A further twenty-one related to either the introduction of new or significant amendments to existing electives such as new learning on inequality at Université Officielle de Bukavu in Democratic Republic of Congo, or modules on economics and the environment at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. We also saw instances of Rethinking Economics members engaging in wider campaigns in the university, such as RE Antwerp and the success of their coalition to launch a new Green office. These wins drew upon the energy of students frustrated and dissatisfied with their learning working in support of allied academics seeking to improve their teaching.
COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH
This year was big in terms of RE’s profile in major media – with a Financial Times op-ed by Ha-Joon Chang supporting our work in July 2025. Then in January, the Guardian published a feature on Rethinking Economics’ global network and its impact. Both attracted interest from young people interested in joining.
Our main email list grew 28% over the period, thanks to strong organic growth from media appearances and events. Link clicks from our email campaigns and engagement on Instagram grew consistently over the period. We struggled to increase engagement on our website, which we spent most of the last quarter of the year redeveloping. In relation to our network, we continued to increase engagement with our End of Year survey, with two thirds of groups responding on time. We received this positive feedback:
We believe REI is doing a very important job in supporting student groups and promoting pluralism in economics education internationally. The network has been very valuable for us, both politically and academically, and we appreciate the support and opportunities it provides. At the moment, what we mainly need is continued support for our activities, especially through funding opportunities and… organisational tools. These resources are very helpful for coordinating our work, communicating with students, and organising events and educational activities
– Bajando Economia (Argentina)
PROGRESS THROUGH OUR GROUP ACTION FRAMEWORK
We’ve improved our end of year survey of student groups to create an effective snapshot of their progress. We follow up the survey with a phone call, where we reflect back where groups are situated within our Group Action Framework for change, helping groups learn, access additional support and adapt future plans. Our framework values the base-building work that occurs before heroic campaign wins.
Based on the baseline data we collected in 2023, and 2024, this year we were able to learn from trends or common challenges over a three year period for the first time. We noted a net improvement in ⅔ of groups over this period. This year we had 40% greater response to our End of Year Survey (mostly European and African groups) – doubling the first year’s response, but there was churn in the participating groups. We were only able to compare the before-and-after performance of 25 groups over three years, and 43 groups over the past year.
This year, we observed an overall improvement in the performance of these groups in the Educate pillar, Organise pillar, and the Agitate pillar, which recovered from a dip in 2024. We observed better net improvement this year of our Global South groups – with bigger gains in Africa and Asia.
We noticed an improvement in many groups under the Agitate pillar, including outside of Europe. This could be partially due to changes we made to the Agitate pillar to better include Global South campaigning contexts. Overall, it remains our pillar with the most spread, and the weakest results, and we’re adding new Campaigning for Ecological Economics training which we hope will build capacity in this area across the network.