Nancy is the Director Evidence and Insight, leading the Global Safety Evidence Centre at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, as well as the World Risk Poll and the Impact of the Foundation ensuring the delivery of high-impact evidence products.
Nancy Hey awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List
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Lloyd's Register Foundation is pleased to announce that Nancy Hey, Director of Evidence & Insight, has been awarded the honour of the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2026 Honours List.
Overview
Lloyd’s Register Foundation is delighted to announce that Nancy Hey, Director of Evidence & Insight, has been awarded the honour of the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2026 Honours List for her services to wellbeing and tackling loneliness in the UK.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Nancy set up and led the UK’s What Works Centre for Wellbeing from 2014 to 2024. The Centre was the national UK body for wellbeing research, policy and practice, based on the principle that good decision making should be informed by the best available evidence on what works, and what doesn’t. Where evidence isn’t available, high-quality methods should be used to find it, with results shared openly with the government, businesses, charities and the wider public for them to use.
Part of a broader network of evidence centres, the What Works Centre for Wellbeing built on the UK National Wellbeing Measurement Programme and included the Campaign to End Loneliness from 2021.
Nancy said: “I’m honoured to receive an OBE for services to wellbeing and tackling loneliness. During my time as Director of the What Works Centre for Wellbeing and with the Campaign to End Loneliness, I was fortunate to work with many dedicated people to understand what really helps improve lives. I’d like to express my thanks to my former colleagues and networks who were instrumental in the success of the Centre.”
Since joining the Foundation as Director of Evidence and Insight in 2024, Nancy has set up the Foundation’s Global Safety Evidence Centre, which builds on the Foundation’s flagship programme, the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll. The Global Safety Evidence Centre collates, creates and communicates the best available safety evidence from the Foundation, our partners and other sources on both the nature and scale of global safety challenges, and what works to address them. It works with partners and practitioners to identify and fill gaps in the evidence, and to use the evidence for action.
“I’m excited to do this work globally to further the Foundation’s charitable mission of engineering a safer world. We have a great team at the Foundation who are all committed to keeping people and property safer. Evidence is critical to this mission – but often does not yet exist or is not easily accessible. Yet without it, we cannot fully understand the nature and scale of safety challenges faced by people around the world, nor what works to protect them from harm.”
Nancy Hey Director of Evidence & Insight
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