Mapping emerging and unmet needs is a two-year research programme, aiming to develop new insights into how Britain's unmet and emerging needs can be prioritised and met.

This independent overview of changing needs will provide a complement to current research and help to guide the policies and actions of civil society organisations, government, policy makers and service providers.

It will focus on:

• unmet or badly met needs
• emerging and persistent needs
• material and psychological needs
• how people and communities buck trends in meeting their own needs
• how we can best measure unmet needs

In consultation during 2005-2006 trusts and foundations, local service providers, and government identified the need for an independent survey of needs in the UK, which they could use to help guide their own priorities and could highlight to Government areas where needs are intensifying.

The Mapping Needs programme aims to continue the Young Foundation's legacy of identify unmet need and developing innovative ways of meeting them.