that make open societies.
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Civic Service International
Jonathan Birdwell, Susanna PettigrewThis research will look at the potential benefits of a British international citizen service, investigating how it can be integrated into Big Society initiatives and increase civic engagement.
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The Future of Work
William Davies, John KnellThe project will explore the possibilities for a new politics of work.
MoreIntegration and national identity
Questions of national identity are all around us, on Englishness and the future of the Union, to appropriate responses to historically high levels of immigration into the UK. Led by Max Wind-Cowie, this programme aims to close the gap between the ordinary voter and the political class to develop a sense of how we live together.
The Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM)
A collaboration between Demos and the Text Analytics Group at the University of Sussex, CASM combines computer science with social science to analyse social media. Led by Jamie Bartlett, its work will develop social media analysis as a valid instrument of research that meets the needs of policy and decision-makers.
Demos Finance
Demos Finance is a new financial services research unit, providing industry leaders, policymakers and the public with a reliable source of objective and easily comprehensible analysis of the sector. Led by Andrew Freeman, it will generate new ideas and public policy solutions, will help to explain and ‘translate’ complex arguments to a non-specialist public.
Political Ideas
Alongside and connected with our research programes, Demos has political projects focused on the burning issues in current political thinking.
Futures Thinking
Charlie EdwardsThinking about the future is tough – it’s all too easy to take a fatalistic approach and assume there’s nothing we can do to shape impersonal global forces, or to cling to ‘official’ versions of the future set out in government visions and policy documents.
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Story.Org
Grahame Broadbelt, Tony Manwaring, John GrantJohn Grant and Tony Manwaring, two senior Demos associates, are working with us to produce a pamphlet about leading change in modern networked organisations.
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Children Make Places
Peter Bradwell, Celia Hannon, Joost BeundermanChildren’s access to the public realm is currently heavily restricted – as much by physical barriers as by adult attitudes and anxieties. As heavy investment in play provision is currently set to deliver physical improvements, there is a need to address the wider social, cultural and political context in which the children’s public realm is being shaped.
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An Underwhelming Truth
Molly Webb2006 was the year of the eco-issue, Priuses on back-order, "An Inconvenient Truth" and Arnold Schwarzenegger's green coup. But is sustainability’s new look only skin deep?
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Culture Online
John Holden, Samuel JonesCulture Online has pioneered a project-based approach to bring new audiences to arts and culture using new technology. In this it differs significantly from the portal approach of many cultural websites. Demos is working with Culture Online to place their achievement in a wider context of policy development, and to articulate lessons for practitioners and policymakers.
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Northern Lights Seminar Series
Catherine FieschiA seminar series to discuss social innovation and explore the secrets of the Nordic Model
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