The RSA Blog

If we want to address poverty, let's begin by making work pay

Blog

18 Jun 2012

Benedict Dellot

Last week was abuzz with commentary over the latest poverty figures from 2010/11, Labour's last year in government. According to DWP’s own figures, relative child poverty had been halved from 3.4 million in 1998-99 to 1.4 million in 2010-11. Likewise, the number of pensioners in relative poverty is reported to have fallen by some 700,000 over the same period. Notwithstanding these notable improvements, everybody knew long in advance that Labour was never going to reach its ambitious target of halving child poverty by 2010. Thus, as soon as the figures were announced and this failure finally confirmed, commentators from all sides were ready to throw in their thoughts about why success never materialised.

New RSA Summer Internship Opportunity

Blog

12 Jun 2012

Benedict Dellot

A new internship opportunity is opening up within the RSA Projects team.

Social media, community organising, IBM jams + ‘collaboration illiteracy’

Blog

07 Jun 2012

It’s been a particularly rewarding few weeks for me, where I’ve had opportunities to learn much about the kind of role that social media can play, and is playing, in community organising - the approach to change that gained attention because of the key role it played in Barack Obama's own political development. (And was later embraced by David Cameron, to support the 'Big Society' agenda).

Brands and behaviour change: beyond the usual suspects

Blog

30 May 2012

Benedict Dellot

 

In pursuit of happiness

Blog

10 May 2012

‘Happiness’ is a concept that I seem to be increasingly encountering. It is the subject of a piece of work that my colleagues in Arts and Society are involved with in collaboration with the Happy Museum Project, an initiative that is encouraging UK museums to support transition to well-being and sustainability in our society.

Deadline approaching for new RSA paid internship opportunities

Blog

10 May 2012

Benedict Dellot

There are only four days remaining until the application deadline for the latest set of RSA internships paid at the London Living Wage.

Actual Human Rights….

Blog

09 May 2012

Gaia Marcus

So quite an amusing tweet-cussionbetween Louise Mensch and Amanda Bancroft over the distinction between the Human Rights Act and *Actual Human Rights*[1].

Is social capital good for us?

Blog

27 Apr 2012

Newham Council’s controversial efforts to move housing benefit recipients 160 miles to Stoke has caused a stir this week.

Learning how to bow out gracefully

Blog

30 Mar 2012

Benedict Dellot

How often do we ask ourselves: is what I’m doing truly working? It’s a simple question and one which makes intuitive sense to ask if we ever intend to learn from our mistakes and improve the impact of our work. And yet despite this it is something we tend to ignore time and again. Both at an individual and institutional level, many of us are reticent to the idea of evaluating the policies and practices that shape the effectiveness of our public services and which dictate their value for money. Indeed, these days it is quite rare to hear or see the term ‘evidence-based policymaking’.