Rapid review: What works to improve social capital?

This report summarises the work undertaken as part of our Social capital: Evidence review and synthesis project. This work sets out to understand what types of interventions have improved three key social capital outcomes:

• neighbourhood belonging – “I feel like I belong to this neighbourhood”
• social network support – “I believe that someone would be there for me if I needed help”
• community cohesion – “I believe that my neighbourhood is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well”

It provides a summary of the findings, as well as what was observed through the process of searches, analysis and narrative summarisation.

The research was conducted by Centre for Thriving Places during Spring and Summer 2022 in response to a brief from What Works Centre for Wellbeing, who acted as partners for the research and created and coordinated a project consultation group for the research to
ensure quality.

This report was prepared by Centre for Thriving Places and authored by Mel Cairns, Rosie Maguire, Saamah Abdallah and Liz Zeidler, supported by Katie Tiplady-Startin.

The report is accompanied by a blog, summary briefing and a what is social capital? resource page.