A fresh vision and strategy for the humanities and social sciences
The British Academy
Young visitors to the British Academy’s annual Summer Showcase, © Alastair Fyfe.
The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. As well as being the voice for these subjects, the Academy is a key funder and supporter of research for the benefit of everyone.
We managed the organisation’s strategic review process, from consultation, development and articulation, through to design and production.
The consultation stage captured insight from many of the 1,400 Fellows – the distinguished scholars who govern the Academy – alongside its staff, funders (including government), peer and partner organisations. The process involved online surveys, one-to-one interviews, workshops and town halls.
As we developed the new strategy with senior leadership, we articulated three new strategic priorities and a revised vision – ‘to put the humanities and social sciences at the heart of understanding our world and shaping a brighter future’. We also reviewed and refreshed the Academy’s values.
The British Academy offers funding and support for researchers at all stages of their careers. It also mobilises the humanities and social sciences to address key policy challenges of our time, such as ‘just transitions’ to a greener economy and vaccine hesitancy.
In addition to drafting the main strategy narrative, we created a series of case studies or ‘highlights’ which brought to life the Academy’s work and the value of humanities and social sciences research. Working with the Academy’s design agency, Bond & Coyne, we evolved its visual presentation to take account of its updated positioning and the key strategic goal to ‘open up the Academy’.
To ensure that the strategy was effectively translated into action, we also helped the Academy consider how it would implement and manage delivery, devising a structure for operational planning, and facilitating discussions about the most appropriate way to measure organisational performance.
The British Academy’s published Strategic Plan.
Services provided:
– Stakeholder consultation
– External perceptions audit
– Workshop facilitation
– Strategy development & articulation
– Mission, vision, values articulation
– Operational planning
– Brand & communications consultancy
– Design management (working with Bond & Coyne)
“Will was an excellent support to The British Academy in our strategic review. He provided just the right combination of hands-on support in managing internal and external stakeholder input with his own advice and challenge about both process and content. And he’s a lovely person to work with!”
Hetan Shah, Chief Executive, The British Academy