Sydney Ideas

Panel discussion & Launch – The University of Sydney’s 2017 Digital Rights report A panel of leading experts looks under the hood of digital rights, exploring: - What are digital rights? Why do we need them? - What would they look like in Australia? - How should we frame, and do, digital rights policy, law and practice? SPEAKERS: Ellen Broad, Osmond Chiu, Rob Hanson, Associate Professor Nicolas Su...

Soon individual genome sequences will be a standard part of health records, which will revolutionise biomedical discovery, personal healthcare, and health system management. Millions of genome sequences integrated with millions of clinical records and other information from personal devices and the internet of things will create a multi-dimensional data ecology that will require advanced systems n...

The international panellists who are at the forefront of current debate on rational discourse and the post-truth crisis, dissect the current state of public discourse around truth, evidence, and reason, and associated questions including trust, faith, and identity. They discuss their answers to the question “who can we believe?” and show how truth is intertwined with complex questions ranging from...

Elizabeth Harrower’s writing has engaged and challenged her readers since she began publishing in the late 1950s. Her work is concerned with the moral and existential challenges that arise from experiences of romance, family life, and personal aspiration. Her narratives blend together the private and public, bringing together the shared public spaces of the contemporary postwar world with the inte...

Conventional treatment for obesity assumes that all calories are alike, and that to lose weight one must simply “eat less and move more.” However, this prescription rarely succeeds over the long term. According to an alternative approach, the metabolic state of the fat cells plays a key role in determining body weight. From this perspective, conventional calorie-restricted, low fat diets amount to...

The just-held 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has conferred President Xi Jinping with unprecedented authority. He is now the Party’s second more powerful leader after Mao Zedong. Xi has solid control over the Party, the State and the People’s Liberation Army. It looks probable that Xi will remain China’s paramount leader at least until 2027, if not 2032. Questions remai...

A recent report by Deloitte Access Economics found that some 40% of Australians experience some form of inadequate sleep. Sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnoea, insomnia, restless legs syndrome, and shift work disorder, are also highly prevalent but are amenable to treatment. The flow on effects of inadequate or disordered sleep for the individual, society, and the economy are enormous...

Water, energy and food security are fundamental strategic challenges for India and its neighbours. In this Sydney Ideas conversation Professor Brahma Chellaney from the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and Professor Bill Pritchard from the University of Sydney discuss the contentious politics and economics of water, energy and food in the Indian subcontinent. International and national regula...

Protesting police brutality, mass incarceration and racial disparities in all areas of American life, Black Lives Matter has spanned two very different presidencies, transforming political debate and making visionary demands for justice. The founders of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, in Australia to accept the 2017 Sydney Peace Prize, join the ABC's Stan Grant for an intimate conversation...

The United States, like Australia and other countries with modern economies, gets played by multinational corporations who earn profits in their country, but siphon profits out as tax-deductible expenses – expenses companies pay to themselves. It is as if individuals could get a tax break by moving money from their right pocket to their left. These tax breaks are not based on real expenses, or eco...

One of the best kept secrets about mathematicians is that we are often at the tip of the spear in the struggle for social/political causes. We are inspired by the mathematical hell raisers of previous generations, but we are also shaped by their personal tragedies. In 1800 France, Sophie Germain had to publish her works using a male pseudonym. Only recently, Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian born math...

The forum brings together expert First Nations Community and University speakers to discuss the importance of increasing awareness about mental illness within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Joe Williams, a First Nations mental health campaigner and former elite athlete, shares his story and discusses his current work in the keynote address. He is joined in a panel discussio...

Professor of European Integration at the University of Athens, Loukas Tsoukalis looks into the reasons behind the successive crises in the EU in recent years. Does the European Union suffer from overstretch? Was the creation of the euro a terrible mistake that is now almost impossible to undo, or is the European project just the victim of collateral damage caused by globalisation and the technolog...

The 2017 Michael Hintze lecture presented by the Centre for International Security Studies At sixteen years and counting, Afghanistan is the longest war for western states of the post-Cold War period, and NATO’s first overseas war. At its height, the US and its NATO allies deployed 130,000 troops in its efforts to stabilise the country. NATO combat forces withdrew by December 2014 having failed to...

There is no word with more purchase in present political discourse than Globalisation. But what does it mean, and why is it so important? This panel surveys the extent of today’s globalisation, and asks: How globalised is the world really? What is the significance of this idea for politics? Is globalisation good for us? Does the European Union represent the past or a future, a world increasingly i...

December 2017 marks 45 years since Australia and the People's Republic of China established formal diplomatic relations. In celebrating such anniversaries, it is common for politicians and diplomats to note how the Australia–China relationship has developed over the intervening years – citing trade and investment figures, and tourism dollars, and the growing numbers of Chinese students at Australi...

Democracy depends on sound public opinion about the major issues of the day. Today these issues are of unprecedented complexity and difficulty, requiring serious deliberation and decision making, and the need to move beyond the factional struggles and attempts to win over key parcels of votes we see dominating politics today. What we need is well considered public opinion to set the agenda for the...

How do we understand, imagine, visualise and create narratives for 50,000 years of Australian history? As commonly presented, Australia’s past seems to consist of 230 years of European colonisation and over 50,000 years of Aboriginal culture, the former the purview of historians and the latter of archaeologists. Yet it presents striking opportunities for a truly integrated and seamless deep contin...

The study of food choice is at the forefront of research in economics today due to its repercussion on nutritional issues for the population and consequently on public health. Consumers display varied preferences towards food, and react sometimes controversially to nutrition information conveyed to them via food labels or other formats. Choices vary according to taste preferences, but are also inf...

The 2017 ASAL Patron's Lecture (with special thanks to the Cultural Fund of the Copyright Agency) Malaysian-Australian author, rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia, Omar Musa combines readings from his own work with his thoughts about his writing process, such key themes as migration, belonging and dreams, and reflections on Australian literature and culture at large. Held as part of the Syd...

Professor of Middle Eastern History at University of California, Irvine, Mark LeVine asks us to engage in the process of thinking outside the box, and move towards enabling Palestinians and Israelis to imagine a shared future that is no longer a zero-sum game or based inevitably on the domination of one group over the other. Chair: Dr Lucia Sorbera, Department of Arabic Language and Cultures, Facu...

Are you addicted to social media? Is this such a big deal? Or can you improve your mental health with technology? Our panel of experts from the Brain and Mind Centre join special international guests to discuss the pros and cons of technology when it comes to mental health. Held as part of Sydney Ideas and the 2017 Mental Health Month on 16 October 2017: http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/...

Professor Colin Mackerras surveys how the West has viewed China over time. He notes distinct worsening over the last half decade or so, both in the United States and in Australia, and argues that there is a good deal of politics in the images and that we should see these images not only as a reflection of China, but also of the West itself. Held as part of the Sydney Ideas program co-presented wit...

Historians these days probably get less sleep than anyone else – kept up by the echoes of the past in the radically shifting world political landscape. The historical allusions of contemporary governments in the US, and in Europe, are driving all manner of comparisons with the 1930s in particular, and the rise of Nazism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism. This panel brings together four University of...

A Sydney Ideas talk by Dr Mark Stafford Smith, Chief Coordinating Scientist – Adaptation, CSIRO. Co-presented with the Planetary Health Initiative at the University of Sydney. Mark Stafford Smith from CSIRO Australia is chair of the Future Earth’s Science Committee, which aims to ensure that Future Earth science is of the highest quality and makes recommendations on new and existing projects, as w...