What happens when you excavate the image archives of the Institute of Archaeology and other departments of the University of Oxford? The answer: you find amazing pictures that tell unexpected stories. Most of the pictures are black and white and 70 or more years old. Discover Oxford through a new lens with Janice Kinory to explore the Historic Environment Image Resource Project digital image archive where the images are stored and how you can access them.

Jump into the world of veins and arteries with Naveed Akbar to map out how your immune system might combat or cause illness. Did you know that our immune system causes further damage following a heart attack or stroke? Take on the roles of a doctor diagnosing a patient or the body’s messengers that communicate between your cells during the process of healing in this light-hearted, interactive talk.

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.

A powerful duet between two exceptional dancers – Joel Brown, Candoco Dance Company, and Eve Mutso, former Principal Dancer of Scottish Ballet – as they explore their different strengths and vulnerabilities. 111 is the imaginary number of vertebrae that Joel and Eve have between them: Eve “moves like she has a hundred”; Joel’s spine is fused and he jokes he only has 11. The performance will begin with a new piece created by Parasol Dance Group and will be followed by a Q&A with the performers, a medical researcher and inclusive youth project workers.

Is it our social responsibility to vaccinate? Vaccination has eradicated deadly diseases from our world and saved millions of lives; but why do some people refuse to vaccinate? This event, presented in partnership with the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities will explore how medicine, ethics, history and social science can encourage wider debate and a better understanding of the role vaccination plays in improving global human health.
Panelists include Alberto Giubilini (Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities), Samantha Vanderslott (Oxford Vaccine Group), Erica Charters (Associate Professor of Global Medicine and the History of Medicine), and Andrew Pollard (Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity).

Michael Obersteiner will present new insights from co-producing a set of new sustainability scenarios.

Major sectoral transitions will be presented to achieve development targets in line with improved ecosystem and human health. He will conclude with an outlook on new ways to socialise findings from such global assessments.

This talk is part of the Oxford Martin School Lecture Series ‘Food futures: how can we safeguard the planet’s health, and our own?’

We are all living longer, but we are ill prepared, both as individuals and as a society, and attitudes towards ageing remain stubbornly negative, in spite of evidence that older people are some of the most satisfied with life. This session will debunk some myths, challenge stereotypes and consider what we can do to age well.

This talk is delivered by Penny Thewlis, Chief Executive of Age UK Oxfordshire.

With a background in public services, Penny joined Age UK Oxfordshire in 2000 to undertake a study of the needs and aspirations of older people in rural communities and stayed to work alongside older people and communities to implement the recommendations. Penny is passionate about asset based approaches, about changing the narrative on ageing and about ensuring older people have a voice.

Big data and AI are starting to feature in cancer research today, and will will play an even greater role in the future. Join researchers from Cancer Research UK to discover the technologies and methods they use to help find, prevent and treat cancer, and what big ideas they have for the future.

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.

How do we make the best policy choices for our families when resources are stretched to breaking point? Join Mary Daly and Aaron Reeves (University of Oxford) and Sasha East and Deborah McIlveen (Blackbird Leys CDI) explore how shifts in government policy create new opportunities and challenges for families. What lasting changes might we make or consider as a community to help raise a healthy child?

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.

Dr David Nabarro, former Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Food Security and Nutrition, will give a talk on what implications there will be for the planet and us in linking nature, food and the climate.

Please register via the link provided. Followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

For most people wellbeing means more than exercise, eating well and avoiding bad habits. If we attend to what gives life meaning we are more likely to find contentment and balance. This talk will explore some of the many ways to wellbeing from research evidence and our own personal experience.

This talk is delivered by Rhonda Riachi, Project Development Officer at Oxford Centre for Spirituality & Wellbeing.

Rhonda works in the Faculty of Health & Life Sciences at Oxford Brookes University on projects supporting the wellbeing of healthcare staff and patients. She wrote her Masters dissertation on person-centred communication in dementia care.

The AfOx insaka is a gathering for sharing ideas and knowledge about Africa-focused research with speakers from diverse and varied academic disciplines. There are two events each term.

Speakers for the first AfOx insaka in the new academic year are Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Oxford Department of International Development and Dr Jacob McKnight, Senior Researcher, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health.

At this AfOx talk, Robtel Neajai Pailey uses her anti-corruption children’s books to argue that equipping children with verbal tools to question the confusing ethical codes of adults can revolutionise how we talk and theorise about corruption.

Jake McKnight is a Health Systems Researcher at the Oxford Health Systems Collaboration (OHSCAR). He was originally a logistician for MSF in Angola and Somalia, before conducting his PhD research in Ethiopia. He then read for the MSc. in African Studies at Oxford, before completing his PhD at Said Business School, where he concentrated on healthcare reform in Ethiopia. Jake will talk about the failures and successes of projects he’s studied or been involved in, reflecting on the idea that ‘Africa Works’, and as researchers and implementors, it’s up to us to fit local cultures rather to try to ‘fix’ them.

A growing middle class in the developing world, as well as increasing concerns about the healthfulness, environmental footprint and inhumaneness of conventional livestock production have given rise to neo-Malthusian concerns about how to address what seems insatiable demand for protein.

While some have doubled down on calls for reducing meat consumption, so far the most visible response has been a huge wave of innovation in a variety of what are now being called “alternative proteins.” Designed to capture the “flexitarian” market, these include insect-based foods, protein-rich “superfoods,” simulated plant-based meat and dairy substitutes, and cellular/bioengineered meat.

Their rapid development begs two crucial questions, however. How did protein become the macronutrient of concern to begin? Will protein’s new substantiations be any more nutritious and ecological than that which it substitutes? In this talk, Guthman will elaborate on what is being done in the name of protein and provide provisional answers to these questions.

Please register via the link provided.

The logic and principles behind the drive for evidence-based health care are so compelling that often the limitations of evidence go unacknowledged. Despite a strong evidence base demonstrating the health risks associated with higher body weights, and health professionals routinely instructing patients to lose weight to improve their health, the incidence of obesity is predicted to continue to rise. Calling on his research into the relationships between obesity, inequality and health, Oli Williams – a fellow of The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute – will argue that when it comes to reducing the burden on, and improving, health care a more critical approach to the way we generate, select, apply and communicate evidence is needed.

Oli Williams completed his PhD in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester. He was subsequently awarded the NIHR CLAHRC West Dan Hill Fellowship in Health Equity which he held at the University of Bath. He later re-joined the University of Leicester in the Department of Health Sciences working in the SAPPHIRE Group and is now based at King’s College London after being awarded a THIS Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. His research focuses on health inequalities, the promotion of healthy lifestyles, obesity, weight stigma, equitable intervention and co-production. He co-founded the art collective Act With Love (AWL) to promote social change. The Weight of Expectation comic is one example of their work, view others at: www.actwithlove.co.uk In recognition of his work on weight stigma the British Science Association invited Oli to deliver the Margaret Mead Award Lecture for Social Sciences at the British Science Festival 2018.

This talk is being held as part of the Qualitative Research Methods course which is part of the Evidence-Based Health Care Programme. This is a free event and members of the public are welcome to attend.

Poor diet is the leading risk factor for ill health in the UK, carrying more risk than smoking or hypertension.

But in an era where we seem to be constantly bombarded with often conflicting messages about our diets, is all this information actually making us any healthier? How can we cut through media hysteria and use the science to make wise choices about the food we eat and how can the Government make sensible policy decisions to help with the impact our consumption habits have on our health.

Please register via the link provided.

The increased reliance of health systems on the digital record as the primary mechanism for storing data on consultations and other health interactions has opened new opportunities for research, healthcare innovation, and health policy. The electronic health record (eHR) is now ubiquitous in many countries, in hospital and primary care settings, and in some countries their health systems in terms of reporting patient care activity are essentially ‘paperless’.

Health systems globally are also facing accelerating challenges as they seek to deliver better value healthcare against the background of increasing levels of chronic disease, ageing populations, financial pressures and demands on public spending. Digital health tools and services are held up to be part of the solution to these challenges, potentially offering low-cost and patient-centred solutions.

There has been huge investment in Big Data research in health, particularly in relation to digitised imaging and automated reporting and predictive modelling using phenotypic and increasingly genetic data. There have also been similar gains in more applied research that explores the potential of accessing the huge quantum of data held in the eHR, and linkage of these data to other national or regional databases, such as mortality records or cancer data. This session will explore some of the applications for routine data research, illustrated by projects that have resulted in research success and better healthcare.

This will include the exemplars of using large eHR platforms and prescribing data platforms to create infrastructure for i) common disease surveillance, such as the UK RCGP RSC; ii) generation and validation of disease risk assessment tools, such as QRisk scores; iii) pragmatic electronic follow up trials; iv) within practice systems dashboard feedback reports, eg data normalised to regional and national rates on prescribing and investigation physician activity; v) traditional epidemiological linkage studies; and vi) linkage to long term phenotypic follow up of established disease cohorts.

Richard Hobbs is Nuffield Professor of Primary Care at the University of Oxford, and Head of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He has served a decade as National Director of the National Institute for Health Research’s School for Primary Care Research and was Director of the NHS Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) Review panel from 2005-09. He has served many national and international scientific and research funding boards in UK, Ireland, Canada, and WHO, including the BHF Council, British Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, and the ESC Council for Cardiovascular Primary Care. He currently chairs the European Primary Care Cardiovascular Society, a WONCA Special Interest Group.

He is one of the world’s leading academics in primary care, and has developed at Oxford one of the largest and most highly ranked centres for academic primary care globally. He has also made major contributions to growing primary care academic capacity, in terms of people development and research networks. A highly cited primary care clinical scientist, he has authored over 450 peer reviewed publications, has an h-index of 90, with over 63000 citations (36000 since 2013) and 81 papers cited over 100 times, 14 papers cited over 1000 times and 7 papers with over 2000 citations. He has an outstanding track record in cardiovascular research, delivering trials that changed international guidelines and practice, especially in the areas of stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation (BAFTA, SAFE, and SMART trials), heart failure burden and diagnosis (ECHOES and REFER trials), and hypertension self-management (TASMINH series). He is only the fifth ever recipient of the RCGP Discovery Prize in 2018 (an occasional award made since 1953) and received an inaugural Distinguished Researcher Shine Prize plus Best Presentation Prize at the WONCA World Congress in 2018. He was awarded a CBE for services to medical research in the 2018 New Year’s Honours.

This talk is being held as part of the Big Data Epidemiology course which is part of the Evidence-Based Health Care Programme. This is a free event and members of the public are welcome to attend.

In this talk, Professor Bruno Marchal, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp will illustrate the principles of realist evaluation using the case of the development of a new Tuberculosis control policy in Georgia.

‘Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is a major public health problem in Georgia. The initial analysis of the policymakers centred around the low levels of treatment adherence and low treatment success rates. In the highly privatised health system, the long treatments TB patients require are not necessarily a priority for private for-profit providers who care for TB patients. The Results4TB research project was launched to inform the process of developing the new policy and to assess it in terms of how it works, its cost, and adherence and treatment success rate. We adopted a theory-informed controlled trial design that includes a cost-effectiveness study and a realist evaluation.
We will focus specifically on the central role of the programme theory, how this theory was developed and how it informed not only the policy, but also the study design.’

This free talk is given in conjunction with the Realist Reviews and Realist Evaluation course, part of the Evidence-Based Healthcare programme.

We are entering the fourth revolution of healthcare.

The first revolution was Public Health with sanitation, cleaner air and better housing. The second is medical healthcare with the advancement of diagnostics and treatment with a focus on disease cure. The third is personalised health, through individual knowledge, technology, behaviour change and precision medicine.

However, these revolutions have left three major problems unresolved; unsustainable healthcare, rising health inequalities and climate change driven by unsustainable living.

So, we enter the fourth revolution in healthcare which builds on the previous three. This is based on communities rather than individuals, supporting a sustainable active lifestyle, eating local produce and using culture, art and contact with nature to create purpose and connections to each other, leading to greater resilience and wellbeing. It is a revolution when Smart Cities become central to the delivery of health and when advanced technology becomes almost invisible encouraging a lifestyle closer rather than further from nature.

In this talk Dr Bird will explain how we are already delivering this future and how biological changes such as chronic inflammation, epigenetics, mitochondrial dysfunction and telomere shortening can provide the scientific link between wellbeing and disease.

In this book talk, Professor Sonia Contera will talk about how Nanotechnology is transforming medicine and the future of biology.

Please register via the link provided. This book talk will be followed by a drinks reception, book sale and book signing, all welcome.

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

When the UK joined the EU in 1973 all previous trade barriers with the EU were abolished, which led to a strong intensification of trade with the European continent.

This situation will soon be a thing of the past, however, as new trade barriers will be erected with the withdrawal. Since the food self-sufficiency rate in the UK is particular low newly invoked trade barriers will significantly affect how food is produced and consumed in the UK.

Please register via the link provided.

The regulation of posture is relevant in a health and clinical context – including falls prevention, healthy ageing, and obesity. Balance and therefore postural control involves attentional processes and the application of internal or external attentional foci that have been linked with accuracy and quality of a movement while executing the skill. Measuring balance accurately and deriving meaningful information from it could aid health professionals to develop and design interventions accordingly. Hence, the topic of this talk is around applying new concepts to understand control mechanisms of balance.

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

Researchers constantly look for ways to improve patient’s health and quality-of-life. Before new treatments or polices are introduced, they need to be tested. Researchers need to make sure they conduct these testing studies carefully. A particular intervention might be effective and improve the quality-of-life for patients, but if the results of the study have not been measured properly, people who make decisions about care may make incorrect decisions.

One particular type of study design is called a stepped-wedge-cluster-randomised-trial (SW-CRT). This is a new study design which is particularly valuable for evaluating changes in the way care is delivered. The new policy is gradually rolled-out so that every group (e.g. hospital) receives the new way of care in the end.
More and more studies are now using the SW-CRT. However, more research needs to be done so we can better understand the study and how it can be used in the best ways to get the best results. In this talk I will explore how and if the SW-CRT can help determine what new healthcare policies bring about improvements in the quality of care and help the NHS identify where resources should be targeted.

Professor Karla Hemming is an internationally renowned expert in stepped-wedge trials and leads a research programme related to stepped wedge trials; this includes both theoretical and applied research.

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.

Systematic reviews are described as the gold standard in the evidence-based healthcare hierarchy. They are supposed to be transparent, reproducible, and follow a set structure. So how can systematic reviews – and within them meta-analyses – that look at the exact same question find radically different answers? The reality, of course, is that meta-analyses are not immune to biases.

This talk will use reviews of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation as a case study, looking across meta-analyses in this area. Variation in outcomes and conclusions from these reviews will be interrogated, to improve understanding of how different methods shape outcomes, and how different biases shape conclusions.

This free talk is given in conjunction with the Meta-analysis course, part of the Evidence-Based Healthcare programme.

Overdiagnosis is the diagnosis of “disease” that will never cause symptoms or death during a patient’s lifetime.

Recent results of the NELSON Lung Cancer Screening Trial reports reductions in lung-cancer survival but not overall survival – The desire to detect disease even earlier means Overdiagnosis is on the rise, however, the interpretation of screening trial results is problematic and often gives rise to significant uncertainties that go unanswered.

Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, employs evidence-based methods to research diagnostic reasoning, test accuracy and communicating diagnostic results to a wider audience.

This talk is being held as part of the Evidence-Based Diagnosis & Screening module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care and the MSc in EBHC Medical Statistics. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

Screening of “Streetscapes” (winner of the 2017 German Critics Award) followed by Q&A.
Dr Zohar Rubinstein, clinical and organizational psychologist, specialist in mental health in emergency situations, and one of the founding members of The Interdisciplinary Master Program for Emergency and Disaster Management at the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, will be answering questions.

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