Rsa Events

Afua Hirsch and Matthew Taylor discuss Britain's current identity crisis at Wilderness Festival. Britain is a nation experiencing an identity crisis – populist movements attempt to draw us back to a nostalgic vision of homogenous, white Britain, whilst demographic changes see our cities more diverse and multi-dimensional than ever. How do we tackle issues like racism, identity and belonging against this backdrop, and are so-called ‘colour-blind’ liberals part of the problem? Barrister, broadcaster and author of the bestselling book ‘Brit(ish)’, Afua Hirsch delivers a rousing call-to-action for 21st century Britain. This event was recorded live at Wilderness Festival on Sunday 5th August 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/08/rsa-presents-on-belonging-and-britishness

Academic and writer Danny Dorling argues that Britain has finally reached peak inequality, and immediate action is needed to defuse Britain’s ticking time bomb. The chasm between rich and poor has had dire implications for our health, housing, education, demography, and politics. Today more than 99% are losing out. So how do we become more equal this time? And without a full-blown civil war? This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 19th July 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/07/has-the-uk-reached-peak-inequality

Political insider Tom Baldwin shares worrying insights from behind the curtain of power, and warns that we are in danger of pressing ‘delete’ on liberal democracy altogether. Having interviewed everyone from Tony Blair to Michael Gove, top journalists to Russian bloggers, and tech giant execs to online activists, Tom describes a vicious battle for control of the news agenda, at the expense of public trust and the value of truth. He visits the RSA to show how technological change has hollowed out space for virulent new populist alternatives, including the so-called ‘alt-right’ and ‘alt-left’. And he warns that not only extremists, but also the progressive centre, may now decide to press ‘delete’ on liberal democracy altogether. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 12th July 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/07/how-politics-and-the-media-crashed-our-democracy NB: At 28 mins 40 secs Tom Baldwin refers to a survey that revealed popular misunderstandings o

As the RSA launches its new Future Work Centre, an expert panel considers how we can harness new technologies to create a better world of work. Will technologies like AI and robotics exacerbate economic inequality, deepen geographic divisions and entrench discrimination in the workplace? Or can they be wielded to create a better world of work – one that is more humane, productive and purposeful? And, to the extent that automation does occur, what measures can be taken to mitigate its risks and harness its opportunities? This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 10th July 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/07/good-work-in-the-new-machine-age

Political failure is a failure of the imagination. Journalist and author George Monbiot joins us to tell the new political story we’ve been missing. A toxic ideology rules the world – of extreme competition and individualism. It misrepresents human nature, destroying hope and common purpose. Only a positive vision can replace it, a new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better world. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 5th July 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/07/a-new-politics-for-an-age-of-crisis

In his annual RSA Chief Executive’s Lecture Matthew Taylor makes a case for radical reform of our political and policymaking systems in the face of a growing crisis of liberal democracy. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 2nd July 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/07/what-democracy-needs-now

Clive Grinyer, past RSA Student Design Awards winner and RSA Design Advisor delivers the keynote address at the 2018 SDA winners ceremony. The RSA Student Design Awards challenge emerging designers to tackle pressing social, environmental and economic issues through design thinking. Our goal is to empower a generation of savvy, employable designers who understand the potential of design to benefit society, and we do this by running an annual Awards programme that challenges students and recent graduates to think differently about design, through tackling briefs focused on real-world problems. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 27th June. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/designing-our-futures-the-2018-rsa-student-design-awards

The winners of the UK’s most prestigious awards for political writing are revealed, celebrating the best of this year’s books, journalism and innovative reporting on social issues. Each year, The Orwell Prize awards prizes for the writing and journalism which comes closest to George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. Prizes are awarded in three categories: for books, for journalism (commentary and reportage) and The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils, which rewards innovative reporting on social issues in the UK. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 25th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/the-orwell-prize-ceremony-2018

One year on from the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower, a panel gathers to reflect on what it exposed about the social and economic state of the nation, and how to secure safety and justice for everyone. In an area home to some of the country’s richest and poorest people side by side, where average incomes can drop ten times across a street, Grenfell has come to be seen as a microcosm not just of the broken housing market, but of how poverty and voicelessness meet to compound inequality. The number of people subject to poor living conditions, intersecting wealth, race, and class inequality, and poor civic representation indicates deep injustice in how our society is structured – how can these conditions be dismantled? This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 21st June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/after-grenfell-one-year-on

Creativity guru and founder of Free Range Studios, Jonah Sachs argues that ‘safe thinking’ ultimately causes failure, and shows how we can unleash our boldness and creativity to tackle systemic challenges. Sachs draws on cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to uncover the specific mental habits that account for the success of those who break the mould. And he reveals how, by embracing a handful of simple brain-hacks and cognitive tools, we can all harness the power of the unsafe thinkers. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 14th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/the-key-to-unsafe-thinking

Internationally acclaimed social entrepreneur Hilary Cottam shows how we can remake the relationships between us, and revolutionise the welfare state. Sharing her vision at the RSA, Hilary Cottam is joined in conversation by award-winning journalist Gary Younge to explore the principles behind this radically new approach, the design process that makes the work possible and the challenges of transition. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 7th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/radical-help

One of the UK’s leading political scientists, David Runciman, argues that democracy is collapsing before our very eyes. But what - if anything - should replace it? Democracy has died hundreds of times, all over the world. We think we know what this looks like: chaos descends, and the military arrives to restore order until the people can be trusted again. But perhaps we are focusing on the wrong threats. Until very recently, most citizens of Western democracies would have imagined that the end was a long way off, and very few would have thought it might be happening before their eyes as Trump, Brexit and paranoid populism have become a reality. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 7th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/how-democracy-ends

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett follow up their seminal work The Spirit Level with new insights into how inequality impacts us as individuals. Arguing that societies based on fundamental equalities, sharing and reciprocity produce much higher levels of wellbeing than those based on excessive individualism, competitiveness and social aggression, The Inner Level sheds important new light into how we should organise the way we live together. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 5th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/how-inequality-gets-inside-our-heads

If not the EU, then what? Mike Kenny and Nick Pearce explore the idea of the ‘Anglosphere’ as a forgotten factor in the decision to leave the EU. Amidst the ongoing Brexit negotiations, a question mark looms over Britain’s future place in the world. The wish for a post-Brexit ‘global Britain’ has driven the idea of an alliance between Britain and its old Commonwealth colonies to resurface, based on a belief in a special bond shared by English-speaking peoples across the world. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 31st May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/after-brexit-a-future-beyond-the-eu

Founder and former CEO of award-winning marketing agency Livity, Sam Conniff Allende re-purposes the innovative strategies of Golden Age pirates for 21st century would-be disruptors. How can we create radical change within an old-fashioned system, and in the face of unprecedented change and uncertainty? We must break and then re-make the rules – just like pirates did before us. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 24th May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/how-to-be-more-pirate

Why should schools be interested in the arts, and how should we be looking to understand their impact? With Global Teacher Prize winner Andria Zafirakou. The RSA, together with the Education Endowment Foundation, is currently investigating the difference made by cultural learning to pupils’ academic achievement and character development. But what else do the arts offer schools and their students? How can we get better at understanding those benefits and ensure that evidence of what works makes its way into wider practice? This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 24th May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/strong-arts-strong-schools

Trust in politics is dwindling, and authoritarian populists are seizing power around the globe. Renowned academic and author Yascha Mounk argues for radical political reforms that will benefit the many, not the few. Mounk identifies three key drivers of voters’ discontent: stagnating living standards, fears of multiethnic democracy, and the rise of social media. To reverse the march against liberal democracy, he argues that politicians must act now to create radical reforms in these three areas that benefit the many, not just the few. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 23rd May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/the-people-vs.-democracy

Is modern work actually productive, or just an end in itself? 'The most influential anthropologist in the world', David Graeber, explores how ‘meaningless’ jobs have become so widespread, and what we can do about it. In doing so, he looks at how we value work, and how, rather than being productive, work has become an end in itself; the way such work maintains the current broken system of finance capital; and, finally, how we can get out of it. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 17th May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/on-bullsht-jobs

Leading professor of psychiatry Edward Bullmore introduces breakthrough new science on the link between depression and inflammation of the body and brain. Going beyond the clinic and the lab, Professor Bullmore presents a whole new way of looking at how mind, brain and body all work together in a sometimes misguided effort to help us survive in a hostile world. Offering insights into the story of Western medicine, he shows how we have got it wrong as well as right in the past, and how we could start getting to grips with depression and other mental disorders much more effectively in the future. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 10th May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/a-new-approach-to-depression

Do modern economies reward the extractors – not the creators – of economic value? Leading economist Mariana Mazzucato urges us to rethink how we determine value in our economy. At the heart of the crisis in modern capitalism, she says, lies the blurred line between ‘taking’ and ‘making’; those who merely extract value are rewarded more highly than those who create it, generating perverse incentives and stifling a productive, healthy economy and society. In order to replace this broken system with a more sustainable, symbiotic capitalism, we must reconsider fundamental assumptions about what we value. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 26th April 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/04/redefining-economic-value