Oxford Martin School: Public Lectures and Seminars

Barbara Finamore discusses whether China will take the lead in saving our planet from environmental catastrophe. Now that Trump has turned the United States into a global climate outcast, will China take the lead in saving our planet from environmental catastrophe? Many signs point to yes. China, the world's largest carbon emitter, is leading a global clean energy revolution, phasing out coal cons...

Professor Sir Paul Collier and Professor Colin Mayer CBE will share the latest thinking and research into the future of capitalism and the corporation to understand how business might be changed to make it work better for society. The speakers will bring together their new books, The Future of Capitalism: Facing The New Anxieties and Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good, alongside th...

As part of Oxford Green Week, Prof Alex Rogers and Dr Gwilym Rowlands discuss the importance of protecting the high seas, and how marine protection areas can be enforced. The high seas are under severe pressure from both direct and indirect human impacts. These include over-fishing, destructive fishing practices, pervasive plastic debris, deep-sea mining, offshore aquaculture, renewable energy tec...

Prof Diane Coyle discusses how digital technologies are changing economics. Digital technologies are changing economics in two ways. The characteristics of an increasingly digital economy raise questions about economic analysis in domains ranging from competition policy to corporate finance, while new data sources and methodologies challenge economists to develop new empirical approaches.

Prof Danny Dorling discusses the idea that that humanity is slowing down in almost everything that we do, and what this means for our future. Date 30 May 2019, 5:00pm - 6:00pm Location Lecture Theatre, Oxford Martin School 34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD Event Recording: In Origin of Species, Charles Darwin described how a population explosion occurs and cal...

Like the wind, knowledge can be difficult to see or grasp, but if well-harnessed, it can help us do extraordinary things. In this talk, Dr Penny Mealy will discuss how novel analytical tools are providing new insights into the use of knowledge in society, and highlight implications for economic development, inequality and the transition to the green economy.

Is competition in the digital economy desirable? Does it currently exist? Is it possible? Is there anything policy can do? This talk addresses all of these questions and presents the recommendations of the Digital Competition Expert Panel which was chaired by Jason Furman and recently presented its recommendations to the government.

Professor David Battisti, The Tamaki Endowed Chair of Atmospheric Sciences, will be talking about global climate sensitivity controlling regional warming uncertainty and its role in impacting on human health, particularly heat stress. This is a joint event with the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Climate Research Network (OCRN)

Dr Mike Hamm will explore the opportunity for regional food systems in-and-around cities for mutual benefit. Mike will approach a number of issues - including vertical farming, bio-geochemical cycles, water use, new entry farmers, and healthy food provisioning - embedded in the notion of city region food systems with reference to supply/demand dynamics.

Professor Doyne Farmer will discuss the constraints of current economic models and propose complexity economics as a solution. Economics is in crisis. On one hand, behavioural economics is now well-established, but on the other hand, most economics models are still based on rational expectations with constraints, called “frictions”. The standard program adds more and more constraints to rationalit...

Carlos Lopes will deliver an overview of the critical development issues facing the African continent today. Carlos will talk about a blueprint of policies to address issues, and an intense, heartfelt meditation on the meaning of economic development in the age of democratic doubts, identity crises, global fears and threatening issues of sustainability.

The Paris Agreement was a seminal moment in the world's struggle to fight climate change, but Christiana believes that the climate agreement was just a staging post in what remains a long, hard process. So what are the next steps? The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, was a seminal moment in the world's struggle to fight climate change. 197 countries agreed to limit the rise in global ave...

At a time of heightened political tension and policy confusion about the refugee crisis, this lecture explores why record numbers of people are fleeing their homes; what conditions they are living in; and what should be done to help them. Rt Hon David Miliband will make the case that support for refugees is a global public good, which requires reform of international policy. He will also argue tha...

Nick Eyre and Myles Allen give a talk for the Oxford Martin School on climate change and the IPCC report. One of the key objectives of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), completed in 2014, was to provide a comprehensive description of the science of climate change and options for adaptation and mitigation for negotiators preparing for the Paris Con...

Dr Nathalie Seddon, Director of the Biodiversity Institute, gives a talk for the Oxford Martin School. The future of biodiversity conservation is under increasing threat from both climate change and human impact. Dr Nathalie Seddon, Director of the Biodiversity Institute, will look at how rapid growth of climate change affects our ecosystems, how species’ will be forced to adapt to survive, and ho...

Sir John Beddington, Senior Adviser at the Oxford Martin School, gives a talk on climate change Some five years ago Sir John Beddington, Senior Adviser at the Oxford Martin School, raised the concept of 'The Perfect Storm' in which the issues of food, water and energy security needed to be addressed at the same time as mitigating and adapting to climate change. In this seminar he highlights change...

Professor Gideon Henderson, Professor of Earth Sciences, and Professor David Marshall, Professor of Physical Oceanography, will explore the role of oceans in climate change. How are oceans affected by our rapidly changing climate? What can they tell us about the processes controlling climate change? And what role do they play in driving climate?

In this seminar Dr Rob Bellamy, James Martin Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, will explore how and why people disagree about how to tackle climate change. What hope then is there for a global political agreement in Paris 2015?

In this talk Professor Tim Palmer CBE, Co-Director of the Programme on Modelling and Predicting Climate, gives a talk for the Oxford Martin School. Tim Palmer will address three related questions. Firstly, what are the physical reasons why predictions of climate change are necessarily uncertain? Secondly, how can we communicate this uncertainty in a simple but rigorous way to those policy makers f...

John Kampfner and Katrine Marçal discuss the growing gap between rich and poor and its implications for society, chaired by Professor Ian Goldin. This roundtable is part of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival 2015, the Oxford Martin School is the Festival Ideas Partner Is it morally justified to allow the creation of a 'super rich' that leave the rest behind? Is the growing gap between rich an...

Three authors with recent books on Africa discuss the future of the continent and answer questions from the audience under the watchful eye of the director of the Oxford Martin School, Professor Ian Goldin. Martin Meredith, Jonny Steinberg and Tom Burgis will discuss what the future holds for African states. How can the continent deal with failing government and corruption and with war and a const...

In this new Oxford talk, Garry Kasparov, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, turns his attention to the rapidly evolving relationship between humans and technology. In this new talk, Garry Kasparov turns his attention to the rapidly evolving relationship between humans and technology. He will explore the impact of technology on human development – how it can enhance, limit or possi...

Professor Chris Lintott, Professor of Astrophysics, University of Oxford and presenter of the BBC’s Sky at Night will talk about the history and the science of the voyage. Professor Ian Goldin, Director, Oxford Martin School and Chris will discuss the implications and politics of Europe’s mission to study a comet that is three hundred million miles away. On 12th November 2014, after a 10 year jour...

Yadvinder Malhi, Director of the Oxford Centre ofr Tropical Forests, gives a talk for the Oxford Martin School. We live in a new epoch, the Anthropocene, the Age of Us, of which climate change is just one aspect. The defining feature of this age is that sum of human activity (how many we are and what we are doing) has become large compared to the natural processes of the biosphere. The atmospheric...

Vlatko Vedral, Co-=Direct oof the Oxford Martin Programme on Bio-Inspired Quantum Technologies, gives a talk for theOxford Martin School. Quantum mechanics is commonly said to be a theory of microscopic things: molecules, atoms, subatomic particles. Nearly all physicists, though, think it applies to everything, no matter what the size. The reason its distinctive features tend to be hidden is not a...