At the end of 2025 Citizen Network had over 6,500 individual members and over 350 group members from over 50 countries.
We work to help create a world where everyone matters and we share a rich library of free resources on this website. You can read more about our values and what we mean by citizenship here. Citizen Network began in 2009 and you can read our story below.
Simon Duffy and Nicola Protopapadakis created the Centre for Welfare Reform on the 1st October 2009. The Centre was a think-tank, based in Sheffield, Yorkshire, to create a better world by sharing ideas, research and practice. However, much of the early work of the Centre was focused on combating Austerity and challenging harmful changes to UK public policy, such as Universal Credit. This work led to the development of Citizen Network to:
Planning for Citizen Network continued in partnership with people and organisations around the world and on 17th November 2016, Citizen Network was launched at the Manawanui International Conference in Auckland, New Zealand by Simon Duffy and Kate Fulton. In 2025 the Centre for Welfare Reform and Citizen Network merged into one organisation.
Our online library at the end of 2025 hads over 1700 articles and 12,500 visitors per month. It has published 6 books and over 100 major reports, including:
A Fair Start (2010) Personalisation in Mental Health (2010) Personalised Transition (2010) Positively Local(2011) Women at the Centre (2011) Dying with Dignity (2011) Peer Power (2012) Local Area Coordination (2013) Whose Community Is It Anyway? (2013) No Going Back (2013) The Unmaking of Man (2013) Counting the Cuts (2014) Who Cares? (2015) Citizenship and the Welfare State (2016) Love and Welfare (2016) Heading Upstream (2017) Cumulative Impact Assessment (2018) UBI and Health (2018) Second Class Citizens (2019) Know Your Place (2019) Stories of Our Lives (2019) Basic Income Plus (2020) Closer to Home (2020) Energy Impairment and Disability Inclusion (2020) Power and Connection (2021) Growing Peer Support (2021) A New Way Home (2021) Centralisation Meets Austerity (2022) Truth & Citizenship (2022) Global Standards for Self-Directed Support (2022) Redesigning the NDIS (2023) Neighbourhoods of Care (2025) The Citizenship Manifesto (2025)
Members of Citizen Network lead national and global work on a range of social innovations:
Basic Income | Community Social Work | Constitutional Reform | Deinstitutionalisation | Family Leadership | Inclusive Education | Individual Service Funds | Local Area Coordination | Neighbourhood Democracy | Peer Support | People Based Development | Personalised Support | Person Centred Planning | Quality Checking | Self Advocacy | Self Directed Support | Support Brokerage | Supported Employment | Women-Centred Work
We has inspired or supported the creation a range of new organisations, events and practices including:
The Hub Yeovil (2010) People Focused Group Doncaster (2011) Campaign for a Fair Society (2011) iDirect (2014) Learning Disability Alliance (2014) Learning Disability England (2016) Chronic Illness Inclusion (2017) UBI Lab Sheffield (2018) We Are One: CitizenFest (2019) UBI Lab Disability (2020) Neighbourhood Democracy Movement (2020) It's Our Community (2023) 147 Map of Sheffield Neighbourhoods (2024) Fearless Cities South Yorkshire (2024) SDS Network (2024)
We are founding members of several networks including:
We hope to help all of us to become better citizens and to work together to create a world where everyone matters.
Why not come and join us?
