Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.

A conference exploring how we can get people who used to cycle, or have never cycled, onto bikes, and the role of virtual reality cycling.
Come and join us for a day full of informative talks, interactive workshops, cycle tours, an expert panel and demos and rides on ebikes and adapted bikes!
Ticket price includes lunch and refreshments.Who is this event for?
Council officers, elected councillors, transport and environmental campaign groups (local and national), Cyclox members, community organisations interested in transport, active travel and health, local businesses and educational institutions, academic, other professional experts, and interested members of the public (whether you cycle or don’t cycle).
By the end of the conference you will know how to:
> Create an age friendly locality, as a low traffic neighbourhood
> Share best practice case studies of effective interventions for active travel linking soft and hard measures
> Communicate the benefits of eBikes and how they can get people back cycling
> Convey the opportunities virtual reality can play in increasing activity for people who are housebound
> Contribute to the post-conference guide to promoting uptake of cycling
The conference is organised by Cyclox, the cycle campaign for Oxford, and Oxford Brookes University; it follows on from the University’s cycle BOOM research and current Co-CAFE project (www.cycleboom.org , www.co-cafe.org).
The world scientific community has spent decades developing and refining magnetic confinement fusion theory and experimental devices for the ultimate goal of safely, effectively, and economically generating power from a nuclear fusion reaction.
Magnet systems are the ultimate enabling technology for these types of fusion devices. Powerful magnetic fields are required for confinement of the plasma, and, depending on the magnetic configuration, dc and/or pulsed magnetic fields are required for plasma initiation, ohmic heating, inductive current drive, plasma shaping, equilibrium, and stability control.
Almost all design concepts for power producing commercial fusion reactors rely on superconducting magnets for efficient and reliable production of these magnetic fields.
Future superconducting magnets for fusion applications require improvements in materials and components to significantly enhance the feasibility and practicality of fusion reactors as an energy source.
This lecture presents the fundamentals of superconductors and magnets that makes them attractive for use in fusion device. Examples are drawn from present operating fusion tokamak, helical, and stellarator machines that use low temperature superconductors.
I will also introduce the use of high temperature superconductors for future magnetic fusion devices, and how it may strongly influence the performance of fusion reactors.

Award-winning sustainability journalist Tim Smedley has travelled the world to major cities dealing with severe air pollution problems including Delhi, Beijing and Paris, interviewing scientists and politicians to discover the full story of air pollution. Join him to discover what air pollution is, where it’s coming from and, most importantly, what we can do about it.
IF Oxford is operating a Pay What You Decide (PWYD) ticketing system. This works by enabling you to pre-book events without paying for a ticket beforehand. Afterwards, you have the opportunity to pay what you decide you want to, or can afford. If you prefer, you can make a donation to IF Oxford when you book. All funds raised go towards next year’s Festival.

This is the 100 year journey to fusion: an award-winning documentary that follows the story of dedicated fusion scientists working to build a small sun on Earth, which would unleash perpetual, cheap, clean energy for mankind.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A session featuring fusion researchers.
UPP Members receive a further £2 off listed prices.
This film is rated 15.

From the geological component of a life-supporting planet, to changing how we made tools or helping your body survive every day, iron plays an important part in being human. But which of iron’s roles is the most important? Join us for a fun evening where researchers from across the sciences and the humanities (Fe)rociously try to persuade you that their use of iron is the most important. Who wins this battle of the new iron age? You decide!
IF Oxford is operating a Pay What You Decide (PWYD) ticketing system. This works by enabling you to pre-book events without paying for a ticket beforehand. Afterwards, you have the opportunity to pay what you decide you want to, or can afford. If you prefer, you can make a donation to IF Oxford when you book. All funds raised go towards next year’s Festival.

Marking the 150th anniversary of the periodic table, Kit Chapman reveals the incredible and often surprising stories behind the discovery of the superheavy elements; how they have shaped the world today and where they will take us in the future. Be introduced to the amazing people whose tireless quest to drive the periodic table forwards has led to scientists rewriting the laws of atomic structure.
IF Oxford is operating a Pay What You Decide (PWYD) ticketing system. This works by enabling you to pre-book events without paying for a ticket beforehand. Afterwards, you have the opportunity to pay what you decide you want to, or can afford. If you prefer, you can make a donation to IF Oxford when you book. All funds raised go towards next year’s Festival.
This talk will describe a class of machine learning methods for reasoning about complex physical systems. The key insight is that many systems can be represented as graphs with nodes connected by edges. I’ll present a series of studies which use graph neural networks–deep neural networks that approximate functions on graphs via learned message-passing-like operations– to predict the movement of bodies in particle systems, infer hidden physical properties, control simulated robotic systems, and build physical structures. These methods are not specific to physics, however, and I’ll show how we and others have applied them to broader problem domains with rich underlying structure.

How do we write about queer lives? Queer people have always existed, but a combination of censorship, coded language and omission from the historical record has made it difficult for scholars to clearly interpret and represent queer identities. Indeed, only in recent decades has it become less stigmatised (and dangerous) to write about queerness without accompanying condemnation.
In honour of LGBT History Month, OCLW will be hosting a colloquium highlighting work currently being done at Oxford to represent historical and contemporary members of the LGBTQ+ community. We will explore various arenas, including history, classics, literature and the museum sector. One panel will be hosted by the Pitt Rivers Museum’s Beyond the Binary exhibition team, detailing their experience of queering the museum’s collections and representing LGBTQ+ lives through museum objects. Our keynote will be delivered by Dr Jane Traies, the author of The Lives of Older Lesbians (2016), the recent collection of lesbian oral histories Now You See Me (2018), and the joint author of three lesbian historical novels. Jane is also a member of the Centre for Life History and Life Writing at the University of Sussex.
This lecture will describe research in chemistry and polymer materials carried out in the Williams research laboratories.
This research focusses on how to activate and transform non-petrochemical raw materials into polymers (plastics). For example, waste plants or agricultural by-products or even waste carbon dioxide can all be used as raw materials to make polymers, replacing petrochemicals derived from oil. The properties of polymers will be discussed and examples will given of possible end-user applications for these new renewable polymers. The lecture will introduce some concepts to consider when evaluating polymer sustainability and life cycles.
Part of the Oxford Martin School Lecture Series: ‘Shaping the future’
Join us as we hear from Prof Martin Bureau (University of Oxford) about his research on Supermassive black holes.
‘Supermassive black holes are now known to lurk at the centre of most
galaxies. They are also believed to play a key role in the evolution
of galaxies, by regulating the supply of the gas necessary to form
stars. Here, I will present key results from the mm-Wave
Interferometric Survey of Dark Object Masses (WISDOM), a high
resolution survey of molecular gas in galaxy nuclei. I will first show
that carbon monoxide (CO) can be used to easily and accurately measure
the mass of these supermassive black holes. I will then discuss
substantial ongoing efforts to do this, and present many new
spectacular measurements from the Atacama Large
Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), the largest ground-based
telescope project. This effort opens the way to literally hundreds of
measurements across galaxies of all morphological types, both active
and non-active, with a unique method. It thus promises to
revolutionise our understanding of the co-evolution of galaxies and
black holes.’
FREE entry
Drinks and snacks provided. (Non-alcoholic and vegetarian/vegan dietary requirements provided for. For other diets please get in touch in advance)
For more information email emil.ostergaard@stcatz.ox.ac.uk. There is wheelchair access. There is padded seating, and an accessible toilet. There is blue badge parking by request at the event.