launching q4 2026

Economic & Political Systems Institute

Strengthening Collective Action for a New Economy

The Wilton Park model

Wilton Park, located in the UK, is “a discreet think-space designed for experts and policy-makers to engage in genuine dialogue with a network of diverse voices, in order to address the most pressing challenges of our time.”Founded 80 years ago, it defines itself as “...the place people go when they need answers to difficult questions. It’s where people turn to when they need a space to resolve differences. Partners work with and return to Wilton Park because of its proven ability to generate new ideas, help them find practical solutions, and support them in building networks of influence.”While it does not generate its own research and policy, Wilton Park does support its partners in running projects enabling them to test new policy strategy.

Note and disclaimer: The Economic & Political Systems Institute (EPSI) is not associated with Wilton Park. It is featured here as a model of an organisation primarily providing strategic support for collective action in complex systems.

Photo credit : Wilton Park website

The New Economy / System Change field

System Change is increasingly viewed as an essential and pressing pre-condition to tackle the greatest challenges of our time: the climate crisis, inequality and the rise of authoritarian politics. As Mariana Mazzucato has summarised: “This isn’t just about tweaking policies at the margins—it’s about redesigning the economic system itself.”The New Economy / System Change field has grown rapidly in the last decade, with over 200 initiatives worldwide spread across policy, research and campaigning. It includes academics like Mazzucato, Joseph Stiglitz, Kate Raworth and Gabriel Zucman; campaigns such as Earth4all; research centres; think tanks; regular conferences, and a wide range of local and national-level efforts.Landscape and mapping reports have highlighted a strong degree of agreement around high-level goals and principles. These include rebalancing power within society, and embedding societal wellbeing and environmental objectives into the design of institutions and economic policy (e.g. “people and planet before profit”).At the same time, historical precedents show that intellectual progress and shared ambitions are not enough to change a system. An effective accompanying ecosystem or transmission infrastructure is critical, with strategic use of narrative, media, campaigning, advocacy and networks to establish new frameworks as “common sense” and drive change in institutions and policies.

A partial map of the New Economy field. Source: Demos Helsinki

Problem Definition

A fragmented landscape

In a 2020 landscape report covering 150 “post-neoliberal” initiatives and thinkers, the Roosevelt Institute observed that although alliances are essential to achieve shared system change objectives, “many who work in one part of the movement do not recognize in others a common purpose…[the field] currently lacks a common language—and is still explaining itself to itself.”In 2022, Demos Helsinki assessed the New Economy field in Europe, including two rounds of interviews with key actors. The report identified multiple collective action gaps and again noted a sense of common purpose or “shared ethos” as a critical missing outcome.In 2023, the Forum for a New Economy found that having different theories of change generates tensions between organisations, which can counteract the potential benefits of diversity.Despite overlapping aims, principles and often policy preferences, disagreements arise around strategic questions of timing, priority-setting, tone, approach, and target audience. A tendency towards specialisation and competition for funding also act as disincentives towards building purposeful alliances.Punching below its potentialA consequence of these gaps and tensions is that ‘Despite its high capacity for policy analysis, the community seems to have had a low impact on policy so far… most new economy ideas currently remain trapped within the ‘bubble’ of the new economy / systems change ecosystem.’ (Forum New Economy)Communications with the authors of the landscape reports above have confirmed that as of early 2026 these collective action gaps have been partially addressed, at best.For example, at the European level very limited progress has been made in implementing the 24 practical steps across six gap areas suggested by Demos Helsinki in 2022. The most frequently mentioned exception is growing collaboration between donors, for instance through the Global Fund for a New Economy.

Working hypothesis

Why the field of System Change urgently needs its Wilton Park

The working hypothesis that leads to proposing the EPSI is that individual New Economy initiatives currently lack the incentives, resources and mandate to strengthen the field as a whole.Most of the practical steps recommended to address the gaps in the New Economy field, such as hosting co-creative processes, are collective goods: products and services that benefit some or all of the members of a collective.Beyond coalition-building, no organisation appears to have taken on the mission of regularly providing these collective goods, possibly due to concerns around cost and funding, together with the pressures towards specialisation already mentioned.While growing fast, the New Economy field is also at an early stage of development. Networks in comparatively narrower and more defined domains took fifteen years to arrive at formal strategies that foreground impact through collective action.In theory, actors in the New Economy space could approach existing organisations like Wilton Park itself to host coordination events. However, Wilton Park runs a wide range of programmes and long-term membership initiatives and does not currently have a New Economy programme.

The Economic & Political Systems Institute

Focus, Objective & Approach

The EPSI’s sole focus will be on strengthening collective action in the System Change field, with the objective of helping a New Economy paradigm prevail over competing alternatives in the shortest possible timeframe.The EPSI will learn from and adapt proven models for supporting collaboration in complex systems to establish itself as a long-term, trusted and stable resource for the field of System Change.It will not engage in areas of work that would add limited value to the field, risk duplicating existing efforts, or could distract from its organisational focus.

This means the EPSI will make a long term commitment to not:

- Directly produce new frameworks, narratives, or policy proposals
- Endorse or promote individual policies, frameworks or campaigns
- Act as a coordinator or secretariat of coalitions or networks
- Seek funding for additional workstreams beyond its core mandate
- Operate as a donor beyond financial support towards testing of collaborative interventions (where relevant and available)

EPSI workstreams

To deliver on its mandate, the EPSI will focus on:

  1. Hosting facilitated, purposeful, co-created events designed to tackle collective action gaps already identified by the System Change field

  2. Testing in partnership: Supporting the development, implementation and evaluation of collaborative tactical interventions and tests

  3. Shared learning: Working with partners to regularly evaluate what has been learned and sharing findings with the field

EPSI Theory of Success

Strategic coordination + testing + shared learning > focus > scaled effectiveness

The EPSI Theory of Success is that the combination of:a) increased and continued strategic discussion and coordination;
b) regular testing of assumptions through collaborative interventions and
c) continuous sharing of evaluations and lessons learnedwill over timed) concentrate resources and
e) increase resources in the System Change fieldtowardsf) the repeated deployment of a limited set of adaptive systemic interventions with comparatively higher probability of achieving policy change objectives.

EPSI Team and funding model

The EPSI team set-up includes the roles of:- Complexity and systems coach
- Meeting facilitator
- Monitoring, Evaluating & Learning
- New Economy specialist
- Event designer & organiser- Project management
- Communications
- Network and partnerships
- Finance & Accounting
- People & Culture
- EPSI coordinator

Depending on funding availability and recruitment outcomes, some roles could be combined (e.g. coach/facilitator), or recruited on a part-time basis. The team will be supported by a long-term advisory group and board.The envisioned funding model is to access long-term philanthropic funds that allow the EPSI to organise, host and financially sponsor a pre-defined number of events and tactical tests each year. Additional support can be provided on a cost-recovery basis to organisations that have own funding.

EPSI Principles

  1. Flexibility and adaptation

  2. Reliability and open communication

  3. Diversity of thought, experience and background

  4. Balancing action with reflection (‘reflectivist’ approach)

  5. Learning through doing

  6. Fast feedback through testing and evaluation

The EPSI principles are based on guidance on driving change in complex systems including How Change Happens and Working in Complexity.The principles will be embedded across governance, funding, management systems, culture and relations with external partners. Decisions on the practical implementation of the principles will be developed and maintained collaboratively by the EPSI team with input from partners.

About

The EPSI proposal is the result of a project launched in June 2025 to explore how to accelerate the transition to a New Economy.The proposal coordinator is Max Heywood, until October 2020 Head of Policy & Advocacy at Transparency International (TI) in Berlin. Over 11 years in the non-profit advocacy field, Max worked with multiple national change partners and global coalitions on the full project cycle: developing proposals; fundraising; implementing and managing project activities, and learning from independent evaluations.He carried out over 70 missions linked to country-level projects including in Paraguay, Guatemala and the Caribbean. From 2016 on he was also part of the team advocating towards and representing TI at the G20, European Parliament and IMF on financial transparency reforms.

Starting in the Covid-19 pandemic, a longstanding personal interest in New Economy issues (dating back to an economics degree) evolved into a part-time - and from March 2026, full-time - project.True to the spirit of testing, failing and learning, previous engagement with the System Change / New Economy field has included having book, article, research and funding proposals rejected.The goal during this initial phase was to produce and publish a synthesis New Economy framework drawing on existing resources. Thoughtful and generous feedback from leading thinkers and practitioners has been invaluable in evolving towards the current EPSI proposal.The next organisational goal for the EPSI is to partner with a host organisation or fiscal host, either long-term or during an incubation phase.

EPSI Timeline in 2026

Advisory Calls Q1 2026

The EPSI is holding Advisory calls to gather feedback on the proposal in February and March 2026. Click for further details on the agenda and available dates/times.

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