A weekly roundup of publications, reports, events & articles from the leading UK think tanks.

Welcome to this week’s Think-tank Roundup. This week we have calls to scrap the next census, ‘Policy Exchange do Blade Runner’ and even the suggestion that all this web stuff is slowly throttling the very idea of think-tanks – your correspondent, of course, perishes the thought but that’s this weeks must read so see below. Also this week a series of links for all the main conference and fringe events from the major think-tanks.

As ever please use the comments for anything I’ve missed…

Reports & Publications…

• The New Local Government Network calls for the next census to be scrapped in a report called “Local Counts: the future of the census”. Nigel Keohane argues that with a potential price tag of £500 million the next census in 2011 is a waste of money because it “cannot accurately reflect the true state of Britain because of poor quality information on households, high rates of population mobility and a growing reluctance to fill in official forms”.
• Foresight – the joint venture between the Policy Network & the Alfred Herrhausen Society – released “Russia’s role in a multi-polar world: between change and stability”. The report argues that “accepting Russia as an equal in international negotiations is a prerequisite for solving today’s global challenges”.
• The Policy Studies Institute released a paper by David Guest and Alex Bryson asking “Are personnel specialists holding back workplace performance?”

Articles, Speeches & Briefings…

• The Centre for European Reform has a briefing note by Tomas Valasek entitled “What does the war in Georgia mean for EU foreign policy?” – “The war in Georgia divided the European Union instead of uniting it. Some member-states condemned Russia and gave (non-military) aid to the Georgian government; others accused Tbilisi of provoking the war. Their reactions suggest that EU capitals make different assumptions about Moscow’s goals and intentions towards countries on Russia’s borders, and about Europe’s interests in these countries”.
• Plenty of coverage in the media of course but in case you missed it Shadow Chancellor George Osborne gave a speech to Demos this week “on Fairness”. The speech was to promote a Conservative paper entitled “An Unfair Britain: why Labour have failed on fairness”.
• The European Council on Foreign Relations released a couple of good commentary pieces on events in Georgia – check out Daniel Korski on why Russia has ultimately strengthened NATO’s hand and Nicu Popescu & Andrew Wilson on why the EU is finally getting to grips with acting like a global player.
• Scottish Labour leadership candidate Cathy Jamieson argues at the Fabian Society that “Westminster can work for Scotland’s benefit” – “I will have no hesitation in raising issues with Westminster, when that is the right thing to do. But I will do so with the intention of finding solutions to problems. Scotland is a forward looking nation, which of course seeks to do the best for its people. Scots should be confident enough in themselves to know that we can still work within the United Kingdom while expressing our own distinctiveness”. (The other candidates will soon contribute online essays too).
• Also from the Fabian Society a critical look at the LibDems take on addressing social inequality – Stuart White asks “If the LibDems are so committed to challenging social inequality why are they talking about abolishing childtrust funds?”.
• In an article for IPPR North Michael Johnson takes issue with the controversial Policy Exchange report last week on regeneration in northern cities and likens it to “Blade Runner… had Ridley Scott had a background in town planning”.
• New Demos director Richard Reeves wrote an article for the Guardian asking if the internet is killing think-tanks – “Some are now wondering whether the whole thinktank model is bust. The Labour minister Jim Knight suggests on his Facebook page that thinktanks, “ultimately very elitist top-down institutions populated with very bright people who politicians sometimes seem to sub-contract their thinking to”, are out of date in an era of online networking, blogs and wikipedia. “Network-enabled policymaking” may replace boring old thinktank reports”.

Events & Meetings…

• Reform will host a speech by Shadow Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley MP on ‘a new positive approach to improving public health’. The speech will take place next Wednesday at the Ideas Space, Clutha House @ 1000 – contact for details.

  Links for the events programmes for most of the major think-tanks where these currently exist online – (L = Labour programme, C = Conservative programme, LD = LibDem programme, G = general programme)

  Centre Forum (G)
  Fabian Society (L), (L), (C), (LD)
  Foreign Policy Centre (L), (C), (LD)
  Hansard (G)
  IPPR (L), (C), (LD)
  The Kings Fund (L), (C), (LD)
  New Local Government Network (G)
  Reform (L), (C), (LD)
  Social Market Foundation (L), (C), (LD)
  The Smith Institute (L), (C), (LD)