We provide research, analysis and advice to communities and organisations in the public, private and nonprofit sector. We develop and implement innovative processes of deliberation with a curated group of diverse experts to help elicit collective wisdom to ‘really’ understand what’s going on and find bold, transformative solutions that address the root causes of problems.
Our experience is at the intersection of public affairs / policy making and research.
Our People
Director
With 20 years of experience both in academia and the non-for-profit sector, Maru has held appointments at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, East Anglia and Winchester in the UK, as well as various Latin American universities. She is currently a Senior Associate at the European University Institute and the University of Johannesburg.
Maru has a dual training in the natural and the social sciences. Her work aims to understand the intersection between knowledge and decision making, especially in context of complexity and uncertainty. Drawing on her scientific training, Maru applies principles of systems thinking to the analysis of ‘wicked problems’. Maru has extensive consulting experience with government departments (e.g. UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office) government agencies (e.g. the Health Research Board of Ireland) multilateral organisations (e.g. the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies, the Inter-Parliamentary Union) as week as think tanks and NGOs. She is a seasoned communicator and facilitator and has written for a variety of academic and non-academic audiences.
Associate
Romina has 13 years of research and professional experience that combines a robust record conducting anthropological research in Africa, Asia and Europe with a long record in consulting academic and non-academic clients on global health, gender and development, agricultural development and sustainability. Previously she received grants from the Tokyo Foundation to develop community-based participatory engagement models that employed Socratic dialectics to foster dialogue on sensitive gender issues in Senegal’s Muslim communities and Ethiopia’s Oriental Orthodox communities. Romina has co-founded and led Decolonial Subversions since 2020 and acted as Research Strategy Lead for EqADi between 2022-2023, in which roles she has facilitated consultations, deliberations among members from 15+ countries. She has been a regular speaker at ARMA, UKCDR, ACU, RLUK, UKRIO and other UK research bodies on topics of equitable partnerships, decolonisation and EDI.
The Collective Intelligence Project 