In 2025, we strengthened our role at the centre of the economics profession, growing our global community, advancing research, and expanding our reach across education, policy and public engagement.
Our current strategy was developed following a member consultation in the summer of 2023. It focuses on four strategic priorities:
In 2025, we continued to strengthen our role at the centre of the economics profession through research, events, outreach and professional development. Across our programmes, we expanded our reach, grew engagement and supported a more connected and inclusive global economics community.
We grew to 3,625 members worldwide, strengthening our global network across academia, policy and industry
2,821 entries to the Young Economist of the Year competition engaged students with real-world economic questions.
517 delegates attended our flagship Annual Conference, with over 400 papers presented across diverse sessions
Our mentoring, networking and inclusion programmes continued to grow, supporting economists across all career stages.
Our journals attracted over 1,900 collective submissions, maintaining strong impact and global reach across the discipline
We reached 162,592 website users and significantly grew our audience across our key social media platforms.
We're building a larger, more connected and more globally representative economics community. We continued to grow our membership in 2025, reaching 3,625 members across academia, policy and industry worldwide. While nearly half of our members are based in the UK, the rest are spread across Europe, North America and beyond, reflecting the Society’s international reach and relevance.
In 2025, we introduced our new Fellowship programme, recognising individuals who have made a significant contribution to the discipline.
See the complete list of RES Fellows here.
Institutional Membership has been developed for organisations working across economics, policy and industry to strengthen their connection with the wider profession and support the advancement of economic thinking. Membership reflects a shared commitment to supporting research, professional development and public engagement, while helping build stronger links between the institutions shaping economic policy and practice.
We also continued to support departments and organisations through our Group Membership scheme, helping more economists connect with the Society, access resources and engage with the wider economics community.
Group membership has been designed, primarily, for academic institutions to provide them with a voice and representation within RES and to champion and advance economic thinking. It is a commitment to joining a community of passionate individuals and organisations who use their economic theory and knowledge to make a positive impact on the world.
The 2025 Young Economist of the Year competition was held by Discover Economics, and sponsored by KPMG and the Financial Times. The competition aims at encouraging Year 10 – Year 13 students to produce their own ideas in analysing contemporary economic problems facing the UK and the world.
In 2025, we celebrated joint winners whose work stood out for its originality, clarity and engagement with complex, real-world issues.
One of this year’s winning entries, by Ishwa Nawaz, examined the economic consequences of falling birth rates and the constraints shaping decisions about parenthood. The piece challenged traditional growth models by highlighting how childcare, housing and unpaid labour influence economic outcomes, arguing that fertility is not simply a personal choice but a structural issue with long-term implications.
The second winning entry, by the King’s Economists team, explored whether the UK can achieve economic growth while meeting its climate commitments through aviation expansion. Using established economic frameworks, the team set out a clear argument that these goals are unlikely to be achieved simultaneously, highlighting the trade-offs policymakers face in balancing growth with environmental limits.
In 2025, the Royal Economic Society was pleased to award the RES Medal for Services to the Economics Profession to Prof Sarah Smith. The medal recognises an individual who has made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the economics profession in one or more of three dimensions: promoting economics; supporting economists; improving diversity.
Sarah Smith has been a faculty member at Bristol since 2005 and was Head of Economics from 2014 to 2021. She has held previous positions at the London School of Economics, the Financial Services Authority, HM Treasury and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She is an applied micro-economist whose research covers public and labour economics and is founder and co-chair of Discover Economics, a RES campaign to increase diversity among economics students.
She is Secretary of the Regional Standing Committee of the Econometric Society and has previously been chair of the RES Women’s Committee (2017-20), an elected member of the RES Council (2012-2017) and the European Economics Association council (2014-2018), and Deputy Chair of the REF2021 Economics and Econometrics sub-panel. Sarah was awarded an OBE in the 2022 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to economics and education. Read more here.
The Economic Journal and The Econometrics Journal remain central to our work, continuing to attract high-quality research from across the world. Together, our journals continue to shape economic debate and support the dissemination of high-quality research internationally.
The Economic Journal also maintained a strong impact factor of 3.6, with the majority of papers reviewed within four months.
The 2025 Royal Economic Society Prize was awarded to Grischa Perino, Robert Ritz, and Arthur van Benthem for the article ‘Overlapping Climate Policies’.
The Econometrics Journal also achieved an impact factor of 7.0, placing it in Quartile 1 across four categories. The journal also recorded its eleventh consecutive year of citation growth.
The 2025 Denis Sargan Econometrics Prize was awarded to Jad Beyhum and Elia Lapenta for the article ‘One-step smoothing splines instrumental regression’.
Our Annual Conference remains a key moment in the economics calendar, bringing the community together to share ideas and new research. In 2025, 517 delegates attended, with more than 400 papers presented across a range of session formats.
We continued to evolve the programme, introducing new formats such as speed sessions to better support early-stage research and broaden participation, helping broaden participation and create more opportunities for researchers to share their work. Learn more.
The Annual Public Lecture continued to connect students and wider audiences with economics in an accessible and engaging way. In 2025, the lecture was hosted by Loughborough University and delivered by Andy Haldane, with more than 250 students attending through a full day of workshops, campus activities and the lecture itself.
The event remains an important opportunity to showcase the relevance of economics and encourage young people to engage with the subject beyond the classroom. Learn more.
2025 marked the first full year of the ESRC-funded RES Doctoral Training Programme, bringing together a programme of masterclasses, expert workshops and career-focused training for postgraduate economists. Across the year, 482 delegates attended DTP webinars, with 99% of participants rating sessions as excellent or good.
The programme continued to support economists at an important stage of their development, combining technical training with practical guidance on areas such as research methods, communication and preparing for the academic job market.
Supporting a more inclusive and representative economics profession remained a key priority in 2025. Through mentoring, outreach, events and research, we continued to expand programmes designed to improve access and support economists at all career stages. Alongside this, we strengthened our focus on professional culture and inclusion across the discipline.
Discover Economics continued to play an important role in broadening participation in the subject, particularly among underrepresented groups. Working with 21 universities, the campaign delivered 83 workshops to 2,655 school students across the UK, helping increase interest in studying economics by up to 20%. Alongside this, digital events and educational content continued to extend the campaign’s reach to wider audiences.
The UK Women in Economics Network (UK WEN) continued to grow throughout the year, bringing together economists from academia, government and industry through a programme of networking events, expert panels and inspirational talks. The network’s digital presence also expanded significantly, with growing audiences across LinkedIn, X and Bluesky.
Our Diversity and Inclusion Network continued to create space for discussion and collaboration across the profession, with events held in partnership with various organisations. These activities were complemented by the launch of the RES Culture Survey Report, developed in collaboration with the Standards of Conduct Committee to better understand experiences across the discipline and help inform future action.
We also continued to invest in mentoring and professional support programmes. During the year, 41 mentees were matched with 25 mentors through our mentoring scheme for early-career women economists, while a new Mid-Career Mentoring Programme was launched in partnership with the International Society for the Advancement of Women Economists (ISWE).
Throughout the year, we continued to advocate for the economics profession and contribute to national conversations on issues affecting research, education and public policy. Working both independently and alongside partner organisations, we used the Society’s voice to support the long-term strength, visibility and impact of economics.
In 2025, our Quarterly Newsletter continued to provide members with a regular and engaging way to connect with the Society and the wider discipline. Across four issues, we covered a broad range of topics, from the implications of AI for education to the economics of pandemics and wellbeing. Through the Newsletter, we continue to create space for ideas, perspectives and conversations that reflect the breadth of modern economics.
“I’m delighted to have been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society. Economics has so much to contribute, and I am pleased to be part of a community that aims to develop economists and economics for the benefit of society.”
Amanda Rowlatt CBE FREcon Former Government Chief Economist and Frontier Economics Senior Adviser