Ravi Gurumurthy

The quiet power of friendship Mixing with people of different backgrounds is an ingredient for success

Friendship's quiet power to boost social mobility - great piece from @raviguru.bsky.social at Nesta - also relevant to cohesion, combatting loneliness, a whole host of issues we face - with some proven solutions we actually understand www.ft.com/content/2978...

The quiet power of friendship Mixing with people of different backgrounds is an ingredient for success

on.ft.com/3Z0E2RT The quiet power of friendship

How do friendships affect social mobility. I wrote in @financialtimes.com about research from BIT colleagues replicating Raj Chetty's US work analysing facebook data. Perhaps the department with communities in its name can run trials on cross-class interaction, and reducing 'friending bias'.

Journalists - want to write something sensible about what might happen in the budget? Use the @nestauk.bsky.social & IFS "Be the Chancellor" tool and see what might be needed...

Graph from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which shows a long term drop in defence spending versus higher health spending

What do social democrats do when there's no money?

Clearly this is the primary challenge facing the current government. I've written here about Labour's constraints - and sketched out what an escape hatch (or even a few!) might look like

ravigurumurthy.substack.com/p/labours-co...

Will have to venture to brick lane. I'm in south west london. Globalisation never made it here.

In defence of everythingism Why it's a necessary part of governing well

Well worth reading @jo3hill.bsky.social on the perils of everythingism reform.uk/publications...

I've made a case for the defence here: ravigurumurthy.substack.com/p/in-defence...

TLDR I think it's often a necessary part of governing well - not bat tunnels though.

2 of the people I interviewed for my book on #SocialMobility used the same phrase about what influenced their journey (“I had a posh friend”)

Others said similar things

Now there's data to quantify the opportunity-boosting effect of socially-mixed schools, neighbourhoods, sports & hobby groups⬇️

What we found from studying 6 billion friendships Dogs, social capital, and how we can become more upwardly mobile

Fascinating findings on friendship and social mobility from BIT colleagues.

It builds on Chetty's work in the US which found that economic connectedness is a powerful motor of social mobility.

With found some similar (and some quite different) patterns:

ravigurumurthy.substack.com/p/what-we-fo...

How to halve obesity And why we shouldn't fear the politics

How can we halve obesity, without putting food bills up or lecturing people on what to eat.

Check out my latest substack on the maths of obesity and what policies will drive radical change without stoking a culture war.

open.substack.com/pub/raviguru...

How to halve obesity And why we shouldn't fear the politics

Food for thought this weekend from @raviguru.bsky.social on how to deal with one of those long-term policy problems all govts duck (and with loads of win/wins around). Come on Wes...(and Rachel)
How to halve obesity open.substack.com/pub/raviguru...

What can we learn from the UK furlough scheme? Insights from inventor Tim Leunig As a new government gets to work, we’re looking at successful past policies from across the globe and what UK policymakers can learn from them as part of our event series: how to make good things happ...

🚀 How to design effective economic policies

Join us on 4 Feb for a breakfast event with @timleunig.bsky.social, architect of the UK furlough scheme, & our CEO @raviguru.bsky.social to discover how effective policy design & robust data targeting protected 3.25 million jobs.

Register: bit.ly/4alDn1Y

Better strategies in government Plus - why we should be golfing with Donald Trump

A new substack by Nesta CEO @raviguru.bsky.social is out today 🗞️

In this edition, Ravi writes about coherence in government and policy-making - and how to do strategy well. There's also a bit about Donald Trump, the Ministry of Defence and golf courses in Cyprus.

Free to subscribe ⬇️

Better strategies in government Plus - why we should be golfing with Donald Trump

Today’s substack is on strategy - with 7 tips on how the government can create compelling strategies. Plus a suggestion on what the MoD should do with its 19 golf courses (Yes, 19!)
ravigurumurthy.substack.com/p/better-str...

If you're looking for new reading in 2025, check out my substack Policy Fix. I'll be writing every other Friday. This week: overconfidence (including a calibration quiz that will tell you where you stand), and what started out as a laughable idea on heat pumps....https://ravigurumurthy.substack.com/

Great opening salvo from @raviguru.bsky.social. Love the idea about installers. Kevin @mulagostarr.bsky.social and his team like to ask their orgs "exactly who needs to do exactly what differently". This is a great example of how asking that question creatively gets you to interesting answers...

The overconfidence trap Plus - why we should give installers free heat pumps

Get your Policy Fix! I'll be writing fortnightly on policy and innovation. First up is how to check whether you are overconfident, and why we should offer free heat pumps to 150,000 installers. Please share, subscribe, and tell me what you think.

ravigurumurthy.substack.com/p/the-overco...

4. Most strategies contain lofty objectives and then a list of initiatives - rather than an attempt to quantify the impact of policies on the outcome. While there are obvious uncertainties, it is useful to replace adjectives with numbers that give a sense of the dose-response relationship.

3. Many measures that people typically call for are not effective, and we should stop focusing on things that may be directionally good gestures - especially when they burn political or financial capital.

2. It is feasible and cost-effective to adopt radical action on obesity so halving obesity as a goal should be established in 10 yr health plan, with a body - akin to Climate Change Committee set up to monitor progress and recommend any policy changes.

Some (no pun intended) takeaways:

1. We tend to think that obesity is intractable - only small progress is possible, over long term and at great political cost. This work shows that we can halve obesity. Only question is what balance between prevention vs treatment, and tax vs reg vs spending.

4. Another pathway that achieved a halving of obesity includes prevention and treatment, but leans heavily on regulatory measures such as mandatory targets for retailers. This package will not increase the cost of food and therefore may be politically acceptable.

3. A tax, regulation and treatment package which leans heavily on measures like the sugar and salt tax as proposed in the National Food Strategy (which on its own raises £3.2 bn per year), and cuts obesity by half.

2. A GLP1 focused pathway where you give 3 million new people each year with a BMI of over 30 a 2 year course of GLP drugs. Over 5 years this would cost £42 billion (or 8.5bn per year), and generate benefits of £26bn per year. 1/3rd benefits flow to state (NHS, productivity). 2/3rds to individual.

We’ve also selected 4 packages that illustrate different approaches to halving obesity. Here’s a summary of them:

1. The pathway that clearly doesn’t reach the target is focused on informing and educating citizens on nutrition and exercise. 11 policies reduce obesity by 10%.

A blueprint to halve obesity in the UK A tool to support the design, implementation and scaling of dietary health policies that are most likely to work.

What are the different paths to halving obesity?

Check out our ‘Blueprint’ project blueprint.nesta.org.uk, where we’ve reviewed thousands of papers with an expert group of academics, and rated interventions based on their cost, benefits, impact, and strength of the evidence.

This feels more Dave Gahan.

Democracy: doing it for ourselves democracy-doing-it-for-ourselves

Democracy: doing it for ourselves

Join a Nesta conversation with Nicholas Gruen (Kings College London), Martin Wolf (Financial times), Claire Mellier (GlobalAssembly / ISWE) and @raviguru.bsky.social (Nesta) on 15 November in London or via live stream.

#CitizensAssembly

Not sure I wanted my first post on here to be about #strictly. And so far, can't see any such chat on here. But...vote for a suitably monstrous Krish tonight