More in Common, UCL and Citizens UK launch 'This Place Matters'

More in Common, UCL and Citizens UK launch 'This Place Matters'

This 19th May 2025 marks the launch of a major new national research project This Place Matters from UCL Policy Lab, the think tank at University College London, Citizens UK, the country’s biggest, people-powered community coalition and More in Common.

To mark the launch of this project and drawing on polling of more than 13,000 members of the public and focus groups across the country, new research finds that a plurality of Britons feel disconnected from British society and mistrustful of institutions.

This Place Matters is designed to provide local and national governments with a blueprint for what good cohesion policy looks like and to amplify the work of civic actors on the ground who are already doing so much to strengthen our social fabric. The project, which will run for one year and produce a report aimed at all the major political parties, is conducted in partnership with the Pears Foundation, This Day and Unbound Philanthropy.

Citizens UK, working on the ground with communities across Britain, will ensure the project and its recommendations are rooted in the lives of everyday people.

Matthew Bolton, Executive Director of Citizens UK, said: “We all saw what can happen last summer when anger and mistrust boil over and threaten the fabric of our society. The answers to this don’t lie in Whitehall. By listening to people closest to the ground about what causes division and what builds unity in their neighbourhood, we can build a blueprint for cohesion rooted in local leadership and community power. This project will turn those local stories into national change.”