Common Wealth
Timing
Monday 28th September: 14:00 - 15:00
Chair
Sarah Nankivell Tomanovic, Common Wealth
Speakers
Mathew Lawrence, Common Wealth
Hannah Peaker, NEF
Steve Akehurst, Persuasion
Alfie Sterling, JRF
Topic
Building the Productive State: The pillars of progressive reform
The session will be based on the Productive State — a public institutional architecture for the supply side of the economy, designed to intervene at the specific sites where instability, extraction and underinvestment originate. We will ask how the new Government can build an economy of abundance, security, and stability – a decommodified foundation of essentials, a stabilised and dynamic market middle, and an innovation frontier enabled by the security the foundation provides.
About Common Wealth
Founded in 2019, Common Wealth is a think tank, operating across the UK and the US. Our work is based on the insight that ownership is a structuring force in our economy, and that current distributions and relations of property and power are social in origin — and therefore can and must be reimagined. Our mission is to develop bold but implementable policy solutions that advance economic democracy, public ownership, and social justice across key sectors including energy, housing, and land. We work with a variety of organisations from community and grassroots groups to national and international policymakers, combining rigorous analysis and research with bold ideas for change.
Speaker bios
Sarah Nankivell Tomanovic, Common Wealth
Sarah is Deputy Director at Common Wealth. Before joining Common Wealth, Sarah was Assistant Director of Operations at Forensic Architecture, founding Operations Manager and Advisory Board member at Forensis e.V, and a founding Trustee of Equidem. Sarah is a graduate of the University of Toronto (BSc) and the University of Cambridge (MPhil)
Mathew Lawrence, Common Wealth
Mathew is Common Wealth’s Founder and Director. Prior to founding Common Wealth, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, working on their Commission on Economic Justice. He is the co-author of Owning the Future (Verso, 2022) and Planet on Fire (Verso, 2021).
Hannah Peaker, NEF
Hannah is Deputy Chief Executive at the New Economics Foundation, where she directs and oversees NEF’s research and policy work, from greening finance to social housing acquisition. She has worked on community empowerment in the charity sector and local government, and open data and democracy at the Cabinet Office and UN. Hannah worked on the Obama presidential campaign in North Carolina, and went on to manage successful local election campaigns for Labour. In 2015 she helped transform the Women’s Equality Party from an idea on Facebook into a movement capable of winning real change — on childcare, abortion rights and criminal justice. She has co-authored legislation with the Lib Dems and Greens. Hannah studied Philosophy at Leeds University, undertaking a Masters in Comparative Social Policy at Oxford, and in 2010 was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to study at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Steve Akehurst, Persuasion
Steve Akehurst is Director of Persuasion UK and leads our research work. He has spent his career working at the intersection of politics, policy and public attitudes, with a focus on communications-orientated polling research. In recent years, he has specialised in global attitudes to the Net Zero transition.
Alfie Sterling, JRF
Alfie is Director of Insight and Policy at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, leading the evidence, economics and policy teams. Previously Alfie was Director of Research and Chief Economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), leading research teams across economics, environment and social policy. Prior to that, Alfie was senior economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), leading macroeconomic and fiscal policy research for the Commission on Economic Justice. Alfie is a regular contributor in national media through TV, radio and print.