Alessandra rejoined the Young Foundation in August 2008 (she first joined the Young Foundation at its inception in April 2005) and is currently responsible for work on civility, mapping needs in Wales; creativity and European cities, community cohesion. She has also worked on subjects as varied as neighbourliness and luxury goods; mapping Britain's unmet needs to mapping rural needs in Britain and Ireland; as well as far right extremism. At the Young Foundation, Alessandra is also leading on external relations – communications and publications. 

Before returning to The Young Foundation, Alessandra was Head of Research at the think tank Demos where she remains an associate. She has also worked as a research fellow on an ESRC funded project on migration and terrorism in Britain and Germany (based at POLSIS, University of Birmingham); as a consultant on cities and diversity for the British Council, on communities and wellbeing for Tesco; on climate change for a DEFRA funded project on England’s future. She is on the board of the International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care. Alessandra holds a M.Phil. in Development studies and a Doctorate in International relations from Cambridge University.

She has written extensively on issues related to communities, neighbourliness, belonging and immigration. She authored a report for the Commission on Integration and Cohesion on belonging in contemporary Britain and most recently, the Young Foundation’s book ‘Civility Lost and Found’ with contributions from senior politicians and practitioners (read here). She was co-author of ‘People Flow: managing migration in a new European Commonwealth’; co-editor of ‘Porcupines in Winter: the pleasures and pains of living together in contemporary Britain’, editor of the ‘Future face of enterprise’ on making Britain into a successful and thriving enterprise nation and most recently authored the Demos pamphlet ‘Wishful thinking’ (http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Wishful_thinking_-_web.pdf?1245835437) on resilience and aspirations during the recession.

 Contact

alessandra.buonfino(AT)youngfoundation.org or call 2020 8980 6263.