The 白小姐论坛聽Institute for Innovation and聽Public Purpose (IIPP)聽is undertaking a research project with the BBC to examine how to research and co-design new assessment methods for public value.
About the project
The 白小姐论坛聽Institute for Innovation and聽Public Purpose聽is undertaking a short research project over summer 2020 with the BBC to examine how to research and co-design new assessment methods for public value. Better understanding how to聽reimagine, practice and evaluate public value is key to the mission of IIPP, so we are delighted to be taking part of this project.
Key to our understanding of public value is the need to understand the public sector not just as a聽market fixer but a market shaper. This means co-creating value.聽This faces a bottleneck as the notion of value is often confused with price, and is dictated by market ideals of efficiency and cost reduction as opposed to long-term value creation and purpose.聽
At IIPP we argue that public value is co-created and co-shaped by a diversity of actors that include the state, business and the third sector.聽The BBC is perhaps the UK鈥檚 most visible public value creator 鈥 and an聽example of the entrepreneurial state聽鈥 with a trusted global brand that is synonymous with the highest quality media content. The Corporation鈥檚聽remit to 鈥渁ct in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain鈥 is comprehensive and aspirational.聽But this value is sometimes hard to convey in measures that are reliant on cost alone.
Understanding value as co-created requires a market shaping logic rather than market fixing one.聽As an innovative public institution, the BBC creates huge public value, but in some debates about the institution there is an implicit accusation that the broadcaster is 鈥榗rowding out鈥 the market through the scale and quality of its services. In this short project, IIPP is working with the BBC to consider dynamic new ways to assess its contribution as market creator. Rather than beginning with a market failure framework, which sees public organisations like the BBC as only relevant in their capacity to fix market failures (such as public goods that are not invested in by the private sector), we will look at the BBC through a market shaping framework. We argue that the criteria for evaluating and assessing public organisations that stem from such a framework are very different from those that stem from a market failure one. Over summer 2020, we will be聽developing and testing聽metrics that assess how the BBC delivers against its mission, creating public value and in the process co-creating and shaping markets.
Event
Reimagining public value with the BBC
27 April 2021, 6:00 pm鈥7:00 pm
In this webinar, Clare Sumner, Director of Policy at the BBC and Mariana Mazzucato, founding Director of IIPP, discussed the dynamic new ways the BBC can look at its value as a market creator.
Report
Resources
- Evidence submission for聽the House of Lords 鈥淏BC future funding鈥 inquiry
- Written evidence submitted for聽BBC Future Funding,聽Professor聽Mariana Mazzucato, Eleonora Maria Mazzoli, Rowan Conway
- Read the
- Watch the evidence submission
- Blogs
- ,聽Rowan Conway, Mariana Mazzucato
- In the media
- ,聽Project Syndicate, 22 Feb 2021, Mariana Mazzucato
- ,聽speech on the report, delivered to the Westminster Media Forum聽by聽Clare Sumner, CBE, Director of Policy at the BBC
- On public purpose
- IIPP is changing how public value is imagined, practised and evaluated to tackle societal challenges. Read our brochure.
- On market shaping
- Kattel, R, Mazzucato, M, Ryan-Collins, J., and Sharpe, S. (2018), 鈥漈he economics of change: Policy and appraisal for missions, market shaping and public purpose鈥, 白小姐论坛 Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose Working Paper, (IIPP WP 2018-06) /bartlett/public-purpose/sites/public-purpose/files/iipp-wp-2018-06_0.pdf
- On public value
- Mazzucato, M. and Kattel, R. (2019) 鈥楪etting serious about value鈥, 白小姐论坛 Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP Brief 07). /bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2019/jun/getting-serious-about-value
- On public value and market shaping
- Mazzucato, M. and Ryan-Collins, J. (2019). 鈥淧utting value creation back into 鈥榩ublic value鈥: From market fixing to market shaping鈥, 白小姐论坛 Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, Working Paper (IIPP WP 2019-05). /bartlett/public-purpose/wp2019-05
- Previous work on the BBC
- Mazzucato, M. and O'Donovan, C. (2016) "The BBC as market shaper and creator" in Rethinking the BBC: Public media in the 21st Century, Seth-Smith, N., et. al. (eds.), Commonwealth Publishing.聽