This is taken from The Independent:

Jim Stevenson
Educational broadcasting innovator
Published: 19 March 2007

Jim Stevenson, educational broadcaster, media executive and biochemist: born Lytham St Annes, Lancashire 9 May 1937; Nato Research Fellow, University of Trondheim 1963-65; Lecturer in Biochemistry, Warwick University 1965-69; producer, BBC Open University Production Centre 1969-75, executive producer 1975-76, Editor (Science) 1976-79, Head of Programmes 1979-82; Deputy Secretary, BBC 1982-83, Head of Educational Broadcasting Services and Education Secretary 1983-89; Chief Executive, Educational Broadcasting Services Trust 1988-2007; married 1963 Brenda Cooley (one son, one daughter); died London 25 February 2007.

Jim Stevenson was one of the remarkable intake of young staff recruited by the BBC to produce programmes for the new Open University in 1969. He was a Lecturer in Biochemistry at Warwick University when he applied to join the BBC's newest department, housed in its oldest - and, some would argue, most characterful - building, Alexandra Palace.

For three decades the BBC and the OU worked together under a formal agreement described as an "academic partnership". The BBC took a bold decision to appoint young academics who would be trained as producers. The thinking was that the BBC should be able to argue within course teams from a position of academic credibility; in this way, the independence of the BBC could be maintained within the concept of partnership.

Jim Stevenson flourished in his new profession, working closely with the BBC's first educational Science producer, James McCloy, and the Head of Department, Peter Montagnon (who came to the OU Production Department from producing Civilisation). After distinguishing himself as a producer, Stevenson became Editor for Science Programmes, with programme responsibility across three faculty areas - Science, Technology and Mathematics.

In the days before the arrival of the video player, the OU occupied a prodigious amount of airtime - 30 hours a week each of radio and television - at unusual times. But the programmes were seen by a much wider audience than the students at which they were targeted.

As Head of Programmes from 1979, Stevenson undertook many international consultancy assignments with OU colleagues on developing OU methods - in India, Iran and Venezuela. The new Open University in the UK was a kind of world revolution of thinking about education. He set up EDTV, the Open University's three-month residential course for foreign broadcasters. It was part of the mission of the system to spread the word of this great British innovation, building on the passion of its founding mother, Jennie Lee, who argued forcefully, and effectively, that a university of second choice later in life should never be second best.

Stevenson believed that broadcasting should be conducted in a strong team environment and wherever he was he managed to set this up. He encouraged peer-group critiques of programmes and a convivial atmosphere to share and discuss ideas. He regretted the new puritanism which led the BBC to convert bars into gymnasia.

Jim Stevenson was appointed Deputy Secretary of the BBC in 1982, then Education Secretary, where he provided a crucial interface between the BBC's production departments and the world of education. In this role he saw the potential of non-commercial extension of BBC educational media and expertise beyond the remit of the licence fee.

With the approval of the BBC's Board of Governors in 1988 he set up the Educational Broadcasting Services Trust - to cross the boundaries between broadcasting companies and to develop collaborative ventures to benefit education. The focus was on science, mathematics and professional training and he initiated a range of innovative programming, relishing the opportunities offered by digital media for creative interaction. He believed in stretching boundaries. His series Truth Will Out (2001) on BBC 2 challenged received opinion on scientific matters, and encouraged internet audience involvement when this had scarcely been tried.

He continued working until his death. Only recently he was studying an OU course on Mathematics - to be, in later life, on the receiving end of a system he had helped create.

Robert Rowland

I first met Jim Stevenson in 1981, when I was appointed Head of Secretariat at Broadcasting House, the very heart of the BBC, writes James Graham. I was in awe of the place, stepping through doorways Reith had used, oil portraits of former DGs on the wall. We had adjacent offices, on the Sixth Floor Front, serving the Chairman (George Howard), the Governors and DG (Ian Trethowan and later Alasdair Milne). The BBC Secretary, David Barlow, introduced us; and I immediately detected there was something different here. On Jim's wall was a straw sombrero, picked up on his travels in Venezuela, no doubt. So we called him Papa Doc.

Papa Doc could be serious, as his science doctorate implied, while his common sense and deep understanding of BBC values were a steadying influence. There was also a joy in life and rejection of pomposity harking, perhaps, to the rebellious beginnings of Warwick University, and later the Open University.

He commanded great loyalty and the friendships he made in that period stayed with him, on the board, when he became Chief Executive of the EBS Trust. They included Lord Perry, first Vice-Chancellor of the OU, Professor Ted Wragg, and Lord Barnett, then Vice-Chairman of the BBC, who remains Chairman of EBS. The trust began in BBC premises, eventually moving to Shoreditch but never quite escaping the aura of the BBC of Jim's time, when one could acceptably celebrate a birthday with a lunchtime picnic in Regent's Park.

Jim's courage after being diagnosed with cancer was the last lesson of a great educator, broadcaster and innovator, who in his final days was encouraging teachers and children to think up "Zero Cost Science", the title irreverently and typically rejecting the accepted wisdom that science must be costly. It can be; but not if you could think like Jim Stevenson.