Governance, Trust and Voice

The Academy held a roundtable discussion in December 2022 examining the role, achievements, and future of public service media in the UK.

The event brought together experts to rethink some of the underlying principles of public service media (PSM) for the digital age.

The event was co-chaired by Professor Georgina Born OBE FBA, Professor Ian Christie FBA, Professor Sonia Livingstone FBA and Professor Robin Mansell FBA. The event also featured provocations from Lucy Crompton-Reid, Wikimedia UK and Bill Thompson, BBC.

This note summarises the main points discussed at the roundtable, and also builds upon the discussion, developing further some of the points that were covered at the event.

Rethinking the Principles of Public Service Media for the Digital Society Roundtable: Summary of Discussion

To coincide with the start of the renewal process in late 2025, the Academy published a set of policy briefs. These offer an international comparison of public service media to inform decisions around the future funding and governance of the BBC that will be made as part of the imminent Charter Renewal process.

Together they aim to highlight what we might learn from around the world about the best public service media models and approaches for serving a complex range of public needs and interests.

Public service media: funding and governance options

In early 2022, the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology (CST), the main science advisory body to the Prime Minister, commissioned an independent review from the British Academy of science and public trust within the policymaking system. The Science, Trust and Policymaking project brings together analysis of the existing literature with newly commissioned research and in-depth engagement with stakeholders from research and policy communities. It has drawn together findings and initial recommendations across two main areas:

• Understanding the conditions under which the public view science as relevant and trustworthy in policymaking.
• Exploring what policymakers, researchers and knowledge brokers can do to enhance the role of science in public policy debate in the UK.

In March 2024, it published a report, Public trust in science-for-policymaking which highlighted three key insights, explored and elaborated on in depth through the report:

• Policymakers (both elected and unelected) play a central role in framing policy and the place of science in informing it.
• Policymakers should not underestimate the public’s desire for nuance and transparency in the use of science-for-policy: by being open where there are uncertainties, while indicating how knowledge gaps will be addressed; by recognising that more information will not in itself increase trust in the use of science for policy; and by avoiding a simple 'follow the science' approach, instead acknowledging the diversity of considerations and evidence, including lived experience, shaping policy development.
• Policymakers, researchers and knowledge brokers should deepen their engagement with different publics to build trust in science. This should be done in a way that preserves the integrity and independence of the scientific process. Clearer principles should be developed to ensure transparency and accountability in both science-policy and science-public engagement.

A major research and engagement programme examining the purpose of business and its role in society, led by Professor Colin Mayer FBA, Professor of Management at the Saїd Business School. In its four years of work prior to its conclusion in 2021, the programme combined research from a range of academic disciplines with insight from senior business and policy leaders.

In 2018, it highlighted trust in business and its impact on people and the environment along with globalisation and technological disruption as drivers of a shifting view of business. The research suggested a need to develop a new, more human framework for the corporation around well-defined and aligned purposes, complemented by ethical cultures and commitments to trustworthiness. Professor Colin Mayer, the Academic Lead for the programme, drew together the research and defined the purpose of business as 'producing profitable solutions from the problems of people and planet, and not profiting from creating problems.'

The programme produced a set of principles for purposeful business in 2019 and built on these with extensive work involving a wide range of stakeholders to develop policy and practice in support of those principles. Beyond its conclusion in 2021, the programme has continued to have an impact and the Academy is supporting follow-up initiatives looking at how purposeful business is taught in UK business schools and how the concepts it developed can be translated into law and regulation.