China is facing severe water challenges. Many parts of the country suffer from chronic water scarcity. Pollution is affecting the health of hundreds of waterways and public concern is increasing. Floods and droughts are a constant threat, especially as climate change increases uncertainty over rainfall patterns. Freshwater biodiversity is declining, with aquatic species such as the Yangtze river dolphin facing extinction.

The Chinese authorities have recognised that tackling these challenges is a matter of national priority and have significantly increased the resources available to water managers, emphasising ‘three red lines’ of improved water quality, increased water efficiency and more sustainable water allocations.

So how can China meet its aspirations for a water secure future which aids its continued economic development while enhancing environmental quality? This seminar will explore the current and potential future water situation in China, the response of China to these challenges drawing on global experiences, and risks to critical water infrastructure.

Current and future water challenges in China
Prof Li Yuanyuan, Vice President, General Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Planning and Design, Ministry of Water resources, PR China

Strategic principles and frameworks for water management in China and beyond – lessons from a global review
Dr David Tickner, Chief Freshwater Advisor, WWF-UK

Infrastructure vulnerability to water-related risks in China
Prof Jim Hall, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University

Join us in the Edmund Safra Lecture Theatre, Saïd Business School, for a talk by Dr Gavin Yamey MD MPH, a physician and medical journal editor with training in public health who leads the Evidence to Policy initiative E2Pi in the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Prompted by the 20th anniversary of Investing in Health, the World Bank’s 1993 World Development Report (WDR 1993), in 2013 an independent commission of 25 renowned economists and global health experts from around the world revisited the case for health investment. The commission was chaired by Lawrence Summers, the Chief Economist at the World Bank responsible for choosing global health as the focus of WDR 1993, and co-chaired by Dean Jamison, lead author of WDR 1993. The commissioners aimed to reconsider the recommendations of WDR 1993; to examine how the context for health investment has changed in the past 20 years; and to develop a highly ambitious forward-looking health policy agenda targeting the world’s poor populations. The report, Global Health 2035: A World Converging Within a Generation published in The Lancet, lays out a roadmap for achieving dramatic gains in global health by 2035 through: a grand convergence around infectious, maternal, and child mortality, major reductions in the incidence and consequences of non-communicable diseases, and the promise of pro-poor universal health coverage.

*ALL WELCOME* Join us for a drinks reception immediately afterwards

Professor of Caribbean Literature and Culture at Goldsmiths University, Joan Anim-Addo brings us her voice on Black Women’s Writing and the place of the Black figure in the Humanities. This event will be hosted in connection with Oxford ACS.

Popular Representations of Development takes a novel approach to the broad discipline of development studies that goes beyond narrow policy or social science frameworks. Instead, the authors reassess the breadth and popularity of development studies through analysis of literature, films, and other non-conventional forms of representation.

Encompassing the FLJS programmes in development and law, film, and literature, this book colloquium invites attendees to rethink their understanding of development issues in favour of a holistic approach.

Participants include

Professor David Lewis, editor of Popular Representations of Development and Professor of Social Policy and Development, LSE

Dr Catherine Jenkins, Lecturer in Law and Chair of the Centre for Law and Conflict, SOAS

Dr Tim Markham, Head of Department, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck

Dr Amir Paz-Fuchs, Lecturer in Employment Law, University of Sussex

Martin Wynne, Digital Methods Specialist, Oxford e-Research Centre

Progress to increase gender diversity in leadership roles across most sectors has been slow. Are quotas the answer to increase the number of women in leadership? What is the role of Business Schools in developing women’s leadership? Does entrepreneurship provide an alternative for women to realise their full-potentials? These questions will be debated by a panel of business leaders and academics:

– Professor Barbara Allan of Westminster Business School;

– Ann P Francke, Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute;

– Helen Hammond, Managing Director at Elephant Creative;

– Sally Rowley-Williams of Rowley Williams Limited.

– Simonetta Manfredi, Professor of Equality and Diversity Management and Director of the Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice

Alyse Nelson is President and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, the preeminent non-governmental organization (NGO) that identifies, trains and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the globe, enabling them to create a better world for us all.
Alyse has worked with women leaders to develop training programs and international forums in over 140 countries and has interviewed more than 200 international leaders. Under her leadership, Vital Voices has tripled in size and expanded its global reach to serve a network of over 14,000 women leaders in 144 countries.

Professor Sally Shuttleworth, Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Dr Sally Frampton, Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Oxford, will both talk about the role of Citizen Science in their AHRC Constructing Scientific Communities: Citizen Science in the 19th and 21st Centuries project.

The project uses the framing of ‘Citizen Science’ to consider how ‘public’ participation in science was understood in the nineteenth century. The project brings together historical and literary research in the nineteenth century with contemporary scientific practice, looking at the ways in which patterns of popular communication and engagement in nineteenth-century science can offer models for current practice.

Alumni Lecture 2014.
In the Department of Social Policy and Intervention’s Centenary year, Jacqueline Bhabha, Harvard, will deliver the Alumni Lecture, followed by a drinks reception. Make a booking by sending an email to events@spi.ox.ac.uk

It’s easy to think of pseudoscience existing in a glass case at a museum – something to be examined and critiqued from a safe distance, but not something to touch and to play with. Using examples taken from his own personal experiences in skepticism, Michael Marshall will show what happens when you begin to crack the surface of the pseudosciences that surround us – revealing the surprising, sometimes-shocking and often-comic adventures that lie beneath.

Michael Marshall is the Vice President of the Merseyside Skeptics Society and Project Director of the Good Thinking Society. He regularly speaks with proponents of pseudoscience for the Be Reasonable podcast. His work with the MSS has seen him organising international homeopathy protests and co-founding the popular QED conference. He has written for the Guardian, The Times and New Scientist.

7.30PM start at St. Aldates Tavern, and entry is free, although we do suggest a donation of around £3 to cover speaker expenses. Come along and say hello! All welcome.

Please join the facebook event and invite your friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/767965019903092/

http://oxford.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/2062/Lifting-The-Lid-Ongoing-adventures-in-the-world-of-pseudoscience

A short talk followed by questions and discussion. All welcome.

Between the artist and the museum

Friday 9 May 2014, 5-6.30pm (doors will open at 4.45pm)

Ashmolean Museum Headley Lecture Theatre

A symposium with Michael Govan (Humanitas Visiting Professor in Museums, Galleries & Libraries at Oxford University) and Vik Muniz (Artist). Chaired by Paul Hobson (Director, Modern Art Oxford).

Free admission but booking is essential.
http://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/humanitas/museums-galleries-libraries

Step inside the parlour and drawing room of an eighteenth-century home, and together with Dr Nicole Pohl (Oxford Brookes University) and musicians, enjoy readings, music, and the authentic sewing session of a ‘huswif’!
Part of the Oxford Brookes University OutBurst festival at Pegasus, 6-10 May 2014. #OutBurst2014

In this lecture series, Naomi Richman explores the evolution of the ideas central to major global belief-systems such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Marxism, and their status in the modern world from a social-scientific and secular perspective.

6 Lectures run on Mondays starting the 12th May.
6-7pm, Roy Griffiths Room. ARCO Building, Keble College.
Free, open to all, and followed by discussion.

Weeks 1 and 2: Christianity and Secularisation. Week 3: Buddhism. Week 4: Judaism. Week 5: Islam. Week 6: Marxism, Nationalism and Scientific Humanism

For more information, contact Dr Bea Prentiss,

A view from the Pacific: re-envisioning the art museum

Tuesday 13 May 2014, 5-6.30pm (doors will open at 4.45pm)

Ashmolean Museum Headley Lecture Theatre

A lecture by Michael Govan (Humanitas Visiting Professor in Museums, Galleries & Libraries at Oxford University). Chaired by Professor Christopher Brown (Director, Ashmolean Museum). The event will be followed by a drinks reception to which members of the audience are warmly invited.

Free admission but booking is essential.
http://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/humanitas/museums-galleries-libraries

Tour: Joseph Beuys & Jörg Immendorff
With Colin Harrison, Senior Curator of European Art

3–3.45pm on Wednesday 14 May and Wednesday 11 June

Tours are free, no booking is required. Please meet in Gallery 2.

http://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/details/?exh=92

Why is laughter such an important human social tool? Neuroscientist and stand-up comedian Prof Sophie Scott will discuss her research on laughter (and apparently rats laugh too!).

Short talk followed by questions and discussion. All welcome.

You ever wanted to understand more about climate change? Is it real? what are the consequences?
Come join us for an expert panel from Oxford University who will shed some light on this highly debated subject

When is a volcano going to erupt and how do you measure that?
What is Magma and how can we start studying it?

These questions and more will be explained by top academics from Oxford University.
More details on our website.

OULC and LGBTQ Society are delighted to jointly welcome Peter Tatchell for an event at the Corpus Auditorium. A prolific human rights campaigner, Peter is particularly known for his work with LGBTQ movements. Famously, he attempted a citizen’s arrest on Robert Mugabe in 1999 and 2001.

Peter is also a former Labour Party parliamentary candidate, and a more recent supporter of the Green Party. On Monday, he will join us to discuss LGBTQ rights in the context of both domestic politics and international affairs. There will be a Q&A session after his speech, in which the audience can explore his wide-ranging interests and expertise. We hope to see you there.

How can we rewild animals to today’s environment?
How does the future of lethal viruses is going to be? Are they going to stick around with us as long as humanity exists

Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum – Beatrice Blackwood Lecture 2014
With doors opening at 18.00 for a drinks reception in the Pitt Rivers Museum, join the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum for author and biographer Victoria Glendinning’s lecture on Sir Stamford Raffles, maverick colonial administrator and founder of Singapore.

Note: Entry via the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Parks Road.

http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/specialevents.html#raffles

On Thursday 22nd at 6pm the Simpkins Lee will host a panel discussion exploring the battle for women’s education. Featuring a heavyweight line-up of Jane Robinson (author of the bestselling ‘Bluestockings’), Sarah Pine (OUSU VP for Women), Lyndall Gordon (alumni and Fellow of St. Hilda’s College) and Tim Whitmarsh (Head of ‘Women and the Humanities’ at TORCH), it promises to be a smashing 45 minute insight into the world of women’s colleges, the battle for equality, and why ‘women’s studies’ deserves a place on the curriculum.

Speaker: Judy Webb

The Lye Valley, formally known as Hogley Bog, is a surprising and little known hot spot of wildlife biodiversity, a habitat for stunning wildflowers and spectacular insects in the centre of the City of Oxford. Beautiful marsh helleborine orchids are thriving here, within just a few metres of housing, and an important, historic, population of Grass-of-Parnassus is recovering to good numbers. Oxford botanists since the 1650s have loved this site and it was a favorite of photographer Henry Taunt, whose description of the Grass of Parnassus is quoted in the title. This is the story of a rare, ancient, wetland fen community, which has been fed by lime-rich spring water for thousands of years. It is one of the most important heritage sites within the city.

All Summer Lectures start at 6.30pm in the Daubeny Lecture Theatre (at
 the front of the Botanic Garden) and are followed by a drinks reception in the Botanic Garden. Ticket cost £8 per talk or £36 for the series of 5.
For more details, visit: http://www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk/whatson

onathon Porritt, Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, is an eminent writer, broadcaster, environmentalist and commentator on sustainable development. He will be talking at Cerberus about his new book, ‘The World We Made’, in which he sets out to counter the doom and gloom that surrounds today’s debates about sustainability. Come and listen for a positive and exciting account of what the future could look like.

Professor Muki Haklay, Co-Director of the Extreme Citizen Science (ExCiteS) research group at UCL, asks what happens when instead of asking the crowd for help, the question of what is explored is handed over to the participants?

The potential of bottom-up citizen science has increased dramatically in the past decade. To understand this, we can look at the societal and technological changes that led to this proliferation, and then explore the challenges, risks and opportunities that this approach present.

GTC Care Initiative and GTC Future Ageing Initiative event:

‘Innovating for an Ageing Society: Collective Solutions to Care’

The speaker is Dr Clare McNeil, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). She is the author of the recent IPPR Report ‘The Generation Strain’ (http://www.ippr.org/publications/the-generation-strain-collective-solutions-to-care-in-an-ageing-society)

All welcome to attend and no need to register.

Any questions please email me on sophie.kendall@gtc.ox.ac.uk

The GTC Care Initiative, in collaboration with the GTC Future Ageing Initiative, are holding a lecture/discussion session on the topic of: ‘Innovating for an Ageing Society: Collective Solutions to Care’

The speaker is Dr Clare McNeil, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). She is the author of the recent IPPR Report on ‘The Generation Strain’ (http://www.ippr.org/publications/the-generation-strain-collective-solutions-to-care-in-an-ageing-society)

This will take place at the E P Abraham Lecture Theatre at Green Templeton College on June 2nd at 6pm. A drinks reception in the Common Room will follow at 7.15pm.

All are welcome to attend and there is no need to register.

Do get in touch with any questions:
Sophie Kendall
sophie.kendall@gtc.ox.ac.uk