This report summarises the Modern Slavery PEC’s approach to impact since its inception, setting out key highlights from our impact alongside reflections on what we have learned. We focus primarily on policy impact, but include impact we have had on other areas including research, lived experience engagement and public understanding. Findings cover the whole of the PEC's life, from 2019-25, with a particular emphasis on our first year as part of Oxford University (2024-5). We are committed to reflecting openly and transparently on our work, so that we continuously improve our efforts and increase our impact. We also hope that others can learn from our experiences.
When we launched our previous Impact Report (covering the period 2019-23), we said that monitoring and evaluating the PEC's work was not straightforward. By the nature of our structure and mission, many aspects of how we work involve new approaches, such as working to meaningfully embed lived experience in modern slavery research. That remains true today, perhaps to an even greater extent, since we have continued to innovate in how we fund and co-create research, developing new ways of working, such as co-funding or co-commissioning work with policy partners. That only makes it more important that we should make our best efforts to analyse what we have achieved, drawing on all available data, in order to challenge ourselves and continue to strengthen our work. We hope that what we have learned will also be of benefit to others, contributing to a shared understanding of what works to drive change in addressing modern slavery.
The Modern Slavery PEC has impact at the core of what we do, whether in our work as a research funder, a knowledge broker, a convenor of stakeholders or a producer of expert analysis. We organise our work and evaluate our impact within the framework of a Theory of Change (included in the report) that sets out how we believe our activities lead to the outcomes we want to see.
This report is the result of several months of work and extensive input from many of our closest stakeholders. In addition to headline statistics, it presents not just our internal reflections, drawn out through a series of roundtable discussions, but also the results of a survey and conversations with those we have worked closely with, including researchers, people with lived experience of modern slavery, policymakers, businesses, and practitioners. To everyone who contributed to the report through sharing your ideas and your feedback, a huge thank you - your generosity with your time made this work possible and every insight you shared helps us improve what we do.
Particular thanks are due to Lucy Brealey and Maya Sethi, independent consultants who played a critical coordinating role, as well as our previous Head of Policy Impact, Liz Williams.
We were delighted to see the many positive reflections on the Centre's work that are drawn out in this report, several of which are anonymously quoted to illustrate a range of perspectives, and equally grateful for the constructive criticism that we are committed to learning from.
Impact remains core to the work of the Modern Slavery PEC and we look forward to sharing many more insights from our work in future. We welcome feedback on any aspect of what we do - please don't hesitate to get in touch via the contact details at the bottom of this page.
