Idea Bank
Meta Ideas
Democratic Economy, Alternatives to Capitalism
See Research Network here.
For a talk by Majorie Kelly on the Democratic Economy
Blog post on alternatives to capitalism
Degrowth
Degrowth - See info portal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth
Co-Creation & Co-Production
https://www.scie.org.uk/co-production/
4th Generation leaders in Singapore to partner citizens in policy-making. See https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/4g-leaders-will-partner-citizens-in-policymaking and https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/dpm-heng-swee-keat-sets-out-how-4g-leaders-plan-to-take-spore-forward-govt-will-partner
Big Ideas
Civic Technology
Digital platforms that allow mass participation and deliberation: pol.is, Smart Participation
See use case of civic technology: VTaiwan and other articles here: See Wong Shiau Ching's presentation on civic tech in Taiwan, based on her PhD dissertation, at IPS Community Forum 2018.
See this Challenge article on various civic tech used for online dialogue, and platform based in Singapore, dialectic.sg
Basic Income
or Universal Basic Services instead?
Worker-owned Cooperatives
Democracy at Work is a non-profit that advocates for worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces as a key path to a stronger, democratic economic system. Based on Richard D. Wolff;s ideas in the book Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism.
http://community-wealth.org/content/worker-cooperatives
Sanjay Perera, editor of Philosophers For Change, an online journal on alternative socioeconomic paradigms wrote an op-ed on Workers' Self-Directed Enterprises (ST 14 Feb 2015)
Because worker owned firms find it hard to attract capital, this is a proposal of a mechanism that locks worker interests in a partially employee-owned firm with those of investors, while retaining worker control over the firm. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/make-capital-work-us-real-world-proposal-gradual-transformation-economy/
Freedom of Information
The Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIAnet) is an international information-sharing network of organizations and individuals working to promote the right of access to information.
Ombudsman
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/how-ombudsman-could-benefit-singapore
Participatory Budgeting
https://www.participatorybudgeting.org/what-is-pb/
Connecting addicts and ex-offenders, instead of medicalising and isolating them
Universal Family Care
https://universalfamilycare.org/
Christopher Gee on this idea:
"It’s a proposal to simplify different social care programmes into an umbrella social insurance scheme into which workers pay premiums (although they don’t necessarily refer to the payments as such, it could also be structured in the form of a tax).
As a broad-based social risk-pool, this has attractions in broadening coverage for family care services, but the concern will be how one pays for all of this. And that will be contested in the political arena, more so in those places where these care costs are not socialised but are primarily shouldered by the family. One practical example of this possible contestation might come in the situation where the scheme is asked to pay for the childcare costs of the fifth or sixth child of an unemployed single mother all squeezed into a rental flat. Will people (typically the more well-to-do, with least family dependency) be happy to pay higher taxes or premiums to cover the costs of those more likely to claim under the scheme?
Workers’ contributions at a level sufficient to make the scheme financially sustainable could also be prohibitive, but this is as much an issue of the demand-supply factors for care services than it is the mechanisms by which we pay for such services."
Implementable Ideas
Virtual Toy Library
Crowdsource Interview Questions
Crowdsource interview questions to ask so that most pertinent questions are answered by the most prominent people
Wellbeing Teams
Wellbeing Teams by Helen Sanderson. Helen has developed an innovative community care model (based loosely on the Buurtzog concept) with self-managing teams delivering person-centric care in the community without the layers of bureaucracy that oftentimes results in unsatisfactory outcomes for the care recipients, care-givers and the community as a whole.She is also co-founder of charity Community Circles, creating solutions to loneliness together. She is one of 50 New Radicals in the UK, and is award winning for innovation in health and care and value-based recruitment. (Helen will visit IPS for a talk on 6 Sept 2019, for background info on that, see link [to be posted later] )
Solutions Focused Think Tanks
New Economics Foundation
London-based think tank that described itself as a people-powered think tank. They champion: "AN ECONOMY FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE"
To do this, "WE WORK WITH PEOPLE IGNITING CHANGE FROM BELOW AND WE COMBINE THIS WITH RIGOROUS RESEARCH TO FIGHT FOR CHANGE AT THE TOP"
"TOGETHER WE CAN CHANGE THE RULES TO MAKE THE ECONOMY WORK FOR EVERYONE"
Nesta
Focus is on innovation
Third Way
DC based think tank that produces policy innovations, rigorous research, and issue campaigns
Tamarack Institute
http://www.tamarackcommunity.ca/
Based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Focused on community change. Provides training and fellowships for community changemakers.