Our ongoing transformation and seeking your views

In my first year as chief executive, it's become clear to me that we need to change if the BPS is to become the dynamic, effective professional body which you all want us to be.

As representatives of our members, Trustees have been extremely supportive of our plan to transform our organisation into one that is far more member-centric, delivering a consistent level of engagement and support to all of you.

With their backing, and along with my senior management team, we've started work on a compelling new vision for the BPS, which will see us move to a new way of working and become a more outward-facing organisation which delivers for our members.

This has been based on the feedback and insight you've provided us and over the next few months we'll work with members through the Senate to refine this vision.

An initial tranche of funding approved by Trustees will now help us to start mobilising a programme to update the society and improve service to members.

We have a number of principles which will guide our transformation, but number one on the list is becoming an organisation that operates as 'One BPS'.

This means that we will be bringing together the advancement of the discipline and its professional application within one single body while continuing to respect the diversity that exists within psychology.

I know that members will be interested in this process and have thoughts and suggestions to contribute.

If you want more information, or invite me to a meeting or event where I would be happy to explain more, please get in touch.

Another central part of the transformation plan will be that we become even more evidence-led and able to translate our knowledge into positive change.

We will build our evidence base in a number of different areas, one of which will be an understanding of the workforce issues and pressures which are currently affecting psychologists.

In the next few weeks, all BPS members will be invited to complete a membership survey, which we have commissioned from the Institute for Employment Studies.

This will give us the most complete understanding of workloads, organisational cultures and diversity within our profession that we have ever had, and provide us with the robust evidence base that is needed to achieve positive change for psychologists.

We'll be giving more information on the survey and its purpose over the coming weeks, which will also be spent making the final preparations for our annual conference.

It is now just over one month until we'll be in Harrogate, where we will welcome Sir Mark Walport, the chief executive of UK Research and Innovation.

Sir Mark's keynote will focus on how psychological evidence is and can be used across government to shape public policy and help to show us the path for using our evidence base to achieve real impact.

On the conference theme 'The psychological impact of inequality', we'll be hearing keynote addresses from bestselling authors Professor Kate Pickett and Professor Richard Wilkinson, and Professor Eldar Shafir from the University of Princeton.

We've put together a programme which showcases the best of our discipline, and it would be great to see as many of you as possible in Harrogate on 1st May. 

There are just a few days left to register at our discounted rate, so don't miss out.