Paul Johnson being interviewed
About

Impact

See our impact over the past year.

Our academic impact

Hosting one of the UK’s only two prestigious UKRI-funded social science Research Institutes, IFS economists carry out cutting-edge empirical research on a par with our leading universities.

IFS Research Associate Sarah Smith was awarded an OBE while IFS Deputy Research Director Sonya Krutikova was awarded the Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship. IFS Senior Research Economist Alison Andrew was selected for the Review of Economics Studies American Tour.

IFS authors published 81 journal articles and 105 working papers in 2022. Over the past decade we have had 43 articles in the top five economics journals.

Our policy impact

Our research and expertise is drawn upon by national, regional and local policymakers in the UK and overseas, as well as MPs from all parties. We publish high quality, policy-relevant research:

  • In 2022, IFS was mentioned 216 times in parliamentary debates. (Source: Hansard).
  • IFS and IFS research was mentioned 227 times in UK government documents
  • Our annual flagship Green Budget report, setting out options and challenges for the Chancellor, was launched over a series of events and videostreams. In total, over 900 people watched at least one of these events live.

“When I worked in the Treasury, we knew the IFS would keep us honest...and we knew that having an independent check on our costings and analysis was an excellent discipline.”

Lord Gus O’Donnell, former Cabinet Minister and IFS President

Our impact on society

We inform public and policy debates on issues such as education, health, inequality and the public finances. We significantly increased engagement and reach in 2022.

  • Our primary social media channel is Twitter, where we have over 56,000 followers, demonstrating year-on-year growth of 22% in 2022. 
  • In 2022, our website traffic continued to grow, resulting in over 1.5 million users (unique), an increase of 24% from last year.
  • We held 45 events in 2022, attended by 5,995 people from media, policy, business, third sector and the general public. Our event videos from last year have been watched over 32,000 times on YouTube.

Our media impact

IFS staff regularly engage with journalists from print, online and broadcast media. Our research, analysis and reactive commentary earned us over 48,047 UK media mentions in 2022. This represents a 61% increase from last year.

“The Institute for Fiscal Studies’ genuine impartiality has become a major asset in scrutinising claims and counter claims.”

Heather Stewart, The Guardian

Find Out More

About Us

The Institute for Fiscal Studies was founded in 1969. Established as an independent research institute, IFS was launched with the principal aim of better informing public debate on economics in order to promote the development of effective fiscal policy.

Inequalities in the 21st century

One of the fruits of IFS’s national and international collaboration with leading academics and policymakers is the Review of Inequalities in the 21st century, led by Novel Prize-winner, Sir Angus Deaton. The review involves over 100 academics from around the world, including Penny Goldberg (World Bank), Thomas Piketty (Paris) and Nobel-Prize winner Jean Tirole (Toulouse).

Impact acceleration

Impact acceleration account

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has been awarded £1.25 million in flexible Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) over the next five years.