Charles' work at nef involves promoting new measures of social progress and then using these to stimulate new approaches to (mainly economic) policy - for example, the design of a British investment bank. He also works on housing policy.

Before Charles joined nef he worked at the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission where he advised on skills development and innovation, government structures, and communicating and engaging with the public. Charles previously worked in management consultancy, specialising in strategic change, and he co-wrote a book on moral purpose in business. He co-founded Prospect, a leading political and intellectual monthly magazine and earlier in his career worked as an equity analyst in the City and as a branding consultant. Charles holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and an MSc in Business Studies from the London Business School.

Blog post // September 30, 2011

Beach economics

How should people spend their time? The Guardian reported today that retailers would prefer people to be shopping on windswept streets rather than sitting on the beach during our delightful Indian summer. We may laugh at this and thank god people can escape their retail addiction sometimes.

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Blog post // January 10, 2011

Are we going to get a new definition of progress?

At the end of November the Prime Minister announced that the Office for National Statistics would from this April be measuring 'not just...our standard of living but...our quality of life' and on Wednesday I joined a group convened by the ONS to discuss how to do this. As one of the academics present put it, people have been arguing about this for at least two and half thousand years, the nature of the good life being one of the central concerns of philosophy, and we certainly didn't resolve it in the two and half hours we spent on the subject. More

Blog post // October 13, 2010

University values

In the recent proposals for university fees reform, Lord Browne wrote; “The return to graduates for studying will be on average around 400%”. In this world view higher education is an economic investment. If his recommendations are adopted there will be even greater pressure to study only for a high paying job – and a strong deterrent to potential students who are uncertain that they can command the salaries needed to cope. More