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.

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.

Inaugural event in our new events series focusing on responsible leadership: Driving Diversity and Inclusion Seminar Series.

Progress on diversity in the UK civil service and why it matters. How the dial only really shifted on gender, and why the focus is now on inclusion and addressing bullying and harassment. What the good leaders are doing?

Dame Sue Owen will give a talk followed by a Q&A with the audience moderated by Sue Dopson, Rhodes Trust Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Fellow of Green Templeton College, Deputy Dean of Saïd Business School.

Event Schedule:
17:15 – Registration opens
17:45 – Event starts
18:45 – Drinks reception
19:45 – Close

Dr Jim Harris, Engaging with the Humanities at Oxford Saïd

A Good Mix: Krasis and the Ashmolean as an Interdisciplinary Forum.

What even is interdisciplinary work?

In this talk, art historian, broadcaster and Teaching Curator Dr Jim Harris will consider what makes the museum such a fertile context for interdisciplinary work, why early-career scholars from across the university are flocking to take up career development opportunities at the Ashmolean – and what possibilities the Ashmolean might present to students and researchers at the Saïd Business School.

Schedule
14:00 – Registration opens (with afternoon tea)
14:30 – Event starts
15:30 – Event close

Since a change in planning rules in 1990, there has been a huge amount of archaeological work on development sites all over England. This work is required by planning permissions and paid for by the developers. The results have been astonishing. Thousands of important discoveries have been made, and views of England’s past are bring transformed by these. This talk will explain how archaeology on development sites takes place, and highlight some of the most interesting or unusual finds, from the Ebbsfleet prehistoric elephant (400,000 BC) to a Roman chariot-racing arena in Colchester and a Victorian communal toilet in York.

Roger Thomas is a professional archaeologist who has lived in Abingdon for much of his life. He spent many years working for English Heritage (now Historic England), where he was closely involved in many important national archaeological projects. He is a past chairman of AAAHS, and is an Honorary Research Associate in the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

Visitors are very welcome to attend meetings at a cost of £3.
If you want to join the AAAHS, there’s a Membership Form on our website.

New technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines.

In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. Yet in A World Without Work, Daniel Susskind shows why this time really is different. Advances in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk.

Susskind will argue that machines no longer need to reason like us in order to outperform us. Increasingly, tasks that used to be beyond the capability of computers – from diagnosing illnesses to drafting legal contracts – are now within their reach. The threat of technological unemployment is real.

So how can we all thrive in a world with less work? Susskind will remind us that technological progress could bring about unprecedented prosperity, solving one of mankind’s oldest problems: making sure that everyone has enough to live on. The challenge will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the centre of our lives.

This talk will be followed by a drinks reception, book sale and signing, all welcome.

Alice Kettle will discuss her works at the opening night of her exhibition at the Business School with Brandon Taylor, after which there will be a tour.

Our new exhibition showcases Alice Kettle’s unique practice; textile works which employ a combination of stitch techniques, bringing together the use of antique machines from early last century with hand stitch and contemporary digital technology.

Sir Martin will review the theory and practice of genuine gender equality in the workforce, including personal experience of leadership challenges in implementing gender balance leadership.

Martin was appointed President of Boeing Europe and Managing Director of Boeing UK and Ireland in June 2019. He was permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade from 2016 to 2017, and before that he spent six years as permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

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’

Beacons of the Past is a three and a half year project part funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Chiltern Society, and the National Trust , amongst others. Its purpose is to engage and inspire communities to discover, conserve, and enjoy the Chilterns’ Iron Age hillforts and their prehistoric chalk landscapes. Now at the project’s midpoint, Project Manager Wendy Morrison will present on the some of the results of the UK’s largest bespoke archaeological LiDAR survey, the project’s outreach programmes, and what comes next.

Dr Wendy Morrison currently works for the Chilterns Conservation Board as Project Manager of the HLF funded Beacons of the Past Hillforts project. She also is Senior Associate Tutor for Archaeology at the Oxford University Dept for Continuing Education. Wendy’s research areas are Prehistoric European Archaeology and Landscape Archaeology. She has over a decade’s excavation experience in Southern Britain, the Channel Islands, and India.

The AAAHS organises monthly lectures by acknowledged authorities on topics related to history and archaeology and to those of Abingdon in particular.
Visitors are very welcome to attend meetings at a cost of £3.

A talk on underground in the Roman town of Herculaneum

Lincoln Leads is a series of seminars tackling a different theme every week. All are warmly invited to attend this year’s Shakespeare Seminar on February 27th which will explore the question ‘Can Editing Influence a Play’s Legacy? with Prof. Henry Woudhuysen (Lincoln College), Prof. Lukas Erne (University of Geneva) and Eirian Yem (DPhil in English Literature). The panel will be chaired by Waqas Mirza (DPhil in French and English Literature).

The seminars take place in the Oakeshott Room at Lincoln College on Thursday evenings during Hilary term. Following a free wine reception from 5pm, each seminar will start at 5.45pm, culminating in a lively audience Q&A session that ends at 7pm. We have a fantastic group of panellists scheduled for the series. We therefore hope that you are eager to join them in conversation, and learn more about the diverse research conducted at Lincoln.

Tickets are free, but must be booked in advance. Spaces are limited and going fast, so make sure you sign up by clicking here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lincoln-leads-2020-tickets-87627477143

Do join us at the seminar to find out what Lincoln Leads is all about, and celebrate the diverse research connected with the College.
Bring all your friends, enjoy all the free wine and ask all the questions.

For more information on the seminar series, please visit our pages on social media: Facebook @lincolnleads

‘Job insecurity at the end of the 20th century has given way to income insecurity at the start of the 21st.’ – Andy Haldane, July 2019

Join us for a stimulating morning of talks exploring the current challenges of income insecurity, with keynote speaker Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England. We will discuss labour market precarity, pay volatility and income insecurity issues in the UK and more widely, and their implications for the labour market and the structure of the social security system.

Programme:

Welcome and introduction by Charles Godfray, Director, Oxford Martin School
Keynote address: Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England
‘Pay volatility and income insecurity: what role for social security?’ by Jane Millar, Professor of Social Policy, University of Bath
‘Measuring economic insecurity: Why and How?’ by Matteo Richiardi, Professor of Economics and Director of EUROMOD, University of Essex, INET Associate
Panel discussion and Q&A: chaired by Brian Nolan, Professor of Social Policy at Oxford, with speakers and Fran Bennett, Senior Research and Teaching Fellow, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford
This event is free, but registration is essential to ensure your place.

You are welcome to bring lunch with you.

This series of talks is organised by the Oxford Martin School, Department of Social Policy and Intervention & Institute for New Economic Thinking, University of Oxford

This talk will focus on the disruptive ingredients and recipes at the heart of Ocado’s ongoing journey of self-disruption and reinvention.

One of these recipes relates to growing, manufacturing and delivering our food in much more efficient, scalable and sustainable ways. This is going to require some much bigger thinking.

Part of the Oxford Martin School Lecture Series: ‘Shaping the future’

Artist, writer and activist Jess Thom has Tourettes syndrome, a neurological condition that means she makes movements and noises she can’t control, called tics. In 2010 she co-founded Touretteshero as a creative response to her experiences, and toured the world with her multi-award-winning stage show, Backstage in Biscuit Land.

Join us for a screening of the 2018 documentary, Me, My Mouth and I, part of BBC Two’s Performance Live strand. Exploring Jess Thom’s funny and unpredictable journey of discovery into one of Samuel Beckett’s most complex plays, Not I, the film asks us to reconsider issues of representation and social exclusion as she prepares to perform the role of ‘Mouth’ in front of a live theatre audience. The screening with be followed by a Q & A with Jess herself.

Touretteshero presents Not I at The North Wall from 18 – 21 March.

About Inspiring People
The Inspiring People series is a joint venture between The North Wall and our principal sponsor, St Edward’s School. Our organisation both have a mission to educate and inspire and our hope is that this series will do just that: half of all tickets are offered free to local schools

The Scythians were warlike nomadic horsemen who roamed the steppe of Asia in the first millennium BC. Using archaeological finds from burials and texts, Barry Cunliffe reconstructs the lives of the Scythians, exploring their beliefs, burial practices, love of fighting and their flexible attitude to gender.

The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe
Wed 18 Mar, 1–2pm
A weekday talk with Barry Cunliffe, Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology, University of Oxford

Booking essential.
Tickets are: £8 (Full Price) / £7 (Concession) / £6 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/the-scythians-nomad-warriors-of-the-steppe

The Phoenicians were famously great traders who, from their base in modern-day Lebanon, traded their wares around the Mediterranean and beyond. Learn about their culture, art, achievements, and cities at home in the Levant and abroad, including Byblos, Tyre, Eshmoun and Carthage.

The Phoenicians Phoenicia Part 1: the Land of the Phoenicians
An Afternoon Tea Talk (with tea and biscuits included)
With Linda Farrar, Archaeologist and Lecturer

Thu 19 Mar, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/the-phoenicians-part-i-the-land-of-phoenicians

Moran’s ‘Autumn Afternoon, the Wissahickon’ pictures 19th-century America at its most bucolic and pastoral. It was painted, however, amidst a conflict that threatened to tear the young country apart. Examine Moran’s landscape as an allegory of contested national identity.

A Nation at a Crossroads: The United States in Thomas Moran’s ‘Autumn Afternoon, The Wissahickon’
A weekend talk with Madeleine Harrison, PhD Candidate, The Courtauld Institute of Art

Sat 21 Mar, 11–12pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Booking essential.
Tickets are: £8 (Full Price) / £7 (Concession) / £6 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/a-nation-at-a-crossroads-the-united-state-in-thomas-morans-autumn-afternoon-the-wissahickon

Learn about the vast trade network of the Phoenicians, the goods traded and their trading partners, who included the Greeks and Etruscans, as well as people in Sardinia and southern Spain.

The Phoenicians Phoenicia Part 2: The Phoenicians in the West
An Afternoon Tea Talk (tea and biscuits included)
With Linda Farrar, Archaeologist and Lecturer

Thu 26 Mar, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Booking essential.
Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/the-phoenicians-phoenicia-part-ii-the-phoenicians-in-the-west

The city of Hereford stands a couple of hours from Oxford along one of the most scenic train rides in England. Follow the Medieval Pilgrim trail, discovering a landscape alive with holy wells, sacred shrines, ancient mysteries and miraculous saints.

Become a Medieval Tourist: Herefordshire Pilgrimages
With Tim Porter, Historian

Wed 15 Apr, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
Includes a break for tea and biscuits
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/become-a-medieval-tourist-herefordshire-pilgrimages

Just an hour by train, discover one of the great lost buildings of England, an ancient centre of pilgrimage and scholarship. Discover what unique artworks and architectural gems survive within the townscape and further afield.

Become a Medieval Tourist: Evesham Abbey
An Afternoon Tea Talk (including tea and biscuits)
With Tim Porter, Historian

Thu 30 Apr, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/become-a-medieval-tourist-evesham-abbey

Using images and eye-witness accounts, David Stuttard paints a vivid picture of the classical Greek Games – a thousand years of speed trials, brawn and horsemanship underpinned by religious ritual, lavish feasting, political chicanery and (of course) athletic nudity.

Games for Zeus: The Ancient Greek Olympics
Sat 2 May, 2–3pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre
With David Stuttard, Classical Historian and Author

Tickets are: £8 (Full Price) / £7 (Concession) / £6 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/games-for-zeus-the-ancient-greek-olympics

The world faces many challenges, climate change, systemic racism, a crisis of leadership and the pandemic. As governments, business and organisations pivot to survive can the social impact sector do the same? What’s changed and what hasn’t in this vitally important space?

We have brought together experts in the field to share their experience and shine a light on the way forward. To reflect on any changes to their approach to social impact work, to share what they are seeing around the world, what’s worked and what the future holds for those who work in this area or are about to embark on a career in it.

Join Marya Besharov and our panel of experts for an interesting discussion.

Marya Besharov – Professor of Organisations and Impact, Saïd Business School

The panel:

• Shivani Garg Patel, Chief Strategy Officer, Skoll Foundation
• Meng Zhao, Associate Professor, NTU Singapore
• Francois Bonnici, Director and Head, Schwab Foundation
• Marc Ventresca – Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Saïd Business School

Leadership in Extraordinary Times: SmartSpace: the new frontier

How will the commercialisation of space impact our everyday lives?

The world faces many challenges, climate change, racism and the pandemic. There are also many great opportunities that will benefit us all. How can business harness the enormous potential the commercialisation of space offers, and what will it deliver in terms of benefits here on earth?

We have brought together experts in the field to share their experience where business, innovation and entrepreneurship meet. They will look at what the future holds for those who work in this area or are about to embark on a career in it.

The event will be hosted by Marc Ventresca, Associate Professor of Strategic Management and the panel will be moderated by Lucas Kello, Associate Professor of International Relations at Oxford and an expert in space, and cyber governance.

Panel

Eamonn Molloy, Associate Fellow Oxford, expert in major programs
Renee Rottner, Assistant Professor UC Santa Barbara, expert in NASA innovation
Dan Sola, Space entrepreneur and Oxford Said alumni
Lucy Edge, Chief Operating Officer of Satellite Applications Catapult
Greg Autry, Vice President of Space Development, and Board member at the National Space Society

Visit https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/oxford-answers/smartspace-new-frontier at the specified time to watch the live stream. A recording will be posted on the website when the broadcast finishes.

This is the Weinrebe Lecture in Life-Writing for Michaelmas Term 2020.

Hermione Lee, whose biography of Tom Stoppard is published by Faber on 1 October, talks about his life and work, and the challenges for a biographer in writing the life of a living subject.

With unprecedented access to private papers, diaries, letters, and countless interviews with figures ranging from Felicity Kendal to John Boorman and Trevor Nunn to Steven Spielberg, Hermione Lee has built a meticulously researched portrait of one of our greatest playwrights. Drawing on several years of long, exploratory conversations with Stoppard himself, it tracks his Czech origins and childhood in India to every school and home he’s ever lived in, every piece of writing he’s ever done, and every play and film he’s ever worked on. This is the revealing story of a very public and very private man.

Hermione Lee was the President of Wolfson College from 2008 to 2017, and is the founder and advisory director of OCLW. She held the Goldsmiths’ Chair of English Literature at Oxford from 1998 to 2008, and before that taught at the Universities of Liverpool and York. Her work includes acclaimed biographies of Virginia Woolf (1996), Edith Wharton (2007) and Penelope Fitzgerald (2013, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography). She has also published books on Elizabeth Bowen, Willa Cather and Philip Roth, and she has written about life-writing, in Body Parts: Essays on Life-Writing (2005), Biography: A Very Short Introduction (2009), and, co-edited with Kate Kennedy, in a collection based on an OCLW conference, called Lives of Houses (2020). Her biography of Tom Stoppard is published by Faber in October 2020. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, of the Royal Society of Literature (where she serves on the Council) and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2013 she was made a Dame for services to literature.

The video of this Weinrebe Lecture in Life-Writing will be available for 24 hours only.

The FinCEN Files investigation, coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, exposed more than $2 trillion in suspicious deals.

Criminals, politicians and others sent money through the world’s major banks, which initially ignored red flags or reported the money as potentially dirty after weeks, months or years of delay. Billions of dollars in suspicious deals moved from Africa into Europe, the United States, the Middle East and secretive tax havens, including payments to and from politicians and family members, state-owned oil and gas companies, arms companies and many others.

Join William Fitzgibbon and Augustin Armendariz, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and Taiwo Hassan Adebayo, Premium Times Nigeria, as they discuss with Professor Ricardo Soares de Oliveira what the FinCEN Files investigation has uncovered and the implications.

How do you build inclusion from the ground up?

People with albinism face discrimination across the globe but are often left out of activist efforts around diversity and inclusion.

In this episode, we speak to representatives of Sesame Street Workshop, who have been championing diversity for years. With a breadth of expertise in the art of embracing diversity, this insightful look into the world of Sesame Street gives us new ways of approaching our goals. Supermodel and activist Diandra Forrest also joins the conversation. Fellow guest speaker Stephan Bognar, Executive Director of New York Dermatology Group Foundation, completes the line-up. They worked together previously on the Colorfull campaign, which was conceived by NYDG to highlight the prejudice that albinism attracts.

Amanda Oates (Executive Director of Workforce, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust) and Dr Kristina Brown (Senior Lecturer, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University) will be speaking on the story of the Just and Learning Culture at Mersey Care NHS Trust.

In recent years, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has undergone a radical shift in workplace culture and organisational procedures. They have gone from a blame culture to a culture where staff feel empowered and supported to learn from incidents. Numbers of disciplinary and suspension cases went down, staff reporting of adverse incidents went up, and there were positive effects on staff retention and levels of sickness absence.

Restorative justice was integral to these changes, termed the ‘Just and Learning Culture’. Amanda Oates and Kristina Brown will reflect on the impact of the restorative just culture at Mersey Care and help us to understand how other organisations can adopt a similar approach.

This event will be held online via Zoom (link TBA). Please contact joy@minthouseoxford.co.uk for more information.

You can register for this this event on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/restorative-just-culture-the-story-of-mersey-care-nhs-trust-tickets-146564629753

Join us on Facebook and find out when and where the magnificent specimen of the Ichthyosaur was discovered in Abingdon. Local Archaeologist Jeff Wallis talks about his find with Palaeobiologist Megan Jacobs.
The find originally classified as Ophthalmosaurus is questioned by Megan in her doctoral paper, join them to see the story develop…
There will be three sessions throughout Saturday 24th July, followed by a Q&A session:

11am Part one – Discovering the Ichthyosaur
12pm Part two – Illustration and colour?
1pm Part three – The classification
These sessions will be streamed on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/abingdonmuseum

2pm – Live Q&A with Megan (Zoom)
Please visit abingdonmuseum.com to get the link to join the Zoom meeting.