[9] During that time he set up a long running science writing award for young people,[10][11] a photography competition,[12] the 'scientists meet the media' party,[13] and organised mass experiments from 1994 with BBC's Tomorrow's World, called Live Lab and Megalab,[14] such as the 'Truth Test' with Richard Wiseman.

[20] For the group, he wrote a series of long-form blogs about the science of COVID-19[21] and in 2021 organised a special COVID-19 issue of the Royal Society journal Interface Focus.

[23] He is also a visiting professor of Public Engagement at the Department of Chemistry at UCL[24] and a member of the Medical Research Council.

[25] In April 2023, he was made the honorary president of the Association of British Science Writers, taking over from the veteran BBC correspondent Pallab Ghosh.

His account of the efforts to communicate with brain damaged patients that suffer disorders of consciousness was reproduced in other media worldwide, such as Gizmodo,[54] The Week,[55] The Independent[56] and Pacific Standard.