LSE: Public lectures and events

Contributor(s): Kyriakos Pierrakakis | Join us for a discussion with Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Greece's Minister of the Economy and Finance, on the key challenges shaping the country’s future. From public debt and inflation to growth and innovation, to education reform and the digital transition, the conversation will explore how past reforms and new policies that can support Greece’s economic resilience and competitiveness.

Contributor(s): Professor Deborah James FBA, Dr Miranda Sheild Johansson, Dr Johanna Mugler, Dr Robin Smith | In this panel discussion, anthropologists working on redistribution and tax will present the findings of—and interrogate each other on—two recent books: Clawing Back: redistribution in precarious times, and Anthropology and Tax: ethnographies of fiscal relations. Anthropologists view redistribution in unusual ways. In exploring how people pay for what they need and want, we consider how allocative processes operate beyond those tried and tested in the heyday of the welfare state. Typically, incomes are earned through wage work, or people revert to benefits. Yet austerity has reduced welfare systems in the North, while those in the South are under-developed. To make ends meet, people use both ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ resources, payments and economic relationships, creating larger networks of redistribution. They seek new ways to supplement meagre incomes, combining work, welfare and debt. But, as Deborah James shows, combining these three income sources is not straightforward: it requires canny intervention by local advisers on the one hand and householders on the other. Meanwhile, contributions, tributes and tithes, as shown by Miranda Sheild Johansson, Robin Mugler and Robin Smith, enable taxation beyond the exchequer. Their focus on fiscal systems looks at how the sharing, extraction, and flow of resources not only produce economic realities but also shape relations of belonging, dependence, and exclusion, as well as social and philosophical categories regarding work, and value.

Contributor(s): Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter | America is undergoing rapid demographic change. By the mid-21st century, European Americans, long the country’s largest demographic group, will be roughly equal in numbers to Hispanic, African, and Asian Americans. Join us as Anne-Marie Slaughter considers the possibilities and challenges this shift poses for the Atlantic Hemisphere and the future of transatlantic relations.

Contributor(s): Dr Iris Berger, Dr Luke Hecht, Dr Karen Kovaka, Matt Phelps | Britain's wildlife has been under pressure for centuries. Many of the large mammals that once inhabited these islands were driven to extinction long ago. In the twenty-first century, insect populations have collapsed by around three quarters. Is there any way back? Join us to hear stories from the frontline of the fight to restore wild Britain. We'll discuss the ethics of conservation in the real world. When should we intervene and when should we leave "wild nature" alone? When conflicts between economic and environmental interests emerge, how should they be handled? How can scientists involve local communities in conservation to avoid tensions and build coalitions? Does a focus on large animals lead to undervaluing tiny animals, like insects, or can we help both at once? And since wild nature involves a lot of suffering, do we have to choose between prioritizing animal welfare and prioritizing biodiversity? These questions will be brought to life with vivid examples.

Contributor(s): Professor Helen Milner | In this lecture, Helen Milner addresses why vulnerability, lived experience, and material self-interest will drive the next phase of climate politics, and what that means for diplomacy, democracy and development. In Fault Lines: The New Political Economy of a Warming World, Alexander F Gazmararian and Helen V Milner show how rising temperatures carve a stark divide around the 35th parallel, separating “damage zones” that stand to lose livelihoods and growth from regions that may even gain. This emerging “climate fault line” is already reshaping public opinion, business lobbying and state strategy, forging new coalitions below the line while stiffening resistance above it. This distributive clash—within countries and across borders—will decide whether decarbonisation accelerates or stalls.

Contributor(s): Professor Branko Milanovic | Join us for this talk by Branko Milanovic about his new book, The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World. Global neoliberalism is on its last legs, while a new international economic order is taking hold. Trade blocs, tariff wars, economic sanctions, and national champions are in; nationalism, anti-immigration movements and the far-right are on the rise. Liberalism is being rejected by the civic realm, as the status quo of the past fifty years crumbles. What remains in its wake? Drawing on original research, economist Branko Milanovic reveals the seismic shifts that are shaping our world. He details the facts: how the rising economic power of Asia is creating a new global ‘middle class’ in the greatest reshuffle of incomes since the Industrial Revolution. He explores our fears: why are we becoming increasingly unhappy, when the world is becoming richer and more equal? And he shows us the fight ahead: as plutocracy returns, global war threatens, and a new system silently shapes our nations, driving malcontent to breaking point.

Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern, Professor Nicola Ranger, Dimitri Zenghelis | The world stands at a crossroads. The next decade will determine whether we avoid climate, biodiversity, and economic catastrophe – or unlock a new era of sustainable, resilient, and inclusive growth. Marking the publication of his new book, The Growth Story of the 21st Century: The Economics and Opportunity of Climate Action, Nicholas Stern will challenge the outdated idea that we must choose between climate action and development. Drawing on economics, finance, policy, politics, and behavioural science, Lord Stern will explore why this transformation is essential, what it entails, and how we can achieve it. Lord Stern will present a story of optimism – about how investment and rapid technological advances, including digitisation and AI, can drive change at scale. But he will not shy away from the immense challenges ahead. With clear and practical strategies for national and international action, he will call on leaders, businesses, and individuals alike, ahead of the COP30 United Nations climate change summit in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, to take the future in our hands, and recognise that delay is the riskiest option of all.

Contributor(s): Dr Eileen Alexander, Fran Bennett, Kate Evans, Diana Skelton | Tackling poverty and campaigning for social justice must be with, not just for, people in poverty. This key insight will be explored by speakers and lived-experience activists at this event, through reflections on the life-story of pioneer Mary Rabagliati and on contemporary anti-poverty struggles, and through a community theatre performance. A new biography charts Rabagliati's 'Joyful Revolution' from the war on poverty in New York City and an emergency housing camp outside Paris, through her studies under Richard Titmuss at LSE, to founding the British branch of ATD Fourth World and ground breaking work at the first three UN World Conferences on Women. She was a force to be reckoned with. Kate Evans will introduce author Diana Skelton, in conversation with Tania Burchardt. Fran Bennett and Eileen Alexander will discuss the participation in research and advocacy of people with experience of poverty and activists will perform a scene inspired by the ‘Joyful Revolution’.

Contributor(s): Raya Jalabi | This talk delivered by Raya Jalabi, Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times, as part of the annual Ian Black Memorial Lecture Series, will examine Syria’s fraught first year in the aftermath of Bashar al-Assad’s fall. In Damascus, the streets hum with the prospect of returning commerce and a flurry of international diplomacy. Yet beyond the capital’s reach, scars of conflict still linger: villages emptied by displacement, communities unsettled by cycles of revenge and the scourge of poverty in a country where trauma, fear and hope for a new future are frenetically enmeshed. At its centre is Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former rebel commander who has recast himself as the country’s new powerbroker. His efforts to steady a nation scarred by fourteen years of conflict have been defined by competing pressures: restive minorities demanding greater autonomy, the persistence of revenge killings and social upheaval, and the delicate task of reintroducing Syria to the international stage. This lecture will look at how Sharaa has navigated these crosscurrents in his first year, consolidating authority while attempting to stabilise the country and stave off fragmentation — and consider whether his grip on power can hold.

Contributor(s): Juan Manuel Santos, Professor Mary Kaldor, Professor Lord Stern | Join Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and LSE alumnus Juan Manuel Santos and LSE academics Mary Kaldor and Nicholas Stern in a conversation to explore how we can build a sustainable, peaceful and stable world.

Contributor(s): Professor Claire Miller, Dr Sefi Roth | Join us as the University of Glasgow’s Claire Miller explores the statistical and data analytics approaches being developed to successfully bring different data sources together to improve environmental planning and management. We now have the potential to access more data than ever before, which can help us to explore important, complex and increasingly pressing environmental issues. However, each source of data often has its own limitations, meaning there's often missing information from an individual data source. To get a more complete picture, we can combine data from different data sources. Considerable challenges exist in integrating the data in this way as the data can be recorded at different time points and/or in different spatial locations, can be large but also have gaps, and data sources can have varying levels of uncertainty, different data structures and types.

Contributor(s): | Will artificial intelligence cause huge unemployment? Will it free us from working? Will it replace us? In this special edition of LSE iQ, Sophie Mallett sits down with Professor Judy Wajcman, LSE’s Emeritus Professor of Sociology and one of the world’s leading voices on technology and society. Together, they explore one of the biggest questions of our time: what does artificial intelligence really mean for the future of work? In this wide-ranging conversation, Judy shares what really saves people time, talks about the fear of job replacement, and warns of the dangers of letting the most powerful tech companies design the future From Silicon Valley boardrooms to everyday lives, Judy challenges us to think differently about progress, productivity, and what we truly value as work. Contributors: Judy Wacjman Research links: From connection to optimisation How Silicon Valley sets time Feminism confronts AI: the gender relations of digitalisation LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Contributor(s): Professor Gordon Hanson | The decline of manufacturing and the acceleration of technological disruption have concentrated joblessness in distressed regions and blocked many workers from access to good jobs. In this lecture Gordon Hanson addresses the origins of job loss, the reasons for its geographic concentration, and what we’ve learned about policies intended to help left-behind places.

Contributor(s): Dr Swati Dhingra, Dr Matilde Mesnard, Dr Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Chris Skidmore, Professor Lord Stern, Sharon Yang | This event will serve as a timely preview of the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP), offering insights into where meaningful progress can be made on international climate action. It will explore the evolving landscape of global climate policy, with a particular focus on how both physical climate risks and transition-related risks are shaping the decisions of central banks, fiscal authorities, and financial regulators. Through expert discussion and cross-country perspectives, the event will reflect on the mounting challenges faced by policymakers in aligning climate objectives with broader macroeconomic and financial stability goals. While geopolitical fragmentation and economic headwinds continue to complicate the global policy environment, there remain significant opportunities to strengthen the design and implementation of monetary, fiscal, and regulatory frameworks. By identifying areas for coordinated progress, the event will highlight how both advanced and emerging economies can promote a more resilient global financial system, foster sustainable growth, and advance the just transition toward a low-carbon future even amid ongoing geopolitical turbulence.

Contributor(s): Professor Hilary Hoynes | Join us for the Department of Social Policy’s Annual Lecture at which Hilary Hoynes will explore the concept of viewing the social safety net as a long-term investment in children. Traditionally, economic research has emphasised the incentive effects of tax credits and transfer programs, often neglecting their potential benefits, particularly for children. Hoynes will review a growing body of evidence showing that childhood access to programs like food stamps, the EITC, and Medicaid leads to significant improvements in health, education, earnings, and reduced criminal justice involvement in adulthood. Using cost-benefit analyses like the Marginal Value of Public Funds (MVPF), Hoynes argues these programs often pay for themselves over time. She concludes that understanding these long-term benefits is crucial to shaping effective policy and reimagining the safety net as a strategic societal investment.

Contributor(s): Dr Lyn Ossome, Professor Shirin M Rai, Dr Gloria Novović | We are beset by existential planetary threats - from environmental emergencies and public heath crises to grotesque inequalities and wars. Can global feminist solidarity and a feminist theory of social reproduction provide an emancipatory agenda that will foster the material conditions that make the reproduction of human and non-human life possible?

Contributor(s): Dr Carl Benedikt Frey, Professor Jane Gingrich, Professor Michael Storper | How will progress end? In this event, Carl Benedikt Frey – one of the leading scholars of technology and the economy – will discuss his new book, How Progress Ends. To appreciate why we cannot depend on any AI-fueled great leap forward, Frey offers a remarkable and fascinating journey across the globe, spanning the past 1,000 years, to explain why some societies flourish and others fail in the wake of rapid technological change.

Contributor(s): Professor Padmashree Gehl Sampath, Dr Laura Mann | In this lecture, Padmashree Gehl Sampath compares the trajectories of two critical technology-driven sectors, pharmaceuticals and artificial intelligence, to show how weak policy and regulatory oversight can lead to technology capture and reduce the public interest benefits from technological innovation. Gehl Sampath will propose ways to arrive at new common – regional and global - approaches to promote technology for the public interest.

Contributor(s): Professor Cass R. Sunstein | Join us for this lecture by New York Times bestselling author and Harvard academic Cass R Sunstein. More than at any time since World War II, liberalism is under pressure, even siege. On the right, some have given up on liberalism. They hold it responsible for the collapse of the family and traditional values, rampant criminality, disrespect for authority, and widespread immorality. On the left, some are turning their backs on liberalism. They think that it lacks the resources to handle the problems posed by entrenched inequalities, racism, sexism, corporate power, and environmental degradation. But those opposed to liberalism do not depict it accurately; they offer a caricature, and they neglect its history. Cass Sunstein will offer an understanding of "big tent liberalism," capturing core commitments that unify much of the Anglo-American tradition. He points to the centrality of freedom, pluralism, and the rule of law - and to the value of experiments in living.

Contributor(s): Dr Michael Aldous, Professor John Turner, Dr Judy Stephenson | The CEOs of Britain's largest companies wield immense power, but we know very little about them. How did they get to the top? Why do they have so much power? Are they really worth that exorbitant salary? In their book, The CEO: The Rise and Fall of Britain's Captains of Industry, which they will discuss at this event, Michael Aldous and John Turner provide the answers by telling the story of the British CEO over the past century. From gentleman amateurs to professional managers, entrepreneurs, frauds, and fat cats, they reveal the characters who have made it to the top of the corporate ladder, how they got there, and what their rise tells us about British society. They show how the quality of their leadership influences productivity, innovation, economic development and, ultimately, Britain's place in the world. More recently, issues have arisen regarding high CEO pay, poor performance, and a lack of professionalisation and diversity. Are there lessons from history for those who would seek to reform Britain's flagging corporate economy?