Policy Live
www.nesta.org.uk/event/policy-live/
www.nesta.org.uk/event/policy-live/
Exploring policy solutions to some of the biggest challenges faced by the UK
In September 2025, over 80 speakers and 400 attendees joined us in Westminster for Nesta and BIT’s annual conference Policy Live. They gathered over 30 sessions exploring the theme of how we can do policy - and politics - differently to drive social change.
There were debates, fireside chats and panel discussions on the issues facing the UK. Attendees heard from international experts, political leaders and emerging voices from across governments, industry, academia and the private sector.
Policy Live: doing policy differently
Hands-on workshops and interactive sessions encouraged participants to experiment, innovate and, importantly, to connect with one another and discuss the challenges they were facing in their work.
And with conversations and workshops on topics as diverse as devolution accelerating policy change; how we can reimagine neighbourhood health; better use of design in policy - and so much more, there was something for every practitioner on offer.
You can catch up on more than ten streamed sessions from Policy Live 2025 now.
Rt Hon Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, kicked off Policy Live with a speech that included a plea for a new playbook for policy.
His call to action: government cannot go it alone. He used tackling obesity, one of his priorities, as a key example, emphasising that the government must work not just with industry, but with schools, charities and campaigners. He pointed to the healthy food standard - a Nesta policy idea adopted by his government - as a new intervention that, once implemented, will radically shift the dial on obesity prevalence through making the supermarkets active participants in the UK’s health and wellbeing.
Watch the keynote speech
Wes set the tone for Policy Live. The overwhelming emphasis across the day's sessions was on the ‘how’ of policy, with speakers zeroing in on how the government could genuinely and effectively deliver on its ambitions, as well as overcome internal and systemic barriers to innovation and implementation.
And while each session had its own focus and tone, there were some common themes throughout.
New methods, such as ‘test and learn’, will be key to unlocking progress on knotty problems. Civil servants need to be up for new ways of working.
Ravi Gurumurthy, chief executive of Nesta and BIT, set out his worry that some challenges may remain almost insoluble if we don’t rewrite the way that we tackle them. This was echoed by many other speakers who stressed the need to evolve the standard playbook for policy, moving to a more iterative approach.
But not every big challenge requires a complete overhaul of the existing system.
A good example here is the criminal justice system. In an interactive session, the audience agreed that the current system does not need to be dismantled wholesale, but could be significantly improved by focusing on key areas for change.
If the government is serious about its new partnerships, and its desire for growth, it needs to get much better at listening to those outside of the Westminster bubble.
Mark Drakeford MS and Nicola Sturgeon MSP reflected together that while the willingness to learn between devolved powers has always been strong, there is resistance from Westminster to reciprocate.
Public trust in government remains a key issue, and can hinder the government's ability to do difficult things: policymakers ignore it at their peril.
In a diverse array of sessions, from the future of the civil service, delivering tax reform, to lessons on immigration, trust in the government and what it does (and doesn’t do) was highlighted as a critical missing ingredient.
The private sector could be set up to really drive public innovation - if it was given the right permission space.
This was very much brought to life in Policy Live’s final keynote where Dr. Pramod Varma, former chief architect of India Stack, used India’s rapid digitisation as a compelling success story for what can be achieved when these settings are right.
But perhaps the wider lesson from Policy Live is that the UK is not unique in its challenges. Many other countries face the same headwinds and choices that we do. The challenge is to continue to learn from those who buck the trends: those who are doing policy differently.
Thank you to those who joined us for Policy Live. Your contributions, reflections, and engagement made this event what it was.
Policy Live will be back next year on 10 September. Expect to see a similarly full programme, focussed on the issues of the day.
If you would like to join us next year, you can express your interest for a place now. Or you can sign up to the Nesta newsletter to make sure you hear about our programme first for next year.
