HETAN SHAH FOLLOWING THE SCIENCE ISN’T ENOUGH

POLICYMAKERS WILL NEED THE FULL POWER OF THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES TO

citizens, communities and cultures most affected by the issues at hand. The project’s discussion on urban environments brought attention to lived experience and highlighted that the idea of “building back better” varies from place to place.

Thirdly, consideration must be given to the implications of voice and political authority, with particular attention paid to the language of policy. Who has a voice? How are they using it? What words, phrases and expressions are they using? And how might these be received? These questions have important implications for how different communities engage with policy and the relationships and practices that affect the recovery.

History demonstrates that pandemics are complex and policy interventions must be multidisciplinary in response.

The fourth principle is to more effectively learn from history, and to account for the complex interconnections between different scales of social and political space (for example, personal, family, local, regional, national and global), and the relations of power and influence within and between them. Our session on children and young people considered how the dispersed nature of governance on childhood policy issues – there is no single government department focusing solely on children – leads to a demand for strong inter-departmental collaboration to prevent issues “falling between the cracks”.

And finally, there should be a renewed policy focus on the persistent issues of inequalities and inclusivity, sustainability and the environment, and education and skills. During our workshops, participants addressed how the UK government’s levelling-up agenda could be a vehicle to address high levels of regional disparity, which may be exaggerated as the full impact of the crisis becomes clear. However, there is also a risk that the agenda could be applied as a blunt instrument that ignores or masks significant disparities within those regions. Amid the turmoil, the pandemic is a time to imagine a better future – and policymakers, coming together with SHAPE researchers, are well placed to do so. Among the ideas outlined in our own workshops were proposals for a UK national investment bank, which could foster partnerships between government and private companies, creating profitable solutions to social and environmental problems. Our five principles offer a useful, coherent framework for turning such ideas into reality.

By drawing attention to key areas for discussion, these principles have the potential to focus minds and foster innovative policymaking across the disciplinary spectrum, all in pursuit of a society that is more inclusive, more equitable and more sustainable.

Hetan Shah is chief executive of the British Academy

Autumn and winter hold uncertainty for us all. Many of our coaching conversations touch on the challenges of keeping people motivated, when they had hoped that the pandemic would be a short sprint of a crisis rather than a marathon. Sometimes we find the leader has been taking everything on themselves in an effort to protect others – but then sees that this risks leading to their own exhaustion. We encourage leaders to explore sharing the challenges with their senior team, remembering that no leader knows everything, and that it’s a strength to recognise what you need from others.

We are now seeing leadership teams deliberately setting time aside to reflect on how they work together and what they have learned about each other in recent months. It is a different sort of conversation from the what of strategy or task. It is ideally done in a shared physical space, suitably distanced, but if that’s not possible, reflecting together virtually is better than not doing it at all. One senior team decided they would break up the screen time by having an Away Week, with two hours’ opening conversation on a Monday, 40 minutes in pairs on each of the next three days, and another two hours’ plenary on a Friday, ending with some downtime for socialising.

Drawing from their experience over recent months, these teams are asking what they have learned about their respective strengths and what events have built or undermined their trust in each other. They are describing how colleagues can bring out the best in them, and what can trigger behaviours they then regret. They are finding – if they didn’t fully appreciate before – that one person’s love of a no-holds-barred debate is another person’s conflict nightmare – or that the quietest member of the team may bring particularly creative insights or be more resilient to pressure.

AND THEIR TEAMS TO DISCUSS HOW TO STAY RESILIENT, SAY HILARY DOUGLAS AND PETER SHAW