In this book colloquium, a panel discussion will assess British judge and historian Lord Sumption’s provocative bestseller Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics, which expands on arguments first laid out in his 2019 Reith Lectures.

In the past few decades, legislatures throughout the world have suffered from gridlock. In democracies, laws and policies are just as soon unpicked as made. It seems that Congress and Parliaments cannot forge progress or consensus. Moreover, courts often overturn decisions made by elected representatives.

In the absence of effective politicians, many turn to the courts to solve political and moral questions. Rulings from the Supreme Courts in the United States and United Kingdom, or the European court in Strasbourg may seem to end the debate but the division and debate does not subside. In fact, the absence of democratic accountability leads to radicalisation.

Judicial overreach cannot make up for the shortcomings of politicians. This is especially acute in the field of human rights. For instance, who should decide on abortion or prisoners’ rights to vote, elected politicians or appointed judges? Jonathan Sumption argues that the time has come to return some problems to the politicians.

Panellists:
Denis Galligan, Professor of Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford

Ezequiel Gonzalez Ocantos, Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations, Oxford

One estimate suggests that $2.3trillion was invested in infrastructure worldwide last year.

That vast investment has provided roads, power plants, mobile phone networks, dams and recycling plants. Whether those investments have been sustainable is questionable.

As well as providing essential services that people need, infrastructure too often locks in carbon emissions, fragments habitats and opens them up for exploitation, appropriates land and exacerbates inequalities. In many respects, choices about infrastructure investment are a remarkable point of leverage, when the future course of development is set, literally, in concrete.Too often these decisions are subject to political patronage, rent seeking and worse.

This lecture will examine the many impacts that infrastructure can have on sustainable development, for better or for worse. Professor Hall will share experiences of establishing long-term plans for sustainable infrastructure in many countries around the world.

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

Blackwell’s are honoured to be joined by author and literary critic Sinclair McKay who will be talking about his new book Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness, which commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the bombing of Dresden on February 13th 1945.

Synopsis:

In February 1945 the Allies obliterated Dresden, the ‘Florence of the Elbe’. Bombs weighing over 1,000 lbs fell every seven and a half seconds and an estimated 25,000 people were killed. Was Dresden a legitimate military target or was the bombing a last act of atavistic mass murder in a war already won?From the history of the city to the attack itself, conveyed in a minute-by-minute account from the first of the flares to the flames reaching almost a mile high – the wind so searingly hot that the lungs of those in its path were instantly scorched – through the eerie period of reconstruction, bestselling author Sinclair McKay creates a vast canvas and brings it alive with touching human detail.

Along the way we encounter, among many others across the city, an elderly air-raid warden and his wife vainly striving to keep order amid devouring flames, a doctor who carried on operating while his home was in ruins, novelist Kurt Vonnegut who never thought that his own side might want to unleash the roaring fire, and fifteen-year-old Winfried Bielss, who, having spent the evening ushering refugees, wanted to get home to his stamp collection.

Impeccably researched and deeply moving, McKay uses never-before-seen sources to relate the untold stories of civilians and vividly conveys the texture of contemporary life. Dresden is invoked as a byword for the illimitable cruelties of war, but with the distance of time, it is now possible to approach this subject with a much clearer gaze, and with a keener interest in the sorts of lives that ordinary people lived and lost, or tried to rebuild.

Writing with warmth and colour about morality in war, the instinct for survival, the gravity of mass destruction and the importance of memory, this is a master historian at work.

Sinclair McKay is the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, The Secret Listeners, Bletchley Park Brainteasers and Secret Service Brainteasers. He is a literary critic for the Telegraph and the Spectator and lives in London.

This event is free, but please do register if you plan on attending. Seats are unallocated. Please be aware that this event will be taking place in the Philosophy Department, which is accessible by a short flight of stairs. For more information, please call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk

We are delighted to be joined by best-selling author Kiran Millwood Hargrave to celebrate the launch of her new novel, The Mercies. Kiran will be in conversation with fellow author, Daisy Johnson.

Synopsis:

On Christmas Eve, 1617, the sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a reckless storm. As Maren Magnusdatter watches, forty fishermen, including her father and brother, are lost to the waves, the menfolk of Vardø wiped out in an instant.

Now the women must fend for themselves.

Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Summoned from Scotland to take control of a place at the edge of the civilized world, Absalom Cornet knows what he needs to do to bring the women of Vardø to heel. With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In Vardø, and in Maren, Ursa finds something she has never seen before: independent women. But Absalom sees only a place untouched by God and flooded with a mighty and terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs.

Inspired by the real events of the Vardø storm and the 1621 witch trials, Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Mercies is a story about how suspicion can twist its way through a community, and a love that may prove as dangerous as it is powerful.

Kiran Millwood Hargrave is an award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist. Her bestselling works for children include The Girl of Ink & Stars, and have won numerous awards including, the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year, and the Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year, and been shortlisted for prizes such as the Costa Children’s Book Award and the Blue Peter Best Story Award. The Mercies is her first novel for adults. Kiran lives by the river in Oxford, with her husband, artist Tom de Freston, and their rescue cat, Luna.

Daisy Johnson’s debut short-story collection, Fen, was published in 2016. In 2018 she became the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with her debut novel Everything Under which was also the Blackwell’s Book of the Year. She is the winner of the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, the A. M. Heath Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She currently lives in Oxford by the river and once worked as a Bookseller at Blackwell’s.

This is a free event, but please do register if you plan on attending. Please be aware that this event will take place in the Philosophy Department, which is accessible by a small flight of stairs. Seating is unallocated. For more information, please call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk.

All the lab’s a stage, and nowhere more so than at the heats of FameLab Oxford 2020! Each contestant has just three minutes to explain a concept on science, mathematics or engineering without the use of Powerpoint – armed only with their wit and a few props. If you are interested in science and looking for a fun night out, this is for you! Previous FameLabbers have included astrophysicists, teachers, magician-turned-psychologist and a toga-wearing mathematician. As always, the 2020 heats will bring together the brave and the bold, the hilarious and awe-inspiring to charm and astonish you and battle each other for entry through to the FameLab Regional Final in March.

FameLab is an international competition to find the new voices of science and engineering. The regional final will take place at the Science Oxford Centre, Stansfeld Park, Headington on the 6th March 2020.

In this book talk, Claas will review central findings of his research on the past 80 years of antibiotic use, resistance, and regulation in food production with introduction by Prof Mark Harrison, Director of Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities.

Mass-introduced after 1945, antibiotics helped revolutionise food production. Farmers and veterinarians used antibiotics to prevent and treat disease, protect plants, preserve food, and promote animals’ growth. Many soon became dependent on routine antibiotic use to sustain and increase production. The resulting growth of antibiotic infrastructures came at a price. Critics blamed antibiotics for leaving dangerous residues in food, enabling bad animal welfare, and selecting for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria, which could no longer be treated with antibiotics.

Pyrrhic Progress analyses over 80 years of evolving non-human antibiotic use on both sides of the Atlantic and introduces readers to the historical and current complexities of antibiotic stewardship in a time of rising AMR.

This talk includes a drinks reception and nibbles, all welcome

All the lab’s a stage, and nowhere more so than at the heats of FameLab Oxford 2020! Each contestant has just three minutes to explain a concept on science, mathematics or engineering without the use of Powerpoint – armed only with their wit and a few props. If you are interested in science and looking for a fun night out, this is for you! Previous FameLabbers have included astrophysicists, teachers, a magician-turned-psychologist and a toga-wearing mathematician. As always, the 2020 heats will bring together the brave and the bold, the hilarious and awe-inspiring to charm and astonish you and battle each other for entry through to the FameLab Regional Final in March.

FameLab is an international competition to find the new voices of science and engineering.
The regional final will take place at the Science Oxford Centre, Stansfeld Park, Headington on the 6th March 2020.

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.

Globally, renewable energy has a foot in the door. But significant challenges remain.

Will we be able to execute on the rapid deployment of zero carbon energy required to meet a 1.5C future? This presentation highlights the major challenges and provides some early insights on how we might tackle these significant societal issues.

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

Blackwell’s are delighted to be joined by Petina Gappah to discuss her latest novel, Out of Darkness, Shining Light.

Synopsis

Petina Gappah’s epic journey through nineteenth-century Africa – following the funeral caravan who bore Bwana Daudi’s body – is ‘engrossing, beautiful and deeply imaginative.’ (Yaa Gyasi)

This is the story of the body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, the explorer David Livingstone – and the sixty-nine men and women who carried his remains for 1,500 miles so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own country.

The wise men of his age say Livingstone blazed into the darkness of their native land leaving a track of light behind where white men who followed him could tread in perfect safety. But in Petina Gappah’s radical novel, it is those in the shadows of history – those who saved a white man’s bones; his dark companions; his faithful retinue on an epic funeral march – whose voices are resurrected with searing intensity.

This final, fateful journey across the African interior is lead by Halima, Livingstone’s sharp-tongued cook, and three of his most devoted servants: Jacob, Chuma and Susi. Their tale of how his corpse was borne out of nineteenth-century Africa – carrying the maps that sowed the seeds of the continent’s brutal colonisation – has the power of myth. It is not only symbolic of slavery’s hypocrisy, but a portrait of a world trembling on the cusp of total change – and a celebration of human bravery, loyalty and love.

Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her short fiction and essays have been published in eight countries. Her debut story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the Guardian First Book Award in 2009, and her first novel, The Book of Memory, was longlisted for the 2015 Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction.

This event is free, but please do register if you plan on attending. Please note, this event may take place in the Philosophy Department which is accessible via a short flight of stairs. Seats are unallocated. For more information, please contact our Customer Service Department on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk

‘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

Blackwell’s are delighted to announce that we will be joined by award-winning science writer and broadcaster, Marcus Chown, who will be talking about his new book, The Magicians:The Visionaries Who Demonstrated the Miraculous Predictive Power of Science.

How does it feel to know something about the universe that no one has ever known before? And why is mathematics so magically good at revealing nature’s secrets?

This is the story of the magicians: the scientists who predicted the existence of unknown planets, black holes, invisible force fields, ripples in the fabric of space– time, unsuspected subatomic particles, and even antimatter.

The journey from prediction to proof transports us from seats of learning in Paris and Cambridge to the war-torn Russian front, to bunkers beneath nuclear reactors, observatories in Berlin and California, and huge tunnels under the Swiss– French border. From electromagnetism to Einstein’s gravitational waves to the elusive neutrino, Marcus Chown takes us on a breathtaking, mind-altering tour of the major breakthroughs of modern physics and highlights science’s central mystery: its astonishing predictive power.

Marcus Chown is an award-winning science writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, he is now cosmology consultant for the New Scientist. He is the author of Solar System for iPad, which won a Bookseller Award for Digital Innovation. His acclaimed books include What a Wonderful World, Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, We Need to Talk about Kelvin and The Ascent of Gravity, which was a Sunday Times Science Book of the Year.

This is a free event, but please do register if you plan on attending. This event will be held in our Philosophy Department, which is accessible via a small flight of stairs. Seating is unallocated, so please arrive early if you would like a chair. For more information, please contact our Customer Service Department on 01865 333 623 or email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk

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.

Elevating science from the lab to the stage, we bring you the FameLab Regional Final. Our brave and brilliant finalists tread the boards to electrify us with their scientific stagecraft: they have just three minutes to explain a scientific concept or idea without the use of Powerpoint – armed only with their wit and a few props. Previous topics have included climate change, neuroscience and particle physics. There’s not a moment to be missed at the FameLab Oxfordshire Regional Final as our challengers aim for the performance of their lives and compete to represent Oxford at the UK final.

Famelab is an international science communication competition designed to find the talented new voices of science and engineering.

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’

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.

Expert in globalisation and development, Professor Ian Goldin uses state-of-the-art maps to show humanity’s impact on the planet and demonstrate how we can save it and thrive as a species.

Professor Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development at Oxford University, has traced the paths of peoples, cities, wars, climates and technologies on a global scale in his new book Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years, which he co-authored with Robert Muggah.

In this book talk he will demonstrate the impact of climate change and rises in sea level on cities around the world, the truth about immigration, the future of population growth, trends in health and education, and the realities of inequality and how to end it.

To register and watch live: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/terra-incognita

The talk will also be streamed via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMhLn7C7o3g

We are justified to say that we are living through a new age of globalisation, which Professor Jeff Sachs calls the Digital Age. The hugely disruptive changes were already with us before Covid-19, but now we’ve been hurled head-first into the new age.

It is marked by enormous geopolitical, technological, and environmental disruptions, posing great risks as well as opportunities. To understand the Digital Age better, it is enormously valuable to gain a historical perspective.

Professor Jeff Sachs’ new book The Ages of Globalization and this talk, explores the interactions of technology, geography, and institutions throughout human history, describing seven ages of globalisation and the nature of societal change from one age to the next.

To register and watch this talk live and participate in the Q & A: www.crowdcast.io/e/The-ages-of-globalisation

To watch later: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc3AY17_Lxs

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.

Join Peter Drobac as he interviews Paul Farmer, in an exploration of the lessons we can learn from Paul Farmer’s phenomenal new book, Fevers, feuds and diamonds: Ebola and the ravages of history.

We will reflect on how these lessons can help us tackle the current Covid-19 pandemic and discuss how inequality and exploitation fuelled the spread of a deadly virus and how we might finally learn from history, in order to build a healthier, more equitable world.

For more details, visit https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/events/fevers-feuds-and-diamonds-dr-paul-farmer-future-global-health

Join us live or watch the recording on: https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/oxford-answers

This event and open to all Registration not required.

Daniel Burt presents the board games created — and played with the public — during the Literary History of Medicine project, looks at the wider process of creating games, and reveals how they can be used to engage everyone with what we discover through academic research.

What can we call a science? And what makes it science? Dr Taha Yasin Arslan of Medeniyet University, Istanbul challenges us to rethink the history of science, proposing new definitions for the term “science”.

Join us — and share your ideas.
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‘Microscopy and Magnetic Materials: Exploring Energy Landscapes at the Nanoscale’ by Professor Amanda Petford-Long FREng (Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University.

The Department of Materials is delighted to host this virtual event by our alumna, Professor Petford-Long. Please email communications@materials.ox.ac.uk to register, and to receive the Team Live link to log-on to this free event.

The first discussion in the Oxford Net Zero Series, hosted by the Oxford Martin School, hones in on the fundamental motivation of the research programme: ‘Why net zero?’.

Join the Oxford Net Zero Initiative’s Research Director, Professor Sam Fankhauser; Director, Professor Myles Allen; Net Zero Policy Engagement Fellow, Kaya Axelsson as they discuss with the Chair, Executive Director. Dr Steve Smith, the meaning of the word ‘net’ in net zero, reviewing what is needed to mitigate global warming, as and before we fully phase out activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions.

The discussion will explore the framing opportunities and challenges that the term ‘net-zero’ offers for science, policy, and advocacy informing effective climate action, as well as the innovation required at scale to achieve the global goal.

To register and watch this talk live: www.crowdcast.io/e/net-zero-when-and-how

The talk will also be streamed via YouTube here: https://youtu.be/z6049wR0tfE, but please note you will not be able to take part in the interactive Q&A session unless you join the talk on CrowdCast.

Covid-19 killed around two million people in 2020. At the same time, the social and economic impact of the pandemic led to an 8% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the biggest one-year decline on record.

As the pandemic is brought under control from 2021 onwards, by supplementing current control methods with vaccination, there are big opportunities to sustain the benefits of lower emissions for health and well-being. The direct benefits are fewer droughts, floods, heatwaves, storms and wildfires, and cleaner air. Indirect health benefits are expected from better nutrition, safe sanitation, energy-efficient health services, and jobs in the green economy, among others.

In this conversation, Sir Andy Haines (Professor of Environmental Change and Public Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) and Chris Dye (Professor of Epidemiology, University of Oxford) consider how better health and well-being are an both argument for, and a consequence of, making progress towards “net zero” carbon emissions.

To register and watch this talk live: www.crowdcast.io/e/building-back-healthier

The talk will also be streamed via YouTube here: https://youtu.be/xy3xkB9q8Ds, but please note you will not be able to take part in the interactive Q&A session unless you join the talk on CrowdCast.

The failure to stem the tide of biodiversity loss, or to address the deeply related issue of climate change, demands we quickly find more ambitious and more coherent approaches to tackling these challenges.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are one such family of approaches that has recently gained prominence in international policy and business discourse. Broadly defined as actions that involve working with nature to address societal goals, NbS are being widely hailed as a win-win for addressing biodiversity loss and climate change. However, this win-win scenario is not guaranteed.

Some NbS – particularly those involving planting trees in naturally treeless habitats – can have negative outcomes for climate change mitigation, biodiversity and local peoples’ livelihoods. There are also critical questions around the timeframes over which NbS can help tackle the biodiversity and climate crises given the negative impacts of warming on the health of the biosphere.

In the second discussion in the Oxford Net Zero Series, hosted by the Oxford Martin School, Professor Nathalie Seddon, will bring together interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners to explore the value and limits of working with nature to address climate change and why NbS must both support biodiversity and be implemented with, by and for people, if they are to provide benefits over the longterm.

To register and watch this talk live: www.crowdcast.io/e/nature-climate-change

The talk will also be streamed via YouTube here: https://youtu.be/Ka7Sc5d1v3k, but please note you will not be able to take part in the interactive Q&A session unless you join the talk on CrowdCast.

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