Ethical policymaking

By Carey Oppenheim, ippr Co-Director
Citizen Ethics in a Time of Crisis - 22 February 2010
Values are needed to make the thorny decisions necessary to deal with the public debt, argues Carey Oppenheim

Fans must come together to stop football’s gravy train

By Steve Powell, Director for Campaigns & Policy at the Football Supporters’ Federation
The Journal - 20 April 2009

Last orders at the bar?

By Rick Muir, Senior Research Fellow
Comment is Free - 04 April 2009
Few institutions are so central to Britain's culture and way of life as the local pub. Outside the home, the public house is the most popular place for British people of all ages and classes to relax and socialise. And yet pubs are under pressure.

Big Issue

By Michael Kenny, Head of Social Policy
Civil Service Network - 14 January 2009
One of the most overlooked trends in UK public policy-making in the last decade has been the increasing presence of religion on the radars of politicians, government departments, local authorities and a host of other public bodies. Closely related to this shift is a growing appetite in the media for stories about religious leaders and a fascination with politicians who are believed to ‘do God’. What lies behind this shifting public mood? Why are faith issues helping to shape the debates around a growing number of policy issues? And what are the underlying principles that should shape the relationship between faith and state in the early 21st century?

Scoring an own goal

By Danny Sriskandarajah, Head of Migration, Equalities and Citizenship
Comment Is Free - 07 June 2008
England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008 has led to calls for quotas of foreign players. But football can only lose by anti-immigrant populism.

Consuming culture

By Dr Rachel Pillai, Research Fellow, Migration, Equalities, and Citizenship Team
Catalyst Magazine  - 20 November 2006
Rachel Pillai analyses how advertising shapes our world.

Intellectual Property

By Kay Withers, Research Fellow, Digital Society and Media Programme.
New Statesman - 14 November 2006
Kay Withers discusses the importance of intellectually property in the ever-growing video games industry.

Intellectual property for all

By Kay Withers, research fellow, digital society
Prospect - 25 August 2006
We need more transparency and inclusion in intellectual property policy making says Kay Withers

Securing a viable legacy

By Anthony Vigor, senior research fellow, sustainability
Whitehall & Westminster World - 11 April 2006
Games- planners should focus on grassroots sport and the 'soft infrastructure' of jobs, skills and social issues, argues the ippr's Anthony Vigor

Balancing Competing Priorities

By Kay Withers, Research Fellow, Digital Society & Media
eGovernment Monitor - 20 March 2006
Kay Withers, Research Fellow at IPPR, explores the challenge for policy makers in UK on how best to address the critical intellectual property rights (IPR) issue as Britain continues evolving towards a more knowledge based economy.

Olympics legacy must focus on jobs

By Anthony Vigor, senior research fellow, sustainability
Regeneration and Renewal - 24 February 2006
The winding-up of the Olympics Legacy Board is a positive move, says Anthony Vigor. It played a major role in bringing the Games to London, but other agencies must now take up the challenge of delivering the board's vision.

Copyright sings to a different tune

By Kay Withers, Research Fellow, Digital Society and Media
BBC News Website - 17 February 2006
Keeping time limits on copyright could open the way for a new wave of creativity, argues Kay Withers of the Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank.

Digital exuberance

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital sociey
Prospect - 01 February 2006

Digital technology hands more power and convenience to the individual consumer. But technologies of connectivity can threaten stability and community. We need a new ethics of inconvenience.

The year of the digital citizen

By Jo Twist, senior research fellow, digital society and media
BBC News Website - 02 January 2006
2005 was arguably the year citizens shaped the news, media and the world with their digital technology.  Jo Twist outlines the changes to the new media landscape over the past 12 months.

Open or closed: how the net will be won

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital society 
Computing - 07 December 2005
William Davies examines the battle between content industries and open access

Do not restrict our creative industries

By Will Davies, senior research fellow, digital society
Computing - 05 October 2005

When it comes to IP, the agenda suddently turns matronly. 'Do not download illegally!' it admonishes

Technology kicks away the career ladder

By Mike Dixon, researcher, directors' research team
Sunday Times - Review - 02 October 2005
Employees who once climbed from shopfloor to boardroom are being kept in their place by the microchip.

The age of surveillance: a new “dotcom boom”?

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
Open Democracy - 02 August 2005
Will the era of digital networks and terrorism produce the worst of both worlds: a society of mass surveillance that increases insecurity? William Davies maps a new political-technological frontier.

Culture and Civil Renewal: The human face of regeneration

By Emily Keaney
Engage - 01 August 2005
Emily Keaney talks about the links between culture and civil renewal

Is it Aldous Huxley or George Orwell?

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
New Statesman - 01 August 2005
Once we had justice or injustice. Now the government speaks of "faster, more effective justice". What will the digital age do for us?

Making a 'digital UK' a reality

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
BBC Online - 14 July 2005

William Daves explains how the UK government should have a clear sense of purpose when promoting the use of technology.

Review: Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, by Richard Layard, London: Allen Lane (2005)

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
Renewal  - 01 July 2005

Anyone whose intellectual endeavours take place in close proximity to day-to-day policy formation cannot duck questions of why and by whom they should be used. Richard Layard's Happiness is a prime example of such intellectual endeavour, and Layard is refreshingly open about the book's objectives for public policy.

Digital Britain: innovating, reassuring & empowering

By William Davies, senior research fellow
eGov Monitor - 07 April 2005

What do we truly want to achieve from eGovernment? The ippr thinktank aims to provide answers to this question through a consultation on the future of Britain's digital policy. Will Davies, senior research fellow, ippr, calls for your input.

Don't let etopians define net literacy

By Kay Withers, research fellow, digital society
The Register - 18 March 2005
Politicians around the world have made good political capital through celebrating domestic uses of IT. The vision of broadband-enabled homes, in which shopping, working and learning co-exist around the home, is a pleasant one, and provides a neat way of reasserting family values for the twenty first century.

Bringing the new economy to the UK

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
Computing - 16 February 2005
The strengths of the UK regions can be the foundation of their success

It's all in the heuristics

By Jamie Cowling, research fellow
Progress - 11 February 2005
When considering the role for increased choice in public services attention should be given to how we take choices. The fact is most of the time we make what amounts to a best guess. Does choice really mean chance?

The net effect

By Kay Withers, research fellow, digital society
Progress - 11 February 2005
How can the internet and ICT help personalise public services?

Promoting productivity

By Kay Withers, research fellow, digital society
Whitehall and Westminster World - 08 February 2005
The Gershon review recently identified “productivity time” as one of the 6 key areas where the Government could achieve efficiency savings across the public sector, and ICT is key to achieving this, but when ICT and efficiency are mentioned together an initial assumption is that we are in most cases talking of job-cuts, of machine replacing the man, of “back office savings” and a reduction in bureaucracy and therefore bureaucrats. Certainly this has been an over-riding media message to emerge from the Gershon Review: 2.5% efficiency savings and 80,000 potential redundancies seem intrinsically linked.

Don't assume that improving IT alone will breach the digital divide

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
The Times - 25 January 2005
Public policy is not immune to boom and bust, especially when it relates to new technology. The need to tackle the ‘the digital divide’, first publicised by the Clinton Whitehouse, is one of the most important legacies of the dotcom boom, but the policy agenda swings in and out of fashion far more erratically than

Will the secular left continue bowling alone?

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
New Statesman - 11 November 2004
Interview with Professor Robert Putnam.

Circling the wagons: the net politics of exclusion

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital society
The Register - 08 November 2004
Why Dodgy Metaphors Don't Help

What are we using ICT for?

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital society
Computing - 04 November 2004
Anyone who has ever attended a workshop or seminar on knowledge management will probably be familiar with the following scene. The speakers have finally all sat down, the core issues have been identified, and the most pressing questions have been raised. But just as participants are beginning to turn their minds to the next coffee break, one visionary individual gets to their feet, and with a peculiarly self-satisfied air, mutters those five magic words: “ICT – it’s just a tool.” They then stand there for a few moments, as if waiting for Accenture and PWC to whip their cheque-books out and launch a bidding war for this intellectual gem.

E-government must use realistic targets

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital society
Computing - 23 September 2004
The newly-appointed 'government CIO' should make his priorities clear from the outset

How to tame capitalism

By William Davies, Senior Research Fellow, Digital Society
New Statesman - 10 September 2004
William Davies on Labour's plans for a new breed of company that can make profits to serve the community

But, Tony Blair, I sent you an email....

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital society
Open Democracy - 29 July 2004
Politics online does not itself guarantee more accountable, transparent government. But what can the internet achieve politically? William Davies asks how interactivity can be made democratic.

It's good to talk

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital
Media Guardian - 26 July 2004
Last week saw the publication of the results of the public consultation about the BBC. This exercise could provide a new way of working for government as well as for broadcasters, argues William Davies

Delivering ICT in local communities

By William Davies, senior research fellow, digital society
egovmonitor - 26 July 2004
Last week Phil Hope, the Minister responsible for local eGovernment, announced that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was to produce a "10-year vision" for the future of eGovernment. Priorities for the future included online schools admissions facilities, data sharing among youth justice organisations and local transport information.

Dragged into the digital age

By James Crabtree, visiting Research Fellow, Digital Society
New Statesman - 23 July 2004
One afternoon in the summer of 1994 Dick Robinson, a researcher for Anne Campbell MP, received a phone call. Would Campbell, the caller inquired, like to have a “web-site”? “What’s a ‘website’?” asked Robinson. The caller explained, and Robinson agreed to give the idea a try. And so, 10 years ago this month, the first British MP entered cyberspace. A decade later nearly all of Anne Campbell’s parliamentary colleagues have joined her online. But has anything significant been achieved by the efforts of six hundred digital Parliamentarians?

Only connect

By James Crabtree, Researcher, Digital Society
New Statesman - 31 May 2004
Britain has long seemed a broadband basket-case, with low availability, high prices and a stifled market. Finally things are looking up.

E-gov the bigger picture

By Dr Ian Kearns, associate director
Local Government Chronicle - 27 May 2004
E-government produces a far wider range of benefits than efficiency and cutting costs, argues Dr Ian Kearns