Renowned BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time receives prestigious British Academy President’s Medal for 2025

The British Academy has awarded its prestigious President’s Medal to the long-running and beloved BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time. Recognising its outstanding contribution to humanities and social sciences broadcasting, the award comes just as the programme’s founder and sole presenter Melvyn Bragg steps down after 27 years.

On air since 1998, In Our Time remains one of the BBC’s most listened to on-demand programmes worldwide and is one of BBC Sounds’ most popular podcast among under-35s. The programme explores the ideas, people and events that shape all of human life - from the start of civilisation to key visions for the future and much more, with hundreds of leading academics featured in over 1000 episodes.

Awarding the medal, Professor Susan J Smith, the Academy’s President, commended the programme for its sustained commitment to rigorous yet accessible discussion of complex ideas. She praised its success in bringing serious debate into prime time listening, describing the programme’s complete digital archive as a treasure trove for researchers, educators, and the general public.

The President’s Medal is awarded annually to recognise public champions of the humanities and social sciences and is the most prestigious among the Academy’s annual suite of prizes and medals. Previous recipients include novelist Elif Shafak, historian David Olusoga, the fact-checking organisation Full Fact, and The Rest is History podcast. This year is the first time the President’s Medal has been awarded to a radio programme.

The news comes as In Our Times’s originator and longstanding presenter Melvyn Bragg - elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy in 2010 - announced his departure from the programme in September 2025 after 27 years as host. His final episode aired in July 2025, bringing to a close an extraordinary tenure as host since its launch in 1998.

Professor Susan J Smith, President of the British Academy, said:

“The success of In Our Time shows just how much public interest there is in the very best of the humanities and social sciences. Week after week, year in, year out, for more than a quarter of a century this phenomenal programme has brought lively debate around brilliant scholarship into dialogue with the widest of audiences. It taps into an insatiable curiosity at the heart of human life and a thirst for knowledge among prime-time listeners. It is a landmark contribution to public broadcasting and a showcase for the myriad subjects the British Academy stands for.”

Simon Tillotson, producer of In Our Time, thanked Professor Susan J Smith and the Fellows of the British Academy on behalf of all who work and have worked on the programme, saying:

“We are particularly grateful to the thousands of academics who, three at a time, sparkle so brilliantly in our studio and continue to play such an essential part in our joint success.  It is our great pleasure and privilege to work with you each week on In Our Time as you stimulate the minds of millions of listeners around the world.”

Mohit Bakaya, Director of Speech and Controller of BBC Radio 4 said: “We are absolutely delighted that In Our Time has been recognised with this prestigious award. For nearly three decades the programme and podcast have made complex ideas come alive for millions of listeners, whilst remaining “never knowingly relevant!

“This honour is a testament to the extraordinary legacy of over a thousand episodes left by the incomparable Melvyn Bragg, as well as recognition of the intellectual rigour, curiosity and passion of the In Our Time team as they prepare for a new chapter."

2025 Prizes and Medals recipients

Last night, the British Academy awarded its wider suite of prizes and medals to SHAPE academics in recognition of their outstanding contributions to their areas of study.

Among those celebrated were archaeologists, linguists, political scientists and classicists from all over the world including the UK, Germany, Australia and the USA. The winners were recognised to have made invaluable contributions to the humanities and social sciences that have shaped a better understanding of our world.

The 2025 awards are:

• The Brian Barry Prize in Political Science, awarded in partnership with Cambridge University Press and the British Journal of Political Science (BJPolS), to Dr Chong-Ming Lim (Lecturer in Political Philosophy, University of Sheffield), for his essay ‘Civil Disobedience and State Anxiety’.

• The Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies to Professor Carol A. Newsom (Charles Howard Candler Professor Emerita of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology) for her distinguished contribution to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls (particularly the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice), to ancient Hebrew Wisdom Literature, and to Apocalyptic.

• The Derek Allen Prize to Professor Owen Wright (Emeritus Professor of Musicology of the Middle East, SOAS University of London) for contributing to a fundamental transformation of musicology, by transcending boundaries between ethnomusicology, historical musicology, music theory and analysis.

• The Edward Ullendorf Medal to Professor Rainger Voigt (Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Semitic and Arabic Studies, Freie Universität Berlin) for his numerous major contributions to the research of the Semitic languages of Ethiopia and to the discipline of comparative Semitic and comparative Afro-Asiatic languages.

• The Grahame Clark Medal to Professor Chantal Conneller FSA (Professor of Early Prehistory at the University of Newcastle) for transforming understanding of the Mesolithic period in the 21st century.

• The Kenyon Medal  to Professor Michael Fulford CBE, FBA, FSA (Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading) for excavating many important sites across the Roman empire, from Pompeii to Silchester and playing a leading role in advancing our understanding of the Roman world. and playing a leading role in advancing our understanding of the Roman world.

• The Landscape Archaeology Medal to Professor Stephen Rippon (Professor of Landscape Archaeology at the University of Exeter) for his diverse range of field research, innovative methodological analysis and cross-disciplinary approach to research.

• The Neil and Saras Smith Medal for a lifetime of achievement in the field of linguistics to Professor Nicholas Evans (Distinguished Professor at the Department of Linguistics, School of Culture, History & Language, and founding Director of the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University) for his long and distinguished career working on endangered languages, documenting hitherto undescribed languages and exploring the consequences of such data for general linguistic theory.

• The Peter Townsend Prize to Dr Lucy Series (Lecturer in Socio-Legal Studies at Bristol University) for her book ‘The Deprivation of Liberty in the Shadows of the Institutions’ (Bristol University Press, 2022).

• The Rose Mary Crawshay Prize to ‘The Rising Down: Lives in a Sussex Landscape’ (Faber & Faber, 2024) by Professor Alexandra Harris (Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham).

• The Serena Medal to Professor Nadia Urbinati (Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory at Columbia University) for exploring the Milliean and liberal democratic tradition in Italy in several books in Italian published by Il Mulino, Laterza and Feltrinelli, and in editing and introducing translations into English of key works by Mazzini, Gobetti and Rosselli.

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