Oxford Global Media Projects

The type and scale of projects with which Oxford Global Media partners are involved range widely – from small, tightly focused and time limited projects to larger on-going strategic involvements with major media organisations and international bodies.

The list of recent and current projects includes:

---

The Growth Report

The global launch and dissemination of The Growth Report for which Tim Cullen is providing strategic communications advice to the independent Commission on Growth and Development www.growthcommission.org

The Commission has been working for two years on the requirements for sustained and inclusive growth in developing countries led by 19 experienced policymakers and two Nobel prize-winning economists. Its work has been supported by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the World Bank Group. The Chair of the Commission is the Nobel economics laureate, Michael Spence.

The Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development was launched in May 08 in London, Cairo, Cape Town, New York, Paris, Brussels, Beijing and St. Kitts. It is the focus of numerous regional discussion events in the coming months.

---

Commission pour la Nouvelle Télévision Publique

The report of the Commission pour la Nouvelle Télévision Publique on the future of the French public service broadcaster, France Télévision, on which David Levy was the sole foreign commission member www.matelepublique.fr

The Commission brought together over 30 people, equally split between parliamentarians and industry experts and civil servants, to examine the future funding, role, governance and programming of the French public service broadcaster. It was created at the initiative of President Sarkozy, following his decision that France Télévisions should stop taking advertising. It was chaired by Jean- Francois Copé, the leader of the majority group in the Assemblée Nationale, but was created with a mix of representation from different political groups.

---

Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI)

The launch strategy of the new Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) in Oxford University’s Department of International Development where Paddy Coulter acts as communications consultant www.ophi.org.uk

One of OPHI’s ambitions is to change the international data that are available to measure poverty, so that these include aspects of poverty that are important to poor people but currently 'invisible' (such as safety from violence and quality of work) because no data are available on them. Another ambition is to do a mathematical measure of 'multidimensional' poverty that looks at each person - their own deprivations - and builds a national measure starting with each person. The governments of Mexico, Chile, Bolivia and Bhutan and Bolivia, are very interested in this, among other developing countries.

The Oxford research group, led by Dr Sabina Alkire, is advised by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and Tony Atkinson and Sudhir Anand, both economists who have lead international work. The plan is to roll out the emerging insights of this research work beyond the academy to the development policy and practitioner communities and development media commentators worldwide.

---

The Price of Plurality: Choice, Diversity and Broadcasting Institutions in the Digital Age

The publication The Price of Plurality:Choice, Diversity and Broadcasting Institutions in the Digital Age which David Levy co-edited with Tim Gardam for the UK media regulator Ofcom www.ofcom.org

Ofcom commissioned this book of essays examining the future of UK public service broadcasting at the approach of digital switchover . Plurality has been at the heart of the UK broadcasting ecology in which high levels of innovation and investment have been delivered by a wide range of different public service broadcasters. The book explores to what extent that will still be sustainable in a fully digital and on-demand world.

The Price of Plurality brings together a wide variety of perspectives on this critical issues from media academics such as Jean Seaton and Richard Tait, producers like Peter Bazalgette and Anthony Lilley, and politicians such as David Puttnam and John Whittingdale. It is published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk

---

Sustainability Initiative (OSI)

International research co-ordination on media coverage of climate change for the Sustainability Initiative (OSI) of Oslo University’s Centre for Development and the Environment where Paddy Coulter acts as communications advisor www.sum.uio.no

The Oslo Sustainability Initiative, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, is embarking on a four-year project “Overcoming limitations to creative adaptation in addressing climate change”. Working in partnership with Chinese and African universities, the project will explore the shaping of responses to the climate challenge in the affluent West, the impoverished South and the rapidly emerging East.

An important empirical basis of the project will be in-country “stakeholder dialogues” between politicians, civil society organisations, industry and the media. Following a research methodology workshop held at Oslo University in June, research on how different national media are covering climate change is commencing on an internationally coordinated basis.

---

An Independent NHS: What’s in it for patients and citizens?

The report An Independent NHS: What’s in it for patients and citizens? Authored by David Levy for the Picker Institute Europe www.pickereurope.org

This report examines the transferability of regulatory approaches – looking at potential lessons for National Health Service organisation and accountability from the broadcast sector and notions of public value. It was commissioned by the Picker Institute, a non-profit research group which seeks to improve patients’ experience of healthcare. Picker wanted an independent policy analysis on the topical question of a new NHS constitution and were attracted by David Levy’s experience of the recent redrawing of BBC objectives in a public service for the new BBC Charter.