Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.
speaker:
Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, Defence Counsel at the ICTR and Special Tribunal for Lebanon
Al Jazeera host Mehdi Hasan will challenge Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins sans Frontieres and former French Foreign Minister, on France’s military interventionism. Are the country’s motives altruistic or do they respond to a neo-colonialist agenda? And is there a tipping point when intervening becomes essential? Syria, Mali, Libya, Kosovo and more.
This debate will be filmed and aired on Al Jazeera English at a later date. Audience members will be invited to participate in a Q&A section during the second half of the conversation.
Order free tickets here: http://bernardkouchner.eventbrite.co.uk
A new report by the Humanitarian Innovation Project, Refugee Economies: Rethinking Popular Assumptions, will be launched to coincide with World Refugee Day, on Friday 20 June 2014. It is one of the very first studies on the economic life of refugees and fundamentally challenges existing models of refugee assistance.
The report is based on participatory, mixed methods research including about 1,600 surveys in Uganda, one of the few refugee-hosting countries in Africa that allows refugees the right to work and freedom of movement. However, it has wider implications for the emerging refugee crises around the world.
Far from being uniformly dependent, refugees are part of complex and vibrant economic systems. They are often entrepreneurial and, if given the opportunity, can help themselves and their communities, as well as contributing to the host economy. The data in the new report challenges five popular myths about refugees’ economic lives:
that refugees are economically isolated;
that they are a burden on host states;
that they are economically homogenous;
that they are technologically illiterate;
that they are dependent on humanitarian assistance.
Read more about the report: http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/refugeeeconomies
Oxford Transitional Justice Research is pleased to invite you to its 2014 Summer Conference ‘Borders and Boundaries in Transitional Justice’.
This year’s conference, hosted with the support of the Planethood Foundation, Law Faculty, and the Centre for Criminology, will explore the issue of how borders and boundaries affect transitional justice processes across the world. The conference is organised around four panels:
The interplay between local, regional, and foreign transnational processes;
The role of diaspora and stateless communities in transitional justice;
The ways in which international law is dealing with cross-border transitional justice concerns; and
How local, national, and global approaches are affecting the theory and practice of transitional justice.
Registration is now open and we encourage all potential participants to register as soon as possible. Spaces are limited. We particularly welcome graduate students and early career researchers working on issues of transitional justice. A small registration fee includes tea and coffee and a light lunch.
In 2014 Barnett House is celebrating its centenary. The celebrations culminate with the Reunion Weekend on 12-13 July 2014.
This includes:
– Keynote talk from Magdalena Sepulveda, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
– The 100th birthday tea party (the V-C Andrew Hamilton will cut the birthday cake!)
– A talk on the history of Barnett House and the launch of the book on the history.
– Open house at the department with displays of historic material and current research.
– Drinks and dinner with an after dinner talk from Prof Jonathan Bradshaw.
– Showing of the film Rich Man, Poor Man based on research carried out by Robert Walker and Elaine Chase with a discussion with the director of the film.
Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Professor of Global Health; and Commissioner on the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations, will provide his perspective on the key long-term challenges in global health, addressing the burden of both communicable and non-communicable disease.
This seminar will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEwlBU7bNrA
About the speaker:
Professor Peter Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a Professor of Global Health. Professor Piot is also a Commissioner on the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations. In 2009-2010 he was the Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College for Science, Technology and Medicine, London. He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until 2008, and was an Associate Director of the Global Programme on AIDS of WHO. Under his leadership UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS, also spear heading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN system organizations.
Professor Piot has a medical degree from the University of Ghent (1974) and a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Antwerp (1980). In 1976 he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire while working at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. He was a professor of microbiology, and of public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, the Free University of Brussels, and the University of Nairobi, was a Senior Fellow at the University of Washington, a Scholar in Residence at the Ford Foundation, and a Senior Fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He held the chair 2009/2010 “Knowledge against poverty” at the College de France in Paris, and is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences, and is also an elected member of the Académie Nationale de Médicine of France, and of the Royal Academy of Medicine of his native Belgium, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
He was knighted as a baron in 1995 and has published over 550 scientific articles and 16 books, including his memior No Time to Lose. In 2013 he was the laureate of the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research and in 2014 he received the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health.
Speaker: Lina Molokotos-Liederman (Uppsala University)
The first part of the seminar will look at the Orthodox Christian approach of addressing social issues of poverty, injustice and inequality, and the concept of Orthodox diakonia. The second part will focus on Greece as a case study, discussing the response of the Church to the social costs of the economic crisis (its charitable social welfare activities), but also the impact of this crisis on the Church itself.
As the dust settles after the Scottish referendum and the UK gears up for the next general election, the Oxford Martin School and the Department of Politics and International Relations bring constitutional experts together to debate what next for the United Kingdom?
Panel:
Professor Iain McLean, Professor of Politics, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford and specialist in devolution
Dr Scot Peterson, Bingham Research Fellow in Constitutional Studies and Junior Research Fellow in the Social Sciences, University of Oxford
Chair: Mure Dickie, Financial Times Scotland Correspondent
There will be a drinks reception after the debate, all welcome
About the speakers
Professor Iain McLean was born in Edinburgh and went to school there. He came to England for the first time as a student at Oxford where he obtained his MA, M.Phil and D.Phil. He was a college tutor in an undergraduate college for 13 years, during which the college scaled the heights of PPE. He has worked at the Universities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Warwick, and Oxford, and has held visiting professorships at Washington & Lee, Stanford, Yale, and the Australian National University.
He has been an elected councillor on Tyne & Wear County Council (committee chair) and Oxford City Council (group leader). In recent years he has principally worked on UK public policy, and started the Department of Politics and International Relations Public Policy Unit in 2005.
His research areas and insterests are:
Public policy, especially UK. Specialisms in devolution; spatial issues in taxation and public expenditure; electoral systems; constitutional reform; church and state.
The Union (of the United Kingdom) since 1707. Rational-choice approaches to political history
Dr Scot Peterson primarily in Colorado, in the United States, where he did his undergraduate work in Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of Chicago in Political Science, and attended law school at the University of California (Boalt Hall) in Berkeley. After practicing law for fifteen years in Colorado he came to Oxford, where he earned his doctoral degree.
He is interested in the constitutional history of the United Kingdom and of the United States, focusing particularly on matters arising from the relationship between church and state. His D.Phil. thesis was about the religious establishments, or the lack of them, in the three nations that make up Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) in the early twentieth century. He is concerned with questions of why those relationships have been maintained in recent history, despite the supposed ‘secularization’ inherent in modern Western democracies. He analyzes them as political and historical phenomena, engaging in archive research and applying rational choice methodology.
Eating Restoration Glue to Stay Alive: A History of Hermitage
With Dr Rosalind P. Blakesley, University of Cambridge
Ashmolean Lecture Theatre
Wed 22 Oct, 11am–12pm
The Hermitage is an institute like no other, housing over 3 million objects in buildings as iconic as the Winter Palace, seat of the Romanov dynasty until its spectacular fall from grace in 1917. As the Hermitage celebrates its 250th anniversary, Dr Blakesley charts its history from the lavish patronage of Catherine the Great to the unparalleled acquisitions of Impressionist and Post- Impressionist works.
No other large-scale health intervention can have as big an impact on child mortality as vaccination. Across the world millions of lives have been saved by innoculation, and in the past ten years the annual number of measles cases worldwide has dropped from one million to 200,000. But just as important as creating new vaccines is ensuring that children have access to them. Join us at the Oxford Martin School as Dr Matthew Snape, Consultant in Vaccinology at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS trust and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Oxford, looks at the challenges involved in making sure the success story of childhood vaccination can be a global one.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CO2L5Rq7tU
Tutankhamun and Revolution
With Dr Paul Collins, Jaleh Hearn Curator for Ancient Near East and co-curator of ‘Discovering Tutankhamun’
Ashmolean Lecture Theatre
Sat 25 Oct, 2‒3pm
This talk considers three historical periods when the image and idea of Tutankhamun became a focus for revolution both in Egypt and beyond. Starting in the ancient world, the revolutions of the Amarna age, into which Tutankhamun was born, witnessed a transformation in the concept of kingship. In the early 20th century, as Egypt claimed independence from British control, Tutankhamun became a symbol of opposition to imperial rule. Finally, in recent years, Egypt has faced political upheaval and revolutionaries have again employed the image of Tutankhamun.
Despite our extensive knowledge of the major challenges the world faces during coming decades, impasse exists in global attempts to address economic, climate, trade, security, and other key issues. The Chancellor will examine the implications of this gridlock, drawing on the work of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations – of which he is a member – as well as experiences from his distinguished political and diplomatic career.
This lecture is also being live webcast on youtube, please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3QmvwvHCk
About the Speaker
Lord Patten joined the Conservative Research Department in 1966. He was seconded to the Cabinet Office in 1970 and was personal assistant and political secretary to Lord Carrington and Lord Whitelaw when they were Chairmen of the Conservative Party from 1972-1974. In 1974 he was appointed the youngest ever Director of the Conservative Research Department, a post which he held until 1979.
Lord Patten was elected as Member of Parliament for Bath in May 1979, a seat he held until April 1992. In 1983 he wrote The Tory Case, a study of Conservatism. Following the General Election of June 1983, Lord Patten was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and in September 1985 Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science. In September 1986 he became Minister for Overseas Development at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1989 and was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1998. In July 1989 he became Secretary of State for the Environment. In November 1990 he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chairman of the Conservative Party.
Lord Patten was appointed Governor of Hong Kong in April 1992, a position he held until 1997, overseeing the return of Hong Kong to China. He was Chairman of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland set up under the Good Friday Peace Agreement, which reported in 1999. From 1999 to 2004 he was European Commissioner for External Relations, and in January 2005 he took his seat in the House of Lords. In 2006 he was appointed Co-Chair of the UK-India Round Table. He was Chairman of the BBC Trust from 2011-2014.
He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, and Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He served as Chancellor of Newcastle University from 1999 to 2009, and was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2003. His publications include What Next? Surviving the 21st Century (2008); Not Quite the Diplomat: Home Truths About World Affairs (2005) and East and West (1998), about Asia and its relations with the rest of the world.
This lecture is a joint event by the Oxford Martin School and The Oxford International Relations Society (IRSoc)
Speaker: Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK
The lecture is free and open to all and will be followed by a drinks reception for members of IRSoc, membership is available on the night.
About the speaker:
Kate Allen is the Director of Amnesty International UK. She fronts Amnesty’s campaigns which demand respect for women’s rights, stronger restrictions on the arms trade, the release of all prisoners of conscience, and an end to torture and the death penalty.
About IRSoc:
Oxford International Relations Society is one of the most active and dynamic societies at Oxford. Its remit is to educate students about the opportunities and challenges in global affairs, including international law. Our events are widely anticipated as highlights of Oxford’s calendar and we are building an exceptional reputation among our members and throughout the wider student body. (http://irsoc.org/)
Dr David Clifton, Royal Academy of Engineering University Fellow in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, will discuss how healthcare systems world-wide are entering a new, exciting phase: ever-increasing quantities of complex, multiscale data concerning all aspects of patient care are starting to be routinely acquired and stored, a process in which mobile health (or “m-health”) has a key role to play.
This seminar will describe the next generation of mobile healthcare technologies, where much of the key, underpinning research is taking place at Oxford. David will describe how mobile healthcare can improve patient outcomes, allow patients a greater stake in managing their own conditions, and, in underdeveloped regions, improve access to affordable healthcare.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C4CrjeQsOk
About the speaker:
Dr David Clifton is a tenure-track member of faculty in the Department of Engineering Science of the University of Oxford, and a Governing Body fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is a University Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
A graduate of the Department of Engineering Science, Dr Clifton trained in information engineering and was supervised by Professor Lionel Tarassenko CBE, Chair of Electrical Engineering. He spent four years as a post-doctoral researcher in biomedical engineering at Oxford before his appointment to the faculty, at which point he started the Computational Health Informatics (CHI) lab.
Dr Clifton teaches the undergraduate mathematics syllabus in Engineering Science, runs the graduate course in machine learning at the Oxford Centre for Doctoral Training in Healthcare Innovation, and teaches engineering policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford. He is a founding Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical & Healthcare Informatics (JBHI), an Associate Editor of BMC Medical Informatics, and of the British Journal of Health Informatics & Monitoring (BJHIM). He is the Associate Director of the Oxford Centre for Affordable Healthcare (OxCAHT).
This public lecture is held by the Oxford Martin School in conjunction with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and Wittgenstein Centre
Programme:
A new view on humans in the 21st century: selected results from the book, (World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century) – Professor Wolfgang Lutz
Panel Discussion:
Professor Wolfgang Lutz, Founding Director, Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital
Professor Francesco Billari, Head of Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Professor of Sociology and Demography, Fellow of Nuffield College
Professor David Coleman, Supernumerary Fellow in Human Sciences and University Professor in Demography
Professor Sarah Harper, Co-Director, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, Oxford Martin School
Q & A with the audience and lead authors Bilal Barakat, Stuart Basten and Anne Goujon
The lecture will be followed br a drinks reception, all welcome
About the speakers
Wolfgang Lutz is Founding Director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU), Leader of the World Population Program at IIAS, Director of the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and Professorial Research Fellow at the Oxford Martin School for 21st Century Studies. He has worked on family demography, fertility analysis, population projections, and the interactions between population and environment. He is author of the series of world population projections produced at IIASA and has developed approaches for projecting education and human capital. He is also principal investigator of the Asian MetaCentre for Population and Sustainable Development Analysis. Wolfgang Lutz is author and editor of 28 books and more than 200 refereed articles, including seven in Science and Nature.
Francesco Billari is Head of Department, Professor of Sociology and Demography and Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University. He is currently President of the European Association for Population Studies, a Fellow of the European Academy of Sociology, and one of the founding members of Population Europe. His research areas include Ageing, Globalisation, Human Development, Gender Practices in Household, Ageing and Social Policy, Anthropological Demography.
David Coleman has been the Professor of Demography at Oxford University since 2002 and was the Reader in Demography between 1996-2002, and Lecturer in Demography since 1980. Between 1985 and 1987 he worked for the British government, as the Special Adviser to the Home Secretary, and then to the Ministers of Housing and of the Environment. Research interests include the comparative demographic trends in the industrial world; the future of fertility, the demographic consequences of migration and the demography of ethnic minorities. International collaborative work continues on these topics at the Vienna Institute of Demography. He has worked as a consultant for the Home Office, for the United Nations and for private business.
Sarah Harper is Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, Oxford Martin School and Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College. She serves on the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, which advises the Prime Minister on the scientific evidence for strategic policies and frameworks. She currently chairs the UK government Foresight Review on Ageing Societies, and the European Ageing Index Panel for the UNECE Population Unit and European Commission’s Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. Sarah Harper is a Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute, and a Director of the Pension Foundation ClubVita.
A discussion with two representatives of an Israeli peace village called Neve Shalom (Hebrew) / Wahat al-Salam (Arabic). In this unique village, Arab and Jewish Israelis have chosen to live together in peace, celebrating both cultures, languages and religions equally together.
Bob Fenton and Rami Mannaa, from the village, explain how the current political situation impacts upon their lives and work towards peace.
Chaired by The Very Rev John Drury, Chaplain of All Souls and Former Dean of Christ Church, Oxford.
Free Admission – Retiring collection for community peace projects bringing together Arab and Jewish teenagers from outside the village.
Non-fat, low-fat, saturated fat, trans fats, healthy fats – in an era where we seem to be constantly bombarded with often conflicting messages about our diets, is all this information actually making us any healthier? How can we cut through media hysteria and make wise choices about the food we eat, and what impact do our consumption habits have, not just on our own health but that of the planet?
Speakers:
Professor Susan Jebb, Professor of Diet and Population Health, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Dr Tara Garnett, Principal Investigator, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food
Dr Mike Rayner, Principal Investigator, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food
Join in on Twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UbwkWsEdmU
About the Speakers:
Professor Susan Jebb is a nutrition scientist and her research interests are focused on how what we eat affects the risk of gaining weight or becoming obese and the interventions that might be effective to help people lose weight or reduce the risk of obesity-related diseases. She has also conducted a series of randomised controlled trials to study the impact of dietary changes on the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In general, this work highlights that body weight is a more important risk factor for ill-health than differences in the nutritional composition of the diet. She has strong scientific collaborations with the Behaviour and Health Research unit at the University of Cambridge and the MRC Human Nutrition Research unit, where she was a Programme Leader for many years.
She is also very interested in how scientific evidence on diet is translated into policy and practice, by government, industry, the public health community and the media. She was the science advisor for the Foresight obesity report and subsequently chaired the cross-government Expert Advisory Group on obesity from 2007-11. She is now a member of the Public Health England Obesity Programme Board. She also Chairs the DH Public Health Responsibility Deal Food Network, developing voluntary agreements with industry to improve the food environment. She is one of the Chairs of the NICE Public Health Advisory Committees. She is actively involved in a number of events and media projects to engage the public in issues relating to diet and health. In 2008 she was awarded an OBE for services to public health. She is a Trustee and former Chair of the Association for the Study of Obesity.
Dr Tara Garnett is a Principal Investigator at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and she initiated, and runs the Food Climate Research Network, now based at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
Her work focuses on the contribution that the food system makes to greenhouse gas emissions and the scope for emissions reduction, looking at the technological options, at what could be achieved by changes in behaviour and how policies could help promote both these approaches. She is particularly interested in the relationship between emissions reduction objectives and other social and ethical concerns, particularly human health, livelihoods, and animal welfare. Much of her focus is on livestock, since this represents a nodal point where many of these issues converge.
Tara is keen to collaborate through the FCRN with other organisations to undertake research, organise events and build and extend interdisciplinary, intersectoral knowledge in this field.
Dr Mike Rayner is a Principal Investigator on the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and Director of the British Heart Foundation Centre on Population Approaches for NCD Prevention, which is based within the Nuffield Department of Population Health of the University of Oxford, and which he founded in 1993.
Mike’s particular research interests are in food labelling, food marketing, food taxes and the relationship between a healthy diet and sustainable diet.
Mike is also Chair of Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming in the UK, and Chair of its Childrens’ Food Campaign in the UK. He is a trustee of the UK Health Forum, Chair of the Nutrition Expert Group for the European Heart Network based in Brussels and a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the International Obesity Task Force. He is also an ordained priest in the Church of England.
Globalisation has brought us vast benefits including growth in incomes, education, innovation and connectivity. Professor Ian Goldin, Director of the Oxford Martin School, argues that it also has the potential to destabilise our societies. In The Butterfly Defect: How globalisation creates systemic risks, and what to do about it, he and co-author Mike Mariathasan, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Vienna, argue that the recent financial crisis is an example of the risks that the world will face in the coming decades.
The risks spread across supply chains, pandemics, infrastructure, ecology, climate change, economics and politics. Unless these risks are addressed, says Goldin, they could lead to greater protectionism, xenophobia, nationalism and to deglobalisation, rising conflict and slower growth.
The book talk will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception
This book talk will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuW2rgtZuIM
About the Book
Global hyperconnectivity and increased system integration have led to vast benefits, including worldwide growth in incomes, education, innovation, and technology. But rapid globalization has also created concerns because the repercussions of local events now cascade over national borders and the fallout of financial meltdowns and environmental disasters affects everyone. The Butterfly Defect addresses the widening gap between systemic risks and their effective management. It shows how the new dynamics of turbo-charged globalization has the potential and power to destabilize our societies. Drawing on the latest insights from a wide variety of disciplines, Ian Goldin and Mike Mariathasan provide practical guidance for how governments, businesses, and individuals can better manage risk in our contemporary world.
Goldin and Mariathasan assert that the current complexities of globalization will not be sustainable as surprises become more frequent and have widespread impacts. The recent financial crisis exemplifies the new form of systemic risk that will characterize the coming decades, and the authors provide the first framework for understanding how such risk will function in the twenty-first century. Goldin and Mariathasan demonstrate that systemic risk issues are now endemic everywhere in supply chains, pandemics, infrastructure, ecology and climate change, economics, and politics. Unless we are better able to address these concerns, they will lead to greater protectionism, xenophobia, nationalism, and, inevitably, deglobalization, rising conflict, and slower growth.
The Butterfly Defect shows that mitigating uncertainty and systemic risk in an interconnected world is an essential task for our future.
There remain many unanswered questions in medical research about both the prevention and treatment of disease, but new technologies are opening up new opportunities to provide insights. One approach, in particular, the capacity to assemble and analyse very large health datasets, is underpinning the work of both speakers addressing problems at both ends of life.
Kazem Rahimi is utilising innovative digital technologies and large healthcare datasets to find better approaches to managing established cardiovascular disease including heart failure. Terry Dwyer, on the other hand, is pooling data on one million mothers and babies to help uncover causes of childhood cancer – an area where, despite considerable effort, little progress has been made over recent decades.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURabFdYHJY
About the speakers:
Professor Terry Dwyer is the Executive Director of the George Institute for Global Health at the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Epidemiology, University of Oxford.
Terry is a non-communicable disease epidemiologist with extensive experience in the conduct of cohort and case control studies. He was previously Director of the Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania, coordinating research projects including those on cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, childhood asthma, and diabetes.
His work has focussed on infant and child health. His team’s research on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and sleeping position was recognised by the NHMRC, Australia, as one of the most important contributions to medical research by Australia in the 20th Century. Much of this work was conducted on the 11,000 infants enrolled in the Tasmanian Infant Health Survey (TIHS) between 1988 and 1995 and was supported by funds from both NH&MRC and NIH.
He is currently playing a leading role in two large global cohort collaborations. The first involves a collaboration of birth cohorts in more than ten countries to obtain prospective evidence on the causes of childhood cancer. Little prospective data on this association has previously been available. This consortium, the International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (14C), seeks to assemble data on approximately 1 million mothers and babies who will be followed through childhood. It has been supported financially by NCI, and currently Terry is working on this from IARC.
The second study is focused on following around 40,000 subjects who were first measured at school age and are now moving into their fourth and fifth decades. The CDAH study is one of six coborts in three countries contributing data to this consortium. This study seeks to estimate the separate effect of childhood physical and lifestyle characteristics on risk of major adult diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. There have been many publications on this including one in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011.
Dr Kazem Rahimi, Associate Professor, is the Deputy Director of the George Institute for Global Health at the Oxford Martin School; James Martin Senior Fellow in Essential Healthcare at the University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
As the Deputy Director he leads the Essential Healthcare Programme, which aims to find practical and affordable solutions for the global health priorities of the world’s largest emerging economies, as well as the priorities of vulnerable or disadvantaged populations in established economies.
He graduated in medicine from the University of Leipzig in Germany with postgraduate training in cardiology and health services research in Leipzig, London and Oxford. Prior to joining the George Institute, in 2010, he was a Research Fellow at Oxford’s Clinical Trial Service and Epidemiological Studies Unit. His research interests include service delivery innovation in chronic disease prevention and management, large-scale complex intervention studies, and data-driven electronic decision support systems.
A public meeting with a short introductory talk followed by questions and discussion.
The political economy of the Gulf states
Thursday 13 November, 7:30pm to 9:00pm
The Mitre, corner of High St and Turl St (upstairs function room)
All welcome
Organised by Oxford Communist Corresponding Society.
Panel:
Professor Charles Godfray, Director, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and author of the chapter How can 9-10 Billion People be Fed Sustainably and Equitably by 2050?
Professor Ian Goldin, Director, Oxford Martin School, Editor of Is the Planet Full? and author of the chapter Governance Matters Most
Professor Sarah Harper, Director, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, Oxford Martin School and author of the chapter Demographic and Environmental Transitions
Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Director, Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests, Oxford Martin School and author of the chapter The Metabolism of a Human-Dominated Planet
Dr Toby Ord, James Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology and author of the chapter Overpopulation or Underpopulation?
The panel will discuss whether our planet can continue to support a growing population estimated to reach 10 billion people by the middle of the century.
The panel discussion will be followed by a book signing and drinks reception.
This panel discussion will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFIqDQP1Vjc
About the Book:
What are the impacts of population growth? Can our planet support the demands of the ten billion people anticipated to be the world’s population by the middle of this century?
While it is common to hear about the problems of overpopulation, might there be unexplored benefits of increasing numbers of people in the world? How can we both consider and harness the potential benefits brought by a healthier, wealthier and larger population? May more people mean more scientists to discover how our world works, more inventors and thinkers to help solve the world’s problems, more skilled people to put these ideas into practice?
In this book, leading academics with a wide range of expertise in demography, philosophy, biology, climate science, economics and environmental sustainability explore the contexts, costs and benefits of a burgeoning population on our economic, social and environmental systems.
The next decade could see significant steps towards eradicating viruses which threaten the lives of millions of people worldwide. Major progress has been made towards a cure for hepatitis C, but at $84,000 for a course of treatment, will the cost of the drugs stand in the way of a global roll-out? And with the high cost and risks of toxicity and drug resistance making anti-retrovirals a less than ideal long-term solution for HIV patients, what breakthroughs are giving scientists hope in their efforts to find a cure for the virus?
Join in on Twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN7NwoOQP-s
About the speakers:
Dr John Frater is a Principal Investigator in the Institute for Emerging Infections, Oxford Martin School and a Clinical Research Fellow in The Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. John carried out his medical training at Cambridge University and the Royal London Hospital. He undertook a PhD at Imperial College, studying African strains of HIV and their susceptibility to treatment.
Following this he gained a MRC Clinician Scientist Award to work at Oxford University researching HIV evolution and strategies for HIV eradication. He is currently the scientific lead and co-chair of ‘CHERUB’, (Collaborative HIV Eradication of Reservoirs: UK BRC), an NIHR-supported collaboration dedicated to finding a cure for HIV infection. He also works as an Honorary Consultant Physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
Dr Ellie Barnes is a Principal Investigator in the Institute for Emerging Infections, Oxford Martin School; MRC Senior Clinical Fellow and Honorary Consultant in Hepatology in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford.
Ellie trained in medicine at St. Bartholomew’s hospital, London. Towards the end of her time there she took a year away to study human evolution, social biology and the philosophy of science at University College London. She specialized in liver medicine, attracted to this by the mix of practical and academic skills required. Her PhD was in T cell immunity to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the context of therapy with Paul Klenerman and Geoff Dusheiko. She has been supported by the MRC (UK) throughout, more recently as a Clinician Scientist at the Peter Medawar Building for pathogen research in Oxford.
In this lecture, Frank Vibert will argue that, in order to understand the evolving patterns of governance in modern democratic societies, we need to assess these democracies not just in political terms, but in the context of the complex interplay of systems of social coordination — including the market, the law, regulation, and civil society.
Of particular importance is the reliance on regulatory systems, in view of the fact that they are seen by some as ‘inferior’ and ‘crowding out’ other better systems, including democratic politics. He will demonstrate why such views are mistaken.
Instead, he will argue that regulation has become the principal way to adjust relationships between different systems, as well as the predominant means by which we counter the adaptive bias toward the status quo in other systems.
Professor Chas Bountra and Dr Javier Lezaun take a fresh look at the way we organise early-stage (high-risk/high-reward) pharmaceutical research.
The drug discovery process is extremely high risk, takes too long and is becoming unaffordable. The pharmaceutical industry, despite massive investments, has been forced to reduce risk and costs. With ageing societies and the rise of chronic diseases of modern living, we desperately need better therapeutics. Professor Chas Bountra and Dr Javier Lezaun will examine alternatives to the traditional way of doing things, and propose a radical solution – arguably the only way to resolve this dilemma.
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This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oamayzlviAM
About the speakers:
Professor Chas Bountra is Professor of Translational Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine; Associate Member of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford and Chief Scientist at the SGC (Structural Genomics Consortium). He is also a Visiting Professor in Neuroscience and Mental Health at Imperial College, London. Chas is an invited expert on several government and charitable research funding bodies, and an advisor for many academic, biotech and pharma drug discovery programmes.
His current research is aimed at determining the 3D X ray structures of novel proteins, generating novel small molecule inhibitors, using these to dissect disease networks and hence identifying new targets for drug discovery.
Chas is an advocate for pre-competitive science, up to and including Phase IIa clinical studies. The SGC publishes all findings immediately (more than one per week), works closely with over 100 academic labs across the world and 8 pharmaceutical companies, and shares all reagents and expertise freely.
Chas has worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and has experience of all stages of discovery and development. He was involved in the launch of Alosetron for the treatment of IBS, has progressed more than 30 clinical candidates, many of these into Phase II studies and 5 into Phase III studies. His therapeutic expertise is in neuro-psychiatric, gastro-intestinal (GI) and inflammatory diseases.
Dr Javier Lezaun is James Martin Lecturer in Science and Technology Governance, and Deputy Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Oxford Martin School. Javier received a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University, and before coming to Oxford faculty he held positions at the London School of Economics and Amherst College. Javier is a Fellow at Kellogg College.
Javier directs the BioProperty research programme, an initiative funded by the European Research Council to examine the role of property rights in biomedical research and explore the value of open innovation models in pharmaceutical R&D. He is currently investigating the organisation and governance of pre-competitive R&D against neglected tropical diseases, and the role of IP regimes in the evolution of stem cell biology, synthetic biology, and the development of transgenic organisms.
Vaccines have saved an estimated 500 million lives around the world since Edward Jenner discovered how to prevent smallpox infection in 1796. But a successful vaccine roll-out is about more than just medicine; it encompasses engineering, economics, policy, government and even transport infrastructure. More than a decade into the 21st century, and with a new outbreak of the Ebola virus claiming thousands of lives in Africa, does a successful strategy for creating and delivering new vaccines require a whole new approach?
Speakers:
Professor Susan Lea, Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines
Professor Christoph Tang, Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines
Professor Jeffrey Almond, Former Vice President and Head of Discovery Research and External R&D at Sanofi Pasteur
Dr Ian Feavers, Head of the Division of Bacteriology, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC)
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This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCCbW5DHdN0
About the speakers:
Professor Susan Lea is Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines; Oxford University Statutory Chair of Microbiology and Professorial Fellow at Wadham College.
Susan is primarily interested in what structural biology can help us understand about the way in which pathogens and their hosts first encounter each other. More recently this work has led to potential therapeutic opportunities with structures suggesting opportunities for novel vaccination strategies.
Professor Christoph Tang is Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines and the Glaxo Professor of Cellular Pathology at the William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford.
His group studies the pathogenesis and prevention of disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis and Shigella flexneri, particularly during interactions with the host innate immune system.
He was previously an MRC Clinician Scientist at the University of Oxford, and completed his PhD at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School on the identification of virulence factors in the fungal pathogen, Aspergillus fumigates. Christoph originally trained in medicine at the University of Liverpool and spent two years working in The Gambia, West Africa.
Professor Jeffrey Almond Former Vice President and Head of Discovery Research and External R&D at Sanofi Pasteur and Visiting Fellow at the William School of Pathology, University of Oxford.
He was lecturer at the University of Leicester from 1979-85 and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Reading 1985-99. He has published extensively, especially in the field of Virology.
His scientific contributions include the first demonstration that a single gene can determine host range – a finding highly relevant to understanding evolution of new pandemic strains; completion of the genetic map of an avian influenza virus, and the first detailed description of the proteins of Influenza B virus. He has also made major contributions to our understanding of polio virus and its vaccines.
In 1985 as a young academic Almond won the Fleming Award for outstanding contribution to microbiological research by a young microbiologist in the UK and the pace and extent of his contributions have not diminished. In his previous role he was responsible for the scientific rationale underpinning approximately 30 vaccine projects covering viruses, bacteria and eukaryotic parasites.
During the BSE crisis he served as coordinator of the BBSRC’s Research programme on the Spongiform Encephalopathies and was a member of the Government’s Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee (SEAC). He is an Elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and in 1999 was awarded the Ivanovsky Medal for “Contributions to the Development of Virology” by The Scientific Council of Virology of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences
Dr Ian Feavers PhD, is Head of the Division of Bacteriology at the NIBSC, UK. He studied for his PhD at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, eventually moving to NIBSC after periods of postdoctoral research at the University of Sheffield and the Friedrich Miescher Institut in Basel.
During the late 1990s, when new conjugate vaccines were being introduced, he headed the laboratory responsible for the control and standardisation of meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines. Ian continues to oversee an active research programme on the molecular genetics and immunology of meningococcal and pneumococcal antigens.
Because of his broad experience of bacterial vaccines and molecular biology, he has been closely involved with a number of meningococcal vaccine developments. He regularly contributes to WHO and EU guidelines, serves as one of NIBSC’s representatives on the Vaccine Working Party of the EMA, and is a member of the JCVI subgroup on meningococcal vaccines. Ian teaches on a number of vaccine related courses in the University of London and is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College.
This panel discussion is a joint event by the Oxford Martin School, The Oxford International Relations Society (IRSoc) and Sky News’ Stand Up Be Counted campaign.
The panel, entitled “Do we only care about the vote when we don’t have it?,” will seek to explore the issue of voter disengagement in the UK in light of democratic movements worldwide. In the run-up to the General Election, the panel event promises to be an insightful look into a critical issue in both domestic and international politics.
Chaired by Sky News’ Diplomatic Editor Tim Marshall, the panel will consist of:
Baroness Falkner of Margravine, Chair of the Liberal Democrats Parliamentary Policy Committee on Foreign Affairs
Areeq Chowdury, Chief Executive, WebRoots Democracy
Professor Helen Margetts, Director and Professor of Society and the Internet, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
The lecture is free and open to all and will be followed by a drinks reception for members of IRSoc, membership is available on the night.
If you are interested in knowing more about the Sky News Stand Up Be Counted campaign, visit https://standup.news.sky.com/app/
21CC is a multidisciplinary conference, which unites leading minds to explore the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. Led by Oxford students it is partnered with the Oxford Martin School, which pioneers research, policy and debate on global issues.
What: Our 2015 conference will cover some of the most pressing global challenges and opportunities of the 21st century including cybersecurity, geoengineering, inequality and arms trafficking.
Who: Speakers include the Director of Privacy International, the UK Parliamentary Cyber Adviser, previous Director of the Special Forces, the ex-VP of the World Bank, Head of Arms Control at Amnesty International, Directors from the Institute for New Economic Thinking, leading climate change scientists, UN and NATO experts and many more!
When: 7th Feb, Saturday of 3rd Week, at the Mathematics Institute.
Visit: www.21cc-oxford.com for tickets and more info!
Join members from across the LWOB student divisions, academics and practitioners for a day of critical reflection and creativity. On Saturday 7th of February at the apt location of the Oxford Martin School in the heart of the city, we will be asking what the 21st Century holds for the Human Rights Agenda. The morning keynote and speaker panel will equip you with a road-map of lessons and criteria with which to face the afternoon. In the afternoon sessions delegates will split into individual ’21st century Right’ panels and aim to draft and vote on the desirability of a currently unrecognised Human Right.
Rights being mooting in the afternoon include: The Right to a Sustainable Environment, The Right to Transparent Transactions, The Right to be Forgotten
Information on speakers, the timetable and tickets for the conference can all be found here: http://oxlwobconference.wix.com/conference-2015#!home/mainPage
Global Politics, Economy and Society research seminar series with Dr Leandro Vergara-Camus (SOAS, University of London) on “Sugarcane Ethanol: The Hen of the Golden Eggs? Agribusiness and the State in Lula’s Brazil”.
John Henry Brookes Building, room JHB206, Monday 9 February 2015, 4.15pm.