Who are we?

The core team running this project are friends and colleagues who have been working in engagement, counselling, public policy and communication research about genetics for over 15 years. This project is not-for-profit, but for humankind.

We have no positive/negative spin on genetics, nor do we seek to increase uptake in genetic research or sell anything. Our aim is to find out whether there are better ways to connect with public audiences who switch off before a conversation has even started. We are aiming to build a consortia of partners who want to build, share and use a collective engagement strategy to communicate genetics better.

Founding Individuals

Professor Anna Middleton, Director Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public, University of Cambridge. Expert in social science research on ethical issues raised by genetics, genetic counsellor and psychologist. Has received historical funding from Wellcome, Wellcome Connecting Science and receives current funding for Only Human from the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public.

Vivienne Parry OBE, Head of Public Engagement, Genomics England, London. Journalist, broadcaster, expert in engagement and communications about science. Funded by Genomics England.

Julian Borra, Founder of Thin Air Factory, Brighton, expert in creative story telling and communications, has received historical funding from Genomics England and Wellcome Connecting Science. Receives current funding from the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public.

Kate Orviss, Lead of Global Genomics Initiative, People Policy Projects (PPP), London, expert in policy and law, funded by PPP.

A note on Funding

The intellectual ideas for the Only Human project have been bubbling away for more than 15 years and through this time the core project team have received their salaries from multiple different organisations. We are grateful for, and want to acknowledge, the historical funding we have received that has enabled us to think through what Only Human could be – Wellcome Connecting Science, Wellcome, Genomics England, Kavli Foundation, People Policy Projects. We are also so grateful for the in kind donation of time from so many colleagues and organisations, who have covered their own costs to contribute ideas that are now baked into the Only Human project – Ridley Scott Film Productions, Ketchum PR Agency, Rockcorps, Glassworks, OKRE.

The funding we have received historically has finished and the research outputs and creative assets to come from this are all in the public domain and are available for anyone to use, cite, share and download. Thus the films we have made historically (e.g. for Socialising the Genome, The Music of Life, In our Lifetime, Liming with Gran, Maslanksy Focus Group Films, Voices of Empowerment) have been created, with consent of all partners, for public distribution. And indeed our films have been publicly hosted on YouTube for many years. For the films that were created as part of a historical research project, appropriate research ethics approval is in place.

Moving forward, the Kavli Foundation grant to the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public are the active funders of the Only Human project and so in terms of academic scholarship, this project sits at the University of Cambridge and has been designed to meet the Kavli Foundation’s vision: “Advancing science for the benefit of humanity”.

Only Human are seeking new collaborators and funders so that we can radiate the project out across science and society.

Community Engagement Partner: Centric

One of our partners is Centric – experts in community engagement with members of the public from historically marginalised communities. Using skills in ‘social brokerage’ they will reach community audiences to do focus groups on some of our filmed assets. Centric are one of our key community research partners who will deliver a new arm of qualitative, filmed research for the Only Human project. Centric have received historical funding from Wellcome Connecting Science to complete a set of recommendations on how community engagement could be delivered in any work on genetics. Centric’s active involvement in delivering community research for Only Human is funded by the Kavli Cenre for Ethics, Science, and the Public at the University of Cambridge.

Creating a Consortia

In 2022 we launched our Call to Action with Public Policy Projects, aligned to co-incide with the G7 meeting in the UK. It started with a webinar, then a series of 6 roundtables that brought together experts in genomics, public engagement, creative storytelling, ethics, policy and then ended with a workshop at a global genomics conference. Here we started to build our network. With pump priming funding to get the project up and running from Wellcome Connecting Science, Genomics England and the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public, the Only Human project was born.

We are now ready to build the consortia.

Only Human has a number of partner types: