In 2019 Nesta was asked by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) to design and deliver a £2 million Future News Pilot Fund (the Fund).

With partners, Bethnal Green Ventures, and a wider team of experts in design thinking, prototyping and media innovation, Nesta awarded 20 grants to innovators across England who ran four-month prototypes to diversify and expand readership and find new routes to financial sustainability. This report explores the innovation emerging in the field and draws five conclusions from the Fund:

1. Access to high quality, independent news and information reinforces our democratic landscape, and it is vital that it is sustained.
2. There are many promising ideas, but to sustain public interest news we now need long term public investment into innovation in the news ecosystem.
3. The #BlackLivesMatter movement that exploded in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing has revealed the need to address diversity in many institutions and industries.
4. Innovation has never been more necessary to create sustainable revenue models.
5. We need more coalitions of funders who will support the goals above.

To reinforce the public interest news ecosystem, this report sets out clear policy recommendations which can be found on page 8.