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hetanshah.bsky.social
Hetan Shah
@hetanshah.bsky.social
18K followers 1.5K following 28K posts
Chief Executive, The British Academy
Chair, Our World in Data
Board, National Audit Office
Visiting Professor, Kings College London
Fellow, Birkbeck College
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hetanshah.bsky.social
Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · Oct 10
'Taking the time to do things right isn’t anti-innovation – it is what is required to get deep-rooted change in social systems.'
My piece on AI and public services in this week's @newstatesman.com
www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024...
Tony Blair is wrong – AI will not magically solve our public services
Too many people might be left out of its revolution.
www.newstatesman.com
hetanshah.bsky.social
Mark Damazer having a doubly good day today being (1) chair of the Booker trustees and (2) not at the BBC
November 10, 2025 at 10:04 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
‘If multilingualism builds resilience against ageing, then encouraging additional language learning in schools, protecting migrant and minoritised languages… could be as important as campaigns that promote physical activity, or smoking cessation,"
www.thetimes.com/article/9b5b...
Speaking more than one language could keep old age at bay
The more languages you speak, the less likely you are to experience ‘accelerated ageing’, according to the largest study of its kind
www.thetimes.com
November 10, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
guygavrielkay.bsky.social
I wonder if people know that Joyce the MuskDestroyer (she really did) is 87.
November 10, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
What's lost when we lose staff, departments, programmes and faculties in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and what's that got to do with organ donation?

Amid the looming losses faced by Cardiff, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Leicester and Nottingham (among many others), here's a worked example. 1/8
The organ donation ‘opt-out’ has been a fatal failure | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 10:10 AM
hetanshah.bsky.social
‘Is it institutionally biased? No. Is it institutionally unimaginative and insufficiently curious to all radical political ideas? Yes.’ @lewisgoodall.com on you know what goodallandgoodluck.substack.com/p/the-truth-...
The truth about impartiality at the BBC
And the hysteria of the current "crisis"
goodallandgoodluck.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:31 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
At a time when humanities and social science courses are facing severe cutbacks I’ll be mounting a defence of them and their role in shaping a better future at this lecture at De Montfort University on 27 November. All welcome
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shaping-a-...
Shaping a Brighter Future
The first event in our Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Lecture Series, delivered by Hetan Shah, Chief Executive, The British Academy
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
hetanshah.bsky.social
Huge respect for the KFC in East Grinstead
Cruise bought a 1,000-sq metre mansion near Saint Hill Manor in 2006, before selling it to Peter Andre a decade later, though the Top Gun star is not the only celebrity with links to Scientology to have graced East Grinstead. In 2011, John Travolta reportedly tried to book a table at a local KFC branch before being told he would have to queue like everybody else. The worker who picked up the call on behalf of "Mr Travolta" told the Daily Mirror at the time: "Customers are customers, no matter who they are."
November 8, 2025 at 3:21 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
What’s Alex Mahon up to these days? www.ft.com/content/a6e2...
Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon to step down
UK public sector broadcaster is also searching for a new chair
www.ft.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
hetanshah.bsky.social
New map compiled by archaeologists charts twice as many Roman roads as the standard reference work. Their sources include ancient travel itineraries, 19thC camel routes, Soviet military charts, Ottoman surveys and declassified American spy-satellite images.
www.thetimes.com/article/335a...
Truth of vast network of Roman roads revealed
Using spy-satellite images and ancient travel itineraries, researchers have identified a huge number of forgotten roads, some of them less than straight
www.thetimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
hetanshah.bsky.social
If you liked that chart you may like this cartoon
Cartoon depicting the idea that something called ‘AI peas’ is better than normal peas
November 8, 2025 at 9:37 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
‘When Adam Smith wrote “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner but from their regard to their own interest,” he omitted any discussion of the unpaid work of his mother (& later his sister) that went into cooking his dinner.’ on.ft.com/4olyOut
What we still get wrong about women’s role in global economics
From the Enlightenment to today’s ‘tradwives’, three books look at the tension between production and reproduction
on.ft.com
November 9, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
hetanshah.bsky.social
If you are feeling down about the state of Britain this has some cheery material about our strengths as seen from overseas including arts & culture, music, sport, universities and skills/talent
economist.com/britain/2025...
Brand Britain has bounced back
Despite all the gloom at home, the country’s reputation is surprisingly bright
economist.com
November 8, 2025 at 11:18 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
If you are feeling down about the state of Britain this has some cheery material about our strengths as seen from overseas including arts & culture, music, sport, universities and skills/talent
economist.com/britain/2025...
Brand Britain has bounced back
Despite all the gloom at home, the country’s reputation is surprisingly bright
economist.com
November 8, 2025 at 11:18 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
New map compiled by archaeologists charts twice as many Roman roads as the standard reference work. Their sources include ancient travel itineraries, 19thC camel routes, Soviet military charts, Ottoman surveys and declassified American spy-satellite images.
www.thetimes.com/article/335a...
Truth of vast network of Roman roads revealed
Using spy-satellite images and ancient travel itineraries, researchers have identified a huge number of forgotten roads, some of them less than straight
www.thetimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 10:12 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
Am at the opticians but worried I got run over and I’m actually in the Bad Place
Sign saying Relax Take a Seat
November 8, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
ashwin-kumar.bsky.social
The inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 in July 2025 was 21%, lower than at any point before Nov 2018. Since 1971, there has been only one 15-month period – Dec 2018 to Feb 2020 – when inactivity was lower than today.
UK 16-64 inactivity rate 1971 to 2025
November 8, 2025 at 5:21 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
‘In China’s 2025 compendium, data ranges from the amount of algae-related products produced in Liaoning province (536,000 tonnes) to the total drainage area of all the inland rivers in Inner Mongolia (311,378 sq km) and the total exports of live animals ($488mn).’
It weighs 2.6kg
on.ft.com/4qU7dT5
The 900-page book that China watchers count on
The country’s annual statistical compendium is now available, but only in hardback
on.ft.com
November 8, 2025 at 5:20 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
Huge respect for the KFC in East Grinstead
Cruise bought a 1,000-sq metre mansion near Saint Hill Manor in 2006, before selling it to Peter Andre a decade later, though the Top Gun star is not the only celebrity with links to Scientology to have graced East Grinstead. In 2011, John Travolta reportedly tried to book a table at a local KFC branch before being told he would have to queue like everybody else. The worker who picked up the call on behalf of "Mr Travolta" told the Daily Mirror at the time: "Customers are customers, no matter who they are."
November 8, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
scientificdiscovery.dev
Write for us!

Here are 26 ideas of articles we'd like to commission.
www.worksinprogress.news/p/more-artic...
Drugs that last for months. A new generation of long-acting drugs like lenacapavir points to a different approach to prevention: take one dose, stay protected for half a year (and possibly more). What are the different ways scientists are designing medicines that last so long in the body, and what trade-offs come with durability? Crafting a universal flu vaccine. Each year, scientists study the strains circulating in the population, predict which will dominate, and reformulate the vaccine to match. When those predictions miss, protection drops, and updating the formulation takes time. Could we create a single vaccine that protects against all forms of influenza? The mosquito we should just get rid of. One mosquito species is responsible for most cases of dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and chikungunya: Aedes aegypti. It thrives in cities, breeding in bottle caps and flower pots, and has adapted perfectly to human life. But now scientists have tools, like gene drives and Wolbachia bacteria, to suppress or even eliminate it. What makes this one mosquito species so harmful to us? How might we eliminate it? Successful pension reforms in recent history. Australia successfully moved its population to a retirement savings plan (‘Superannuation’) in the early 1990s. Silvio Berlusconi’s governments in Italy drove reforms that moved much of the population from ‘defined benefit’ pensions to savings-focused ‘defined contribution’ pensions. What can other states learn from these experiences to reduce their own future retirees’ dependence on working age populations? Heathrow’s surprising efficiency. Europe’s busiest airport desperately needs more physical infrastructure, especially runways. But it is remarkable how well it has done with just the two runways that it has. What has it done to engineer around this constraint? Everyday progress in cosmetic technology. Plastic surgery was once a byword for wealth but many interventions are now commonplace. The frontier seems to be pushing out as well: consider the latest Kardashian facelift or the improvement of hair systems. We want to read a piece on the lack of stagnation in appearance-enhancement, either a case study on a specific procedure or an article on the field overall. Blockers to AI automation. We recently ran a piece on why AI hasn’t replaced radiologists. What are similar stories in other fields? The type of piece we will consider is a detailed case study of capability that already (plausibly) exists, but that has been less impactful than people hoped. We’re not that interested in speculation based on abilities that models may have in the future. Inversely, if there are areas which haven’t been covered well elsewhere where models have been surprisingly effective at displacing humans, feel free to pitch us as well. The land that lived with malaria for millennia. For thousands of years, malaria haunted the Italian peninsula, from the Pontine marshes near Rome to its southern coasts. Then, within a few decades in the mid-20th century, it was eliminated. How did a disease so deeply rooted in Italy’s history disappear so quickly, and what does the story tell us about public health and environmental change? Why does Asia have higher density than Africa? Across MENA, South Asia, and South-East Asia, many cities are made up mostly of mid-rise apartment buildings, often clustered together at densities equal to or greater than those of nineteenth century Europe. In Sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, urban densities tend to be low, with single-story buildings making up most of the urban area. This pattern holds even in cases of African countries with higher incomes than many Asian countries (e.g. Botswana, South Africa, Gabon, Rwanda). What is the cause of this? What does it teach us about the drivers of urban density?
November 8, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
hueyli.bsky.social
Jokes aside, ending scarcity is logically impossible. Scarcity of what? Vanity? Sexual encounters? Offspring? Japanese Wagyu? Tickets to Mars?
Anyone who sells such a prospect, whether it's Marxists or tech billionaires, looks sus as hell.
hetanshah.bsky.social Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 3d
‘Al could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2
percentage points’

Well that’s the best chart of the year in this @johnthornhill.bsky.social column and basically sums up where we are
on.ft.com/4qMMkJd
Al could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2 percentage points
November 8, 2025 at 2:28 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
Less than an hour to go before our screening of @markcousinsfilm.bsky.social’s A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things.

This documentary dives into the life & art of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a visionary 20th-century artist who saw the natural world in new ways
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/livin...
Screening: A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things
Can paying closer attention change the way we live on this planet? Join us for a screening Mark Cousins’ documentary about artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), t...
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk
November 8, 2025 at 1:21 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
Such a key point about cutting back on language provision - it’s not good for science and it’s not good for growth
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Max Hegarty, who is studying aerospace engineering, said the proposals also affect students on other courses. He has taken modules in German, and said this enabled him to do an internship in Germany. "So much of our European engineering is based in Germany," he said. "While a lot of people are willing to learn English, not returning that effort to them is not great for that collaboration, for that international co-operation that we need. "Cutting funding for modern languages courses serves only to paralyse our growth as a country."
November 8, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
hetanshah.bsky.social
Pretty interesting job to run @jrf-uk.bsky.social - social change organisation proposing policy interventions that address poverty; and supporting social innovation. £165k. Based in York
starfishsearch.com/jobs/jrf-gro...
Group Chief Executive Officer - Starfish Search
starfishsearch.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by Hetan Shah
hetanshah.bsky.social
‘Al could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2
percentage points’

Well that’s the best chart of the year in this @johnthornhill.bsky.social column and basically sums up where we are
on.ft.com/4qMMkJd
Al could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2 percentage points
November 7, 2025 at 9:08 PM
hetanshah.bsky.social
‘Al could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2
percentage points’

Well that’s the best chart of the year in this @johnthornhill.bsky.social column and basically sums up where we are
on.ft.com/4qMMkJd
Al could end scarcity, end humanity - or boost trend growth by 0.2 percentage points
November 7, 2025 at 9:08 PM