COVID-19 – Shape the Future

- Departments
- Policy, International
- Programme status
- Ongoing
Aims
Shape the Future will bring insights from the social sciences, humanities and the arts together to shape a positive future for people, the economy and the environment. We want to convene our community in ways we have never done before, bridging across sectors and disciplines, integrating insights to help inform policy, and encouraging interdisciplinary learning. We will focus on issues that cannot be treated in policy silos to bring considerations of place, ethics and shared values together with the long view and the world view.
Activities
The programme will map out future policy and research agendas under three broad themes:
- Revitalising societal well-being
- Recreating an inclusive economy around purpose
- Exploring the cultures and histories of science, policy, and politics from which we can learn.
The activities we deliver will use the expertise of the Academy and its communities, drawing on some of the UK’s, and the world’s, top experts across the humanities and social sciences, and utilising our ability to link both to culture and the arts, and to ideas and insights from the natural sciences.
An initial series of workshops will bring together researchers and stakeholder across our community to review the landscape, explore the knowledge base and consider visions of the future. Initial, policy and practitioner-focussed summaries of these workshops will be used as the basis to further engage policy makers and others and to help understand the implications of different issues.
We will provide a platform to use our communities’ expertise to convene an inclusive, interdisciplinary response to how we recover and look beyond the global pandemic to shape a positive future.
Publications
COVID-19 vaccine deployment
A rapid review of the science of the behavioural aspects of vaccine uptake and misinformation.

What factors make a community more vulnerable to COVID-19?
November 2020

How the social sciences, humanities and the arts can SHAPE a positive, post-pandemic future for peoples, economies and environment
October 2020

Economic Aspects of the COVID-19 Crisis in the UK
August 2020

How to hold elections safely and democratically during the COVID-19 pandemic
August 2020

COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons for Recovery
July 2020

Face masks and coverings for the general public: Behavioural knowledge, effectiveness of cloth coverings and public messaging
June 2020

The British Academy 10-Minute Talks: COVID-19 and inequalities
23 Sep 2020 The British Academy on YouTube
In this talk, Fiona Williams discusses the ways in which COVID-19 has amplified existing inequalities and created new insecurities.

Podcasts
Confronting COVID-19: nudge and sludge
Hetan Shah and Professor Cass Sunstein FBA

Is COVID-19 a turning point in history? Learning from the past
Hetan Shah and Professor Margaret MacMillan Hon FBA,

Artists in times of crisis
Samira Ahmed and Professor Sir Simon Schama FBA

Culture in crisis?
Matthew Sweet and Professors Isobel Armstrong FBA, Ian Christie FBA, John Sloboda FBA, Dame Marina Warner FBA,

COVID-19 public inquiry – a case of when, not if?
Professor Conor Gearty FBA

External links
How is the current crisis affecting how we eat?
Science Advice for Policy by European Academies
Thinking big about the future of society
Global Science TV