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LSE research played a key role in shaping the political and public debate around unpopular and ill-founded plans to introduce identity cards in the UK, showing the proposals to be unsafe, ineffective and costly. Plans for national biometric identity cards were scrapped by the coalition government in May 2010.
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett described the detailed, cross-disciplinary report from academics at LSE as having "changed the culture and atmosphere around, and attitudes towards, the scheme and its intention". An alternative, privacy-friendly identity policy is being developed in its place with LSE researchers playing a significant role in its development. Lessons from the UK continue to influence government identity policy in other countries including India, the Caribbean and Latin America.
Many governments have pledged to better manage and protect vital natural resources in order to ensure that existing economic wealth and opportunities remain available to future generations. They have been hampered in doing so by the significant challenges involved in accounting for this 'natural capital'. LSE research has helped to address these challenges and in so doing has contributed to better stewardship of natural resources for a sustainable future. This has occurred at two levels — national and international. In the UK this research has had a direct impact on the shaping of the Government's environmental policy. At the international level it has contributed to World Bank guidance to its 188 member countries and informed the development and implementation of a City Biodiversity Index, which is being applied in over 400 cities worldwide.
LSE research has formed the basis for a new assessment framework which helps healthcare planners set priorities within fixed budgets. Since 2005, a group of scholars at LSE has been developing a programme of applied research that is enabling organisations responsible for commissioning health services to make better use of their limited resources to improve value for their populations. It has led to: (a) new health spending strategies in the Isle of Wight in 2007, 2008 and 2009 that delivered a 50% reduction in emergency asthma admissions; (b) 15% savings on the spend on eating disorder services in Sheffield from 2009; (c) new guidelines for commissioning cost-effective care in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; (d) a user-friendly Excel decision support tool, user-guidance and instructions for facilitators available for free download, as well as training modules for potential users; and (e) the evaluation of alternative strategies for the allocation of US$10 million per year to fight tuberculosis in Sudan in 2013-15, this being the first of a series of pilots to adapt the LSE assessment framework to the new funding model of the Global Fund.
Economic prosperity in the UK is very unevenly distributed across space. Tackling these persistent disparities by improving local economic performance is a key policy objective. Research conducted by LSE staff has made direct contributions to government thinking and to specific policies both at central and local levels. First, the research has influenced the Government's shift from regional to city policy-making: abolishing Regional Development Agencies; establishing Local Enterprise Partnerships [LEPs] and bespoke `City Deals'. Second, researchers from LSE have directly influenced the development of economic strategies in Birmingham, Cambridge, the North East LEP area and Manchester.