Governance

The Nuffield Foundation is a charity registered with the Charity Commission (206601).

It was established by Trust Deed on 9 June 1943 by Lord Nuffield.

Our structure

Board of Trustees

Our Board of Trustees comprises seven Trustees who act jointly as a corporate body created under the powers now in the Charities Act 2011. Trustees are appointed by other Trustees for a fixed term as the Trustees think fit, in line with Charity Code recommendations. The Board of Trustees meets at least four times a year and retains overall responsibility for all activities of the Foundation. All strategic and policy decisions are taken by Trustees collectively, advised by a number of committees.

Executive Board

Our Chief Executive, supported by a Leadership Team, is responsible for the management of the Foundation and for advising Trustees on strategic and operational matters. We house several semi-autonomous bodies which, although legally part of the Nuffield Foundation, have their own governing structures with distinct terms of reference. These are the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Ada Lovelace Institute and the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.

How we make funding decisions

We ensure that all applications for research, analysis and development grants are independently peer reviewed, including representatives from the policy and practice worlds, as well as research experts. We require ethical scrutiny of proposals involving primary research, and evidence of a commitment to the communication of research findings. Trustees make final decisions on these applications.

Our policies

Recent Annual reports

Download the Annual report

Our latest report sets out how the Foundation directed funding to its expert centres, as well as grant-holders across the UK.

2024 Annual report

Nuffield-Foundation-2024-Annual-Report.pdf

3MB

Investment governance

Trustees delegate most investment decisions to an Investment Committee comprising five members, of which three are trustees and two are independent members. The trustees have sound lay investment knowledge which is supplemented by two independent experts.

The Committee is served by a part time Investment Director and advised by an Investment Consultant (currently Cambridge Associates). The Committee receives reports from the Investment Director and the two independent experts at its regular meetings. Commitments to illiquid funds are made after consulting with the Investment Consultants.

The Chair of the Foundation chairs the Investment Committee which reflects the centrality of the portfolio to the Foundation’s financial wherewithal. Every 18 months or so the Investment Committee is required to account to the full body of Trustees, and in particular to set out the investment risks to which the organisation is exposed and its approach to responsible investing. The purpose of this is to ensure that all trustees are prepared for adverse markets and can remain confident in the rational of the strategy in difficult circumstances. The strategy is underpinned by our investment beliefs.

Investment strategy

Our long term approach to investing is based on keeping a liquidity buffer in short dated gilts, which when combined with portfolio income, will provide sufficient liquidity to meet our current obligations. This is invested for security first, then liquidity and last of all, return. With that sum assured we invest the balance for a maximum return (notwithstanding the associated volatility) in global equities and private equity/venture capital. Spending is calculated using a Constant Growth method linked to the historic value of the endowment, adjusted for inflation. In 2024 spending was 5.4% of the net asset value. We invest in public equities using six global managers, each with the same mandate but who are selected to be uncorrelated to each other, and we regularly rebalance between them, taking from the best performers and giving to the others in order to maintain an equally balanced portfolio. The private equity/venture capital portfolio is deliberately concentrated on smaller funds. The short-dated gilts portfolio is managed internally. Since 2003 (when this strategy began) the total return (net of fees) has been 10% per annum (similar to its benchmark of 90% MSCI ACWI and 10% short dated gilts).