YAS Charter for
Responsible Debate

The Young Academy of Scotland proposes nine general principles for responsible public debate. These are grounded in an ideal of informed, respectful and inclusive collective decision-making. The Charter is designed as a starting point to support discussion amongst those who initially disagree, but who listen well to each other in pursuit of common ground and inclusive solutions. We encourage people to adapt and refine the principles for more specific contexts.

Informed

  • 1. Aim for accuracy, and base your contributions on evidence and experience.
  • 2. Talk to people with different beliefs, experiences, perspectives and backgrounds.
  • 3. Be honest in how you communicate, and speak with conviction for what you believe.

Respectful

  • 4. Listen carefully, open-mindedly and with empathy.
  • 5. Use emotional language judiciously, avoiding disrespectful or inflammatory language.
  • 6. Show appreciation for good points made by others, acknowledging when they change your mind.

Inclusive

  • 7. Communicate in ways that unite rather than divide.
  • 8. Try to address imbalances in power, knowledge and accessibility.
  • 9. Seek to identify common ground and shared purpose.

The Process

Democratic politics has always been a place of discussion, disagreement and debate. However, recent political debates seem to be increasingly polarised; channels of information are increasingly siloed; and misinformation and disinformation are increasing challenges. In this context, we want to promote ways of discussing controversial topics in a constructive fashion that help us recognise shared purpose and achieve inclusive solutions.

To support this goal, we ran a project with the Young Academy of Scotland between 2019 to 2021 to find out what lots of different people thought should be part of a Charter for Responsible Debate.

The list of principles we came up with originated at a one-day event in May 2019 which brought together politicians, media personalities, campaigners, activists and academics, to share experience and propose possible principles.

We and the Young Academy of Scotland then co-hosted an RSE Curious event at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2019, where members of the public were invited to contribute to the ongoing development of our Charter by commenting on the principles proposed at the previous event and by proposing new principles of their own.

We also ran an event at the Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics in October 2019 to further refine the principles and discuss the wider challenges of improving the quality of political debate in Scotland and beyond.

The general membership of the Young Academy of Scotland has given us invaluable feedback and assistance, especially at a critical feedback session in December 2019.

We have also led discussions of the project at Millennifest 2019, the Wigtown Book Festival and Learning for Sustainability Scotland; and we have taken public feedback via a questionnaire on our website.

The following people have provided direct input to the principles: Matthew Chrisman, Alice König, Peter McColl, John O’Connor, Harriet Harris, Ken Macintosh, Stephen Reicher, Kathleen Stock, Kal Turnbull, Jim Wallace, Kirsty Wark, Maria Azeredo de Dornelas, James Blake, Stephen O’Rourke, Nasar Meer, Emma Boffey and Nikki Moran.

If you’d like to read more about this project, see which public figures have signed the pledge of support, and even sign for yourself, please visit the YAS website.

When we launched The Charter we commissioned experts to write short pieces about the prospects for more responsible debate in their areas. These figured centrally in the YAS report on Responsible Debate. Download the report here.

Download the full report