Contributor(s): Professor Lilie Chouliaraki, Professor Rosalind Gill, Radha Sarma Hegde, Professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen | Why is being a victim such a potent identity today? Who claims to be a victim, and why? How have such claims changed in the past century? Who benefits and who loses from the struggles over victimhood in public culture? In this t…

Contributor(s): Professor Mukulika Banerjee, Professor David Wengrow | A cultivar is a plant that people have selected for desired traits and which retains those when propagated. This inaugural lecture by Mukulika Banerjee draws on long-term fieldwork among paddy farmers in Bengal to explore the ways in which cultivation - of crops, neighbourly rel…

Contributor(s): Professor Tanya Aplin, Professor Martin Kretschmer, Dr Luke McDonagh, Professor Madhavi Sunder | This event will explore the challenge of artificial intelligence technologies in the creative industries (film, theatre, music, video games).The panel will debate Intellectual Property Law issues related to the training and use of genera…

Contributor(s): Professor Mark Thomson, Professor Riccardo Crescenzi, Professor Sarah Sharples | The lecture will explore the cutting-edge frontier of particle physics and astronomy and the pivotal role of major research infrastructures in advancing our fundamental understanding of the universe. It will delve into how groundbreaking scientific ende…

Contributor(s): Professor Xavier Jaravel | Innovation is increasingly monopolised by a small entrepreneurial elite that is not representative of the population at all.To simultaneously increase our innovation potential and reduce inequality, it is urgent to involve everyone, especially women and people of underprivileged backgrounds, in the innovat…

Contributor(s): Suzanne Heywood | Join us for a fireside chat with Suzanne Heywood, Chair of CNH Industrial N V and Iveco Group, and Chief Operating Officer of Exor Group. In conversation with Grace Lordan, Suzanne will reflect on her extraordinary personal and professional journey, from her early years spent at sea—captured in her memoir Wavewalke…

Contributor(s): Professor Danny Dorling, Dr Danny Sriskandarajah, Professor Kitty Stewart, Polly Toynbee. | Why has absolute deprivation continued to grow in the UK? What role does high inequality play in understanding how we have got to the point of peak injustice?With child mortality rising in the UK and a majority of parents with three or more c…

Contributor(s): Professor Shani Orgad, Dr Divya Srivastava, Dr Julia King, Dr Olivia Theocharides-Feldman | Research links:“Listening in times of crisis: The value and limits of radio phone-in shows” by Shani Orgad, Divya Srivastava, and Diana Olaleye https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01634437241308729?af=RMaking Space for Girls project…

Contributor(s): Professor Cormac Ó Gráda | In his latest book, which forms the basis of this lecture, Cormac O'Grada argues that previous estimates of civilian deaths in the two world wars are almost certainly too low.By carefully evaluating the available evidence, he estimates that these wars cost not the 35 million lives commonly agreed on but, i…

Contributor(s): Professor Allison Pugh | Allison Pugh explains how we have ended up in a moment in which machines have time for people, while human workers rush by, bent to the dictates of the industrial clock, and maps out its implications for the future of our social health.Critics commonly warn about three primary hazards of AI – job disruption,…

Contributor(s): Dr Benjamin Braun, Professor Brett Christophers, Professor Daniela Gabor | As the climate emergency intensifies, the efficacy of market-based solutions is under growing scrutiny. Can capitalism solve a crisis of its own making?Is "green growth" a path to transformative change, or will it solely legitimise and perpetuate systemic ine…

Contributor(s): Teresa Ribera | Join us for this special event at which European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera will take to the stage at LSE.In an era of rising inequality and economic transformation, the question of how to achieve fair and inclusive prosperity is more pressing than ever. At the same time, the green transition i…

Contributor(s): Dr Onni Gust, Professor Susan Stryker | This thought-provoking conversation will bring together diverse expertise to critically examine and address the urgent socio-political challenges of our time. As gender-critical feminism and right-wing populist movements gain traction globally, it becomes increasingly critical to examine the d…

Contributor(s): Professor Mark Pennington | What are the implications of Michel Foucault’s critical social theories for how we think about freedom, power, and justice?Political economist Mark Pennington will address this question exploring themes from his forthcoming book Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge and Freedom. Penning…

Contributor(s): Professor Stephanie J. Rickard, Professor Andrés Velasco, Professor Robert Wade | For roughly a quarter century after the Cold War, the Washington consensus or neoliberalism guided US foreign economic policymaking. Today, that market-oriented consensus is in tatters, as Republicans and Democrats alike have shifted toward government …

Contributor(s): Professor Anamik Saha, Dr Francesca Sobande | Racism and antiracism clash on a daily basis in media discourse. This joint talk reflects on current practices of "othering" in popular media and probes the nature and meaning of media diversity amidst far right appeals to media representation. These practices point to shifts in whom a p…

Contributor(s): Aditya Chakrabortty, Clare MacGillivray, Professor Mike Savage , Zarah Sultana MP | It is ten years since the seminal Social Class in the 21st Century was published. We will revisit the findings, ask if the trends have changed, why class seems to have fallen off the agenda, and what we can do to build solidarity in this new politica…

Contributor(s): Professor Edward B Barbier | Drawing on his book, Scarcity and Frontiers, Edward Barbier argues that how economies choose to exploit natural resources is critical to both their sustainability and prosperity. In past eras, a critical driving force behind global economic development has been the response of society to the scarcity of …

Contributor(s): Craig Mundie, Mairéad Pratschke | As AI absorbs data, gains agency, and intermediates between humans and reality, it will help us to address enormous crises, from climate change to geopolitical conflicts to income inequality.But it will also pose challenges on a scale and of an intensity that we have never seen before.Co-author Crai…

Contributor(s): Dr Samuel Gregg, Dr Paola Romero | In this timely event, Samuel Gregg will delve into the origins of the term "neoliberalism," its contested usefulness in contemporary discourse, and whether intellectuals such as F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman fit the "neoliberal" label.He will critically engage various contemporary criticisms of n…

Contributor(s): Professor Barry Buzan, Dr Elizabeth Ingleson, Professor Vladislav Zubok | When Soviet power collapsed between 1989 and 1991, the overwhelming view in the West was that liberalism had triumphed.The world could look forward to a period of peace and prosperity, underpinned by globalisation backed by American power. Today all of that ea…

Contributor(s): Dr Danny Sriskandarajah, Lysa John, Jo Swinson | In 2024, two billion people headed to the polls in some 50 countries around the world. But the drama of these elections risks obscuring just how fragile the foundations of democracy have become. A political system that is geared towards short-term wins, run by politicians that few of …

Contributor(s): Dr Phillip Rode, Professor Rachel Aldred, Dr Chris Tennant, Indira Ray | This episode of LSE iQ looks at whether we should still be driving, whether public transport in cities has helped alleviate the need to drive and how driverless cars are still a distance away from really helping solve the issue of the number of cars on the road…

Contributor(s): Ali Allawi, Professor Shiping Tang | The problem of economic development in the Global South remains as important as ever. For centuries thinkers have tried to explain why some countries grow rich while others remain poor, with varied success.Ali Allawi and Shiping Tang will debate current development strategies in the developing wo…

Contributor(s): Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter | Chance, luck, and ignorance; how to put our uncertainty into numbers. We all have to live with uncertainty about what is going to happen, what has happened, and why things turned out how they did. We attribute good and bad events as "due to chance", label people as "lucky", and (sometimes) admit o…

Contributor(s): Steven Erlanger, Dr Elizabeth Ingleson, Professor Anand Menon, Professor Leslie Vinjamuri | What will the next US president’s strategic priorities be internationally? What are the implications for Europe and the rest of the world?In this roundtable discussion, leading experts on world affairs take stock of the international challeng…

Contributor(s): Dr Max Steuer | Join us to hear Max Steuer talk about his new book, Dangerous Guesswork In Economic Policy.The book is about the need for, and the benefits of, drawing on specialist skills in formulating economic policy. Some issues can be addressed through common sense and first-hand experience. Few matters involving use of resourc…

Contributor(s): Anwar Ibrahim, the Prime Minister of Malaysia | Prime Minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim visited LSE to deliver a lecture on Malaysia’s global strategy in an uncertain era. The event officially opened the Malaysia Auditorium at LSE and was the inaugural lecture of the Malaysia Lecture Series (an annual lecture series to be held in t…

Contributor(s): Grace Blakeley, Dr Michael Vaughan | Join us to hear UK commentator and economic thinker Grace Blakeley talk about her latest book, Vulture Capitalism. In the book, Grace Blakeley takes on the world’s most powerful corporations by showing how the causes of our modern crises are the result of the economic system we have built – “a to…

Contributor(s): Professor Gwyn Bevan, Dr Kate Bayliss, Jo Bateman | This episode of LSE iQ explores a national scandal: widespread illegal sewage dumping by our privatised water companies, and why they are all under criminal investigation.Speakers: Professor Gwyn Bevan, Dr Kate Bayliss, Jo BatemanResearch links:How Did Britain Come to This? A centu…

Contributor(s): Professor Erik Hurst, Professor Chrisanthi Avgerou, Professor Noam Yuchtman | As we move deeper into the 21st century, rapid advancements in automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence continue to reshape industries, raising concerns about the potential impact on workers. Will these innovations lead to widespread job losses? O…

Contributor(s): Dr Victor Agboga, Professor Mukulika Banerjee, Professor Sara Hobolt, Professor Peter Trubowitz | This year billions of people around the world have been to the polls. What have been the surprises and takeaways from these election results?Our panel of LSE researchers explore some of the issues that have come to the fore in this bump…

Contributor(s): Tembeka Ngcukaitobi | The lecture will explore South Africa's complex relationship with the idea of human rights.Drawing from the struggle to end apartheid, the lecture will explore the connections between the struggle for human rights and the idea of self-determination. While both ideas are local, the lecture will show that they ar…

Contributor(s): Reid Hoffman | Artificial Intelligence is not only a generational technology, but also a general purpose technology—one that has outsized potential to transform societies and economies globally. How should we use AI to not only better understand the world, but organise, develop, and elevate it?…

Contributor(s): Professor Adam Oliver | In his inaugural lecture, Adam Oliver will describe how he became involved in, and has helped contribute towards the development of, the still relatively new field of behavioural public policy (BPP).He will briefly detail how the intellectual architecture of the field – i.e. its journal, Annual International …

Contributor(s): Professor Mirca Madianou | In this talk based on her new book, Mirca Madianou will argue that digital innovations such as biometrics and chatbots engender new forms of violence and entrench power asymmetries between the global south and north.Drawing on ten years of research on the uses of digital technologies in humanitarian operat…

Contributor(s): Dr Callum Cant, Dr James Muldoon, Professor Kirsten Sehnbruch | Conversations around AI tend to focus on the future dangers, but what about the damage AI is inflicting on people right now?AI promises to transform everything, from work to transport to war, and to solve our problems with total ease. But hidden beneath this smooth surf…

Contributor(s): Professor Jonathan Birch | Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects or spiders? How do we tell whether a person unresponsive after severe brain injury might be suffering? When does a fetus in the womb start to have conscious experiences? Could there even be rudimentary feelings in miniature models of …

Contributor(s): Professor J. McKenzie Alexander, Dr Ilka Gleibs, Professor Alan Manning | Across the world, populist agendas on both the left and right threaten to undermine fundamental principles that underpin liberal democracies, so that what were previously seen as virtues of the ‘Open Society’ are now, by many people, seen as vices, dangers, or…

Contributor(s): Quentin Noirfalisse, Dr Richard Perkins, Anneke Van Woudenberg | The decarbonisation of the transportation sector is a vital component in achieving the goals set out in the Paris Agreement. Consequently, governments around the world are pushing forward the transition away from combustion engine to electric vehicles. However, the pro…

Contributor(s): Professor Sonia Livingstone | Public anxiety about children’s digital lives and wellbeing is reaching a fever pitch, marking a notable turnaround from the decades-long efforts to ensure children are fully digitally included, literate and empowered. While arguments rage over what’s wrong with ‘screen time,’ ‘online harms,’ and data-d…

Contributor(s): Professor Deborah James, Professor Claire Mercer, Professor Susan Parnell, Professor Ola Uduku | African cities are under construction. Beyond the urban redevelopment schemes and large-scale infrastructure projects reconfiguring central city skylines, urban residents are putting their resources into finding land and building homes o…

Contributor(s): Dr George Papaconstantinou, Professor Jean Pisani-Ferry, Professor Andrés Velasco | This event marks the launch of New World, New Rules by George Papaconstantinou and Jean Pisani-Ferry, in which two of European policymakers and analysts outline a new agenda for global governance.In the book, they examine governance practices across …

Contributor(s): Professor Patrick Bolton | Patrick Bolton will be talking on the topic of Elements of a Theory of the Responsible Firm. The lecture will begin with a short review of economic theories of the firm, pointing out that although all the economic theories see the firm as an institutional response to improve on market and contractual ineff…

Contributor(s): Dr Federica Fragapane, Dr Marta Foresti, Dr Francesca Panero | The talk will explore the design process and motivations behind data visualization projects, characterized by different usage contexts, responding to various needs, and with differing levels of experimentation. It will focus on the visual languages used to shape informat…

Contributor(s): Dr Tom Scott-Smith, Nick Henderson, Dr Myfanwy James | Abandoned airports. Shipping containers. Squatted hotels. These are just three of the many unusual places that have housed refugees in the past decade. The story of international migration is often told through personal odysseys and dangerous journeys, but when people arrive at …

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Dolan, Dr Gillian Tett | Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman was the founder of modern behavioural science and behavioural economics. His close friends and colleagues Gillian Tett, Paul Dolan and Richard Layard will come together to discuss his research and the scale of his influence on society.…

Contributor(s): Professor Andrea Cornwall, Professor Naomi Hossain, Professor Naila Kabeer, Dr Erin Lentz | 30 years ago, Naila Kabeer published Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, which became a landmark study in the scholarship on gender and development. It is widely regarded as a (if not the) key text in the field of F…

Contributor(s): Professor Tarun Khaitan, Professor Lea Ypi | Liberal constitutional theory rests on a fundamental division between duty-bearing public institutions and the rights-wielding private persons. This inaugural lecture will explore the implications of this division on the constitutional regulation of news and social media corporations.It w…

Contributor(s): Professor Bruce J. Caldwell | 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize won by liberal political economist F.A. Hayek. This lecture will review some of Hayek’s key ideas and especially his contributions to the methodology of the social sciences. It will feature Bruce Caldwell, a leading historian of economic thought, author…