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Science is at the heart of many of the biggest and most controversial stories in our lives today. From the environment to ground-breaking medical breakthroughs, and from pandemic disease to the debates raging around AI, science can bring new light to the urgent questions we’re all grappling with.

So we’re looking for big, global ideas that can sit alongside the biggest and best shows on iPlayer. But we’re also looking for ideas that are uniquely British, that surprise and delight our viewers and provoke debate across the UK. From the very first pitch we need to think about how an idea can cut through on iPlayer and create enough buzz on social media to rise to the top of the iPlayer page.

We’re focusing on five areas:

1. Privileged access

We want to give viewers privileged access to the most exciting and ground-breaking science and technology stories in the world: the bigger and more pioneering the better. We don’t just want stories that are in the news, we want stories that make the news, and we want to tell them in new and exciting ways.

We’ve had recent success with single films based at dig sites such as Attenborough and The Giant Sea Monster and Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough, where exciting new finds not only generated press but put new scientific discoveries at the centre of dramatic and immersive stories.

It’s worth also thinking about:

• Amazing space missions like Artemis: A Horizon Special, which has privileged access to NASA’s first attempt to send astronauts to the moon in 50 years, including the first woman and first person of colour.
• Huge engineering projects like The Mayfair Hotel Megabuild, or – sitting on the boundary of science and history – the extraordinary new excavation in Pompeii: The New Dig.
• Ground-breaking medical trials such as The Parkinson’s Drug Trial: A Miracle Cure?.
• Access to dramatic stories that are underpinned by science and technology, such as OceanGate (w/t), which is based around access to the US Coastguard investigation into the implosion of the Titan submersible in 2023.

2. Epic blue-chip science

In an increasingly competitive video-on-demand market, big stories with big production values are at a premium. Better still, combining epic storytelling with mind-blowing science makes our blue-chip series truly distinctive. We’re seeing mass audiences flock to titles that take an incredibly deep dive into the type of specialist science you rarely see elsewhere.

For example, Solar System took viewers on a visually ravishing tour of our neighbouring planets and moons. Using the very latest data from a fleet of space probes, the series brought complex physics to a broad mainstream audience and 4.2 million tuned in for episode one, making it the highest rated hour of television on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two in 2024.

This year, paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi authors Human, which will use the latest findings from dig sites and DNA sequencing to shine new light on the 300,000 year story of Homo sapiens, explaining why we survived when other hominin species didn’t.

The return of Walking With Dinosaurs will be an exciting reimagining of the series, with each episode telling the dramatic story of an individual dinosaur whose remains are currently being unearthed by the world’s leading dinosaur hunters. Thanks to cutting-edge science experts can work out how these prehistoric creatures lived, hunted, fought and died more accurately than ever before. As bones emerge from the ground, the series brings these prehistoric stories to life with state-of-the-art visual effects - making each episode a gripping dinosaur drama based on the very latest evidence.

In 2026, Chris Packham will tell the story of Evolution, exploring the mind-boggling ways in which nature’s greatest force has created and shaped the only known life in the universe into endless forms most beautiful.

These series are the crown jewels of the science slate and we’re keen to keep building on their success. They’re big budget productions, so if you’re developing an idea in this space it’s important to also think about what your co-production plan will be. 

3. Distinctive new brands

We’re keen to find the next generation of brilliant pop science formats: returning brands that we can commission in volume and that viewers keep coming back to on iPlayer.

We’ve had success in the medical space with Surgeons: At the Edge of Life, Inside the Factory has been given a huge boost with the arrival of Paddy McGuiness, we’re excited about the next series of The Secret Genius of Modern Life, and Wilderness with Simon Reeve which sits on the border of science and natural history was the highest rated series in any genre on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two in 2024.

Now we’d love to find new formats in the consumer science space. Subjects like popular health and food used to be the mainstays of 8pm shows such as Trust Me, I’m a Doctor and The Truth About…. We’d love to find ways of tackling these subjects that feel contemporary and fresh, and that get viewers talking on social media.

4. Innovation

Because we need our shows to stand out in an on-demand world and social media, new tech and innovative forms of storytelling are more important than ever.

From their first pitch we want to see the points of difference in the ideas you bring to us so we know how they will stand out as an iPlayer thumbnail and keep viewers coming back for more. For example, we used stylish lip-synced interviews in Aids: The Unheard Tapes and innovative deep fake tech in I’m An Alcoholic: Inside Recovery. What other techniques are there that can feel this audacious and give us a way into stories that might otherwise be off limits? And what are the other breakthroughs in camera and editing tech that can bring new ways to tell stories? Are there hidden night-time worlds that we can capture for the first time, in the way our natural history crews did in Big Cats 24:7? How have the eyes in the sky above our world moved on since we made Earth from Space, and where else is it now possible to film that can give us new insights into our world and our place within it?

5. Singles with impact

Social media is awash with stories with science at their heart: the explosion of new weight loss drugs, the spread of misinformation online, debates around identity and gender.

We want to find illuminating science documentaries that can shine new light on some of the most difficult questions that we’re all grappling with and give our viewers a deeper understanding than they can get from doomscrolling clickbait news pieces.

In Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating, Chris van Tulleken investigated why ultra-processed foods are so irresistible and how they’ve come to dominate our food culture, with further insight from former food industry insiders talking candidly about some of the techniques that food companies use. For Horizon, Chris, a trained virologist, will next be setting out on the trail of Disease X: the World Health Organisation’s description for new pathogens that have the potential to go pandemic. Chris will meet scientists around the world at the frontline of efforts to find and prevent the next global pandemic.

In Twitter: Breaking the Bird (w/t) we hear from the founders and insiders of one of the biggest and most influential tech companies in the world. A platform that became synonymous with world shaking events from the Arab Spring to the January 6th riots, and that continues to cause controversy and debate today under new ownership.

But there are so many other stories out there where science has a role to play. What are the most pressing, challenging debates electrifying homes across the UK and how can science help us understand them better? 

Unscripted on iPlayer

Read about how we commission unscripted content in an iPlayer first-world, along with advice and further resources to maximise the impact of your programme on the platform.