Professional Values for the 21st Century
The RSA project 'Professional Values for the 21st Century' aimed to encourage the development of a new model of a 'profession' and 'professionalism' for the 21st century, to refresh attitudes and practice in the old professions and encourage discipline, excellence and a service ethic in the 'new' ones.
This page contains information on one of our past projects 'Professional Values in the 21st Century' including all papers and related publications. Click on the links below to find out more about the project.
Background
In a changing world of work, the traditional professions - law, medicine, accountancy, surveying, architecture, etc - are under siege. Their authority and status, their exclusive access to specialised knowledge, their right to regulate their own affairs are all being seriously challenged.
This challenge is coming not only from a better informed and less deferential public, but also from governments sensitive to public concerns, from the media which reflect and amplify them, and from the organisations in both public and private sectors which employ an increasingly large proportion of professionals. Representatives of 'old' professions are being required to work in entirely different ways, and new 'professions' are emerging all the time in areas like management, mediation, counselling and the environment.
Do we still need 'professions' based on the nineteenth-century model, self-appointed and self-assessed guardians of standards, values and social stability? Is there now instead a new model of 'professionalism' - more open and inclusive, more dynamic and flexible, more pragmatic and better able to deliver the kind of services that a twenty-first-century society needs? Or is it possible to find a new definition which will combine the rigour of the old with the vigour of the new, and revitalise the notion of what it means to be a professional? What can the old professions learn from the new that might help them to be more durable in an increasingly hostile environment? And what should the new professions be seeking to learn from the old?
The RSA project 'Professional Values for the 21st Century' aimed to encourage the development of a new model of a 'profession' and 'professionalism' for the 21st century, to refresh attitudes and practice in the old professions and encourage discipline, excellence and a service ethic in the 'new' ones. It posed the question: 'What distinguishes a profession from any other job?', and invited a wide range of professionals, Fellows and non-Fellows, 'old' and 'new' professions, to identify the issues and questions that most concerned them forthe future. Although the project's active phase is now closed, we would like to see the conversations continue, based on and fed by the rich material that was gathered throughout the project's various activities, now available on this site.
Phase I
(September - December 2002)
The project was launched on September 3, 2002 at a meeting at the RSA, which brought together a wide variety of professionals, professional associations, regulators and consumers of professional services.
In his keynote speech 'Raising the Bar', Lord Phillips of Sudbury argued that the 'moral ozone layer' of the professions has been depleted by emissions of managerialism and the increased complexity of regulation. He suggested that each profession should develop its own creed or oath of allegiance, a modern version of the Hippocratic oath used in medicine affirming a clear duty to the wider public interest.
Events, Papers, Publications
At an all-day seminar on October 14, 2002, an audience drawn from both business and the professions explored areas of difference and similarity, in a debate entitled 'Business ethics and professional ethics - what's the bottom line?' The objective was to consider the issues and dilemmas arising when commercial pressures and professional ethics collide. Is the clash of values inevitable? Or are there areas where the requirements of business and of professionalism dovetail?
On November 13, 2002, at a meeting of RSA Scotland at the Glasgow Lighthouse, Bart McGettrick, Professor of Education at Glasgow University, spoke on the theme 'The professions - grounds for hope in Scotland'. Starting from the premise that Scotland is "a tough, moralistic society", he argued that the Scottish professions must strive to sustain a tradition of social trust and ethical practice, rather than succumb to a culture of measurement and regulation, statutory dictat and external prescription. "A professional person is not only a functional person. (…) Professionals serve beyond a functional capability, and touch the inner self of the society by their gifts."
To conclude this first phase of the project, a Christmas event was held on December 17, 2002 for new and recently-joined Fellows of the RSA, drawn largely from what might be termed 'new' professions. The theme was 'New Perspectives on the Professions', and participants - from such areas as marketing, management consultancy, HR, environmental management and psychotherapy - were invited to reflect on traditional definitions of 'profession' and 'professionalism' in the context of their own occupations.
In New Perspectives on the Professions - an opinion sample, their responses have been analysed by Jane Patricia Farrow of Fios Consulting (available soon).
Phase II
(January - July 2003)
Phase II of the project continued the exploration of 'new' professions - or perhaps more accurately, new ways of working as a professional across the spectrum of 'old' and 'new' professions. There are areas where new 'professions' and professionals are already emerging, or where activities exist that might need to be 'professionalised', in the sense of requiring higher standards of intellectual rigour or integrity or better systems of training, inspection and regulation. However, there are also areas of activity where 'professionalisation' may be inappropriate. The objective of Phase II was to explore the strengths and weaknesses of what are classified, called, or claimed to be, 'new' professions.
Events, Papers, Publications
Phase II hosted two main activities:
Through a mini-poll entitled 'Have your say on the future of the professions' (RSA Journal, February 2003) it investigated existing perceptions of professionalism and the criteria that distinguish a profession from an occupation.
Secondly, it published a series of six occasional papers. By authors from a wide range of different disciplines, these shed light on the present condition of the professions and their historical background, as well as opening possible perspectives for the future.
The papers are:
1. Susanna Reece: Can the professions survive?
2. Susanna Reece: A view from the boundary
3. Professor Harold Perkin: Crisis in the professions: ambiguities, origins and current problems
4. Ian Pearson: Public sector - the last stronghold of professional altruism?
5. Dr. Andrzej Grossman: Is professionalisation always to be desired?
6. Seth Cohen: On cats in bags: asymmetric information, endemic dishonesty and the cohort
Sponsors
We are very grateful to the RSA Shipley Fund, the Comino Foundation and the Andrew Sharman Fund for their support of the project.
Collaborations and Parallel Initiatives
The project kept in touch and was collaborating with other initiatives proceeding in parallel with our own:
'Material Choices: taking responsibility for materials in engineering', staged at the RSA on March 28, 2003 was an event organised in collaboration with the UK Centre for Materials Education.
'Building a Responsible Society' is an initiative of the Institute for Global Ethics UK Trust. The RSA is collaborating with the IGE on an event at St George's House, Windsor, on September 2-3, 2003, entitled Drivers of Responsibility and Sources of Irresponsibility.
'Ethics in Engineering' is an initiative of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Please see our bibliography for relevant articles, published in: Ingenia. The Informative Quarterly of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
'Professional Futures' is an expert seminar run by the Building Futures Group, a joint initiative of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment to create space for discussion about the built environment professions in twenty years and beyond.
PARN (Professional Associations Research Network) is an initiative working out of the Business Management Department of Bristol University.
This project was completed in 2003.
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