Policy Lab has a 10-year history of convening diverse voices to contribute to policymaking, including those of creative practitioners. Our ongoing collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, MANIFEST, evaluates the role that artistic strategies could play in policymaking, …
How can we find and develop ideas that are truly different to the status quo? It’s a question that many policymakers ask themselves, either to seek new ways to improve policy outcomes or to plan for the unexpected. Typically, we …
For the independent review of children’s social care, we were asked to scratch beneath the surface, by looking at wider family contexts, to understand the impact of the system on the families who navigate it.
Last year the Geospatial Commission launched a Call for Evidence to inform the development of the National Geospatial Strategy. Policy Lab worked with the Commission to support an open discussion of the evidence with the policy team and their Partner Bodies.
This year Policy Lab has been working on a project with the United Nations (UN) to bring the voices of people in a geographically distributed organisation into early stage policy design and development. We wanted to share some of what …
As a child, my mum used to tell me that I always learnt the ‘hard way’. By that she meant I learnt by doing - sometimes in spite of what I might have been told. It follows that I ended up studying 3D design, using tangible objects and experiences to develop and communicate ideas. But back then I don’t think I ever imagined this could be relevant to government.
Last week Policy Lab facilitated three workshops (in London, York and Bristol) for the Innovation in Democracy programme. Run by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), this …
By Harsha Palmar, Disability Employment and Support Strategy, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
This year marks 100 years since women first won the right to vote in the UK, and the 90th anniversary of the Equal Franchise Act (#TalkDemocracy). To build on their legacy and encourage wider democratic participation, Policy Lab supported the …
We promised we’d do more to tell the stories of our projects, wherever possible. This is from Sam, a faststreamer who worked on an ongoing project with the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP). Our 'Positive Engagement' project looks at …