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Carnegie UK – 2025 Review of the Year

  • Sarah Davidson, Carnegie UK
  • 17 December 2025
  • 4 minute read

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a policy foundation in possession of a year’s worth of work, must be in want of a festive round-up. Or so Jane Austen would surely have said if she were with us today.

Truthfully, as 2025 draws to a close, we might be forgiven for feeling less than celebratory. The Collective Wellbeing we work for at Carnegie UK hasn’t dominated the current affairs agenda amid a swirl of global and domestic crises.  However, this team believes in patient but determined optimism; sustainable transformation built on small wins that accumulate over time. These might be easily overlooked in the moment but are proof that genuine progress is possible.

In that spirit and in topical tribute to Jane Austen’s six published novels, here my top six “small wins” from Carnegie UK this year, giving me hope for 2026.

1. Financing the Future

Our status as an endowed foundation lets us follow a policy hunch without quite knowing where it will lead us. Such was the case when we set out to explore what a wellbeing approach to raising and spending public money might look like. The punt paid off when we found that all sorts of people thought this was a conversation well worth having.  Our published findings on international wellbeing budgeting, public views on taxation and expert roundtable findings demonstrated that there are indeed viable alternatives to the status quo.

 

2. Life in the UK

A big moment this year, when along with Ipsos we published our annual wellbeing index for the third time. As well as telling a story about where we are as a country in 2025, it now also shows trends since 2023. The research received widespread interest UK-wide, in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

While the overall picture hasn’t shifted much, we did see some modest gains in the Scottish data, proving that change is possible.  In-house data analysis means we also now have a LiUK Data Dashboard – woohoo!

 

3. Convening a Community of Practice

One of Carnegie UK’s key assets is the ability to work across all nations and regions of the UK and Ireland. I’d noticed a strong desire among policymakers to learn from each other about embedding wellbeing, and yet how difficult it was to make that happen.  So, I’m particularly pleased to have realised my ambition of bringing them all together in a Wellbeing Community of Practice this year and to have seen that shared insight and collaboration come to life.

4. Seeing ourselves as others see us

2025 was a “look back/look forward” year, marking the midpoint of our current strategy. We’re grateful to everyone who contributed to our spring Stakeholder Survey, conducted by The Lines Between.  The encouraging feedback about the reputation, quality and impact of our work was a high spot of the year, and we took away some great suggestions to improve our accessibility, communication and convening.

5. New partnerships and relationships

“If you want to go far, go together” – we hooked up with some fellow travellers this year who helped us share our work in fresh ways. Highlights include joint ventures with New Local in January; our ongoing partnership with the Poverty Truth Network; CLES in July; Re:State in November, and Demos across the year.

6. Not forgetting the old friends and family

In June, we welcomed senior leaders from Carnegie institutions worldwide to Scotland for our biennial gathering.  It was a moment to reflect on the shared vision and purpose which we were given by our founder, and also to wrestle with how to fulfil these aspirations in the modern world. Not easy questions by any means, but a real privilege to work on them with so many committed and inspiring international colleagues.

None of these achievements happened by accident. Thanks to our Board of Trustees – especially Chair David Emerson – for their encouragement and support; to the fantastic team at Carnegie UK who bring the policy and advocacy to life and make work fun; and to everyone who is interested and intrigued by what we’ve got to say.

Stay tuned in 2026 for new work focussed on democracy; bringing people together to tackle challenges we’re facing; and even greater ambitions for our Life in the UK programme.