Responsible investing policy

The Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance educational opportunity and social well-being in the UK.


We fund research that informs social policy, primarily in Education, Welfare and Justice. We also provide opportunities for young people to develop skills and confidence in science and research. We are the founder and co-funder of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and the Ada Lovelace Institute.

Our aim is to understand the foundations and pathways of a just and inclusive society, and the restrictions to achieving it. Across all our work, we seek to address disadvantage and inequality and to make a difference to people’s lives.

Our approach to investment reflects our values of independence, rigorous evidence and concern for effective and equitable social policy. However, we recognise that some investment decisions can be linked to corporate strategies or products which might undermine aspects of our mission. We appoint managers who we think will try to avoid such strategies or products, but if we identify any we seek to minimise it through engagement with our managers (who are responsible for the day to day investment decisions).

Consequently our Responsible Investing Policy has three parts:

  • We aim to achieve our financial returns in a way that is consistent with our charitable purpose of advancing social well being. This includes being an engaged investor as well as avoiding businesses that are either unsustainable or seek to exploit vulnerable people.
  • We aim to know what we own, or be confident that our managers know what they own on our behalf and why they own it. When investing in private equity we will seek reassurance on ESG matters in line with our policy.
  • We will disinvest from a manager where on balance its approach is incompatible with our interests described above.

An important part of our approach is at least annual monitoring of the portfolio against a range of social harms or unsustainable practices. We use historic data provided by suppliers such as MSCI as well as qualitative assessments and reports by members of our Investment Committee following meetings with our managers in which we can seek explanations for any holdings that appear to conflict with our policy.

 

Last updated June 2021

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