Nesta's current strategy spans the period covered by the next Senedd Cymru (May 2026-May 2030). Welsh Government’s actions are pivotal to creating a fairer start, a healthier life and a sustainable future for the people of Wales.

The 2026 elections offer an opportunity to influence these actions by ensuring party manifestos include commitments which will reduce obesity rates, tackle the decarbonisation of home heating and narrow the outcome gap between children growing up in disadvantage and the national average.

With manifesto writing expected to begin from early 2025, we aim to effectively communicate the scale of challenges and the ambition required to meet them head on.

Our approach involves implementing foresight methods to engage with a broad range of stakeholders from across Wales in 2024. This collaborative engagement will help us to understand the necessary conditions in Wales to meet the challenges, including (but not limited to) required government policies, stakeholder acceptance and a supportive policy environment. This process will inform our strategy for influencing the 2026 election manifestos and subsequent government programme.

By working closely with a broad spectrum of people from across Wales, we want to pinpoint areas where current Welsh policies fall short in contributing towards a fairer start, a healthier life and a sustainable future in Wales.

This collaborative approach will allow us to develop targeted projects, conduct meaningful research, and create practical, scalable solutions. Our aim is to help shape political planning and debate for the upcoming 2026 Senedd elections.

By promoting well-researched, non-partisan solutions to influence Welsh Government actions through party manifestos and the subsequent programme for government, Nesta aims to drive ambitious, evidence-based policy changes that will have a positive impact on people’s lives.

During the summer and autumn of 2024, we developed a better understanding of the conditions necessary in Wales to tackle the challenges . This included policy analysis, identifying which ideas from Nesta's mission and UK Options 2040 work are devolved to the Welsh government. This is coupled with an assessment of the government's current position on these policies.

We then engage with stakeholders, through individual interviews, to explore what needs to be true in Wales to address the issues we face in the period covered by the next Senedd Cymru. We have combined this policy analysis and stakeholders involved to identify key elements that need inclusion in party manifestos for the 2026 elections.

Based on stakeholder engagement and Nesta’s own research, we have produced two policy briefs:

• A healthy life in Wales: calls for all party manifestos to prioritise tackling obesity as the number one priority by regulating unhealthy food promotion in the retail sector, encouraging healthier choices when eating out and making the healthier choice the easier choice.
• A plan for Wales’ clean heat future calls for all parties to prioritise policies which embrace and accelerate low-carbon heating installations by removing barriers to up-take and building a thriving low-carbon heating workforce

We will continue to engage stakeholders to gauge policy acceptability and understand what constitutes a supportive policy environment. Throughout the process, we will develop well-researched, non-partisan, and innovative policy solutions for consideration in manifestos and the next programme for government.