ST membership

Increasing collaboration and connection between think tanks

Smart Thinking’s Membership Network offers its member think tanks the opportunity to collaborate, be part of a community, access training and share knowledge across the sector. We host multiple training sessions, webinars and networking events throughout the year, building the think tank community and enabling knowledge sharing, pooling of resources and peer-to-peer support throughout the sector.

Our membership also enables think tanks to provide regular professional development for their staff. With nearly three years experience of providing training to UK think tanks we have now developed a comprehensive, think tank-centric, series of courses. These are specifically designed to improve your professional skills in the core competencies you will need as you progress through your think tank career. 

Both our training and events programmes have been designed so that there is something for you whether you work in research, communications or operations and whether you are a junior researcher or a think tank Chief Executive.

Pricing is based on the number of full time employees. To find out more about becoming a member, visit our ST Member website or email Emily on [email protected]


Benefits

  • Monthly expert webinars on topics across research, comms and operations
  • In-person intensive training sessions
  • Member website and knowledge bank
  • Salary benchmarking
  • Networking events for all staff including heads of research meeting, operations network, events network, senior comms network and early careers network
  • 15% off all job adverts on Smart Thinking Jobs
  • Buddy system to informally build your professional network


MEMBER ONLY

Upcoming training

The in-person training sessions are the only part of the membership available to both members and non-members however, members have priority booking, receive complimentary tickets to training in their annual subscription and are entitled to a heavily discounted member-only ticket price after that. Our core training topics are media training, public speaking, writing for impact, fundraising fundamentals, people management and research project management. Find more details on our training programme here.

People management training

5 March 2025
9.30am – 4.30pm

Are you new to management? Want to become a manager? Been a manager for a while but never had any formal training and want to develop your management skills? This training is for you!

Members £250 (+VAT) Non-members £450 (+VAT)

Fundraising fundamentals

27 March 2025
9am – 4pm

Do you have to fundraise in your role? Are you likely to have to start fundraising for your work in the future? Do you want to be confident pitching and asking for money? Then this training is for you!

Members £250 (+VAT) Non-members £450 (+VAT)


MEMBER ONLY

Upcoming webinars

Public opinion polling with US think tank Pew Research Center

13 February 2025 3pm – 4pm

Ashley Amaya, Associate Director at US think tank, Pew Research Center, will talk us through their research process and best practice in opinion polling.

Member only (FREE)

What, why and how to run a focus group with Public First

20 March 2025 11am – 12pm

Jonathan Simons, Partner at Public First, will talk us through how to construct focus groups, what to do, what to avoid and how to get the most from them.

Member only (FREE)


ST membership curates interesting opportunities to connect, share experiences and learn

“We are very pleased to have joined Smart Thinking. This year it has definitely proved to be the best
value of all our memberships. Think tanks are different to other organisations in many ways and Smart Thinking understands that and curates interesting opportunities to connect, share experiences and learn. All the events we’ve attended have been useful and sharply run. A major plus is the variety. People across the organisation at different levels, from our senior management team to researchers to comms, are benefiting.”

Karen Crane, Head of Communications, Green Alliance


Join our current members and access all the latest think tank training and events