Conclusion

We began this report by observing that Britain’s social fabric is frayed, and that the work of repair is already well underway. The movement for civic renewal has been growing for years, having taken root in local places, and it is now reaching regional and national scale.

Over the last few years, it has been good to see increasing support for this vital work from senior officials, politicians, and major institutions. But much of the conversation has focused on the more programmatic side of things: projects and initiatives, government schemes, and pots of funding, often with an emphasis on capital projects. In this report, we have focused instead on the people doing the work. What skills, methods, and dispositions do they bring, what support can they rely on, and how could this support be improved?

What we find is a dizzying array of work that is richer and more varied than is often appreciated. We name fifteen disciplines, a series of cross-cutting practices, and a civic ethic that runs through the work, distinguishing it from more bureaucratic efforts. Together, this amounts to a substantial body of craft, somewhere between a movement and a field.

The success of these efforts will be vital to Britain’s social, economic, and democratic future. Yet as things stand, much of the work is done by practitioners who learn as they go, and whose work is often disrespected and undervalued. Support is highly uneven. Some disciplines, like community organising, are backed by mature institutions, training, and thriving communities. Others, like community stewardship, have very little support at all. Overall, we are struck that the map of support seems to reflect the pattern of historical funding, rather than being the result of a sustained and intentional effort of field-building.

Given all this, two things feel clear. The first is that there should be a more determined effort to support the disciplines of civic renewal. It cannot be right that so many skilled practitioners work alone, design their own training from scratch, and lack communities of peers to learn from. The second is that it would be easy to make things worse by pushing this work down a path of professionalisation. We need to better support the work without bureaucratising it with rigid codification, gatekeepers, and accreditation.

We think it is possible to square this circle. Civic organisations should continue to support this vital work in the way they have been doing, such as by building vibrant communities of practice. This support could be developed in a more collaborative spirit, on the model of a commons – for example, by publishing materials like syllabuses and role profiles openly under a Creative Commons licence by default, so that people can share and improve them. These efforts should then be backed by a bolder long-term settlement, a combination of funding and institution-building, delivered by major foundations, philanthropists, and government.

We believe a network of Civic Colleges could sit at the heart of these efforts, serving as a vehicle to deliver them and as a galvanising focal point. Civic Colleges would be powerful and independent institutions, rooted in places. They would be joyful spaces, full of hope and determination, where people can come together to learn the skills we need for a thriving civic life. To complement this, we have proposed a series of other reforms, from opening up UKRI research funding to long-term support for practitioner networks.

We offer these proposals, like the typology itself, as starting points for discussion. We would welcome the chance to refine these ideas and put them into practice with partners.