For more than a decade, we've worked on research studies across the UK aimed at improving outcomes for people experiencing disadvantage. Time and again, we've seen the same pattern: poverty sits at the heart of almost every challenge we examine, from educational attainment to mental health to homelessness. These challenges are both caused and worsened by poverty, while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of experiencing it – creating a vicious cycle that demands new approaches.

The Cash Lab, based in the School for Government at King's College London, brings together six randomised trials testing different kinds of cash-based interventions across the UK. We're investigating whether giving people direct financial support – without conditions on how they spend it – can break the cycle of poverty and improve outcomes. By delivering cash in different ways to different groups, we aim to understand not just whether transfers work, but where, for whom, and how.

The potential is substantial. Unconditional transfers are simpler and cheaper to administer than conditional programmes, restore dignity and agency to recipients, and – because poverty affects so many outcomes – may deliver broad improvements that justify their cost.

But at the same time, the Lab will engage seriously with economic concerns and mixed international evidence. Our mission is to build rigorous UK-based evidence on cash transfers, contributing to a credibility revolution in how we think about alleviating poverty.

Team

• Michael Sanders (director)
• Hannah Piggott (deputy director)
• Susannah Hume
• Dimitris Vallis
• Vanessa Hirneis
• Julia Ellingwood