Fixing the digital divide: what works?
Digital inclusion is a top priority for the UK government and today Good Things Foundation, the UK’s leading digital inclusion charity, is launching a new initiative to ensure effective, evidence-based solutions to the issue are adopted.
Our research underpins everything we do; we act based on what we know and seek collaborations to discover more, and keep pace with the changing digital exclusion environment. In fact, we’ve been building an extensive bank of high-quality, robust research and evidence for over twenty years, on tackling the UK digital divide. We know that sharing and collaborating is the best way to move things forward and turn the dial on digital inclusion.
Today, we’re launching our brand new initiative: What Works? Co-Lab.
What is What Works? Co-Lab?
This new project consolidates elements of our existing research, evidence and policy work into one place. What Works? Co-Lab isn’t just about building and sharing best practice. It’s about exploring new challenges by supporting test-and-learn projects, then measuring impact through robust data and insights.
The What Works? Co-Lab launches with four new expert overviews exploring digital inclusion via the themes: Access, Basic digital skills, Confidence and engagement and Digital Services. In August 2024, we brought together around 100 experts and practitioners from a range of sectors for a series of roundtable discussions to help to form ideas to drive action on digital inclusion. These papers summarise the data and insights provided to participants ahead of the roundtables so that they had an understanding of key insights and practice from the UK and elsewhere.
Alongside the four new papers, the What Works? Co-Lab elevates two further collaborative data-driven collections, providing a strong foundation for evolving the Co-Lab:
Data Poverty Lab
With the goal of making the internet affordable and accessible for people on low incomes, the Data Poverty Lab has delivered a programme of work to find sustainable solutions to data poverty – the challenge of not being able to afford enough mobile and broadband data.
UK Datasets Collective with University of Liverpool and others
Since July 2022, Good Things has been supporting a unique collaboration of UK providers of the latest insights and data on digital inclusion, including the Lloyds UK Consumer Digital Index and Ofcom. A briefing in September (‘Digital inclusion: what the main UK datasets tell us’) called for action on data and metrics.
Powered by our strategic partners, we’re determined to push forward with fixing the UK’s digital divide using collaboration, evidence, and innovation to spread best practice, and aim for systemic change.
Shaping the future programme for the What Works? Co-Lab will be something we do with our strategic partners, supporters, Network hubs, and through our evolving and strengthening network of national, regional, and local relationships. If you would like to work with us on a What Works? Co-Lab project or programme, please contact: partnerships@goodthingsfoundation.org.
Visit our What Works? Co-Lab.