Following the founding of the Advisory Council of the SMC, a panel recruited Fiona Fox to lead the Centre along with assistant Becky Morelle in 2001.  Between December 2001 and February 2002 the SMC began a major consultation with key stakeholders to identify the day-to-day priorities of the new Centre, including around 150 interviews with scientists and media specialists. This consultation report is the result and forms the basis on which the SMC opened for operation in 2002.

The controversy over the MMR vaccine was in full swing during the founding of the Science Media Centre. Despite the overwhelming opinion of the scientific community, the public remained unconvinced of the safety of the vaccine, partially due to the way the media covered the issue. The SMC decided to host a lesson learning session on “MMR and the Media” in order to explore this with some of the key players in this controversy.
The ‘MMR: Learning Lessons’ meeting was hosted by the Science Media Centre at the Royal Institution Thursday 2nd May 2002, and produced this report as a result.

In May 2010 the SMC recruited a new press officer dedicated to mental health. A consultation into mental health research and the news media set out the objectives for this role. This report summarises the conclusions of the meetings held and information taken from articles, papers and reports in the area.