June 16, 2026

Re-committing to public engagement right now is more radical than you think

I was delighted when the Royal Society asked me to be in charge of drafting the chapter on media and misinformation for their 40^th anniversary update of the Bodmer report on public engagement. Partly because I feel like the SMC can trace our roots back to this seminal report published in 1985, which established the model of a good scientist as one that does great science and engages with media and the public.

Reading the original report again, I was struck by the fact that it is both dated and ahead of its time. The media chapter was written at a time before the internet (yes, my young colleagues – that time does exist) when traditional news media was the only way press officers could get our stories out to the public. 

But Bodmer was also progressive for its time. Back then most scientists operated within the ivory tower and the few who enjoyed media were viewed with suspicion. The default was also critical of journalists who stood accused of dumbing down or sensationalising science. 

Incredible then that Walter Bodmer and the scientific elite strongly argued that publicly funded scientists have a duty to engage the public. Bodmer also went out of his way to argue that scientists should have more respect for the norms and traditions of journalism, “If scientists are to communicate with the public through the media, they must learn to accept the media’s constraints and to convey information on the journalists’ terms”.

My brief from the RS was to draft a chapter describing the main changes in the media landscape since Bodmer, address the new challenges around misinformation, and come up with recommendations. And all in no more than 6 pages of narrative!

I appointed a great working group that met 3 times between January and June last year, and we also set up evidence sessions bringing in experts on social media, AI, and fact checking. 

At times the extent and speed of the changes we were reporting on felt overwhelming and narrowing down what to focus on was hard. Also, tempting as it is to make lofty recommendations to ‘the meeja’, I know that’s a recipe for a report that will be ignored, so one thing I insisted on was that our recommendations should be things that either the RS or others in science can take on.

The text we submitted in July 2025 then went through a variety of iterations and edits. Most of what we cared about made the final cut, but inevitably some of the more formal report-writing doesn’t do justice to the rich and spirited nature of our discussions. I’m not sure the final edit captures the sense we shared that a commitment to engaging with the media might be in retreat. We had long discussions about why that might be, including: fear of polarisation and toxic debate; a more corporate risk-averse communication culture; financial and political pressures on universities driving research comms down the list of priorities; more science being drawn into government and therefore subject to more political communications. We want to convey the urgent need for the research community to re-commit to the principles of Bodmer and re-claim his model of a good scientist. This is captured in Recommendation 7 calling on universities, funders, and research institutes to value science communication ‘as a vital component of research culture’ and ‘invest time and resources accordingly’. This may not read as existential, but we intended it to be. If scientists are needed on the front line between the truth and misinformation, we better make sure they have every incentive and encouragement to use their voice. From where I’m sitting that is not happening enough.

The other thing that may not be obvious is our very deliberate intention to big up the news media. That has been picked up by one seasoned research comms officer saying the chapter reads “like old generals still fighting the last war”. We felt that supporting and championing high quality, regulated, professional news reporting is very much today’s war. For all its failings it is often more reliable, accurate, and trustworthy than much of the information we find on social media. It’s also far from dead and is adapting in ever more innovative ways to reach audiences.

Recommendation 8 is a call to the science community to be more than passive bystanders in the evolution of news. We have influence and resources, incredible stories, and we enjoy unprecedented levels of public trust. We can use those to support the science news journalism that has served us so well.

We were, however, careful not to pit professional journalism against social media. Throughout the chapter we recognise the extent to which people now consume information about science on social media platforms and the research community is already reaching audiences through these channels. However, evidence we took revealed that many of us struggle to keep one step ahead of the fast-moving changes in consumer habits. Abigail Mobbs, the head of the BBC’s social media unit and member of my working group, banned us from referencing specific platforms insisting that the pace of change is so rapid that it would date the report within weeks. Recommendation 6 asks the RS to work with thought leaders on media consumption habits (like the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism) to offer some form of regularly updated audit helping scientists and science communicators to stay ahead of trends. 

Recommendation 7 calls on universities and the science community to invest time and money in training scientists – both to reflect the value that institutions place on the importance of media engagement, and to ensure that researchers are equipped with the skills to engage with audiences across the full range of places people go to get news. We also highlight the need for training to prepare scientists to navigate the darker side of some social media engagement where harassment and trolling can be a feature of some of the more polarised, contentious debates.

One of the themes close to my heart is that of standards of science communication. Our group felt that science communication at its best can be a way of improving the quality, reliability, and accuracy of information, which is our best response to misinformation. But it does need to be at its best. A BMJ study a few years ago showed how a significant amount of exaggeration in media reporting could be traced back to science press releases. And there are plenty of drivers out there that conflict with raising standards including funding pressures, the rush to publish and so on. It was these discussions that led us to the idea of recommending a Royal Society Code on Science Communication that could mimic the highly effective and influential Code of Practise for Statistics. This Code would set minimum standards for measured, accurate, and responsible communication and could be used by scientists and science press officers. How and what this will look like is yet to be determined and I have volunteered to set up a new working group to take this recommendation forward.

Our final recommendation is about science programming – more science story-telling than news and current affairs. When Bodmer came out it was pushing the BBC to make more programmes like Horizon and put them on prime time. Now we have an abundance of opportunities to get exciting science content out there, and unlike the past, we can create it ourselves or co-produce it with established broadcasters and streaming services. We can even share it through channels owned by science organisations themselves who, with the right approach, can acquire significant audiences of their own. It was great having people with content creation expertise on the working group including Ali Bailey from Crick and Andrew Cohen, head of science programming at the BBC. We talked about those organisations who have done this well, including exciting co-productions like the BBC Wild Isles that was part funded by RSPB and films and podcasts made by Google Deep Mind that have attracted a large following. The recommendation is for the Royal Society to set up an initiative to support new innovation in programming content, possibly matching great ideas with possible funders.

Some may think that media and public engagement is so well established in the culture of science that simply re-stating its importance is pedestrian. I’m more convinced that given what’s happening around us, a new report from the Royal Society at this moment re-committing to media and public engagement is a call to arms. The challenge now is to turn recommendations on a page into real activities. And that’s down to all of us.

Science for society: How society and science help shape each other

This blog contains the thoughts of the author rather than representing the work or policy of the Science Media Centre.