This lecture is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and The Institute of New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School

Dishonest practices brought to light by the 2008 crisis have raised questions about the incentives faced by bankers, and about their training. Unfortunately, the remedy of using market discipline through competition policy to make bankers ‘behave’ is problematic.

So there have been many calls for more ethical bankers, but what might this actually look like in practice? Our answer is given by the idea of ‘principled agents’ who at times exhibit a high degree of concern for others in standard economic calculations and at other times operate from moral principle. But how compatible is the use of moral principles with standard economic cost benefit analysis?

At a time of heightened political tension and policy confusion about the refugee crisis, this lecture will explore 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. It will also argue that winning the argument for supporting refugees is vital to the moral standing of western societies which constructed the international order after World War 2.

Our societies are increasingly dependent on, and shaped by, our information technologies. We read, watch, communicate, interact, and monitor digitally, both as individuals and in our institutions.

As we document and store every conceivable facet of our lives we expose tensions between the availability of information and the freedoms that we enjoy. We rightly expect a level of personal privacy and freedom of expression while, equally justifiably, expecting transparency from our governments and businesses. In practice, we all too often see the reverse.

In this talk Dr Joss Wright, Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, will examine technologies that seek to assert, resist, or subvert control over information, and assess the balance of the information we share as individuals and as a society. We will look at technologies such as the ‘dark web’ and Bitcoin, that seek to resist traditional observation and control, and the new forms of control introduced by broad-scale gathering of personal data and the algorithms used to act on it.

By understanding the consequences of hiding and sharing information, and the technologies and policies that we use to do so, we take a necessary step towards consciously guiding the shape of the future societies that we wish to see.

Leading campaigner for human rights and LGBT freedom since 1967; member of OutRage! Through the Peter Tatchell Foundation he campaigns for human rights in Britain and internationally; author of six books, including “The Battle for Bermondsey” (1983) and “We Don’t Want to March Straight – Masculinity, Queers & The Military” (1995)

Lord Browne of Madingley is presently Chairman of L1 Energy, the Chairman of Trustees of both the Tate and the QEII Prize for Engineering, and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.

Although criteria for identifying autism have been established based on behavioral factors, researchers are still exploring and developing models to describe the cognitive and affective differences that lead to the known behaviors. Some of these models offer competing ways of understanding autism; some simply describe characteristics of autism. Significantly, these models tend to involve cognitive functions that are also cited in accounts of moral responsibility. This suggests that autism may be a reason not to blame an autistic person for some actions that transgress social, ethical, or legal expectations even when we would certainly blame a neurotypical person for the same action. Whether to treat autism as exculpatory in any given circumstance appears to be influenced both by models of autism and by theories of moral responsibility. This talk will focus on a limited range of theories: autism as characterized in terms of executive function deficit, and moral responsibility based on access to appropriate reactive attitudes. In pursuing this particular combination of ideas, I do not intend to endorse them. The goal is, instead, to explore the implications of this combination of influential ideas about autism and about moral responsibility. These implications can be quite serious and practical for autists and those who interact directly with autists, as well as for broader communities as they attend to the fair, compassionate, and respectful treatment of increasing numbers of autistic adults.

Public event, all welcome. Booking essential.

By 2050, a quarter of humanity will be African. The continent is in profound transition, the scale of which matters not just for the citizens of Africa’s 54 nations, but for the world. It is the fastest urbanising continent, and experiencing rapid industrialisation.

Its economic growth has outperformed Latin America and most developed economies over recent years, yet 55% of Africa’s labour force today is still employed in agriculture, and the challenges of peace and security continue to occupy the headlines about the continent. Six hundred million of its citizens live without access to electricity, yet by 2014 more than 80% of the population had a mobile phone.

The facts about Africa’s growth and development leave no doubt about its unique trajectory, but how will the continent navigate these changes, and how will the world engage with this unprecedented scale and pace of change?

In Oxford, new approaches are being forged to studying and understanding Africa, including the Africa-Oxford Initiative and the inclusion of Africa within Oxford Martin School’s new research theme ‘Great Transitions’. Join us on 7 March to hear from Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of Oxfam International, Dr Carlos Lopes, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and current Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow, and Achim Steiner, Director of the Oxford Martin School, and be part of the debate as they discuss the range of African futures that could emerge over the coming decades.

This panel discussion will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

The fifth annual Ockenden International Prize for excellence in self-reliance projects among refugees and displaced people will be presented by Lord Alfred Dubs, Labour peer, on Tuesday 7th March 2017. Projects in Uganda, Egypt and Nepal will compete for the $100,000 prize. The two runners-up will each receive $25,000.

Semantics and the Resurgence of Populism

Dr Timothy Michael is a Tutorial Fellow in English Literature at Lincoln, whose research explores the intersection of literary and intellectual history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His first monograph – British Romanticism and the Critique of Political Reason (2016) – offers a groundbreaking analysis of how writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Bysshe Shelley critique the faculty of reason in its political capacities to test the kinds of knowledge available to it. His current project explores the rise of philosophical criticism in the long-eighteenth century, examining how developments in rhetorical and literary theory gave rise to the institution of criticism itself.

After completing a degree in mathematics at Lincoln, Kate Smurthwaite became a political activist and award-winning stand-up comedian. Kate has performed in comedy venues around the world, and in 2013 her long running Edinburgh Fringe show – ‘The News at Kate’ – won the prestigious Three Weeks Editor’s Choice Award. She has published journalism in The Guardian and Cosmopolitan, and frequently appears on major news shows to discuss her campaign work for groups such as No More Page Three and the National Secular Society. She is also the Vice Chair and Media Spokesperson for Abortion Rights UK, and teaches stand-up comedy through the City Academy in London

David Rochat will be examining the resurgence of populism through the lens of contemporary literary theory. David completed his undergraduate degree at the University in Lausanne, Switzerland, with a year at the University of Canterbury, before working as an academic intern at the Embassy of Switzerland in Qatar. He then came to Oxford to complete his MSt in Modern Languages, and develop his research interests in postcolonialism, life-writing and theories of literature.

Africa currently has the highest disease burden of any region of the world and the least resources in terms of health personnel and health systems. But things are changing rapidly, many countries are in the process of major epidemiologic transitions with falling childhood mortality and the prospects of controlling many of the traditional infectious causes of ill health. At the same time the combined effects of economic development and rapid demographic expansion against a background of increasing urbanisation will pose enormous new challenges for the health of African populations.

In this talk Kevin Marsh, Professor of Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford, will examine the possible trends for the health of the continent.

Rio gold medallist, Grace Clough, will talk about the experience of competing at sport’s highest levels. When not studying towards an MSc in Sociology, Grace is a member of the British Rowing Squad and won gold in rowing at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio. Grace will describe the unique training regime undertaken by British paralympic athletes with the aid of a short Team GB video. Join us to find out about the Rio experience, from the gruelling preparations to the exhilaration of competing and ultimately winning. There will be ample opportunity to ask questions.

Grace visits schools to advocate better integration of disability and to encourage students to persist in the face of obstacles. Her academic research looks at the media portrayal of disability and its impacts. Her own story is inspirational. She only took up rowing in late 2013, yet in an impressive unbeaten run she was a member of the LTA mixed coxed four that won gold at the 2014 and 2015 World Championships, then won gold again at the Paralympic Games at Rio 2016. In recognition of this, Grace was honoured with the award of the MBE in the New Year’s Honours list.

Join Grace in the Mawby Room at Kellogg College from 17:30 for refreshments. The seminar will begin at 17:45. It is free and open to all, and there is no need to book.

Saïd Business School is thrilled to announce Lawrence H. Summers, American economist and former Director of the National Economic Council for President Obama, will be in conversation with Dean Peter Tufano at the School on Thursday 16 March. Registration is essential to confirm your attendance.

Lawrence H. Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus of Harvard University. During the past two decades, he has served in a series of senior policy positions in Washington, D.C., including the 71st Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton, Director of the National Economic Council for President Obama and Vice President of Development Economics and Chief Economist of the World Bank.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and was awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1982. In 1983, he became one of the youngest individuals in recent history to be named as a tenured member of the Harvard University faculty. In 1987, Mr. Summers became the first social scientist ever to receive the annual Alan T. Waterman Award of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and in 1993 he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40.

He is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University and the Weil Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He and his wife Elisa New, a professor of English at Harvard, reside in Brookline with their six children.

The Diseases of Modern Life project is hosting an event on ‘Germs Revisited’.

Bad germs? Friendly bacteria? Do we need to rethink our relationships with the microscopic world? Join us for an interdisciplinary lunch time talk. All welcome. Lunch provided.

Using past and present ideas drawn from medicine, fiction, and art, Dr Emilie Taylor-Brown (Faculty of English), Dr Jamie Lorimer (School of Geography and the Environment), and Dr Nicola Fawcett (Medical Sciences Division) come together to discuss new ways of thinking about human-microbe relationships in dialogue with developing trends in microbiome studies.

The Diseases of Modern Life is supported by the European Research Council.

Jeffrey Aronson presents a light-hearted talk on spelling in systematic reviewing.

Jeff is a Consultant Physician and Clinical Pharmacologist at the Oxford University Department for Primary Health Care.

His research expertise includes methods of classifying, detecting, and reporting adverse drug reactions, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

This talk is part of the Meta-analysis course which is one of our Postgraduate modules in Evidence-Based Health Care.

This is a free event and members of the public are welcome to attend by registering

The twin political earthquakes of 2016 – Brexit and Trump’s election as President – have left the UK and USA in a condition of divisiveness, uncertainty and rancour. Both events symbolized a rejection not only of an existing domestic order, but also of certain international organizations, and indeed globalization more generally.

Sir Adam Roberts – Emeritus Professor in International Relations at Oxford University, and Past President of the British Academy – will explore key questions about these events. What caused them? What are their consequences for the EU and the rest of the world? Are they part of a wider resurgence of nationalism? Are we now in a ‘post-truth’ world? Is there now a need to re-think liberal ideas about politics?

Entry free. Donations to the fund-raising work of the Friends of Summertown Library are welcome at the door.

Saïd Business School is proud to welcome Kailash Satyarthi to speak at the School on Tuesday 25 April.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kailash Satyarthi will speak about the fight against modern slavery, sharing his experiences rescuing over 84,000 child slaves and labourers, the Global March that secured the first ever ILO definition on child labour and education campaigning in over 100 countries to ensure all children in the world get to go to school.

Mr Satyarthi will also introduce the new 100 million for 100 million campaign that was launched with 5,000 students and the President of India in December. It aims to be the biggest mobilisation in history and help globalise compassion at this increasing time of nationalism. Mr Satyarthi will also explain how individuals can make a difference and ensure all children are safe, free and educated.

Mr Satyarthi has been a tireless advocate of children’s rights for over three decades and is the founding president of the Global Campaign for Education, an exemplar civil society movement working to end the global education crisis.

The seminar will take place at Saïd Business School and is open for anyone to attend. Please remember that registration is required.

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, Richard Sambrook

Rima Marrouch, freelance journalist for Reuters, BBC, CBS, and Al Jazeera
26 Apr: ‘The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy: the polarized media landscape in Syria’

Saïd Business School is pleased to welcome Lubomira Rochet, Global Chief Digital Officer of the L’Oréal Group, to speak at the School on Wednesday 26 April.

Leading digital transformation at L’Oréal

L’Oréal is the world’s number one beauty company with leading brands such as Maybelline New York, L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Lancome, Kiehl’s, and Kerastase. The group was also named by Adweek as 2017’s hottest digital marketer. How did one of the world’s oldest consumer goods companies get to this position? Lubomira Rochet, the Chief Digital Officer for L’Oréal globally and member of the group’s executive committee, will talk about the digital transformation of L’Oréal’s businesses that she and her team have enacted since she joined the company in 2014.

The seminar is open for anyone to attend and will take place at Saïd Business School on Wednesday 26 April followed by a short networking drinks reception until around 7.30pm. Please remember that registration is required to attend this event.

This talk will outline some of the challenges of mixed methods research and illustrate how they can be addressed in health psychology and other health research. Felicity will critically reflect on mixed methods research that she has conducted and discuss the philosophical and technical challenges of mixed methods, grounding the discussion in a brief review of methodological literature.

Mixed methods research is characterized as having philosophical and technical challenges; the former can be addressed by drawing on pragmatism, the latter by considering formal mixed methods research designs proposed in a number of design typologies. There are important differences among the design typologies which provide diverse examples of designs that health researchers can adapt for their own mixed methods research. There are also similarities; in particular, many typologies explicitly orient to the technical challenges of deciding on the respective timing of qualitative and quantitative methods and the relative emphasis placed on each method. Characteristics, strengths, and limitations of different sequential and concurrent designs are identified by reviewing a series of mixed methods projects each conducted for a different purpose.

Adapting formal mixed methods designs can help health psychologists and other health researchers address the technical challenges of mixed methods research and identify the approach that best fits the research questions and purpose. This does not obfuscate the need to address philosophical challenges of mixing qualitative and quantitative methods.

Dr Felicity Bishop is a health psychologist leading an interdisciplinary programme of mixed methods research around complementary therapies and placebo effects in health care within Psychology at the University of Southampton.

This talk is part of the Mixed Methods in Health Research module, which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care.

This is a free event and members of the public are welcome to attend.

As part of the Surgical Grand Rounds Lecture Series, Professor François Pattou will be presenting ‘Gastric bypass; from intestinal glucose transport to diabetes. What is the expected duration?’.

François Pattou is Professor of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of Lille, France, and Head of the Department of General and Endocrine Surgery at Lille University Hospital. Professor Pattou also leads a research group at the University of Lille, INSERM U1190, devoted to the clinical development of biotherapies for treating diabetes and a funding member of the LABEX European Genomic Institute for Diabetes (EGID).

Reuters Institute / Nuffield College Media & Politics seminars
The following seminars will be given at 5pm on Fridays, normally in the Butler Room, Nuffield College.
Convenors: Andrew Dilnot, David Levy, James Painter

Jane Green, professor of political science, University of Manchester, and co-director of the 2015 British Election Study
28 Apr: ‘How the global financial crisis is shaping political upheavals: Reflections on UKIP, Brexit and Trump.’

Anthony Barnett, Co-Founder openDemocracy and former Director Charter 88

This strategy has the potential to transform China’s relations with Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The linkages are embodied in the Silk Road Economic Belt and New Maritime Silk Road. It is aimed at internal Asian economic development, a process never significantly supported by the countries of Asia or by external actors, especially in Europe and North America.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is the financing vehicle for intergovernmental cooperation, thus serving as enabler of the development process. This seed money supplements even larger sums from Asian governments and private sector actors who will supply most of the capital. Key infrastructure components include railroads, telecommunications, and ports, all to be integrated by sea and by land.

Successful implementation of the strategy will accelerate Asian development and lead to greater internal Eurasian economic integration. Failure of the United States to participate in the AIIB, even as most important world economies are members of the bank, relegates the US to being a weak participant in this major global-economic transformation.

The Seminar Convenor is Professor Chris Rowley, Visiting Fellow of Kellogg College and Professor Emeritus of Cass Business School, City, University of London.

Refreshments will be served from 16:45. The seminar will begin at 17:00.

All are welcome to attend this seminar and booking is not required.

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, Richard Sambrook

Esra Dogramaci, senior digital editor, Deutsche Welle
3 May: ‘Why Facebook matters, and what you might be getting wrong about it’

As part of the Surgical Grand Rounds lecture series, Mr James Gilbert (Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) and Dr Simon Knight (Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, Oxford University) will discuss innovations in access surgery.

Reuters Institute / Nuffield College Media & Politics seminars
The following seminars will be given at 5pm on Fridays, normally in the Butler Room, Nuffield College.
Convenors: Andrew Dilnot, David Levy, James Painter

Isabel Oakeshott, political journalist and commentator, and author of ‘Call me Dave’
5 May: ‘From black and white to read all over – political reporting in a digital age’

“Decolonisation” has gained entrance into the popular discourse about diversity, academia, and politics. But what does it mean and do we mean it when we say it? In this talk, I will explore this question with a particular focus on making room for Black women and gender minorities to succeed in physics.

Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is an active researcher at the intersection of physics and astronomy and is principal investigator on a grant to investigate philosophical questions relating to the history of racism and colonialism in science. She holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard University (USA) and a PhD from the University of Waterloo (Canada). Dr. Prescod-Weinstein is one of very few Black American women with a PhD in physics.

Refreshments are available from 6:30pm.
The building and room are wheelchair accessible with accessible toilets nearby. There are gender neutral toilets nearby. Please e-mail mcr.secretary@wadh.ox.ac.uk for further information.

Will the US and global economy thrive, or barely survive, under Trumponomics? Will erratic policymaking and populist pandering lead to economic catastrophe? Or will business-friendly reforms and expansionary fiscal and monetary policies bring unprecedented prosperity? A distinguished panel of economists – Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, and John Muellbauer of Oxford Univesity – will debate the early economic consequences of Trumpism and how policies are likely to take shape in key areas such as trade, tax, infrastructure, finance, and monetary policy.

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003. The co-author of This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, his new book, The Curse of Cash, was released in August 2016. He is the Visiting Sanjaya Lall Professor at the University of Oxford.

Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 “for services to financial journalism”.

Professor John Muellbauer is a Senior Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Professor of Economics and a Senior Fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, Oxford University.

Reuters Institute seminars “The business and practice of journalism”
The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays, normally in the Barclay Room, Green Templeton College.
Convenors: James Painter, Richard Sambrook

Suzanne Franks, professor of journalism, City University, London
10 May: ‘The use of women experts in the media’

Who’s listening? Communicating research in a noisy world

Dan Richards-Doran, Communications Manager, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford

The proliferation of social and digital media tools, combined with the availability of camera-equipped smartphones, means anyone can set themselves up as an online channel. Scientists looking to disseminate their research findings now no longer have to simply rely on their press office or publisher, they have at their finger-tips a fancy toolbox of tactics to broadcast their evidence to the world, but with the increasingly crowded media landscape how can they ensure their message gets through to the right audience?

This talk will discuss who the “public” actually are and what media they consume when it comes to science. Applying basic communications planning theory, it will briefly overview how to develop a plan before embarking on any communication activity, highlighting the opportunities for getting the most out of social and traditional media and the importance of dialogue to support science communication with impact.

Dan is Communications Manager at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. He is responsible for communicating the Department’s research communications and supporting researchers to communicate their work.

This talk is part of the Knowledge into Action module, which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care.

This is a free event and members of the public are welcome to attend.