Jonathan Carr-West

Jonathan leads the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) policy team, which seeks to strengthen local democracy by developing new thinking and practice on how local communities can have more influence over the areas they live in and the services they use and how local government can help them to do so.

Some of Jonathan’s particular interests are participative democracy, the evolving nature of communities and behaviour change.

“I’m interested in how to make change happen and in how big new ideas translate into practical policies that deliver real progress for organisations, communities and individuals,” he says.
“Professionally, that means designing and delivering research and public policy projects that find creative but practical responses to complex social or organisational problems.”

Before joining the LGiU, Jonathan was deputy programme director at the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Manufactures). At the RSA, he developed and managed more than a dozen major action research projects in areas including personal carbon trading, water and sanitation provision in the developing world and the economics of migration.

He has published on topics as diverse as cognitive and behavioural science, water provision and the politics of cultural memory.