Challenge

UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity developed Prosperity 2030 as an ambitious, practical blueprint for national renewal, setting out how a new government could modernise the tax system, welfare state and public services.
The IGP brought in Higginson Strategy shortly before launch in July 2026, and in that time the report needed a news hook strong enough to compete with a change of Prime Minister, visible support from across the political spectrum, and a launch event that would put the Institute’s experts in front of the journalists, charities and think tanks shaping the debate.

Solution

Higginson Strategy built the media and public affairs strategy around an open letter signed by leading economists from across the political spectrum, including Lord Jim O’Neill, economics adviser to Andy Burnham, demonstrating that support for structural reform in the UK reached well beyond a single party.
Higginson Strategy secured signatories for the letter and placed it as an exclusive with Bloomberg UK ahead of the launch, framing the report as advice to the incoming Prime Minister at the moment the country’s attention was on what he would do first.
Alongside the exclusive, Higginson Strategy built the audience for the launch event, securing a listing in Politico’s London Playbook and circulating the livestream to interested journalists, and positioned the Institute’s spokespeople, Professor Dame Henrietta Moore, Founder and Director of the IGP, and Andrew Percy, Co-Chair of UCL’s Social Prosperity Network, for broadcast interviews on CNBC and Times Radio, and an opinion piece in LabourList. A bank of reactive commentary on welfare, workplace skills, buses, defence and devolution kept Prosperity 2030 in the news well beyond launch day.

Outcome

The Bloomberg UK exclusive set the agenda for the launch, and Prosperity 2030 went on to be covered by The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent and City AM, alongside broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Times Radio and CNBC to position the IGP’s work at the centre of the debate.
In total the campaign generated more than 60 pieces of coverage reaching an audience of 936 million, and more than 50 guests from leading charities, think tanks, NGOs and industry in attendance.
The momentum carried into the following month, as Andrew Percy returned to CNBC to discuss the Prime Minister’s first month in office and Higginson Strategy secured opinion pieces for the Institute on devolution in the Municipal Journal, on free buses and the social contract in PoliticsHome, and on the Prime Minister’s mandate in Progress. The Institute has since extended its work with Higginson Strategy to a wider brief.