Global Futures

Global Futures is a UK-based charity, registered in 1995, which states that its role is "understanding today to shape tomorrow". It is a platform for the libertarian LM group.

According to its website "Global Futures is a charitable foundation sponsoring research and publications on new social trends. Its aim is to bring together the experiences and knowledge of different social sectors - academic, commercial, popular and political - to improve the standard of public debate." 

History
In 1996 Global Futures published the paper Working Lives in the 1990s: Preliminary Findings of the Attitudes to Work Survey, by Hudson, Hayes and Andrew. More recently came the publication of a paper, Refusing to be terrorised: Managing risk after September 11th, by Frank Furedi. Furedi is the leading ideologue of the LM group, a libertarian political network which mutated through several incarnations from the Revolutionary Communist Party, LM magazine to the Institute of Ideas and Spiked Online. The publication of the Furedi paper was part-funded by the Association of Insurance and Risk Managers (AIRMIC) and Lloyd's of London.

Personnel
The trustees of the charity are Daniel Ben-Ami, Gavin Poynter and Philip Mullan. Daniel Ben-Ami is a long-time associate of the LM group, as is Philip Mullan. Both wrote for Living Marxism and Mullan registered the domain name for Spiked Online. Its listed contact is Ellen Raphael, a former employee for PR-firm Regester Larkin. Its contact phone number is the same as that of Sense about Science, the director of which is Tracey Brown - a former senior analyst at Regester Larkin. According to Andy Rowell and Jonathan Matthews writing in The Ecologist, ex-Monsanto PR man, Harry Swan, works at Regester Larkin too. .

AIRMIC released a media statement [|press release] announcing the Furedi paper, which listed Tracey Brown as the Global Futures contact for the article.

Charity Commission registration
Global Futures is recorded as 1048565 in the Central Register of Charities maintained by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The legal objects, which describe what the charity has been set up to achieve, are registered with the Commission as follows:


 * " For the advancement of the education of the public in contemporary patterns of global and local economic, social and political development with special regard to comparative studies and including but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing to promote research into the following subjects numbered (i) to (iii) and to disseminate the useful results of such research; (i) the impact of demographic and economic changes on the experiences and attitudes of people in relation to their work; (ii) the changing organisation of family life due to demographic and economic changes with attention to gender, youth, the ageing population, family health care and changing moral perceptions; (iii) the role of institutions from local to international level in policy formulation in relation to demographic movements, family life and the work process. "

Trustees

 * Daniel Ben-Ami
 * Gavin Poynter
 * Philip Roy Mullan

Financial history
Since 1996, the organisation has spent over Â£81,000. That the only tangible achievement of the charity appears to be the publication of two papers, one by Frank Furedi, raises questions as to the magnitude of funding received.



Contacts
Global Futures PO Box 138, Faversham, Kent ME13 8LW Tel: +44 (0)1795 537322 email: riskresponse@futureproof.org web: http://www.futureproof.org