This is a joint lecture with The Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health at the Oxford Martin School

A concern for planetary health reflects the fact that global health outcomes are unlikely to be sustainable if they are achieved at the expense of the integrity of the very ecosystems human societies depend on. Indeed, the modern economy appears to treat global health and natural systems as substitutes: as we achieve more of the first, more of the second deteriorates. But there is also a different, under-explored, framing. Ecosystem integrity can be complementary to human health: under specific conditions, investing in the first can lead to improving returns on investments in the second. This is the thesis behind the idea of natural infrastructure. Investing in ecosystems for the purposes of achieving societal objectives, including global health, that can prove to be a good deal for both.

For example, some 2.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe, readily available water at home, severely undermining health outcomes. With a growing share of the population also facing the effects of environmental degradation, integrated solutions that simultaneously advance nature conservation, water provision, and health would be a critical component of any solution. If these solutions then had the additional property of representing better value for money, they would represent attractive investment opportunities. Thus, including natural infrastructure in the narrative of planetary health requires proving that it is a viable, investable option to address both conservation and health objectives. There are promising examples that give hope. The challenge is to understand how public and private sector investment can fully value the potential of complementarity, and how to design coherent investment strategies that take full advantage of this opportunity at scale.

Sunday, 25th November 2018
11am – 6.15pm (Registration starts at 10.30am)
Chakrabarti Lecture Theatre & JHB207,
John Henry Brookes Building, Headington Campus, Oxford Brookes University, Headington Road, Oxford OX3 0BP

“What does it mean to research through creative practice?”

Keynote Speaker: Dr Geof Hill (Birmingham City University)
www.bcu.ac.uk/research/-centres-of-excellence/centre-for-research-in-education/people/geof-hill

To have a look at the schedule and book your ticket, please visit: ars2018.eventbrite.co.uk

–

Delegate/Attendance fee: £30 / Early Bird Tickets (£20) are available until 18th November – includes lunch & refreshments

We’ll be posting speaker information leading up to the event so keep an eye out for our Facebook event page: www.facebook.com/events/455606768180452

This event is supported by the School of Arts at Oxford Brookes University and the Oxford City Council.

For a digital copy of the event booklet and more information please contact: info@ca-ru.org

We look forward to seeing you there!

CARU Conference Team
Follow us on social media: @CARUpage

‘Noh’ is classical Japanese theatre, which combines elements of dance, drama, music and poetic text into a highly aesthetic form of art that has been performed continuously for 650 years. In contrast to its minimalist stage, ‘noh’ uses elaborate costumes and exquisitely carved wooden masks such as those acquired at Pitt Rivers Museum from master mask-maker Hideta Kitazawa. This illustrated talk by Jannette Cheong is designed to introduce the key elements of classical ‘noh’. It will be followed by a reading of Jannette’s new ‘noh’ ‘Between the Stones’, which is being prepared for performance, to give a close up and interactive experience of the challenges of developing a new ‘noh’ ‘from page to stage’, using traditional techniques.
Come and join us for this fascinating opportunity to get ‘under the skin’ of this rare UK artist’s work. As the first British person to write a ‘noh’ using traditional techniques, Jannette will unravel the mysteries of this exquisite classical theatre form as she begins her third collaboration with Richard Emmert, and second collaboration with members of the Oshima Noh Theatre family.

Blackwell’s are delighted to be hosting a very special event with Tom Kibasi on Prosperity and Justice: A Plan for the New Economy. The Final Report of the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice.

The UK economy is broken. It no longer provides rising living standards for the majority. Young people face an increasingly insecure future. The gap between rich and poor areas is widening. Meanwhile the rise of giant digital companies, the advance of automation, and catastrophic environmental degradation challenge the very foundations of our economic model.

This important book analyses these profound challenges and sets out a bold vision for change. The report of a group of leading figures from across British society, it explains how the deep weaknesses of the UK economy reflect profound imbalances of economic power. Its radical policy agenda for the 2020s includes new missions to drive productivity and innovation, an overhaul of our financial system, and reforms to improve wages, job quality and the redistribution of wealth.

Ten years after the financial crisis, as the UK confronts the challenge of Brexit, this is an urgent and compelling account of the reforms needed to build a new economy of prosperity, justice and environmental sustainability. It will set the terms of political and economic debate for years to come

Tom Kibasi is Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, Chair of the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice and a principal author and editor of the Commission’s final report, ‘Prosperity and Justice: A Plan for the New Economy’. Under Tom’s leadership, IPPR has had significant impact in areas ranging from the real choices on Brexit, recasting the relationship between tech and society, and the funding and reform of the health and care system. Prior to joining IPPR, Tom spent more than a decade at McKinsey and Company, where he was a partner and held leadership roles in the healthcare practice in both London and New York. Tom helped government institutions with healthcare reform across a dozen countries in five continents and served international institutions, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and international foundations including the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Tickets cost £5. The doors will open at 6:45pm where there will be a bar with a selection of drinks to purchase until 7pm. For all enquiries please email events.oxford@blackwell.co.uk or call our Customer Service Department on 01865 333623.

Come and hear Rachel Sanderson, Land Officer from the Oxford Preservation Trust talk about how the flood alleviation scheme might help cycling. In theory this could be the cycling route from Botley to Sandford and so very valuable to us. This talk is in advance of the the planning application for the Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme which is being considered by Oxfordshire County Council. The planning application closes on 22nd so this talk will help inform our submission.

As part of our ‘For Learning. For Life’ series we will be hosting three weekly Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction talks, starting on Wednesday 16th January with Paul Luna ‘Typography – A Very Short Introduction’.

Typography, the art of designing printed words, touches our life now more than ever. The widespread use of mobile phones, tablets and social media means that we are regularly asked to make decisions about the fonts, sizes, and layouts we use in our writing. We now see typography as a way to express our personalities rather than just make our writing legible. Paul Luna offers a broad definition of typography as design for reading, whether in print or on screens, where a set of visual choices are taken to make a written message more accessible, more easily transmitted, more significant, or more attractive.

Professor Ian Goldin, Director of Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change, will identify the economic impact of migration and examine how the contribution that migrants make has been overwhelmed by the politics. As Chair of the www.core-econ.org initiative to reform economics, Ian will locate the economics of migration within the broader need to reform economics.

Abstract:
This presentation explores two workforces at the bottom of the coercive apparatus of the colonial state in Bengal in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These are police constables, and village watchmen, also called chaukidars. The two workforces presented a stark contrast. The colonial constabulary was always a thin presence in Indian society, while a much larger workforce of chaukidars existed throughout the countryside. However, chaukidars were never absorbed as direct employees of the government in the way the constables were. While constables were paid salaries out of the budget of the provincial government, chaukidars were paid salaries out of a locally raised chaukidari tax. Constables had a substantial number of upper caste workers in their ranks. All chaukidars were lower caste workers. In this presentation, I will explore how this segmentation of security work emerged in the apparatus of colonial policing and what it reveals about the nature of the colonial police.

About the Speaker:
Partha Pratim Shil is a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is interested in labour history and state formation in South Asia.

The last decade has seen a surge of interest in economic inequality and widely read books about its social and political consequences by Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson, and Larry Bartels. Yet most scholarship focuses on incomes, neglecting the massive inequalities that exist and are widening in the ownership of assets: from residential to financial wealth.

In this talk, Professor Ben Ansell, building off his ERC project WEALTHPOL, will examine the potential impact of wealth inequality on contemporary politics, from standard economic debates such as taxation to the rise of populist parties.

Lord Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, LSE and Director of the LSE India Observatory, will discuss his new book, with Himanshu of JNU, Delhi and Peter Lanjouw of the Free University of Amsterdam, How Lives Change: Palanpur, India, and Development Economics. Using a unique data set consisting of seven full (100%) surveys of one Indian village, one for every decade since Independence, Nick will reflect on the past, present and future, both of India and of development economics, seen through the experience of Palanpur in the years since Independence.

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

Please register at: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event/2651

This is a joint event with The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and the Blavatnik School of Government

The talk will argue that modern economic theory has led to the confusion between profits and rents, and hence the distinction between value creation and value extraction.

Using case studies – from Silicon Valley to the financial sector to big pharma, Professor Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy, will demonstrate how the current rules of the system reward extractors over creators, and distort the measurements of growth and GDP. In the process, innovation suffers and inequality rises. To move to a different system – with growth that is more inclusive, sustainable and innovation-led – it is critical to rethink public value and public purpose in the economy.

Please register at: www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/events/value-everything-rediscovering-purpose-economy

The economic case for limiting warming to 1.5°C is unclear, due to manifold uncertainties. However, it cannot be ruled out that the 1.5°C target passes a cost-benefit test. Costs are almost certainly high: the median global carbon price in 1.5°C scenarios implemented by various energy models is more than US$100 per metric ton of CO2 in 2020, for example. Benefits estimates range from much lower than this to much higher. Some of these uncertainties may reduce in the future, raising the question of how to hedge in the near term.

Simon Dietz is an environmental economist with particular interests in climate change and sustainable development. He has published dozens of research articles on a wide range of issues, and he also works with governments, businesses and NGOs on topics of shared interest, such as carbon pricing, insurance and institutional investment.

– GPES Seminar Series, Oxford Brookes University

Automation, AI and robotics are changing our lives quickly – but digital disruption goes much further than we realise.

In this talk, Richard Baldwin, one of the world’s leading globalisation experts, will explain that exponential growth in computing, transmission and storage capacities is also creating a new form of ‘virtual’ globalisation that could undermine the foundations of middle-class prosperity in the West.

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

Deborah Warner: Changing Directions – Journeys in theatre, opera and installation
Date: Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Time: 5.00pm (Attendees must be seated by 4.45pm)
Venue: Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre, St Catherine’s College, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UJ

Over her career, Deborah Warner has worked extensively in the fields of theatre, opera and classical music. Examples of her work as a Director include the plays Electra, King Lear and Richard II; and the operas The Turn of the Screw for the Royal Opera, which won the Evening Standard and South Bank Awards; Dido and Aeneas and La Traviata for the Vienna Festival. You can read more about Deborah Warner, and about the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professorship here.

Places for this event will be allocated by ballot. To register for the ballot, please complete the online form at www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/deborahwarner by 12.00pm on Friday, 8 February. Please note that entry to the ballot does not automatically entitle applicants to a place at the lecture, but to a place in the draw. Printed confirmation of your ticket to the event will be required in order to attend the lecture.

You will be notified, via email, week commencing Monday, 18 February if you have been successful in securing a place at the lecture. Please contact development.office@stcatz.ox.ac.uk should you have any queries.

ScreenTalk Oxfordshire proudly presents an evening with British Producer Jeremy Thomas. Jeremy has worked with renowned directors including Bertolucci, Nicolas Roeg, Jonathan Glazer and Ben Wheatley producing such great films as ‘The Last Emperor’, ‘Crash’, ‘Sexy Beast’ and ‘High-Rise’.

On Tuesday 5th March at the Lounge Bar, Curzon, Westgate Centre in Oxford, local producer Carl Schoenfeld will be talking to Jeremy Thomas about Directors, Actors, Crews as well as films he has produced and what he has learnt throughout his career.

Join us from 18:15 for a drink and chat in the bar, then at 19:00 with Carl Schoenfeld (ScreenTalk Co-Founder and Steering Group Member) in conversation with Jeremy Thomas (Recorded Picture Company).

There will be a Card/Cash Bar so join us after the talk to catch up and network.

ScreenTalk events are an opportunity to forge and strengthen contacts in Film, TV and Associated Media. For further information and to sign up to our mailing list please email screentalkoxfordshire@gmail.com

We expect this event to be popular and can only take pre-booked (free) tickets for entry.
Tickets: http://bit.ly/2GnlZhi

Duncan Dollimore, Head of Campaigns, Cycling UK wants to hear our views on local cycle campaigning
Cycling UK has spent the last few months considering how to work with local campaign groups. Duncan is coming to Oxford because he was impressed by the energy at our conference 15 months ago. This is our chance to influence how Cycling UK relates with local groups like Cyclox.

The Global Politics, Economy and Society (GPES) Research Centre at Oxford Brookes will be hosting its first annual lecture, given by the writer and activist George Monbiot. All welcome, but please book via the registration link.

Carlos Lopes will deliver an overview of the critical development issues facing the African continent today. He will talk about a blueprint of policies to address issues, and an intense, heartfelt meditation on the meaning of economic development in the age of democratic doubts, identity crises, global fears and threatening issues of sustainability.

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

Blackwell’s are delighted to invite you to join us for a magical evening of light-hearted rehearsed readings as we step into the weird and wonderful world of The Fae.

“Fairy Tale” by Simon Josiffe is the story of a wild-living kelpie who’d rather be in the pub or on her motorbike but unfortunately has to look after us feckless mortals instead.

“Changeling” by Debs Wardle follows a woman who, on her 36th birthday, gets dragged into another realm and informed that she’s a faery who was swapped at birth with a human.

Both pieces will be read to you live by a talented cast of actors.

Economics is in crisis. On one hand, behavioural economics is now well-established, but on the other hand, most economics models are still based on rational expectations with constraints, called “frictions”. The standard program adds more and more constraints to rationality in hopes that this will approximate real behaviour, but this may never work. It is increasingly clear that heterogeneity (the fact that people and institutions are diverse) is essential to understand problems such as inequality. There is a major effort to address this challenge, but the models that do this are technically complicated and rapidly become intractable as they become more realistic. Finally, there is a fundamental challenge due to the fact that we have very little historical data available to fit models for a complicated and evolving economy.

Complexity economics offers solutions to these problems. It advocates modelling behaviour in terms of heuristics and myopic reasoning, as observed in behavioural experiments. It advocates the use of simulations, making it much easier to incorporate heterogeneity in a tractable manner. Finally, it advocates using highly granular data, that accurately captures heterogeneity, to fit the models. Professor Doyne Farmer will present examples where this approach has had success, including applications to technology forecasting, economic growth and climate change, and present a vision of what it can do in the future.

In our first of two seminars on the future of work after automation Dr Brendan Burchell will investigate the potential for a five-day weekend society.

Machine-learning and robotics technologies promise to be able to replace some tasks or jobs that have traditionally been performed by humans. Like previous technologies introduced in the past couple of centuries, this possibility has been met with either optimism that will permit liberation from the tyranny of employment, or pessimism that it will lead to mass precarity and unemployment.

This presentation will draw upon both qualitative and quantitative evidence to explore the possible societal consequences of a radical reduction in the length of the normal working week. Drawing upon the evidence for the psychological benefits of employment, we look at the evidence for the minimum effective dose of employment. The paper also considers why the historical increases in productivity have not been matched with proportionate reductions in working time.

About Brendan Burchell:

Dr Brendan Burchell is a Reader in the Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge.

Dr Burchell is director of graduate education for the Department of Sociology and director of the Cambridge Undergraduate Quantitative Research Centre. He was recently Head of Department for Sociology, as well as a Director of Studies and a Tutor at Magdalene College.

Dr Burchell’s main research interests centre on the effects of labour market conditions on wellbeing. Recent publications have focussed on unemployment, job insecurity, work intensity, part-time work, zero-hours contracts, debt, occupational gender segregation and self-employment. Most of his work concentrates on employment in Europe, but current projects also include an analysis of job quality, the future of work and youth self-employment in developing countries. He works in interdisciplinary environments with psychologists, sociologists, economists, lawyers and other social scientists.

Dr Burchell’s undergraduate degree was in Psychology, followed by a PhD in Social Psychology. His first post in Cambridge was a joint appointment between the social sciences and economics in 1985, and he has been in a permanent teaching post in at Cambridge since 1990.

Register:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/future-of-work-after-automation-towards-a-five-day-weekend-society-tickets-61028132788

The 11th Annual Human Welfare Conference is entitled ‘Innovate: Balancing Interests in Resource-Constrained Settings’. The conference will focus on solutions being developed at various scales to improve human wellbeing in areas as diverse as poverty alleviation, education, health, and social welfare. The goal is to offer diverse, interdisciplinary perspectives on tackling the most pertinent issues facing our society today. Invited speakers include academics and practitioners, with experience working in government, NGOs and the commercial sector in fields as diverse as health, food, investment and education.

Is competition in the digital economy desirable? Does it currently exist? Is it possible? Is there anything policy can do?

This talk addresses all of these questions and presents the recommendations of the Digital Competition Expert Panel which was chaired by Jason Furman and recently presented its recommendations to the government.

On Wednesday 22 May, ScreenTalk Oxfordshire proudly presents Harnessing the Power of Video in Business Communications.
An evening with Tim May, MD of Strange Films and Music, talking with Toby Low – MD of MerchantCantos an international agency specialising in bringing creativity to critical business communications; Scott Shillum – CEO of Vismedia, Winner of the 2018 Digital Impact Awards and a pioneer in creating interactive, immersive content fused with cutting edge technology; Clare Holt – Founder of Nice Tree Films in Oxford and a member of ScreenTalk provides videos for businesses, public sector organisations, charities and education; Nicky Woodhouse – Founder of Woodhouse Video Production, award-winning female director of branded content and TVCs for online and broadcast.

Join us on Wednesday 22 May from 18:15 for a drink in the downstairs Lounge Bar, Curzon, Westgate Centre in Oxford, and why not try the Curzon’s excellent Pizza – great quality! At 19:00 Tim May will be talking to Toby Low, Scott Shillum, Clare Holt and Nicky Woodhouse. Afterwards there will be Shout Outs from ScreenTalk members and facilitated networking. At ScreenTalk events we run a Card/Cash Bar so please join us and take advantage of the opportunity to catch up and network.

We expect this event to be popular and can only take pre-booked (free) tickets for entry.

Join the conversation! ScreenTalk events are an opportunity to forge and strengthen contacts in Film, TV and Associated Media.
For further information and to sign up to our mailing list please email screentalkoxfordshire@gmail.com

Like the wind, knowledge can be difficult to see or grasp, but if well-harnessed, it can help us do extraordinary things. In this talk, Dr Penny Mealy will discuss how novel analytical tools are providing new insights into the use of knowledge in society, and highlight implications for economic development, inequality and the transition to the green economy.

The 5th Annual Oxford Business and Poverty Conference will feature a diverse range of speakers addressing the Paradoxes of Prosperity. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/5th-annual-oxford-business-poverty-conference-tickets-57733957822
Hosted at the Sheldonian Theatre, the conference will feature keynotes by:
Lant Pritchett: RISE Research Director at the Blavatnik School of Government, former Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development
Efosa Ojomo: Global Prosperity Lead and Senior Researcher at the Clayton Christensen Institute
John Hoffmire: Director of Center on Business and Poverty and Research Associate at Kellogg Colleges at Center For Mutual and Employee-owned Business at Oxford University
Ananth Pai: Executive Director, Bharath Beedi Works Pvt. Ltd. and Director, Bharath Auto Cars Pvt
Laurel Stanfield: Assistant Professor of Marketing at Bentley College in Massachusetts
Grace Cheng: Greater China’s Country Manager for Russell Reynolds Associates
Madhusudan Jagadish: 2016 Graduate MBA, Said Business School, University of Oxford
Tentative Schedule:
2:15-2:20 Welcome
2:20-2:50 Efosa Ojomo, co-author of The Prosperity Paradox, sets the stage for the need for innovation in development
2:50-3:20 John Hoffmire, Ananth Pai and Mudhusudan Jagadish explain how the Prosperity Paradox can be used in India as a model to create good jobs for poor women
3:20-3:40 Break
3:40-4:10 Laurel Steinfeld speaks to issues of gender, development and business – addressing paradoxes related to prosperity
4:10-4:40 Grace Cheng, speaks about the history of China’s use of disruptive innovations to develop its economy
4:40-5:15 Break
5:15-6 Lant Pritchett talks on Pushing Past Poverty: Paths to Prosperity
6:30-8 Dinner at the Rhodes House – Purchase tickets after signing up for the conference
Sponsors include: Russell Reynolds, Employee Ownership Foundation, Ananth Pai Foundation and others

In Origin of Species, Charles Darwin described how a population explosion occurs and called the time of population explosion “ favourable seasons”, he was not to know it, but such circumstances arose for his own species at around the time of his own birth. However, the favourable seasons for human population growth were not experienced favourably, with times of great social dislocation from small scale enclosure to global colonisation. Now those seasons are over, we have experienced the first ever sustained slowdown in the rate of global human population growth. This has been the case for at least one human generation. However, we are not just slowing down in terms of how many children we have, but in almost everything else we do, other than in the rise in global temperatures that we are recording and that we have to live with. It can be argued that there is even a slowdown in such unexpected areas as debt, publishing, and in the total amount useful information being produced.

If this is true – that humanity is slowing down in almost everything that we do – what does this mean? What measurements suggest that slowdown is true? And if so much is still rising, albeit at slower and slower rates – is that such a great change? Finally how might the slowdown impact on economic thought. In many ways economics was the science of the great acceleration; a science that makes most sense when markets are expanding and demand is rising. What kind of an economics is needed in a world where enormous and accelerating growth has stopped being the normality?

Coriander Theatre presents a new play ‘My Mother Runs in Zig-Zags’ at the North Wall Arts Centre, 30th May – 1st June 2019, 7:30pm, Saturday Matinee 2:30pm.

Sometimes, race and trauma are like leaky old pipes: you can’t even have a friend over for dinner without something spilling out everywhere and flooding your life in the most unexpected way.

A conversation between friends becomes a journey to the Lebanese and Nigerian civil wars. Half-remembered worlds of violent oral history invade the kitchen and layer themselves over everyday life, shining light on the laughter that heals intergenerational traumas, and celebrating the overflowings and excesses of a life shaped by migration.

With an original musical score, a chorus of performance poets and contemporary dancers, and stories passed on from a generation of migrants, My mother runs in zig-zags is a bold new tragicomedy, devised by the best of Oxford University’s BAME actors and performers.

Age Guidance: 12+

My mother runs in zig zags

Architectural designer and TV presenter Charlie Luxton joins Oxford based architecture and design cooperative Transition by Design for a talk on sustainable architecture and how Oxford can meet the need for affordable housing whilst limiting the impact on the natural environment.

Following the talk, there will be a panel discussion and Q&A.

This event is for anyone who is interested in or currently building, renovating, converting or extending their home. The panel will include experts on architecture, housing and low-energy design in discussion on low-carbon materials and energy efficiency as well as co-housing, community-led design and other models of housing.

This event is part of Oxford Green Week 2019