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.

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.

The advent of super-resolution microscopy has created unprecedented opportunities to study the mammalian central nervous system, which is dominated by anatomical structures whose nanoscale dimensions critically influence their biophysical properties. I will present our recent methodological advances 1) to analyze dendritic spines in the hippocampus in vivo and 2) to visualize the extracellular space (ECS) of the brain. Using a two-photon–STED microscope equipped with a long working distance objective and ‘hippocampal window’ to reach this deeply embedded structure, we measured the density and turnover of spines on CA1 pyramidal neurons. Spine density was two times higher than reported by conventional two-photon microscopy; around 40% of all spines turned over within 4 days. A combination of 3D-STED microscopy and fluorescent labeling of the extracellular fluid allows super-resolution shadow imaging (SUSHI) of the ECS in living brain slices. SUSHI enables quantitative analyses of ECS structure and produces sharp negative images of all cellular structures, providing an unbiased view of unlabeled brain cells in live tissue.

Join us as part of St Anne’s Equalities Week in collaboration with Oxford Women in Business for a panel event featuring Anne’s alumni.
Under the banner of “Overcoming Challenges”, we shall discuss how best to navigate the world of work and whether diversity initiatives truly work.
After the panel event, there will be a drinks reception and an opportunity to meet the speakers.

Dr Katherine Wheelhouse did her MChem at Jesus College, Oxford, working in the chemistry department with Prof Tim Donohoe before joining GSK as a process chemist in 2008. Since 2011 Katherine has specialised in application of chemical catalysis to pharmaceutical manufacture. She is a GSK scientific fellow, a member of the RSC Applied Catalysis Committee and also of the editorial advisory board of the journal Organic Process Research and Development. Katherine is going to talk about what it is that process chemists do (to enable doing things bigger) and how this fits into the development of medicines, illustrating with some examples from recent projects.

The talk is free for OUSS members, or £2 on the door. Membership can be obtained on the night or on our website. Those interested in meeting the speaker for dinner after the talk may contact oxforduniscisoc@gmail.com. eng

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

Warburg Memorial Lecture – Joint with BBOWT
Bryophytes in Cambridgeshire have been recorded continuously since 1927 and with increasing intensity in recent decades. A detailed analysis of the records reveals the remarkably dynamic nature of the bryophyte flora of lowland England.

‘Triboreacted materials as functional interfaces in internal combustion engines and medical implants’

Reducing CO2 and particulate emissions to halt global warming and improve the air cleanliness in developed and developing nations is urgent. A similarly large challenge is the provision of medical implants that will serve the ageing population. Both challenges are underpinned by the need to understand important functional interfaces.
This talk will focus on the engine and the hip and will present how an understanding of the interactions between tribology and chemistry/corrosion play a crucial role in the interfacial friction, wear and integrity. The integration of state-of-the-art surface science with engineering simulations in both of these areas enables engineers to create optimised systems with improved performance

Newspapers often feature studies that sound too good to be true and often they aren’t – they are myths.

Some myths may be harmless but the phenomenon affects most kinds of research within evidence-based science. The good news is that there’s a new movement tackling misleading and unreliable research and instead trying to give us results that we can trust.

Using his research in to human pheromones as an example, Tristram will discuss how and why popular myths, including power-posing, are created and how efforts have been made to address the ‘reproducibility crisis’.

Tristram Wyatt is an emeritus fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford and formerly Director of Studies in Biology at OUDCE. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. He’s interested in how animals of all kinds use pheromones to communicate by smell. His Cambridge University Press book on pheromones and animal behaviour won the Royal Society of Biology’s prize for the Best Postgraduate Textbook in 2014. His TED talk on human pheromones has been viewed over a million times. His book Animal behaviour: A Very Short Introduction was published by Oxford University Press in 2017.

Open to all. The talk is designed for researchers from all disciplines and is open to the public.

In mammals the cell-autonomous circadian clock pivots around a transcriptional/post-translational feedback loop. However, we remain largely ignorant of the critical molecular, cell biological, and circuit-level processes that determine the precision and robustness of circadian rhythms: what keeps them on track, and what determines their period, which varies by less than 5 minutes over 24 hours? The origin of this precision and robustness is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the basal hypothalamus, the principal circadian pacemaker of the brain. The SCN sits atop a circadian hierarchy that sustains and synchronises the innumerable cell-autonomous clocks of all major organs to solar time (and thereby to each other), by virtue of direct retinal innervation that entrains the transcriptional oscillator of the 20,000 or so component cells of the SCN. I shall describe real-time imaging approaches to monitor circadian cycles of gene expression and cellular function in the SCN, and intersectional genetic and pharmacological explorations of the cell-autonomous and circuit-level mechanisms of circadian timekeeping. A particular focus will be on “translational switching” approaches to controlling clock function and the surprising discovery of a central role for SCN astrocytes in controlling circadian behaviour.

Cycling film ‘Why We Cycle’ Duration 57 minutes
There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands. The film “Why We Cycle” gets cyclists and scientists to talk about Dutch cycling culture. These conversations uncover hidden effects of cycling on people, on societies, and on the organization of cities.

The day will consist of a range of events, hosted by speakers from different areas of STEM and industry. Expect to hear from keynote speakers, engage with panel discussions, and get hands on experience in smaller workshops focusing on entrepreneurship, outreach, disabilities and more.

Don’t miss out on hearing from a range of speakers, including: Dr. Chonnettia Jones, Director of Insight and Analysis at the Wellcome Trust; Prof. Daniela Bortoletto, Professor of Physics at Brasenose; plus Oxford’s own Vice Chancellor, Louise Richardson.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of gender, year and subject.

For more information visit OxFEST’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/294126621288050/

Join us at Teddy Hall next week for a fantastic event on the ‘Neuroscience of Dance’ brought to you by the Centre for the Creative Brain!

Science, dance and wine – what more could you want for a Saturday afternoon?

A few (free) tickets are still available, so be quick!

https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/discover/research/centre-for-the-creative-brain

In 2013, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne published a paper titled ‘The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?’ which estimated that 47% of jobs in the US are at risk of automation.

In this talk Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment, will discuss the societal consequences of the accelerating pace of automation, and what we can learn from previous episodes of worker-replacing technological change.

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

Cooling is critical for many of the sustainable development goals, including those relating to health, shelter, livelihoods, education and nutrition. As the world’s population grows, as disposable incomes grow and as urban areas grow, the need for cooling is booming. However cooling uses super polluting gases and large amounts of energy and is therefore a significant cause of climate change. More efficient, clean cooling has the potential to avoid up to a degree of warming by the end of the century and recently all governments came together to agree action to try to maximize this opportunity. Cooling sits at the intersection of the UNFCCC, the SDGs and the Montreal Protocol, but can these forces ensure success?

Dan Hamza-Goodacre will explain the risks and possibilities in the search for sustainable cooling for all.

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

Currently limited tools exist to accurately forecast the complex nature of disease spread across the globe. Dr Moritz Kraemer will talk about the dynamic global maps being built, at 5km resolution, to predict the invasion of new organisms under climate change conditions and continued unplanned urbanisation.

This book talk is co-organised with the Oxford Martin Programme on Collective Responsibility for Infectious Disease

Vaccination raises ethical issues about the responsibilities of individuals, communities, and states in preventing serious and potentially life-threatening infectious diseases. Such responsibilities are typically taken to be about minimising risks for those who are vaccinated and for those around them. However, there are other ethical considerations that matter when defining the responsibilities of different actors with regard to vaccination. Such ethical considerations are not often given due considerations in the debate on vaccination ethics and policy.

Thus, in this talk Dr Alberto Giubilini aims at offering a defence of compulsory vaccination taking into account not only the importance of preventing the harms of infectious diseases, but also the value of fairness in the distribution of the burdens entailed by the obligation to protect people from infectious diseases. He will offer a philosophical account of the key notions involved in the ethical debate on vaccination, of the types of responsibilities involved, of the possible types of vaccination policies ranked from the least to the most restrictive, and of the reasons why compulsory vaccination is, from an ethical point of view, the best policy available, as it is the most likely to guarantee not only protection from infectious diseases, but also a fair distribution of the burdens and responsibilities involved.

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

This talk has been cancelled. Sorry.

Talk followed by questions and discussion

Dung beetles in the British Isles are a vital part of their associated ecosystems but have been historically rather overlooked probably due to their chosen habitat. Now our native dung beetles are finally beginning to get some of the invertebrate limelight due to an emphasis on ecosystem services and a much more environmentally friendly farming future. However we are lacking on a great deal of base data about these vitally important species and surveying is the one of the best ways to get information. This means getting into dung and discovering these unsung heroes

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.

Organised by Oxford Civic Society @oxcivicsoc. Should we prioritise the Green Belt or new homes for Oxford? In this, the first of a series of public debates to mark the 50th anniversary of Oxford Civic Society, Bob Price, former leader of the City Council, will argue that the release of Green Belt land to meet housing need can benefit the common good without undermining the enduring purposes of the Green Belt. His view will be keenly contested by Mike Tyce, Trustee of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) Oxfordshire. The audience will have a chance to have their say before the two opposing speakers wind up the debate.

Doors open 7.00pm; debate starts 7.30pm. Tickets required – no entry on the door.

Tickets for this event are £7 via Eventbrite – see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-battle-for-the-green-belt-tickets-54594574843

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.

Join us at Blackwell’s to hear writer and campaigner, Caroline Criado-Perez discuss her latest book, Invisible Women.

Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.

Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.

Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being. From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women. In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.

Talk followed by questions and discussion. All welcome.

The ecology and history of one of the largest atolls in the world. Aldabra, situated in the South West Indian Ocean, supports the largest population of giant tortoises worldwide. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is a stronghold for wildlife in a region that is besieged by threats.

Professor Dave Carter reveals how understanding intercellular communication could improve healthcare.

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

This is a joint event with the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Climate Research Network (OCRN)

Professor David Battisti, The Tamaki Endowed Chair of Atmospheric Sciences, will be talking about global climate sensitivity controlling regional warming uncertainty and its role in impacting on human health, particularly heat stress.