This article is written by Catarina Zuzarte Tully, founder of the School of International Futures (SOIF) and former Strategy Project Director at the UK Foreign Office and Policy Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit; and Lewis Lloyd, a researcher on SOIF’s ‘A National Strategy for the Next Generations’ Programme.

  • The problem: The UK government is still failing to effectively engage citizens in discussions about the future of the UK and its role in the world.
  • Why it matters: This will undermine its ability to deliver effective, long-term, whole-of-society responses to the challenges posed by a more contested, interdependent global landscape.
  • The solution: A whole-of-society, intergenerational dialogue that reflects the interests and supports the wellbeing of current and future generations.

The UK government’s March 2023 Integrated Review (IR) Refresh presents an updated vision for its national security policy which is even more “integrated” than before.

Its publication reflects the rapidly developing – and deteriorating – geopolitical context since the original IR was published in 2021. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in particular, has driven the recognition that a more contested, interdependent, fragmented global landscape is emerging at a speed faster than previously envisaged.

A whole-of-society dialogue about the future of the UK and its role in the world should inform the next formulation of the Integrated Review.

The results are already playing out in areas including climate and energy transition, food security, migration, nuclear and the management of global commons such as space and AI technology. And the effects are being felt in homes, companies and communities across the UK.

The UK’s current approach

The Refresh sees the UK government going even further to join up responses across policy areas to help tackle this turbulence. It is working to use all the levers available to it – including considerations around taxation, trade and investment that fall outside the typical IR nexus – to build a vision for a global, prosperous and secure Britain that can exert positive influence on the world stage over the long term.

This is good. The more systemic approach to tackling fast-moving, complex challenges that was committed to in the 2021 Review is absolutely necessary and needs accelerating. It’s great to see development back at the strategic core, too, recognising the impact of conditions in other parts of the world on the UK's domestic situation. And it’s a major step forward that the Refresh explicitly links national security and resilience to the economic wellbeing of future generations.

The need for citizen engagement

For the most part, though, the updated IR still fails to take a sufficiently long-term view, and there has been little effort to engage citizens in some of the big questions it poses. This will continue to undermine the government’s ability to deliver effective, whole-of-society strategic responses to the challenges ahead. This is for three reasons.

  1. To tackle issues of this scale and complexity, major choices and investments need to be made now, the effects of which will be felt for decades. These might include changes to multilateral governance structures, preparing for disruptive technological changes in the workplace, or commitments to climate and health financing today that will indebt generations to come. These choices require citizen and community support for a vision of the UK's role in the world over the long term – support that is not generated by the IR process as it stands.
  2. Without a longer-term view, problems will be addressed now in a way that creates more issues further down the line. Concerted engagement with citizens and the use of tools for intergenerational scrutiny (such as Future Check and intergenerational fairness assessments) are necessary to anticipate the impacts of decisions on current and future generations and make sure that burdens are shared evenly.
  3. National security, as Lord Peter Ricketts put it at a recent event, “is now a shared responsibility”. Effective implementation of any response – relating to cyber security, disinformation, energy consumption or disease control, for instance – will be dependent on the behaviours of people across the UK. Citizens need to be brought on board, with policies developed that reflect their voices, values and lived experiences.

The way forward

A whole-of-society dialogue about the future of the UK and its role in the world should inform the next formulation of the Integrated Review, with young people placed at the head of the intergenerational table. Such a Review would connect national security, resilience and prosperity in service of the wellbeing of current and future generations.

In the meantime, smaller, well-structured foresight dialogues across the UK on these issues can demonstrate what a wider conversation could look like. By taking a systematic and evidence-based approach to exploring the future, citizens can share their views on the complex uncertainties, trade-offs and alternative scenarios ahead, generating valuable insights for policymakers and politicians alike.

At SOIF, we’re working with our partners to pilot new models of engaging communities in youth-led conversations about the future of the UK and its role in the world. We’re then connecting the insights from these intergenerational conversations into government.

These exchanges are an important source of new ideas and approaches to long-standing, as well as emerging, challenges – including how the UK government can support developing countries, contribute to global security and help act urgently on the ecological crisis facing us.

At what feels like a pivotal moment in the UK’s history, the next IR needs to incorporate the learnings from this model. Only then can it chart a clear and viable course for current and future generations.

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