Digital technologies, devices and data are now woven into the fabric of contemporary societies. To describe this, we can say that we live in a 'sociodigital' world. This has become especially visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which we have seen rapid shifts to online education, healthcare and work, the extension of algorithmic decision making by government (e.g. A' Level results), and changes to shopping habits that may transform the high street for ever. Social Science provides excellent resources for understanding the changes that have taken place to date. The question remains: what will our sociodigital futures look like? What kinds of futures are in the making? Who or what is shaping possible futures and what will this mean for currently widening social and economic inequalities and for the climate change crisis? These are challenging questions. We know, from the past, that we cannot make deterministic assumptions about new technologies or predict sociodigital futures with any certainty. However, this does not mean that we should abandon attention to the future. To the contrary, the stakes have never been higher. With a global recession looming, widening socio-economic inequalities and an underlying climate crisis, it is essential that we establish a new approach, one that will create actionable knowledge for reflexive, inclusive and sustainable sociodigital futures. The ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures begins from the premise that while the future is unknowable, how the future is enacted in the present - discursively, materially and by whom - matters enormously. This shifts the focus of attention towards the social relations of future making in the present: what claims are made about sociodigital futures, how do these drive investments, policies and expectations? What futures do these open up, and close down? And which of these start to shape 'actual futures', through the changing practices of communities, businesses, policy makers and others? Answering these questions presents an ambitious agenda, and a unique proposition for UK and international Social Science. To address this agenda we will deliver a distinctive programme of high impact empirical research and capacity building, by drawing together four distinct forms of expertise: (i) expertise in specific domains of everyday life - caring, consuming, learning, moving and organizing; (ii) expertise in the theories, methodologies and practices of future making; (iii) technical expertise in Artificial Intelligence, Virtual/Alternative Realities, Robotics and High Performance Networks; and (iv) co-production expertise to drive participatory, inclusive and sustainable future-making. The Centre has been designed and will be implemented with strategic partners well-placed to deliver on the creation of inclusive and sustainable sociodigital futures. Our partners have a significant influence on the environment (UK Department for Farming, Environment and Rural Affairs), digital service delivery (British Telecom -serving 170 countries), security (the National Cybersecurity Centre), community (Locality - 1300 members support 307,000+ people/week), education and culture (the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization - supporting peace through international cooperation, and leaders of the UN Foresight Network). Working with these partners, we will build the capacity to engage with sociodigital futures-in-the-making, to anticipate possible risks and opportunities, and tip the balance towards more positive futures.

'Change in the Making' is an exciting and unique study of change in the third sector over time. To our knowledge, nothing like it has been attempted elsewhere, and the changes and challenges in the operating environment for the third sector make it extremely timely. Our project investigates the ways in which change is negotiated, created and contested by a range of different stakeholders in diverse third sector settings. It focuses attention on organisations as contested spaces of collective action, involving the interplay of multiple stakeholders, such as paid staff, volunteers, service users and commissioners, all with different interests. The study will build on, extend and enhance the Third Sector Research Centre's ground-breaking long term 'Real Times' programme of research with third sector organisations carried out between 2010 and 2014. Change in the Making is a timely study given the challenges facing voluntary organisations at the present time. It will be of great value for those interested in how third sector activities are sustained, and in how third sector organisations adapt to change over time. The 'Real Times' study followed the fortunes of a set of third sector case studies through an unsettled environment, involving a combination of political and institutional change and a challenging financial context, particularly for organisations drawing on public funds to carry out their work. Hence the original research charted the first years of adjustment to austerity. Change in the Making takes the story forward through three further intensive waves of fieldwork, over four years, with four of the original case studies. In line with the study's aims we deepen the analysis of the longitudinal case studies by broadening the range of research participants at each case study site, and we place their experience in context by situating the case studies within wider field developments. A focus on a smaller number of cases allows us to refresh and deepen our research questions. The longitudinal approach facilitates a longer term perspective on the rhythms of organisational change and continuity. By the end of the proposed study we will have engaged with the case study organisations for nearly ten years from 2010 through to 2019, i.e. surviving through an initial period of austerity, but with uncertain prospects in the years ahead. We know already how these organisations and activities have survived through to 2014, but what happens next, and more specifically how is what happens next shaped by different influences and stakeholders? The study informs and advances academic debates on conceptualisation of, change in, and the character of, the third sector. It is of great relevance to policy and practice debates because it provides great insights into how change is made and experienced in the third sector on an everyday basis. It develops our understanding of how third sector organisations really work in practice, through its in-depth engagement with individual organisations. No other British study has been able to do this. It informs the development of policy and practice for and in the third sector, by providing real and vivid insights into the everyday dilemmas, pressures and practices of third sector organisational life, and thus shaping more realistic accounts of third sector activities than currently prevail. It extends the study of third sector activities over time and it thereby contributes a unique and innovative organisational dimension to the growing body of qualitative longitudinal work in the social sciences. It has the potential to impact upon third sector policy, practice and discourse: to influence the development of practice through bulding capacity within the third sector and to create conceptual impact through reframing the debate about third sector organisations and their role in society.

The scale of change needed to transform UK food systems for health, social justice and environment requires new ideas, organisational models and collaborative approaches that can meaningfully engage individuals and communities. Existing top-down approaches to the challenge of sustainable food provision and diet have failed to tackle the crisis of poor dietary health and sustainable food production. Our proposed research will focus on the distinctive role of social enterprises as an integral part of a more diverse system, exploring and enhancing their unique contribution to food systems that are more inclusive, sustainable and healthy. Social enterprise are organisations that are trading with a core social and environmental purpose, and make up 9% of the business population. Initial work by the project team and partners reveals how social enterprises and their community engagement around food and wellbeing can occur through a variety of activities, including community growing spaces and distribution schemes, leisure and fitness centres, children's nurseries and other community-based services. The proposed research will examine the extent to which such 'bottom up' approaches that build on local understandings, networks and capabilities have further unrealised potential to engage diverse communities and other organisational actors (private, public and civil society), and thus catalyse the expansion of sustainable and healthy local food systems across the UK. To this end, our transdisciplinary team, led by researchers who are part of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, brings together expertise from the natural, social and policy sciences, with specialisms in social enterprise, sustainable consumption, nutrition and environmental life cycle assessment. This team will work with six partner social enterprises in England, Scotland and Wales and six support/policy organisations all of whom contribute to the research design at all stages. This will ensure the potential for transformational impact on policy and practice is maximised. The research will include the following main elements: -Analysis of the range and types of social enterprise involved in developing local food systems and connecting people to growing spaces and other green areas. -Examination of the scientifically measurable outcomes of the interventions on the supply chain, environment and nutrition, and identification of good practice in measuring such impacts. -Case studies of social enterprises focused on food and community wellbeing to examine how they engage their communities, their ownership/governance structures, partnerships and innovative practices, the challenges they face and their support needs. -Exploration of the different understandings of sustainable food and diets within diverse communities. -Mapping the wider food network, key stakeholders and supportive ecosystem in each case study locality. -Exploring how transformational change can come about from scaling up social enterprise activity and policy change. Central to the project is the active participation of our social enterprise partners, their staff and community members, with particular attention to developing their research skills and capacity, as well as those of the academic researchers to enable participatory research. The research findings will be used to co-design resources and toolkits to support the scaling-up or replication of successful models and innovations and the sharing of good practice across the country. This is not without its challenges and the project will examine the various barriers and constraining factors and how they can best be addressed. In addition to good practice guides for social enterprises and other organisations across the country, policy briefings will be prepared, focusing on the different levels of local, regional and national policy making.