In Conversation with Professor Dame Angela McLean: The Humanities and Social Sciences in Policymaking

Professor Dame Angela McLean, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) joined British Academy President, Professor Dame Julia Black, to reflect on the value of the humanities and social sciences in delivery of the GCSA's priorities in putting evidence and research-led advice at the heart of UK Government decision-making.

A transcript of Dame Angela's opening remarks is provided below.

Explore routes for academic engagement with Government here.

Explore the Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) database here.

Speaker: Professor Dame Angela McLean

Professor Dame Angela McLean is the United Kingdom’s Government Chief Scientific Adviser, a role she has held since April 2023. She was previously Chief Scientific Adviser in the Ministry of Defence. Prior to joining government, Dame Angela has had a distinguished academic career as a Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of All Souls College. She is a mathematical biologist, advancing our understanding of infectious disease dynamics.

She also chairs the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and leads the Government Science and Engineering (GSE) profession. Her contributions to science and public service have been recognised with numerous honours, including election to the Royal Society, the Gabor Medal, the Weldon Memorial Prize, and a damehood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Chair: Professor Dame Julia Black PBA

Julia Black is President of the British Academy, the UK’s National Academy for social sciences and the humanities, and Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford. She is also an External Member of the Bank of England’s Financial Markets Infrastructure Committee; a member of the Prime Minister’s Council of Science and Technology; and a Governor of the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is currently a visiting Professor at LSE Law School and a Professor of Law and Regulation at Oxford University.

This event had live subtitles provided by 121 Captions.

Good afternoon, everyone – including those of you watching online – and thank you for inviting me to participate today.

The Academy has asked me to talk about the importance of the humanities and social sciences to my job as Government Chief Scientific Adviser.

I won't beat around the bush. My work – and that of the Government Office for Science, which I lead – is inherently interdisciplinary.

Indeed, I've really struggled to think of anything we do – emergency preparedness and response, futures thinking, technology assessments, advice relating to national security – that doesn't rely on various sources of expertise.

That dependence on multiple perspectives is reflected in the systems through which we provide science advice to ministers and their departments.

The most important of those, in my view, is the network of departmental science advisers. Its strength hinges on the disciplines and experiences that individual advisers bring to the table, even if it's more common that our weekly meetings are now around a virtual table. The current roster of advisers features engineers, medics, a range of natural scientists – but also first-rate academics from human factors, psychology, behavioural science, digital humanities.

The same is true for the Council for Science and Technology, which I co-chair – where our ability to provide advice, proactive or reactive, relies on our ability to assign small groups of individual leaders in their fields – including the Academy's Julia Black – to address important national challenges and opportunities.

If that all sounds rather abstract, let me give you some examples – ones where I have been asked personally to produce specific advice, and where insights from the humanities and the social and behavioural sciences have pre-dominated.

Over the past 12 months, I have had to support policy makers on issues such as the risks posed by individuals who are fascinated by violence, including evidence on the drivers of that fascination. I have also advised on evidence for the efficacy of alternatives to incarceration in the management of offenders.

These are wicked policy problems, human-centred problems – what problems aren't! – and it's researchers of digital cultures, forensic psychologists, lawyers working on online issues, criminologists, ethicists, experts in penal theory whom we have gratefully turned to.

Over the same period, ministers have come to us seeking help around how to gain public buy-in for policies around updating grid infrastructure and green choices – and, in those contexts too, the expertise mix has come almost exclusively from the SHAPE disciplines.

I could say the same for a major foresight project we're getting underway regarding the future of childhood in the UK…

…as well as for occasions when I've sought help to improve my own understanding of complex issues. Last year, for instance, the British Academy kindly organised a fascinating session for me in which I was able to pepper a small group of experts – an economist, an historian and some others – with questions about the social dimensions of technology adoption.

Now, I'm not going to overplay my hand here. Situations arise where SHAPE disciplines aren't in the room – when the exam question is narrowly framed, say, around climate models or future drugs pipelines or comparative capabilities of different nations in terms of a particular technology.

My point is that we start with, and are led by, the exam question. What disciplinary mix will enable us to provide the best advice to our customers in government?

To that end, I think we are getting better at anticipating the need for SHAPE expertise and at accessing it, although there is always room for improvement.

Central to this is the fact that since the end of the pandemic, GO-Science has had a dedicated social and behavioural science team – a key lesson of Covid being that we need to tackle important evidence gaps before the next crisis.

I experienced the consequences of those evidence gaps myself, as co-chair of the government's epidemiological modelling sub-group during the pandemic. We had really fruitful engagements with our colleagues in the behavioural sub-group, but they were sometimes hamstrung by the absence of data which would have enhanced their advice.

Since then, my SBS team in GO-Science has provided important guidance for departments on themes such as evacuation, crisis communications and societal vulnerabilities.

I'm also pleased that GO-Science is a main sponsor of ESRC's Behavioural Research UK programme, which means we have an embedded postdoc in GO-Science generating appetite for behavioural research and responding to urgent requests; for example, she is currently the liaison between Cabinet Office and BR-UK-affiliated academics who have been investigating the drivers of last summer's riots post Southport.

And we're currently benefitting from part-time academic support in concerning societal dimensions of technology, including in relation to engineering biology.

Engbio was my personal priority over the past year; this year, it's climate adaptation, and we look forward to having a British Academy Innovation Fellow work with us on tackling societal questions in that space.

Where else do I anticipate collaboration with the social sciences and humanities? Well, a likely candidate is misinformation – a topic prompting unease among many within the chief scientific adviser network, me included. It is a thread running through several issues I've mentioned today: crisis response and communications, public rejection of emerging technologies, civil unrest, national security.

Misinformation, of course, is as old as human interaction, but the digital age has created profound new dimensions to the problem. Right now, we're trying to get our heads around what are the most pertinent questions in relation to misinformation from a government perspective – but certain audience members here today can expect to hear from us in due course.

I'm keen to move on to discussion in a moment, but allow me first to pose a challenge to you.

Over recent years, government departments have all published their Areas of Research Interest – ARIs for short – which enable everyone, but especially academics, to see the main research questions departments are grappling with. ARIs mean that you can tell departments that you have relevant evidence that could inform policy on a particular issue – and start a dialogue with them. They can also direct your thinking on topics for future research where there's likely to be a customer in government for your findings.

Now, a paper issued last year by the researchers who helped us to design ARIs found that UK academics have evidence and expertise highly relevant to the issues facing government. Some four fifths of ARIs could be linked with at least one UKRI grant. 72 per cent of Defra ARIs were aligned with at least one ESRC project; 95 per cent in the case of Department for Education ARIs!

So, a question: how many of you have used the ARI database – which is very simple to search – to find and respond to questions that relate to your research? On our side, we need to do more to promote ARIs – and we're working on that – but we also need academics to explore this powerful interface that can be the starting point for bringing your research and expertise to bear on policy.

Let me end by reiterating a simple but critical point. Expertise may be under attack from some quarters, but the system that I lead has no alternative but to continue, without fear or favour, to provide evidence-based, rigorous, multi-disciplinary advice where we can – also flagging where the evidence is weak or non-existent and explaining how those gaps can be filled.

Research expertise, including from SHAPE disciplines, must continue to inform this very process; it's my responsibility to make sure that it does – and yours as well.