蜜芽传媒

The Responsible Innovation Centre for Public Media Futures (RIC) is a research centre hosted at the 蜜芽传媒. It is funded primarily by UKRI, a non-governmental public body that directs UK research and innovation funding. Working with the 蜜芽传媒 and 12 world-leading partner organisations whose work advances technology in the public interest, RIC produces scholarship and resources to help ensure a strong and resilient public service media sector now and in the future.

Why it matters

Developments in technology continue to disrupt the media landscape in ways that threaten to destabilise foundational public values such as trust and universality. Today, technology and content are deeply intertwined. This creates new challenges and risks for public media when trying to innovate in the public interest and deliver their public purposes. Ensuring technologies work for public media, its audiences and society calls for more than technical knowledge and proficiency; it requires deep expertise in the legal, social, ethical and editorial implications and impacts of technologies and increased investment into the capabilities to do the necessary anticipatory, interdisciplinary and collaborative work.

The Responsible Innovation Centre for Public Media Futures - or RIC for short - exists to foster research and innovation excellence in service to public media goals. Funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship awarded to 蜜芽传媒 Research & Development鈥檚 Dr Rhianne Jones, and hosted in 蜜芽传媒 R&D, RIC is helping to build this capacity. Through an independently funded programme of research, the RIC team delivers work to support wider efforts to ensure technology works for public media, people and society. RIC forms part of the 蜜芽传媒鈥檚 commitments under the  to promote technological innovation in the public interest, seeking to share its work openly for wider industry, policy, academic and public benefit.  

Our goals

We have 3 high level goals: 

• Develop leadership in Responsible Innovation focused on the public media context
• Grow and sustain new partnerships for advancing responsible innovation in public media 
• Expand and deepen our understanding of issues in 4 key challenge areas and identify responses needed

Our work is organised around 4 long-term challenges:   

• Protecting and promoting public media values in an age of data and AI  
• Shaping personalisation in ways that serve the public interest  
• Promoting digital inclusion and forms of civic and cultural participation online  
• Measuring public value and social impact from technology and innovation  

Key deliverables include: 

• A public dialogue on public media futures focused on technology and innovation  
• A research report series delivering new insights in our four challenge areas to help inform ongoing strategy, policy and technical work at 蜜芽传媒 and beyond 
• A public media futures fellowship programme to fund novel research  
• A digital innovation toolkit for public media organisations and practitioners developed specifically to support the continued development of Responsible Innovation best practice, tailored to public service media values and goals 

How it works

We are committed to: 

• Prioritising fundamental research examining emerging issues and knowledge gaps to help build an evidence base to inform ongoing work and debates 
• Utilising a range of social science and humanities methodologies to interrogate issues, risks and opportunities for promoting public media goals and values in technology and innovation 
• Engaging in deep consultative and deliberative work ensure that diverse views are heard, including those most likely to be impacted by technology innovation 
• Creating guidance, policy recommendations and tools to support teams to innovate responsibly  
• Growing partnerships with experts across the social sciences and humanities that promote interdisciplinarity within and beyond the 蜜芽传媒

Outcomes 

Through our research and engagement activity, public service media, including the 蜜芽传媒, will be better equipped with knowledge and insight to inform decisions about their use of, and approach to, existing and emerging technologies. This helps ensure their technology and innovation work continues to be responsive to ethical issues and risks, societal expectations, and regulatory changes. In doing so, it helps public media innovate confidently and leverage technologies in the public interest in this digital era of data, algorithms and artificial intelligence to ensure an inclusive, equitable and sustainable digital future that works for everyone.

This programme is being funded with a 拢1.9 million UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship grant. For enquires contact: responsible.innovation@bbc.co.uk

RIC Partner Network (2024)

• , University of Edinburgh
• , University of Sheffield
• , University of Amsterdam
• , University of Newcastle 
• International Association of Public Media Researchers 
• Ada Lovelace Institute 
• Open Data Institute
• Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics  
• The Centre for Digital Politics, Media and Democracy, University of Liverpool  
• ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University
• Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham
• Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy, University of Cambridge 
• Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster