Rsa Events

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 19th October 2017 Nobel Prize-winning economist Jean Tirole argues that far from being the “dismal science”, economics is a “moral science”, and has the power to be a positive force for good in society. Jean Tirole has been described as one of the most influential economists of our time. On winning the Nobel Prize in 2014 he found himself regularly being called upon to comment on issues of the day, and this transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect on the role economists and their discipline can and should play in society. At the RSA, Jean Tirole explores this relationship between economics and society, looking at how economic research is actually done, the kinds of institution that shape the modern state, and the need for governments and private firms to recognize their social responsibilities. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/10/economics-for-the-common-good

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 18th October 2017 The 2017 Albert Medal is awarded posthumously to Robin Murray for pioneering work in social innovation. Robin Murray was a visionary social and economic thinker, whose life’s work was guided by a profound commitment to mutuality and cooperation. As an industrial and environmental economist, Murray was active and influential across several fields, from cooperatives to energy system innovation. He was deeply committed to a democratic, creative and collaborative response to economic and technological change and developed pioneering economic programmes in local, regional and national governments. In this Albert Medal event, we will hear from close collaborators Geoff Mulgan, Hilary Cottam and Ed Mayo who will offer insights into Murray’s work, and explore how it has inspired and informed a wide range of policy debate and development around the social innovation movement. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/1

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 17th October 2017 Within a few short decades, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four giant corporations: Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google. But at what cost? Leading liberal journalist Franklin Foer argues that though these firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience that has a darker underside. Their corporate ambitions are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation or autonomous thought – a world without mind. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/10/the-existential-

'The rock star of neuroscience', David Eagleman teams up with composer Anthony Brandt to present an agenda-setting investigation into human creativity. Our relentless drive to create makes us unique among living creatures. How can we harness this instinct, and where is it taking us? We face global, ‘wicked’ challenges that require all our ingenuity to address. Luckily, as a species we have a seemingly unlimited capacity to generate solutions to our problems. For the full visual experience, watch an edited version of the talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQQJP6mqHC4 This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 11th October 2017. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/10/what-is-creativity

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Friday 6th October 2017 From government to business, banks to the media, it would seem that public trust in our institutions is at an all-time low. And yet this isn’t an age of distrust – far from it. Author of Who Can You Trust? Rachel Botsman is joined by Chief Economist at the Bank of England Andy Haldane to debate whether we are moving to a new era, in which we trust institutions less, but people and networks more. If this is so, what does it mean for those industries that are critically reliant on trust – such as banking? Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/10/the-great-trust-shift

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 28th September 2017 Sleep is one of the most important aspects of our life, health and longevity and yet it is increasingly neglected in twenty-first-century society, with devastating consequences: every major disease in the developed world - Alzheimer's, cancer, obesity, diabetes - has very strong causal links to deficient sleep. And yet we’re sleeping less than ever – four out of five of us complain about disturbed or inadequate sleep, and nearly half of us get six hours or less a night. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why its absence is so damaging to our health. Matthew Walker, director of the Centre for Human Sleep Science, has one defining ambition – to reunite humanity with its sleep. He visits the RSA to explain why we need a sleep revolution, and why we need it now. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/why-we-need-a-sleep-revolution

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 27th September 2017 The world is facing urgent challenges – and design thinking can help us tackle them. Sue Siddall is a partner at leading design company IDEO, where she has over 20 years’ strategy experience in human-centred design and innovation; designing for behaviour change; and the role of design thinking and public private partnership in tackling systemic issues, such as climate change. To celebrate the launch of the 2017/18 RSA Student Design Awards briefs, Sue Siddall, partner at design consultancy IDEO, shares her journey to discovering design thinking. Whether it's what career path to take, how to approach innovation in business, or tackle social challenges, there's arguably never been a more turbulent time to be making important decisions. Sue looks at how design thinking can help all of us navigate the complexity, nuance, and speed of change, today, sharing her personal career journey, from law, to advertising, and design, and why sometimes, as

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 21st September 2017 Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Lyric Theatre Belfast, The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff and The RSA present 'The United Kingdom and Europe: Nations on the World Stage' a symposium introduced by Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England. As a partnership of leading theatres in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales embarks on an epic cycle of new play commissions which will explore Britain’s changing relationship with Europe, this panel discussion asks "How should theatre respond to and reflect the changing role of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Europe over the next decade?” Chaired by journalist and broadcaster Mark Lawson, the panel brings together a diverse range of leading playwrights from across the British Isles to offer their perspective. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/United-Kingdom-and-Europe-Nations-on-the-World-Stage

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 21st September 2017 Every time we queue up for petrol we empower the world’s most coercive, oppressive and dangerous regimes. But what can we do about it? ‘It’s all about oil’ may be the clarion cry of undergraduates worldwide, but the reality is deeper and darker than any half-baked conspiracy theories. ISIS, al Qaeda, Putin, Assad, Saddam, Gaddafi, the Ayatollahs - most of our biggest threats and crises come from oil states. Chair of Philosophy and Law at KCL, Leif Wenar’s work on petrocrats and ethics has been lauded by Steven Pinker, Michael Ignatieff, Angus Deaton and Rowan Williams, who called his book a ‘a serious and urgent appeal to the conscience of the west’. He visits the RSA to explain why conditions are now exactly right for us to abolish blood oil—and so to create a more secure, peaceful and just future for all. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/how-to-end-the-tyranny-of-oil

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 20th September 2017 Glenn Greenwald is the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to uncover secret global surveillance programmes undertaken by the US and the UK. His partner, David Miranda, is a journalist and the first LGBTQ member of the Rio City Council. In this special RSA event, Greenwald and Miranda discuss power and accountability, surveillance and privacy, Trump and fake news, and the role of journalism in giving a voice to perspectives and events that are ignored and silenced by large media outlets. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/an-evening-with-glenn-greenwald-and-david-miranda

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 14th September 2017 A decade after the global financial crisis, deep scars remain. Despite recent data signalling a closing of the income inequality gap between the highest and lowest earners, this has been accompanied by mounting economic insecurity, wage stagnation and – particularly since Brexit – rising inflation. The shock of the financial crisis might have been weathered by buoyant employment, particularly at the low end of the labour market, but this too has been accompanied by rising in-work poverty. Is ‘inclusive growth’ a utopian oxymoron, or the means to fairer, more sustainable economies? How can it be achieved locally and nationally? What are the implications for global capitalism and the process of globalisation? What are the economic choices and trade-offs we might need to face if we are to respond to the ‘politics of the left behind’? Speakers: Gabriela Ramos, OECD Chief of Staff; Hon Wayne Swan MP, Former DPM and Treasurer of Australia; Indy

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 14th September 2017 Robert Peston, who broke the story of Northern Rock’s emergency funding appeal to the Bank of England, and covered at close-hand the ensuing run on the bank, its eventual collapse, and the global crash that followed, reflects back on fast-moving events of the time, and the role of the key actors – from politicians, to bankers, to regulators - and traces the further reaching after-effects of the crash. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/breaking-the-northern-rock-story-and-beyond

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 11th September 2017 As UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling was involved at the highest levels from the outset of the financial crisis, through the heart of the storm, and played a leading role in restoring stability to global financial markets. 10 years on from the collapse of the Northern Rock bank, an early signal of the global crash to come, he reflects on what we have and haven’t learned from the crisis, how vulnerable we remain, and what we have to do next to shape a fairer future prosperity. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/10-years-after-the-crash

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Friday 8th September 2017 Commissioned by the Prime Minister to undertake an independent review in 2016, last November David published his interim findings alongside an in-depth analysis which identified some of the stages in the CJS at which disproportionality is most pronounced. Among other notable points, the analysis evidenced that black men and women are sentenced more harshly than white men and women for committing the same type of crime. Having now completed his review, David will share his further findings and set out the recommendations he believes can ultimately make sure the CJS is fair for all. Speakers: Rt Hon David Lammy MP, Chair of the Lammy Review; Juliet Lyon CBE, Chair of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody; Matthew Ryder QC, Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility and Community Engagement; David Isaac CBE, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Chair: Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA Discover more about

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 13th July 2017 In May this year, James Williams, a former Google employee and doctoral candidate researching design ethics at Oxford University, won the inaugural US$100,000 Nine Dots Prize. James’ winning piece argued that digital technologies privilege our impulses over our intentions, and are gradually diminishing our ability to engage with the issues we most care about. In this event – his first public event since winning the prize - he will cover: How the ‘distractions’ produced by digital technologies are much more profound than minor ‘annoyances’ How so-called ‘persuasive’ design is undermining the human will and ‘militating against the possibility of all forms of self-determination’ How beginning to ‘assert and defend our freedom of attention’ is an urgent moral and political task The Nine Dots Prize is supported by Cambridge University Press and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), both departments of the Un

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 11th July 2017 Forget what you thought polls could tell you – our Google searches and other online behaviour reveal our true selves. Welcome to the biggest and most accurate dataset in human history. Harvard-trained economist and former Google data scientist, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s analysis of our digital footprint reveals that much of what we think we know about ourselves is simply wrong. The reason is simple – we all lie – to our doctors, in surveys, on social media, and even to ourselves; but less so, when sat in front of our keyboards searching for information online. This data exposes our deepest desires, hopes, fears and prejudices, and our conscious and unconscious decision-making, in a way that less than twenty years ago would have been unfathomable. Hailed as the heir to Freakonomics, Stephens-Davidowitz’s groundbreaking research will change the way you think about everything. Speakers: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Writer and Former Google Data Scie

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 11th July 2017 How do we build a future that doesn’t leave humans behind? How do we need to respond – as individuals, communities, companies, institutions – to harness technological progress the benefit of the many, not just the few? Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's bestselling 2014 book The Second Machine Age had widespread influence on the global debate around how technological progress is transforming the way we live and work. Their new book Machine, Platform, Crowd focuses on the ‘second phase’ of the Second Machine Age. This phase, they argue, has a greater sense of urgency, as ‘deep learning’ technologies are now demonstrating that they can do much more than just the type of work we have thought of as routine. So can we now replace fears that automation will erase jobs with hopes that advanced AI will actually improve rather than displace human work? Elsewhere, how do we ensure increasingly powerful platforms, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, h

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 4th July 2017 Access to a hands-on approach to learning – designing, creating, exploring, experimenting, ‘tinkering’ - can have transformational impact. So, how can we create more opportunities for more people to learn through making? To celebrate the long history of collaboration between the RSA and the Comino Foundation, a distinguished panel of designers, makers and educationalists gather to explore the power of making, and to discuss why access to making is important for everyone; how we risk losing the chance for young people to learn through making; and what the RSA, Comino and others are doing to challenge that. Speakers: Daniel Charny, Director, From Now On and Fixperts Liz Corbin, Institute of Making and co-founder of Open Workshop Zoe Laughlin, Co-founder/director of the Institute of Making and the Materials Library project Bill Lucas, Co-creator, Expansive Education Network & director, Centre for Real-World Learning Matthew Taylor, Chief Execu

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 3rd July 2017 The Rt Hon David Lammy MP’s pioneering review of racial disparity in the criminal justice system is exposing levels of potential bias that are cause for serious concerns. The review’s interim findings, published last November, came with in-depth analysis to help identify the stages of the system at which disproportionality is most pronounced. It also evidenced that black men and women continue to be sentenced more harshly than white men and women for committing the same type of crime; over 40% of prisoners under the age of 18 are BAME; and that the number of Muslim prisoners has almost doubled in the last decade. Having illustrated the huge challenge Government faces in tackling what could be institutionalised inequalities in the criminal justice system, David Lammy is now in the final stages of completing his report. He will be sharing some of the in-depth, real-life insights this review has uncovered; and setting the scene for a national, polit

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 29th June 2017 We want to believe that there are some things we would never do. We want to believe that there are others we always would. But how can we be sure? Why do human beings hurt other human beings – and what can we do about it? The celebrated human rights barrister and researcher Dexter Dias QC has identified ten ‘types’ of human behaviour; ten deeply ingrained evolutionary drives, which provide tools for decoding the best and worst that humans do. They are the people we become when we are faced with life's most difficult decisions. But who or what are these Types? Where do they come from? How did they get into our heads. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience, human rights and social psychology, Dias examines the very frontiers of the human experience with the aim of uncovering new ways to reduce the sum of human suffering. Speakers: Dexter Dias QC, Human Rights Barrister Leyla Hussein, Psychotherapist and Award-Winning Campaigner Discover more about