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Tuesday 18 September 2018
12:30

John Negroponte

Ambassador John D. Negroponte with Bill Antholis and Chris Lu

The American presidency is at a crossroads. Significant turning points present themselves today – not just to President Trump and his team, but also to recent and future presidencies.

While campaigning for the presidency, Donald Trump promised to be a disrupter – to “shake up” American politics and policy – both at home and abroad. To what extent has this taken place? How have domestic and international forces shaped American politics? From NAFTA to TPP, what are the effects of a Trump presidency on global trade? What is America’s role in a changing international landscape?

Thursday 13 September 2018
12:30

Elif Shafak

Living in Liquid Times: Should We Fight For Democracy?

Populism, the rise of an “us” and “them” mentality and technological “progress” are threatening democracy in unprecedented ways.

How close are we to slipping into a new political phase and what can we do to change the direction of travel? These are the questions that Elif Shafak – award-winning novelist, public intellectual and political commentator – will address as she seeks to answer the question: “Should we fight for democracy?”

Wednesday 11 July 2018
12:30

Alex Cruz

Chairman and CEO of British Airways

Alex was appointed Chairman and CEO of British Airways in 2016.

British Airways, which is part of the IAG Group, carries more than 145,000 customers every day and 40 million customers a year. The company currently has approximately 45,000 employees including 16,500 cabin crew and 3,900 pilots. It will celebrate its 100th anniversary on 25 August, 2019.

Thursday 28 June 2018
12:30

David Pilling

The Growth Delusion

In The Growth Delusion, David Pilling explores how economists and their cult of growth have hijacked our policy-making and infiltrated our thinking about what makes societies work.

Our policies are geared relentlessly towards increasing our standard measure of growth, GDP. By this yardstick we have never been wealthier or happier. So why doesn’t it feel that way? Why are we living in such fractured times, with global populism on the rise and wealth inequality as stark as ever?

Wednesday 6 June 2018
12:30

Dani Rodrik

Straight Talk on Trade, co-hosted with the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)

Not so long ago the nation-state seemed to be on its deathbed, condemned to irrelevance by the forces of globalisation and technology. Now it is back with a vengeance, propelled by a groundswell of populists around the world.

Dani Rodrik was an early and outspoken critic of economic globalization taken too far. He argues that the obsession of elites and technocrats with hyper-globalization has made it more difficult for nations to achieve legitimate economic and social objectives, calling for a balance to be found between national and global governance.

Tuesday 19 June 2018
12:30

Peter Frankopan

Past, present and future: the return of the East

To historians, the present-day rise of China and the re-emergence of other Asian countries is not something new, but a return to the patterns of the past.

In this event, Oxford Professor and international best-selling author, Peter Frankopan, will discuss how the world’s centre of gravity is moving back to where it lay for millennia, and what this means for the West.

Monday 11 June 2018
12:30

Joan Williams

White Working Class

Described as having “something approaching rock star status” in her field by The New York Times Magazine, Joan C. Williams has played a central role in reshaping the conversation about work, gender, and class over the past quarter century.

In White Working Class she explains why so much of the elite’s analysis of the white working class is misguided, rooted in assumptions of what she has controversially called “class cluelessness”. She presents a blunt, bracing narrative that sketches a nuanced portrait of millions of people who have proven to be a potent political force.

Wednesday 28 February 2018
12:30

Jean Tirole

Delivering economics for the common good

In his talk, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Jean Tirole, will focus on how to take good economic ideas into the domain of effective public policy (rather than leaving them to languish in the academic departments where they were developed).

Can public decision-making be structured to achieve better outcomes? What role should the market, the state and broader ideas of social responsibility play in achieving the common good? Can economists and other experts overcome the distrust in which they are currently held by the public? And how can they become more effective in their work?

Wednesday 21 March 2018

Robbert Dijkgraaf

The usefulness of useless knowledge

Robbert is Director and Leon Levy Professor of the Institute for Advanced Study, one of the world’s leading centers for curiosity-driven basic research in the sciences and humanities.

Past President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Past Co-Chair of the InterAcademy Council, he is a mathematical physicist who has made important contributions to string theory and the advancement of science education. He is a recipient of the Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands, and is a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, Dijkgraaf is most recently coauthor with Abraham Flexner of The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge.

Tuesday 16 January 2018
12:30

Janan Ganesh

Financial Times

Janan Ganesh is a columnist and associate editor for the Financial Times. He was previously political correspondent for the Economist for five years.

He has published a biography of George Osborne, the former chancellor of the exchequer, and is writing a novel about London.

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Past Events

Wednesday 18 June 2025
09:00

Cartier

V&A South Kensington

Tuesday 17 June 2025
12:30

Doug Gurr

The Natural History Museum: shaping the future of science and culture

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