IFS Director, 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 Director Imran Rasul was appointed the next President-Elect of the Royal Economic Society, IFS Deputy Director Carl Emmerson was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and IFS Associate Director Lucie Gadenne became co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics. 

IFS authors published 102 journal articles and 89 working papers in 2024. Over the past decade we have had 45 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 2024, IFS was mentioned 270 times in parliamentary debates (Source: Hansard).
  • IFS and IFS research was mentioned 368 times in UK government documents (Source: Overton).
  • Our annual flagship Green Budget report, setting out options and challenges for the Chancellor, was launched over a series of events and video streams. In total, over 1,000 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 2024.

  • Our primary social media channel is Twitter, where we have over 62,000 followers, demonstrating year-on-year growth of 5.6% in 2024.
  • In 2024, our website traffic continued to grow, resulting in over 3 million website visits, a 46% increase on 2023.
  • We had over 4 million video views across all platforms in 2024, tripling when compared to 2023.
  • We held 37 events in 2024, attended by 7,570 people from media, policy, business, third sector and the general public. Our event videos from last year have been watched over 76,000 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 71,967 UK media mentions in 2024, more than doubling our 2023 total. We also published 139 press releases.  

“For decades, Westminster has looked to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) to cast the definitive judgement on tax and spending policies.”

George Eaton, The News Statesman

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.