Our why and how
We’re on a mission to create a society that children would choose to live in
Why early childhood?
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Prevention over treatment
Our earliest years in life have a disproportionate impact on our health, wellbeing and resilience. The science is clear: investing in early childhood prevents harms and reduces inequalities in society. It’s smarter, fairer, and more cost-effective than waiting for problems to escalate.
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The gap between knowing and doing.
We know the science – but too often, we fail to act on it. Instead of investing in prevention, we spend our time and money on crisis response.
Our approach is different. We back the ideas needed to close the gap between evidence and impact, building fire-resistant systems, not just fighting fires.
Prevention over treatment
The cost of not acting.
0.35
An unchanged Gini Coefficient. (IFS, 2025)
31%
The unacceptable, and growing, number of children living in poverty. (DWP, 2024)
40%
Of GCSE attainment gaps are already present by age 5. (Hutchinson et al. 2016, 2018)
How our Evidence Hub Works
All Elevate Great ventures and partnerships are rooted in quality evidence and real-world insight from our Evidence Hub.
The 4 functions of the hub
For robust decision-making
Research and data science direct our choice of ventures. For example, our Innovation Hub’s investment decisions are informed by quantitative and qualitative research and testing.
For more effective ventures
We use data and research to steer and iterate our active ventures, employing our data science capabilities to capture better data and measure impact.
To inform our focus
Our growing evidence base of secondary research, in disciplines ranging from neuroscience to behavioural economics, guides our focus and activity.
To support partners
Our evidence hub also provides advisory and quantitative and secondary research to other organisations.
How our Innovation Hub Works
We are the engine that incubates, tests, and scales new ideas to drive sustainable change for the individual child and society as a whole.
Guided by data, we scan for ideas with potential to transform societal outcomes through prevention.
We embrace an experimental mindset, knowing that many ideas will evolve or even fail before the right model emerges.
We incubate them in short, focused cycles, testing them in real-world settings before scaling.
We identify and support scaling pathways, ensuring solutions grow beyond the pilot stage.
We continuously learn and iterate, ensuring every insight contributes to better outcomes for society.
In summary, the Innovation Hub incubates, tests and scales breakthrough ideas to drive sustainable systemic change.
Rights are interwoven into everything we do
Babies and young children have a wide range of human rights designed to ensure they can thrive, and these rights underpin all Elevate Great’s innovation, evidence, and influencing work. We also support others to ensure children’s rights are at the heart of their work.
Our rights framework is based on global evidence and is being continually updated and improved. In working with our partners to create change, we aim to ensure that the development of new international norms takes the experiences and interests of babies and young children into account.
