CENTRIS was established in 1988.

Its mission is to support innovative social policy and practice.

Its method is to work with partners active in the field to develop solutions to social issues, through a mixture of research and innovatory initiatives.
CENTRIS' constitution describes charitable objects for the benefit of the public to advance education, to promote the relief of sickness and the preservation of health and to promote the relief of poverty, in particular by promoting research into the role of individual self awareness, self development and personal responsibility in these fields, and the dissemination of the useful results of that research. Centris has three main areas of activity:

1. Civil Society
Over the past few years, CENTRIS has created a baseline for civil society development work in the UK by contributing to the literature, changing the climate by influencing policy, and working on increasing resource allocation to the sector

2. Families - including Fathers and Masculinity
2004 CENTRIS authored a book entitled A Question of Balance for Fathers Plus, a project of Children North East that aims to involve men in childrearing by ensuring that the needs of men are met in service delivery. In 2006 and 2007 that work was revisited with further research and evaluation. During 2008 -2009 Centris helped in a study of child poverty in the north east of England.

3. Social Justice and Philanthropy

A key part of CENTRIS' work in this area has been research into the effectiveness of funding in creating social justice

CENTRIS is also helping Foundations for Peace, a network of community and independent foundations working in divided societies. The aim of the Foundations for Peace network is to support each foundation's work in its own community, and to enable foundations to work collaboratively, and together create a platform for the common aims of social justice, inclusion and peacebuilding.


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CURRENT PROJECTS 

Centris is helping Fairbridge to think through its monitoring, evaluation and assessment processes. This work will be undertaken from early summer 2008 and continue through to winter 2009.

Centris continues to work alongside the FORD Foundation on their Social Justice programme and also with the Foundations for Peace movement around the world.This work is expected to continue to the end of 2010.

Centris is working with the Global Fund for Community Foundations to help them evaluate their capacity. This work will complete in late 2009.

Recently Centris undertook some preliminary investigations into CIVIL PROTECTION - specifically to examine the role of the community when dealing with emergencies and disasters. With the onset of global climate change and in particular recent environmental events - like the Katrina hurricane in USA and widespread flooding in the UK - this seems like an issue that will grow in importance and topicality. Centris may build on this pilot work over the course of the next few years.