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Citizens’ assemblies work best on the questions politicians would rather not own
A citizens' assembly is a group of ordinary people chosen by lot, so that it roughly mirrors the population, who are given time, information and…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026ResearchReading military spending data: what a database like SIPRI’s does and does not tell you
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) maintains a widely used database of military expenditure estimates covering many…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, most hot-climate cities of over a million people will have a published heat action plan
Prediction: by 2035, most cities of more than a million people in hot climates will have a published heat action plan with named responsibilities…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026ProposalA one-page technology assessment before any public body buys an AI system
The problem: public bodies buy AI tools quickly, and the questions that matter, such as what it is for, who could be harmed, how errors are caught…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026PerspectivePeople work harder for a clear reason than for a long rulebook
Managers often respond to poor performance with more rules, more reporting and more checking. We think that usually treats a symptom. In our…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026ResearchSocial determinants of health: what the term means and why it matters
When people think of what keeps us healthy, they usually think of doctors and hospitals. Public-health researchers point out that much of what…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2032, at least one major news organisation will publish a running scorecard of its own forecasts
Prediction: by 2032, at least one major newspaper or broadcaster will keep and publish a running scorecard of its own predictions and expert…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026ProposalTeach planning and procrastination as skills, not character flaws
The problem: students who put off work are often told to "try harder", as if the problem were laziness. Most people procrastinate sometimes, and the…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026PerspectiveSteelman before you rebut: state the other side so well they would sign it
A straw man is a weak or distorted version of an opponent's argument that is easy to knock down. Steelmanning is the opposite: restating the other…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026PerspectiveOpen data is not transparency until ordinary people can use it
Governments increasingly publish spreadsheets, and that is good. But publishing is not the same as being understood. A file with thousands of rows…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026ResearchWhy the Geneva Conventions matter even when they are broken
The Geneva Conventions are a set of four treaties, first agreed in 1949 and added to by later protocols, that set standards for humane treatment in…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026ProposalGive every transport policy a public before-and-after air-quality scorecard
The problem: cities launch bus lanes, low-emission zones and street closures with strong claims about air quality, but few publish measurements that…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026QuestionWhich technology decisions should be made by the public rather than by researchers or companies?
Some technology choices are technical: which algorithm is faster, which material is stronger. Others are choices about how we want to live: whether…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026PerspectiveA shorter working week is worth piloting, not just debating
Arguments about a four-day week usually run on instinct: supporters say people will be healthier and just as productive, critics say output will…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026ResearchHow to read a health headline: trials, observational studies and what each can show
Health headlines often announce that something "causes" or "prevents" something else. The type of study behind the headline determines how far such…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026ProposalEvery think tank and newsroom should keep a public forecast ledger
The problem: experts and commentators make confident predictions, but there is almost no cost to being wrong, because nobody keeps a record. The…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026QuestionWhat should assessment measure that exams do not?
Written exams are efficient and, when well designed, reasonably fair. But they measure a narrow slice of what we want education to develop. They are…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026PerspectiveWe owe strangers more than politeness: two arguments from cosmopolitanism
Most of us feel stronger duties to family and friends than to people far away whom we will never meet. That is natural, and most moral views allow…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026PerspectiveGood government depends more on boring institutions than inspiring leaders
We tend to remember leaders and forget the offices that make decisions possible to check. Yet auditors, ombudsmen, courts, statistical agencies and…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2032, remittances will still be a bigger lifeline than official aid for many low- and middle-income countries
Prediction: by 2032, money sent home by migrants will remain larger than official development aid for many low- and middle-income countries, and…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026ProposalPut a standard life-cycle label on building materials
The problem: builders and public buyers rarely see the full environmental cost of the materials they choose, so decisions default to price and…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026QuestionWhat would it take for you to trust a scientific claim you cannot check yourself?
Most of what we believe about science, we cannot check ourselves. We rely on experts, journals and institutions. That is rational, since nobody can…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026PerspectiveGrowth is a means; an economy should be judged by whether people can live well
Gross domestic product, the total value of goods and services produced, is a useful measure of economic activity. It was never designed to measure…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, social prescribing will be a routine option in primary care in more countries than today
Prediction: by 2035, more countries than today will offer social prescribing, in which a health professional refers a patient to non-medical…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026ProposalHold a pre-mortem before every major public project: “it failed — why?”
The problem: large projects regularly run over time and over budget, in part because of the planning fallacy, the tendency to underestimate the…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026QuestionIs grit teachable, or is it sometimes a label for opportunity?
Angela Duckworth's talk "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance" popularised the idea that sticking with long-term goals is an important…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026PerspectiveA good life should be judged by how it is lived as well as by how it is remembered
Daniel Kahneman's talk "The riddle of experience vs. memory" draws a distinction that stays with you. There is the self that lives through moments…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026ResearchHow participatory budgeting works, and what we do and do not know about it
Participatory budgeting is a process in which residents decide how to spend part of a public budget. It is widely associated with the Brazilian city…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, new shared-river agreements will increasingly name data-sharing as a core duty
Prediction: by 2035, a larger share of newly signed agreements on rivers and lakes shared between countries will include explicit duties to share…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026ProposalTest a car-light street for 90 days, with the measurements published
The problem: arguments about closing or calming a street are usually fought with predictions, so the loudest voices win. The proposal: run a…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026PerspectivePreregistering a study should be normal, not heroic
Preregistration means writing down, before collecting data, what you will test and how you will analyse it, and publishing that plan. It sounds…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026ResearchRemote work and productivity: what we can and cannot conclude
Remote work, doing a job from home or another location outside a central office, expanded sharply in the early 2020s, and with it came strong claims…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2032, community health workers will be central to primary care in more countries
Prediction: by 2032, more countries than today will treat community health workers, trained local people who provide basic care, health education…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026ProposalA public “predictions due” calendar: revisit forecasts when their dates arrive
The problem: forecasts are exciting when they are made and forgotten when their date arrives, so we never learn which methods and people were…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026PerspectivePace learning by understanding, not by the calendar: mastery before moving on
In many classrooms the pace is set by the calendar: the unit ends on Friday, so the class moves on, whether or not everyone has understood. Students…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026ResearchWhat philosophy is for: a short guide for the curious
Philosophy has a reputation for being abstract and useless. The Crash Course Philosophy series begins with a video on the question "What is…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026ResearchSeparation of powers: three questions for judging whether it is working
Separation of powers is the idea that the making of laws, their execution and their interpretation should sit with different bodies, so that no…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026ProposalCreate a shared public tracker of international pledges and what was actually paid
The problem: large international pledges are announced with fanfare, but few people can find out later how much was paid, when, and whether it was…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026QuestionWho should pay for cleaner air: polluters, taxpayers or the people who benefit?
Cleaner air costs money. Filters, cleaner fuels, new buses and stricter inspections all have a bill. The same is true for broader climate policy…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026PerspectiveThe right to repair is also a technology-literacy policy
The right to repair is the idea that owners should be able to fix their own devices, or take them to any repairer, with access to manuals, spare…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026ResearchFour things GDP per capita hides
GDP per capita divides a country's economic output by its population. It is a convenient shorthand for how rich a country is, and it is widely…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026ProposalPublish a neighbourhood health map: walkability, green space, air quality and clinic access
The problem: health depends on where people live, yet information about local conditions is scattered across agencies and rarely shown in a way that…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026QuestionWhat should never change, even as everything else does?
Many of our debates are about change: how fast, in which direction, who gains and who loses. We spend less time on the opposite question: what…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026PerspectiveCreativity is not a subject; it is a way of teaching every subject
Sir Ken Robinson's talk "Do schools kill creativity?" is one of the most-watched talks of its kind. It argues that education systems often prize one…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026ResearchThe veil of ignorance, explained
The veil of ignorance is a thought experiment from the philosopher John Rawls, used to test whether a set of rules is fair. Imagine you must choose…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2030, governments in more countries will use randomly selected citizen panels than today
Prediction: by 2030, more countries than today will have used randomly selected citizen panels or assemblies, at national or regional level, to…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026ProposalPublish early-warning indicators for crises with plain definitions and public track records
The problem: when tensions rise, citizens receive competing claims and cannot tell a real risk from a rumour. Experts do watch indicators, but those…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026QuestionWhich environmental number do we trust too easily?
Environmental headlines are full of single numbers: a recycling rate, an emissions total, a count of plastic in the ocean, a "percentage of…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026PerspectiveOpen source should be the default for software that runs public services
When a government pays for software, the public has paid once. We think it should be able to see how it works, reuse it, and avoid paying again for…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2032, more governments will have run formal four-day-week trials in the public sector than today
Prediction: by 2032, more national or regional governments than today will have run a formal, evaluated trial of a four-day working week in part of…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026ProposalA one-paragraph “what this study can and cannot show” box for every health news story
The problem: health stories compress complicated research into confident headlines, and readers cannot tell how strong the evidence is. The…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026QuestionWhich forecast of the past twenty years aged worst, and what did it miss?
Looking back at old predictions is humbling and useful. Some forecasts missed because the technology changed, others because people behaved…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026PerspectiveEvery child needs at least one adult who believes they can learn
Rita Pierson, a teacher for many years, gave a short talk titled "Every kid needs a champion". Her central claim is simple: children learn better…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, “who is responsible when an algorithm decides?” will be settled mainly in courts and councils, not seminars
Prediction: by 2035, the practical question of who is responsible when an automated system makes a harmful decision will be answered mainly through…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2030, public bodies that publish their mistakes will be trusted more than those that do not
Prediction: by 2030, surveys comparing similar public bodies will show higher trust in those that routinely publish error reports, including what…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026ProposalTwin communities on opposite banks of a shared river
The problem: governments negotiate over rivers and borders, but the people who live there rarely meet the people on the other side, so each side's…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026PerspectiveCities should publish street-level air-quality data before they publish a climate plan
Most city climate plans begin with a target. We think they should begin with a map. Air pollution is not spread evenly. It concentrates along busy…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026ResearchIs most published research wrong? What the replication debate does and does not show
In the early 2010s, researchers in several fields reported that many published findings did not hold up when other teams tried to repeat them. This…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, most office jobs will involve working with an AI tool, and pay will depend more on judgement than on speed
Prediction: by 2035, a majority of office-based jobs in wealthy economies will include regular use of AI tools for drafting, analysis or routine…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026ProposalMake the healthy choice the default in public canteens
The problem: public canteens in schools, hospitals and offices serve millions of meals, yet the healthiest option is often neither the cheapest nor…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026PerspectiveA forecast that cannot be wrong is not a forecast
"Things will change a lot." "Technology will transform the sector." "There will be turbulence ahead." Such statements are safe, because nothing that…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026ResearchRetrieval practice and spacing: two study methods with strong support
Two of the best-supported ideas in the science of learning are simple to describe and surprisingly under-used. Retrieval practice, sometimes called…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, duties to future generations will appear in the budget rules of more countries
Prediction: by 2035, more countries than today will write explicit duties to future generations into their budget or planning rules, for example…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026ProposalAttach a review date and an evaluation plan to every new regulation
The problem: rules are easy to add and hard to remove. Few are ever checked against the outcomes they were meant to deliver. The proposal: every…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026QuestionHow accurate is your picture of the world, and which facts would you bet on?
Most of us carry an informal picture of the world: how long people live, how many children are in school, how much poverty remains, how wars compare…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026PerspectiveReaching zero emissions is an innovation problem as much as a willpower problem
Climate debates often split into two camps: those who say we already have the technology and only lack the will, and those who say a breakthrough…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026ResearchWhat “algorithmic bias” means, and three ways to test for it
Algorithmic bias describes systematic and repeatable errors in a computer system that produce unfair outcomes, such as favouring one group of people…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026ProposalPortable benefits that follow gig and platform workers from job to job
The problem: people who work through apps or on short contracts often have no employer to provide sick pay, a pension, injury cover or unemployment…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026QuestionWhat would a health system designed around prevention actually measure?
Health systems tend to measure what they do: operations performed, appointments held, beds occupied. A system built around prevention would need to…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026PerspectivePlanning for several futures beats betting on one
Many plans are built on a single expected future: one growth rate, one price, one technology. When that future does not arrive, the plan breaks…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026ResearchFormative and summative assessment: what each is for
"Assessment" covers two quite different purposes, and confusing them causes much frustration. Summative assessment sums up what a student has…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026ProposalAdd a “steelman round” to every public consultation
The problem: public consultations often turn into a contest between slogans, where each side describes the other at its worst. The proposal: before…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026ProposalEvery local government should publish a one-page budget anyone can read
The problem: budgets are the most important policy document a local authority produces, and among the least read. Hundreds of pages in technical…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026QuestionWhat would a fair way to share a river look like?
Rivers cross borders. Upstream countries, midstream farms, downstream cities and fishing communities all depend on the same water, and they often…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026PerspectiveAdapting to climate change deserves the same prestige as cutting emissions
Cutting emissions is a global effort whose benefits are spread thinly and arrive slowly. Adaptation is local, visible and immediate: shade…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2030, public-sector AI systems will need a published impact assessment before launch in more places than today
Prediction: by 2030, more jurisdictions than today will require government agencies to complete and publish an impact assessment before deploying an…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026ProposalPaid mid-career apprenticeships with a guaranteed placement
The problem: when an industry shrinks, workers in their thirties, forties and fifties are told to retrain, but retraining often means losing income…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026QuestionWhich health claim in the news deserves a closer look at its evidence?
Every week brings a new health claim: a food that helps, a habit that harms, a screening that saves lives or does not. Some are well supported…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026PerspectiveWe can only connect the dots looking backward, so long-term plans should stay flexible
In his 2005 Stanford commencement address, Steve Jobs said that you cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, most secondary students in many countries will have an AI study helper, and schools will weight in-class work more
Prediction: by 2035, in a large number of countries, most secondary-school students will have routine access to an AI study helper, and many schools…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026ProposalDebate clubs that reward changing your mind
The problem: most debate formats reward winning, so students learn to defend a position at all costs and to treat changing their mind as losing. The…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026ProposalAfter every public consultation, publish a “you said, we did” report within 60 days
The problem: people take part in public consultations, hear nothing back, and conclude their input was ignored. That discourages the next round. The…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026PerspectivePeace is mostly boring: invest in the unglamorous machinery of dispute resolution
Wars attract attention; the quiet processes that prevent them do not. Mediation, court procedures, hotlines between militaries, shared inspection…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026ResearchWhat the WHO 2021 air-quality guidelines actually changed
In 2021 the World Health Organization published updated global air quality guidelines. Three things are worth understanding before quoting them…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2035, the global internet-use gap will narrow but will not close
Prediction: by 2035, the share of the world's population that uses the internet will be higher than today, but a meaningful gap will remain between…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026ProposalTest pay and recognition systems like medicines: small trials with pre-set measures
The problem: organisations introduce bonus schemes, targets and recognition programmes on confidence, and rarely test whether they work, or whether…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026PerspectivePrevention is a design problem, not a willpower problem
We often talk about health as a matter of personal choice: eat better, move more, sleep well. Individual choices matter, but they are made inside…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026ResearchHow forecasters are scored: a plain-language guide to the Brier score
If someone says "there is an 80 percent chance of rain" and it does not rain, were they wrong? Not necessarily, since a 20 percent outcome sometimes…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026PredictionBy 2032, more countries will include media literacy explicitly in national school curricula
Prediction: by 2032, a larger number of countries than today will name media literacy, the ability to access, analyse and evaluate media messages…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026ProposalA public “disagreement ledger”: where reasonable people disagree on a policy, and why
The problem: public debate treats every dispute as a fight between the right and the wrong, so it is hard to see which parts of a disagreement are…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026QuestionWhat would make you trust a public institution more, and what should it publish to earn that trust?
Trust in public institutions rises and falls, and surveys show it varies widely between countries and between kinds of body. But the general…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026PerspectiveTrade ties do not guarantee peace, but they raise the cost of conflict
A popular claim says countries that trade heavily with each other do not fight. History offers counter-examples, so the strong version of the claim…
Think Tank Editors · World Affairs · 4 November 2026ResearchThree questions to ask about any carbon-price claim
A carbon price puts a cost on emitting carbon dioxide, either through a tax or through a cap-and-trade system where emission permits are bought and…
Think Tank Editors · Climate & Pollution · 4 November 2026ProposalA public science notebook for problems communities actually face
The problem: communities have questions science could help with, such as whether a stream is polluted, whether a school is too hot or whether local…
Think Tank Editors · Science & Technology · 4 November 2026QuestionWhat will “a good job” mean in 2035?
Ask people what makes a job good and the answers have changed over time: security, a decent wage, prestige, flexibility, meaning, the chance to…
Think Tank Editors · Economy & Work · 4 November 2026PerspectiveLoneliness should be treated as a public-health issue
Loneliness is the painful feeling of a gap between the connection we want and the connection we have. We think societies should treat it as…
Think Tank Editors · Health & Society · 4 November 2026ResearchWhat population projections can and cannot tell us
Population projections, such as the United Nations World Population Prospects, are among the most widely used forecasts in the world. They shape…
Think Tank Editors · Future & Forecasts · 4 November 2026ProposalTeach students to judge online information, with real examples, from age 11
The problem: young people meet far more information, and misinformation, than any previous generation, but are often taught to avoid "bad sources"…
Think Tank Editors · Education · 4 November 2026QuestionDoes the language you think in change what you notice?
Lera Boroditsky's talk "How Language Shapes the Way We Think" explores the idea that speakers of different languages may pay attention to different…
Think Tank Editors · Ideas & Philosophy · 4 November 2026QuestionDo online filter bubbles narrow what we see, or do we narrow ourselves?
The idea of a "filter bubble", popularised in a well-known talk by Eli Pariser, is that personalised feeds quietly show us more of what we already…
Think Tank Editors · Politics & Governance · 4 November 2026