Anna Smee reflects on developments in the social investment market and offers her advice for people wishing to develop incubators.

Mhairi Aylott explores the fantastic diversity of the community initiatives which the Young Foundation is helping to grow under our Building Local Activism programme.

Historically, services for young people have been regarded as ‘self-evidently good.' Despite the resistance to quantifying impact, Bethia McNeil makes the case that greater accountability and demonstration of impact will empower motivated practitioners.

We must blend the knowledge base and research techniques of social psychology with the enthusiasm and business expertise of social innovators.

Sophie Hostick-Boakye finds herself trawling property websites to hunt for flats in Hackney, but with severely limited success.  Why?  She was in receipt of a hypothetical Local Housing Allowance (LHA). Here she discusses her flat search, and and considers why being an LHA claimant makes it even more difficult to find a suitable place.

The question of how to create sustainable cities and communities was raised again recently, with both the inaugural meeting of the New Cities Summit in Paris, and a call from the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) for a new generation of Garden Cities in the UK, exploring different perspectives on the issue.

Beth Price, Project Assistant with Young Foundation supported venture Enabling Enterprise, considers the increasing number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEETS) and the finding of a recent Work Foundation report - that young people also face the additional hurdle, when entering the labour market, of inadequate workplace skills. In light of these facts, she discusses thesignificance of the work of Enabling Enterprise.

Our Autumn wave interns were asked, as part of their Intern Challenge, toinvestigate the statement made by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in the Guardian newspaper in November of 2010: ‘‘Social mobility is what characterises a fair society, rather than a particular level of income equality.' With their findings fresh in mind, recent Young Foundation interns Oliver Levy, Lily Ash Sakula and Tahnia Ahmed consider Clegg's statement.

Young Foundation ex intern Lily Ash Sakula considers Richard Sennett's new book in relation to the Young Foundation's work.

Young Foundation Senior Associate Jack Graham discusses his award-winning idea and Young Foundation venture Year Here, which aims to kick-start a new generation of social leaders who are passionate, smart and effective in driving social change.

Young Foundation Senior Associate Tricia Hackett considers the future for Tottenham, after the riots of 2012, drawing on the findings of the Tottenham Community Panel's 'Taking Tottenham Forward' report and the community engagement work undertaken by the Young Foundation that informed these findings.

A recent study by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) at Durham University has raised the question of whether ‘shouting out' in class may help students to learn. The CEM study found that students who blurted out answers were more likely to achieve higher test results in Maths and English. Beth Price, intern with Young Foundation backed social venture Enabling Enterprise, considers the implications of these findings.

Dr Marcia Brophy is a Programme Leader at the Young Foundation and is currently on sabbatical working as a Mental Health and Wellbeing Development Worker and Training Advisor in Jaffna, north Sri Lanka. In this blog post she describes her experiences on World Mental Health Day and explores both positive and negative responses to mental health and wellbeing issues in Sri Lanka.

Enabling Enterprise founder and CEO Tom Ravenscroft explores the critical role education, especially certain non-conventional approaches to education, can play in generating growth in the UK economy.

Ginny Lee reflects on her trip to Oman to deliver a one day social enterprise workshop at the Third Annual Muscat Youth Summit in December 2011.

In line with the new paper and resource by Young Foundation programme Future Communities 'A review of urban Community Land Trusts in England', Future Communities intern Oliver Gregory explores the potentials of, and problems with, Community Land Trusts with a particular emphasis on how such a trust would operate in regards to the Olympic Park.

Director of Young Foundation venture Action for Happiness responds to the publication of the first official UK wellbeing data from the Office of National Statistics.

Young Foundation Director Nicola Bacon recently undertook a whistlestop tour of three Korean cities- Bucheon, Jeonju and the capital Seoul. In this blog post she explores the state of social innovation in these regions of Korea, what we can learn from the Korean attitude towards social innovation, and the possible election of a new social innovation Mayor for Seoul, Mr Woon Son Park, former Executive Director of Korea's Hope Institute and the liberal parties' candidate for Mayor.

Exploring different perceptions of place is essential in understanding social and physical changes to an area as the case of Somers Town demonstrates.

The recent riots have diverted attention from the Olympic Park Legacy Company’s decision to reject a £1bn bid by the Wellcome Trust to transform the Olympic Park into a science and technology hub.

Post-riot communities face a difficult terrain ahead, but pushing the justice system beyond the tipping point is not the answer, argues Anton Shelupanov.

In the aftermath of last night's riots in London and other cities across the UK, people are shocked and angry. But, if we stop to look at what might be the underlying drivers of this behaviour, many of these lead back to issues at the heart of the happiness agenda which Action for Happiness is focused on.

Paying attention to health is critical for successful criminal justice system reform

whether overseas or in the UK

Is the Big Society Bank window dressing for soft privatisation?

The most effective way to reduce costs in the criminal justice system is to stem the flow of people reaching prison. A recent decision to privatise one of the largest prisons is risky and will not break the cycle of the rising prison population.

What does this really mean?

The majority of young people have signed petitions or attanded demonstrations, but very few vote in elections or feel they can influence governement decisions. Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang considers how this could be rectified.

How India's and Britain's innovative education entrepreneurs have more in common than you might think.

In National Apprenticeships Week Yvonne Roberts considers the realities of 21st century apprenticeships.

As funding becomes ever scarcer, the youth sector is expected to make the transition from grant-dependency to self-sufficiency. Stuart Thomason considers the innovations needed to 'future-proof' grant funding.

Discipline comes in many forms, and it is vital in securing a young person's future, but will 'boot camps' really equip young people with the skills they need?

Unemployment in early adulthood can have a significant impact on a person's health and future employment prospects - can Social Impact Bonds make a difference?

The third Monday of January, often labelled 'Blue Monday', is widely believed to be the unhappiest day of the year. At this time of year we all set ourselves new goals in order to shake off our winter woes. We all consider new things we want to do, to have and to be.  But what does it mean to be successful, and happy, in the modern world - and how do we get there?

Yvonne Roberts writes on the potential missed opportunity of the NHS reorganisation, stating that modernisation requires more than just "changing chess pieces on the commissioning board".

We arrived in Bemerton Heath on a sunny June day. The estate - a cluster of terraced, post-war houses - was surrounded by picturesque hills. Deprivation in Wiltshire looks very different from Tower Hamlets where we are based. But to what extent can you predict life satisfaction based on deprivation levels? It is precisely these questions that the Wellbeing and Resilience Measure (WARM) helps to answer.

The Prime Minister recently announced the government's intention to help turn the East End into one of the world's great technology centres. This new cluster of technology companies, to be known as ‘East London Tech City', has the backing of global superpowers Google, Facebook and Intel. If you add these to the growing number of tech companies in around Shoreditch and Old Street and the expanding Olympic infrastructure, the vision becomes clear.

The web has the power to involve citizens in policy-making but there needs to be more focus on how citizens get involved- how wisely, rather than how widely. Many of the platforms that the public sector is using to gather ideas don't make this distinction. m

This week the Chancellor George Osborne announced £2.5 billion in cuts to the Justice budget. The system will have to maintain public safety with fewer resources, and fewer front line staff. This is serious but it is not catastrophic.

Current forecasts show that, in spite of the recession, 4.5 million new households will be built in England by 2026. Across Europe, 32 new towns are in development. In Asia we are seeing developments on an unprecedented scale. Some estimates suggest that in the next three years, 100 new Chinese cities, each with a population of over a million people, will be created. But many new urban developments have failed. Even if they were physically well-designed they often suffered from poor social design - leaving inhabitants cut off, alienated and afraid - gleaming new developments as unhappy places where no one wants to live.

The news is full of stories about resilience: miners survive months at the bottom of a 600m shaft; a golfer returns to his sport following his public humiliation; a wounded soldier is preparing to compete in the 2012 Olympics. But resilience is also the unsung capacity most us have to manage everyday stress, deal with ordinary setbacks and brave tough times. We call on our resilience whenever we shake off a hurtful remark or decide to have another go. As an old Japanese proverb puts it, resilience is our capacity to "fall down seven times and stand up eight".

In all the furore about the Browne Review and the likely fees hikes across Higher Education (HE), it's easy to lose sight of the issues at hand.

When I was a teenager at an all girl's school I remember spending hours decorating our homework books. Alongside the ‘I love yous', my more intrepid peers would write ‘Sex' in large bubble letters followed by ‘now I have your attention'. When Sam Roddick's title was proposed similar response rippled through the Young Foundation office ...

The Coalition has announced a ‘rehabilitation revolution' as part of their criminal justice reforms. Efforts to help former offenders get jobs must be central to this program; evidence strongly suggests that having a job reduces the likelihood of reoffending by as much as 50%.

Today I’m in the city to spend the day with Adrian*, a 25 year old who has been looking for work for over a year. Adrian rents a run-down two bedroom terraced house in Washwood Heath. I knock on the door and he invites me in for a cup of tea.

What could be done to make our society more skilled rather than relying on professionals and systems? Are there ways in which raising the capacity of 1% of the population could have a direct impact on quality of life at relatively low cost?

It's Wednesday afternoon in Washwood Heath, Birmingham and the busy high street where I am standing is buzzing. There are mothers with children outside the bakery and men in traditional Pakistani and Indian clothes chatting in groups on the street. I'm here as part of a Young Foundation research programme looking at people's experiences of worklessness for Birmingham City Council.

The first Social Silicon Valley? Social businesses, NGOs and co-operatives coming together to tackle social problems in Bilbao.

Hiran hopes to become the youngest Asian professional in the 2012 Olympics. His other goal is to empower disadvantaged young people. Not bad for a 15 year old from Bethnal Green. Hiran Adhia is a delegate for the Young Foundation's Youth of Today leadership programme.

In July the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, set out his stall on justice policy. The speech was timely and his analysis largely correct: it is astonishing that since he was last in charge of the criminal justice system in the early 1990s the number of people in prison has doubled. He talked about this being unsustainable.

What part will offender employment play in the ‘rehabilitation revolution'?

Are we seeing a shift from a production or delivery state to a relational state?  From a state that does things to or for people to one that does things with them?

How can we free up the internet so information is free and accessible by all?

Nicola Bacon reflects on the problem of what to do with the ‘most difficult' families.

How can we go beyond the 'cleaner, safer, greener' agenda in neighbourhood work?

Local government has a great tradition of innovating imaginatively and there's growing interest in how the sector can take this forward more systematically.

Last week the Local Projects team put together a list of its favourite social innovations and social innovation methods. The list celebrates social innovations both big and small. Some are ambitious; others are more modest (basic but brilliant). Some employ new technology, while others harness manpower and technology that's been around for generations.

'How to do more with less' - an old slogan which aptly describes the mounting pressure on local authorities as the recession bites.

'Help a London Park' has sparked a wealth of new collaborative social networks and activity at a very local level across London - but more could be done to harness this energy.

The thinking behind the development of a new financial tool to invest money in social outcomes

When the NHS sold the Middlesex Hospital in Central London in 2006, we turned it into a very smart block of Candy & Candy luxury flats.  When the Canadian health service had finished with the old Toronto General Hospital in the city’s University District, they turned it into this.  I can’t help feeling we missed a trick.

Over the last few years I’ve become interested in the question of collective intelligence: how do large groups, societies or nations mobilise their intelligence to make the most of opportunities or avoid threats.

I did a talk a few weeks ago for the Guidestar International Assembly – bringing people from around the world interested in accountability and governance for civil society.

I went to China last week to take part in the Shantou Dialogues, with a fascinating group of planners, architects, politicians and activists.

Manchester City Council recently launched A Sense of Place, a framework for engaging the city’s residents. The theory behind the project is that by better understanding residents, their culture and stories, community cohesion will improve and the council will be better placed to tailor services to the community.

Through the Young Foundation’s work with Local Authorities we are increasingly hearing that many are frustrated in conducting neighbourhood analysis in order to report, identify issues facing their neighbourhoods, and develop strategies to meet the needs of their communities.

Sitting in his local village pub in North Yorkshire, Biff decides to convey his latest thoughts on life to his nearest barfly, “What about those bloody migrants?” he says, “Coming here and taking our jobs. How are people like me supposed to find work?” His drinking buddy looks perplexed, “You haven’t worked for fifteen years Biff…”

Muscle strains as the last gasp of hope leaves the weary boxer. The brutal suspension in time of a boxing match drawn by George Bellows in 1917 and entitled A Stag at Sharkey’s, packs the punch of reality experienced first hand.

Prof. Alexander Shelupanov, of Tomsk State University of Radioelectronics and Control Systems (TUSUR) visited the Foundation on Thursday (15 May) to give a talk on his Centre for Innovation.