Join engaging physicist and Guardian science blogger Jon Butterworth in a lively and fun science adventure about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Share the excitement of the discovery of the Higgs boson, and the latest developments in the investigation
of the fabric of the Universe!

Date/Time: Sunday 3 July, 19:00
Venue: Amey Theatre, Abingdon School, Abingdon-on-Thames
Admissions: £7/£5(conc.)/£22(fam.)
Suitability: 16+
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/grand-finale.html

What are the next steps for human evolution? Natural changes or technologies? Combining gene splicing and trans-humanism, medical advancement and surgical enhancement, biology and ambition, Level Up Human takes a light hearted look at what it means to be human, and what the alternatives might be. Join science writer and TV presenter Simon Watt, and his guests, for the live recording of an exciting podcast series.

Jonathon Porritt and Shaun Chamberlin celebrate the launch of the late Trinity alumnus David Fleming’s extraordinary book, ‘Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy’.

This intimate event will be held in the Sutro Room at Trinity College, Oxford University, and will be recorded for a short film. Various themes in Fleming’s wonderfully diverse work – from carnival to climate change, religion to resilience, manners to markets – may be explored in response to the interests of those present.

Interview with Shaun Chamberlin on David Fleming, Brexit and the book: http://www.darkoptimism.org/2016/08/21/interview-on-david-fleming-music-and-hippos/

More information on David Fleming’s books:
http://www.chelseagreen.com/surviving-the-future
http://www.chelseagreen.com/lean-logic

Copies of both books will be on sale on the day.

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“David Fleming was an elder of the UK green movement and a key figure in the early Green Party. Drawing on the heritage of Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, Fleming’s beautifully written and nourishing vision of a post-growth economics grounded in human-scale culture and community—rather than big finance—is both inspiring and ever more topical.”
~ Caroline Lucas MP, co-leader, Green Party of England and Wales; former Member of the European Parliament

“I would unreservedly go so far as to say that David Fleming was one of the most original, brilliant, urgently-needed, underrated, and ahead-of-his-time thinkers of the last 50 years. History will come to place him alongside Schumacher, Berry, Seymour, Cobbett, and those other brilliant souls who could not just imagine a more resilient world but who could paint a picture of it in such vivid colours. Step into the world of David Fleming; you’ll be so glad you did.”
~ Rob Hopkins, cofounder of the Transition Network

“Why do some of the truly great books only emerge and exact their influence upon us after the death of their authors? Perhaps it takes a lifetime to accrue and refine the necessary wisdom. Or perhaps it simply takes the rest of us too long to catch up. Like Thoreau, Fleming’s masterpiece brims not only with fresh insight into every nook and cranny of our culture and what it means to be human, but with such wit and humour that its challenging ideas and radical perspectives become a refreshing delight. If we’re to have a future worth surviving, this book demands to be read, re-read, and—ultimately—acted upon.”
~ Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Manifesto and Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi

Inequality is centre-stage in political debate both globally and in individual countries, being blamed for everything from Brexit to stagnating wages and growth. Professor Brian Nolan, Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Inequality and Prosperity, will seek to tease out why this is so and identify central unanswered questions about the drivers of inequality, and what policy responses to it should be.

One of the world’s leading inequality economists, Professor Branko Milanovic, presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that cause the rise and fall of inequality within and among nations. He also reveals who has been helped the most by globalisation, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice.

Professor Branko Milanovic’s book, Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, will be available to buy after the lecture.

An unwinnable battle?

Zika and Ebola. Two viruses that are emerging as huge global threats to human health.

What can we learn from the past? How must we approach the future? Some of Oxford’s leading scientists host an exciting day of lectures, seminars and films providing insight into how the world should respond to these threats.

Join the Richard Doll Society for our annual conference! For ticket reservations, timetable information and poster abstract submissions, please visit the registration site.

The deadline for poster abstarct submission is Friday, 14th October: https://goo.gl/forms/YBDDVO7bIFS3l2F82

This year’s lecture will be given by David Altshuler MD PhD, Executive Vice President for Global Research and Chief Scientific Officer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and will be titled ‘Human Genetics and the Discovery of New Medicines’.

The lecture will take place on Wednesday 9 November 2016 at 17.15 in Lecture Theatre 1, Mathematical Institute, Andrew Wiles Building, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Refreshments will follow.

Please email cpm@well.ox.ac.uk with any queries.

For the final event in our series, we’re bringing together a panel of experts to discuss approaches to tackling inequality. Each panellist will draw on their own research and experience to put forward a response to the question of how to tackle inequality and its effects, before we open up to a wider discussion, with questions from the audience.

Speakers:

* Professor Brian Nolan, Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Inequality and Prosperity (Chair)
* Professor Sir Paul Collier, Co-Director, Oxford Institute for Global Economic Development, Oxford Martin School and Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government
* Professor Sandy Fredman, Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations
* Professor John Goldthorpe, Emeritus Fellow, Nuffield College
* Professor Simonetta Manfredi, Professor in Equality and Diversity Management and Director, Centre for Diversity Policy Research & Practice, Oxford Brookes University

In this talk Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times Columnist on Foreign Affairs, Globalization and Technology, will talk about how the planet’s three largest forces – the advance of technology, globalisation and climate change are each driving the other – and how these accelerations are fundamentally reshaping the world.

There will be a book signing following the lecture

From rovers on Mars to balloons on Venus and boats on Titan, robotic spacecraft are exploring very distant frontiers indeed.

One of the most pressing ethical considerations is how to protect these alien environments, and the clues they hold about how widespread life might be in the universe, from our own exploration efforts.

Dr Colin Wilson, Researcher in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics, will review the current frontiers and outlook for spacecraft exploration of our solar system and beyond.

Global energy consumption is increasing rapidly, driven by rising living standards in developing countries. The energy provided by burning fossil fuels is also increasing, albeit not quite as fast as total energy use. This is unsustainable and decarbonisation is imperative – to reduce air pollution, rebalance relations between oil producing and importing countries, and to moderate climate change. With today’s technology, decarbonising rapidly at a price society will be willing to pay will be hard.

Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, Director of Energy Research at the University of Oxford, will review the technical, economic and political challenges that will have to be met in order to meet future needs sustainably.

At a time of heightened political tension and policy confusion about the refugee crisis, this lecture will explore why record numbers of people are fleeing their homes; what conditions they are living in; and what should be done to help them.

Rt Hon David Miliband will make the case that support for refugees is a global public good, which requires reform of international policy. It will also argue that winning the argument for supporting refugees is vital to the moral standing of western societies which constructed the international order after World War 2.

Our societies are increasingly dependent on, and shaped by, our information technologies. We read, watch, communicate, interact, and monitor digitally, both as individuals and in our institutions.

As we document and store every conceivable facet of our lives we expose tensions between the availability of information and the freedoms that we enjoy. We rightly expect a level of personal privacy and freedom of expression while, equally justifiably, expecting transparency from our governments and businesses. In practice, we all too often see the reverse.

In this talk Dr Joss Wright, Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, will examine technologies that seek to assert, resist, or subvert control over information, and assess the balance of the information we share as individuals and as a society. We will look at technologies such as the ‘dark web’ and Bitcoin, that seek to resist traditional observation and control, and the new forms of control introduced by broad-scale gathering of personal data and the algorithms used to act on it.

By understanding the consequences of hiding and sharing information, and the technologies and policies that we use to do so, we take a necessary step towards consciously guiding the shape of the future societies that we wish to see.

Professor Vlatko Vedral, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Bio-Inspired Quantum Technologies will explore the possibility of basing quantum technologies on organic molecules, namely using natural systems to support quantum bit for quantum computation.

By 2050, a quarter of humanity will be African. The continent is in profound transition, the scale of which matters not just for the citizens of Africa’s 54 nations, but for the world. It is the fastest urbanising continent, and experiencing rapid industrialisation.

Its economic growth has outperformed Latin America and most developed economies over recent years, yet 55% of Africa’s labour force today is still employed in agriculture, and the challenges of peace and security continue to occupy the headlines about the continent. Six hundred million of its citizens live without access to electricity, yet by 2014 more than 80% of the population had a mobile phone.

The facts about Africa’s growth and development leave no doubt about its unique trajectory, but how will the continent navigate these changes, and how will the world engage with this unprecedented scale and pace of change?

In Oxford, new approaches are being forged to studying and understanding Africa, including the Africa-Oxford Initiative and the inclusion of Africa within Oxford Martin School’s new research theme ‘Great Transitions’. Join us on 7 March to hear from Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of Oxfam International, Dr Carlos Lopes, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and current Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow, and Achim Steiner, Director of the Oxford Martin School, and be part of the debate as they discuss the range of African futures that could emerge over the coming decades.

This panel discussion will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

Africa currently has the highest disease burden of any region of the world and the least resources in terms of health personnel and health systems. But things are changing rapidly, many countries are in the process of major epidemiologic transitions with falling childhood mortality and the prospects of controlling many of the traditional infectious causes of ill health. At the same time the combined effects of economic development and rapid demographic expansion against a background of increasing urbanisation will pose enormous new challenges for the health of African populations.

In this talk Kevin Marsh, Professor of Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford, will examine the possible trends for the health of the continent.

Saïd Business School is pleased to welcome Lubomira Rochet, Global Chief Digital Officer of the L’Oréal Group, to speak at the School on Wednesday 26 April.

Leading digital transformation at L’Oréal

L’Oréal is the world’s number one beauty company with leading brands such as Maybelline New York, L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Lancome, Kiehl’s, and Kerastase. The group was also named by Adweek as 2017’s hottest digital marketer. How did one of the world’s oldest consumer goods companies get to this position? Lubomira Rochet, the Chief Digital Officer for L’Oréal globally and member of the group’s executive committee, will talk about the digital transformation of L’Oréal’s businesses that she and her team have enacted since she joined the company in 2014.

The seminar is open for anyone to attend and will take place at Saïd Business School on Wednesday 26 April followed by a short networking drinks reception until around 7.30pm. Please remember that registration is required to attend this event.

“Diamonds are a rebel’s best friend” is one striking way to sum up the belief that valuable minerals spur violent conflict. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme and the US Dodd Frank Act Section 1502, now on the chopping block under the Trump administration, are meant to counteract this: they aim to prevent trade in minerals unless it can be proven that revenues from these do not support armed groups.

Research however, suggests that the relationship between minerals and violent conflict may be more complex than this quote presumes. Valuable minerals may indeed fund or motivate rebel movements. But they may also provide a livelihood to millions of people, making them better off and less vulnerable to be recruited into armed groups. And revenue from minerals can also flows to countries’ governments and their armies.

In this lecture Dr Anouk S. Rigterink, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, Department of Economics’ Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, will address the contradictory faces of ‘conflict minerals’ and their implications for how effective we think current policies to tackle them can be.

This is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Centre for Tropical Forests

One of our biggest technological innovations is that of time keeping. From the atomic to the astronomical scales, our technology has enabled us to precisely measure time. Our timekeeping uses clocks that all tick along the same time scale – a time scale that is also relative to how we perceive the passage of time.

For biology, the passage of time, however, is not only different but reveals deep truths about life. Across the diversity of life, the passage of time from bacteria to humans to giant Redwood trees is perceived differently. Instead of a constant ticking of a clock – the pace of life is reflected in scaling laws that characterise the variation in the cycles of heartbeats, metabolism, growth and reproduction.

In this lecture Professor Brian J. Enquist, Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow, will introduce a second concept of time – physiological time. Physiological time enables us to better understand why we age, the emergence of disease and cancer, the functioning of ecosystems, and the diversity of life. Physiological time is one of the most significant characteristics of life and helps unite the study of biology. A deeper question is what ultimately sets the pace of life.

As will be discussed, the search for a universal biological clock that unites life’s cycles is the most intriguing Holy Grail of biology.

This event will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

For Dr Kanade, good research derives from solving real-world problems and delivering useful results to society. As a roboticist, he participated in developing a wide range of computer-vision systems and autonomous robots, including human-face recognition, autonomously-driven cars, computer-assisted surgical robots, robot helicopters, biological live cell tracking through a microscope, and EyeVision, a system used for sports broadcast. Dr Kanade will share insights into his projects and discuss how his “Think like an amateur, do as an expert” maxim interacts with problems and people.

Dr Takeo Kanade is the 2016 Kyoto Prize Laureate for Advanced Technology.

Recent research purports that climate change is creating conflict, and leads to unchecked migration. But three distinct flaws characterise such research efforts; they often ask the wrong questions, present poor evidence, and remove references to other, more likely factors that cause conflict. It often gets translated into a perception that poor people act violently for ‘natural’ reasons, or are spurred by physical hazards. We all know that high climate vulnerability and conflict co-occur in the same general regions, but we know far less about what does shape the power and competition dynamics at the local level. Basically, who are the winners and losers of environmental change?

The reality from local research is that far more cooperation is occurring at the local level to mitigate and adapt to environmental challenges; and that a tremendous amount of development money is being directed towards adaptation and risk management. This changes the local calculus for violence. As a result, conflict, when and where it does occur, is often between the ‘winners’ from climate change, development and transitions to democracy.

A number of developments such as the Arab Spring and on-going famines in Somalia and South Sudan have led to renewed interest among both scholars and policymakers in the role of food insecurity and food-price related grievances as catalysts of conflict. In this lecture Prof Gunnar Sørbø, Senior Researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), will address such linkages, using case material mainly from Sudan and Somalia, with a particular focus on food insecurity as a risk multiplier and the implications for choice of interventions.

Competition over resources and territory is not just a feature of modern or historical times, but a recurrent theme in the natural world, and a phenomenon that reaches far back in human evolutionary history. While modern conflict has many unique qualities, common patterns across species and time suggest important fundamental insights about human nature and social organisation that may help to address modern problems, especially those which are hard to resolve.

Oil suppliers have more unsellable than unburnable oil: they are more at risk from competition than from climate regulation. Electricity suppliers too, face a swarm of disruptors that will transform their business beyond recognition. As these two vast industries merge and as insurgents in both challenge incumbents, almost everything we thought we knew about energy is ripe for rapid and profound change. In this lecture, physicist and innovator Amory Lovins will consider the changing face of the energy market.

Talk followed by questions and discussion

All welcome

Oxford Communist Corresponding Society

Katharine Hayhoe has been named one of FORTUNE’s ‘World’s Greatest Leaders’, TIME’s ‘100 Most Influential People’ and Huffington Post’s ‘20 Climate Champions’, and has shared the stage with Barack Obama and Leonardo DiCaprio to talk about climate change.

She is a climate scientist and a Christian based in Texas and has pioneered a way of talking about climate change that truly engages people as human beings and reaches even the most resistant of audiences.

Katharine’s approach is patient and compassionate and modeled after conversations she had with her husband, a linguistics professor and pastor who once himself had doubts about climate change. She is a brilliant communicator who spends her time talking with all sorts of people, from oil field engineers to Christian college students. She believes that “each of us, exactly as we are, with the values we already have, has every reason we need to care about climate change.”

She will be coming to Oxford on Wednesday 15th November 2017 as a guest of Climate Outreach, in partnership with The University Church of St Mary. At this not-to-be-missed event, Katharine will be in conversation with Climate Outreach’s founder George Marshall about how we can use community values to get people on board with climate change, why social science is more effective than statistics, graphs and facts in engaging people, and why we all need to get talking, and keep talking, about climate change.

The event will take place at The University Church of St Mary in Oxford on 15 November. Doors will open at 7pm for a 7:30pm start, and the event will be followed by a drinks reception.

Tickets cost £3 but students can attend for free upon showing a valid student ID on the night, but please register your place online to reserve a space.
This event is wheelchair accessible.

This is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Climate Research Network

The impacts of climate change are already evident both in the UK and worldwide, through changes in extreme weather, diminishing snow and ice and rising sea levels. The Paris Agreement in December 2015 marked a turning point in climate negotiations with 195 governments agreeing to take global action to tackle climate change.

As a result, the focus of climate science research at the Met Office has changed to reflect these changing drivers: moving from proving that climate change is happening to understanding the nature of the change. Robust, impartial and targeted climate science is needed to manage the risks of climate change, including developing strategies for lowering greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for the changes to our climate which are unavoidable.

Driverless cars are hitting the road, powered by artificial intelligence; robots can climb stairs, open doors, win Jeopardy, analyse stocks, work in factories, find parking spaces and advise oncologists. In the past, automation was considered a threat to low-skilled labour. Now, many high-skilled functions, including interpreting medical images, doing legal research, and analysing data, are within the skill sets of machines. How can higher education prepare students for their professional lives when professions themselves are disappearing?

Join Northeastern University’s President Joseph Aoun in conversation as he discusses new ways to educate the next generation of university students to invent, to create, and to discover – to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot.

There will be a drinks reception and book signing following the talk, all welcome

It seems like everywhere we look computers are running more and more of the world around us. In healthcare, we have seen an astounding level of hype surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in image recognition, personalised treatment, form filling in and diagnostic technologies. What are the potential applications for AI in health and life sciences, but also the barriers to its adoption and practical implementation?

Further information and registration: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event/2521