Rethink

BBC Sounds
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  • Updated Biweekly

Professor Ben Ansell asks some of the world's sharpest minds about the latest thinking, and what it might mean for policy and society.

  1. 1d ago

    Rethink: manufacturing or services?

    Is the UK destined to be an economy that only provides services and no longer makes things? Whether you agree with that statement or not, it's a narrative that's stuck with the UK for decades. There are now far fewer large homegrown manufacturing firms than there were 60 years ago, which contribute far less as a percentage of national income. In the 1960s, a third of the UK workforce was employed in manufacturing, but now that's down to less than 10 percent. But not all of those workers in the 1960s were on the production line; many were in-house cleaners, cooks, drivers and even barbers. Those roles were contracted out decades ago, and are now counted as service jobs. So there's always been a blurring between these two parts of the economy, and now, increasingly, companies are finding ways to hold on to customers by adding value, such as car mechanics offering a free courtesy vehicle, or a laser printer company telling you when the ink is running low in your machine. This called servitization, and because of advanced data analysis, manufacturers are now even able to provide an outcome, rather than just a product. It's the difference between selling jet engines and instead providing guaranteed thrust for airliners. Or the difference between selling a gas boiler and instead guaranteeing a warm home when a customer needs it. It's a business strategy that has risks, but it can make a customer's life easier. It can lead to higher profits, less waste and greater productivity. But despite its benefits, the value of servitization to the UK economy isn't being measured. So is it time to rethink the relationship between manufacturing and services? Presenter: Ben Ansell Producers: Ravi Naik and Tom Gillett Editor: Damon Rose Contributors: Tim Minshall, the Dr. John C. Taylor Professor of Innovation and Head of the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge. Diane Coyle, Professor of Public Policy at the Bennett School of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. Tim Baines, Professor of operations strategy at the Aston Business School in Birmingham, and head of the Advanced Services Group. Matt Skipworth, Vice President of Services Globally and Digital Solutions at Genie. Andy Neely, Professor of Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge.

  2. Sep 24

    Rethink... what we put into space

    Elon Musk’s Space X is planning for a satellite constellation 1 million strong. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is planning for two constellations of tens of thousands of satellites; and Chinese companies are thought to be planning to launch thousands more. Other commercial companies are beginning to think about the advantages of working in space - manufacturers, energy companies- all are planning to put more objects and more metal into space. So is low Earth orbit - at around 2000 kilometres or less from the ground about to become dangerously congested? This picture is further complicated by the presence of objects that we cannot control and never intended to have circling around the planet. Space debris - bits of old rockets that have been jettisoned, old satellites that no longer function, fragments of metal- even a glove that was lost during a space walk. What happens if some of this space junk hits one of the thousands of satellites orbiting the earth? Could this set off a terrifying chain reaction that could hinder future space missions and make satellite communication vastly more difficult? Could our ability to track the weather, climate change, use satellite navigation and even access the internet be set back decades? Do we also as a species need to start thinking about the implications for all that metallic pollution we are sending into space? Should we be thinking of space in the same way we think about our oceans and rainforests? Is space the next environmental frontier? Presenter: Professor Ben Ansell Producer: Tom Gillett Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Damon Rose Contributors: Dr Samantha Lawler - Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of Regina John Crassidis - Moog Professor of Innovation, University at Buffalo Joanne Wheeler MBE - Managing Partner at Alden Legal Andrew Faiola – Commercial Director, Astroscale Ben Nowack – CEO and Co-Founder, Reflect Orbital Material from: Space X ‘Gravity’ – Heyday Films/ Esperanto Filmoj/ Warner Bros. Pictures – Director Alfonso Cuarón CNN

  3. Sep 17

    Rethink... warfare

    21st Century wars aren't turning out quite as planned. Russia expected to defeat Ukraine within days of the start of its "special military operation" in February 2022, but the conflict has now dragged on longer than the First World War, with more than an estimated 1 million Russian soldiers killed or wounded in battle. In the Middle East, when operation Epic Fury began in February 2026, Donald Trump stated that the US and Israel would topple the Iranian regime within six weeks. Months later, the regime in Tehran has withstood the huge bombing campaign, and there's no current end in sight to the conflict. Both Ukraine and Iran have been able to resist a much bigger, better-armed enemy, using unconventional means. So has this changed the shape of modern war? And is that modern war heading in our direction? Senior figures with NATO, and even our previous Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, have warned that we should prepare for Russia attacking our allies by the end of the decade. So what can we learn from current conflicts to adapt UK military strategy and tactics for the future? Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor:' Damon Rose Contributors: Dr Florence Gaub, Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defence College in Rome. Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute. Stacie Pettyjohn, Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. Professor Anthony King, director of the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter.

  4. Sep 10

    Rethink... who owns our technology

    In June, the US technology firm Anthropic blocked access to its most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos, because the White House wanted to stop foreign nationals from accessing them, citing security concerns. These actions highlighted the heavy reliance many countries and industries have on american-owned technology, and raised fears the US government could activate a political or literal "kill-switch", shutting down essential services and infrastructure. In the weeks following this incident, Open AI, Anthropic and Meta all admitted that AI models they were testing had also gone rogue, hacking into other systems without being asked to. So is it time for a Tech-xit - a move away from the technology provided by Silicon Valley? The UK, the EU and other middling powers around the world are now seeking digital sovereignty as an active policy goal. But in this interconnected world dominated by US and Chinese big tech, is it possible to take back control? Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Damon Rose Contributors: Anu Bradford, Professor at Columbia Law School, and author of Digital Empires and the Brussels Effect Tera Allas, honorary Professor at the Productivity Institute at the Alliance Manchester Business School Alex Krasodomski, director of the digital society programme at Chatham House. Yang Li, co-founder of Cosine, the startup behind Lumen Sovereign AI

  5. Sep 7

    Rethink... the future of cities

    The United Nations estimates that nearly half of mankind will live in cities by 2050. And as those cities have grown, the number of people living in slums has also increased. The UN estimates that 1.2 billion people reside in so-called “informal settlements”, mostly in low and middle income countries. But what if you could build brand-new cities, offering economic opportunity for migrants? What if those cities were built by attracting foreign investment and entrepreneurs, and importing "better" laws, making it easier to operate a business and generate wealth? That's the idea behind Charter Cities, the brainchild of the Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Romer. He was inspired by the massive growth of Hong Kong and Shenzhen in China. Both cities raised living standards in just two generations, by adopting market-led reforms. He described it as a global win-win situation. So are these new cities potential utopias of opportunity and innovation? Or are they budding dystopias, where democracy means nothing, and the poor toil at the whim of the ultra-rich? Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Justine Lang Contributors: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, journalist and author of "The Hidden Globe: how wealth hacks the world". Tom W Bell, law professor and consultant on alternative governance, special economic zones, and open-source law. Dr Mark Lutter, founder and executive chairman of the Charter Cities Institute. Dr Sam Wetherell, Senior Lecturer in the History of Britain and the World at the University of York, and expert in Urban History.

  6. Jun 25

    Rethink... the power of the US dollar

    The US dollar is the backbone of global trade and held by governments around the world as a safe haven in times of crisis. It's so powerful that countries like Ecuador and Panama have adopted the dollar as their official currency, while Argentina for many years has tried to "dollarize" its economy. But what happens if nations and private institutions were to lose trust in the dollar? How did we get here? Well, after WWII the world order was re-established in part by tying the monetary systems to the value of the dollar, backed by gold. But since 1971 President Nixon cut that link to gold and the entire exchange system has since been tied directly to the dollar itself, its historic success and access to its financial markets. That success gave America what was dubbed an "exorbitant privilege" to print money without fear of inflation and to build up national debt without consequence. It also enables the US to flex its muscles on the international stage by imposing sanctions on countries and cutting off access to their all-important currency. That has led some countries, most notably China, to call for the dollar to be replaced as the world's reserve currency. How difficult would it be to untangle the dollar from global trade, can any other nations offer the same conditions which has allowed the US currency to thrive, and what would happen if the dollar's role was replaced by newer digital currencies which operate outside traditional government control? Presenter: Professor Ben Ansell Producer: George Dabby Editor: Damon Rose Contributors: Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley David Shrier, Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation with Imperial College Business School Stephanie Flanders, Head of Economics and Politics at Bloomberg News Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist Material from: British Pathé, "Bretton Woods Money Pact Signed" (1946)

  7. Jun 18

    Rethink... city streets

    Should we rethink who our city streets are for? It can often feel like there is a hierarchy on the roads, with cars needing to get from A to B as fast as they can, taking priority over people cycling or walking. But what if we flipped it on its head and put pedestrians at the top? Or, what if we saw our streets in a totally new light and instead decided they were places for meeting friends, playing or resting under a tree? Ben Ansell finds the people designing new streets, and he hears one radical idea that requires an entirely new language. Ben visits a new kind of street where pedestrians have priority, not cars. It has been designed by traffic engineer Keith Firth at NRP. Campaigner Martin Cassini argues we could get rid of traffic lights to encourage drivers to pay better attention to pedestrians and to help ease traffic jams. But would all road users feel confident crossing without a dedicated beep or time to cross? Sohanna Srinivasan, head of Urban Planning Design at North Hertfordshire council, sets out her plan for how streets can have space built-in for people to fully enjoy their neighbourhoods while Dutch author Marco te Brömmelstroet says we need to rethink the language we use about cities. Change the language, change the mind set. Is it that simple? Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Phoebe Keane Editor: Damon Rose

  8. Jun 11

    Rethink... how we age

    Have you ever wondered why some people age better than others? We all know someone who looks great for their age, and is also in robust health. And yet someone else who is exactly the same age might look older, and may be living with an age-related illness. Chronological age is not always be a good indicator of how well someone is maturing. So, if our skin - which is our largest organ - suggests how well, or badly, we're aging, then the state of our other organs and the systems that keep them running may also indicate how old we are. This measure is called your biological age. And there are many ways of measuring biological age, from the simple - the strength of your hand grip, to the detailed - looking at the changes in chemical markers attached to your DNA, called epigenetic markers. They lie "on top of" the DNA, without changing it - much like an instruction written on a post-it note attached to a piece of sheet music. The instruction means the music can be expressed differently, without changing the tune. Epigenetics explains why the DNA in every one of our cells is the same, and yet the cells can look very different from one another. They can be heart cells, blood cells, hair cells and so on, because the markers cause different genes on the same DNA to be expressed. Epigenetics has allowed scientists to create clocks to tell you your biological age: the latest one can even tell you how fast you're aging. Advances in epigenetics have led to the new science of cellular regeneration. And the world's first clinical trials are underway in the USA for a treatment that transforms old, dysfunctional and damaged cells into young healthy ones - treating aging itself. Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Damon Rose Contributors: Andrew Steele PhD, author of Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old. and director of the Longevity Initative Dr Nessa Carey, molecular biologist, visiting Professor at Imperial College London and author of The Epigenetics Revolution Dr Daniel Belsky, Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, and developer of the algorithm for the DunedinPACE epigenetic clock Dr Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson, Chief Scientific Officer at cellular rejuvenation company Life Biosciences

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Professor Ben Ansell asks some of the world's sharpest minds about the latest thinking, and what it might mean for policy and society.

Information

  • Creator
    BBC Sounds
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    118
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © (C) BBC 2026
  • Show Website
    Rethink

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