RSA Events

What would our cities look like if they were designed with mental wellbeing, equity, and restoration at their core? Many cities around the world are built on models that haven’t kept pace with growing urban populations and the imperative to halt damage to the climate – which means millions living high-cost, high-stress lives in polluted, overcrowded surroundings. How can cities be better geared towards living well together?A panel including health policy expert Layla McCay gathers to explore the principles and practice of designing and running cities with mental health at the forefront. How do our surroundings affect us? What role can citizen participation play in developing inclusive urban environments? And what will it take in practice for our cities to enable healthy, happy, more equitable lives for everyone?Look out for more events on this theme coming up in our Regenerative Futures programme this autumn.Become an RSA Events sponsor: https://utm.guru/udI9x #RSAcities Donate to The RSA: https://utm.guru/udNNB Follow the RSA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RSAEvents Like RSA Events on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rsaeventsoff... Listen to RSA Events podcasts: https://bit.ly/35EyQYU See RSA Events behind the scenes: https://instagram.com/rsa_events/

The pandemic exposed the risks and weaknesses of the market-driven global system like never before, revealing a critical lack of institutional preparation and failings of the basic apparatuses of state administration.  It also revealed that states could exercise experimental policy and control over the economy when necessary: governments around the world introduced new measures and spent whatever it took to deal with Covid. The US stimulus was the largest on record, the UK government supported 11 million workers with its job retention scheme. It’s hard to ignore this turning point in global economics.After a period where we’ve seen radical measures, how can we ensure that we continue to support workers in the long-term? And as we think about our response to the climate crisis, what parallels can be drawn with the handling of the pandemic? Exploring how Covid-19 ravaged the global economy, and where it leaves us now, historian Adam Tooze and political economist Helen Thompson look to the future and explore how we can apply the lessons we’ve learned from the past 18 months to future reforms to our politics and economics – and to our approach to environmental emergency.  Become an RSA Events sponsor: https://utm.guru/udI9xDonate to The RSA: https://utm.guru/udNNB Follow the RSA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RSAEvents Like RSA Events on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rsaeventsoff... Listen to RSA Events podcasts: https://bit.ly/35EyQYU See RSA Events behind the scenes: https://instagram.com/rsa_events/

We know climate change is the big existential challenge of our time and must be matched by the scale of our global response. Some have expressed scepticism about the potential for COP26 to bring about meaningful change, but with public appetite for climate action reaching new heights, is now the time when people power and formal politics could converge?  It can’t all be left up to the people in charge – but without good leadership, we won’t achieve the whole-system change we need. What would bold thinking, radical action, and meaningful momentum-building look like at this critical juncture in climate politics? As COP26 approaches, former Labour Party leader and ex-Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband reflects on the research in his new book, Go Big, and explores what it would take for this moment to become a catalyst for real change.  Look out for more events on this theme coming up in our Regenerative Futures programme this autumn. https://www.thersa.org/regenerative-futures Become an RSA Events sponsor: https://utm.guru/udI9x #RSAGoBig Donate to The RSA: https://utm.guru/udNNB Follow the RSA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RSAEvents Like RSA Events on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rsaeventsofficial Listen to RSA Events podcasts: https://bit.ly/35EyQYU See RSA Events behind the scenes: https://instagram.com/rsa_events/

Work allows us to pay the bills – but for lots of people, it’s become about more than that. Many of us derive a sense of purpose or identity from our work: is this a consequence of more people being able to choose work that’s meaningful to them, or simply of work consuming more of our lives than ever? And what if we don’t get meaning or purpose from what we do for a living?Transforming work for the 21st century will mean rethinking lots of things beyond work itself: its relationship with our social and personal lives, how we structure our economies, and how we live more sustainably now and in the future. Matthew Taylor, former RSA Chief Executive, returns to the RSA to discuss how the meaning, structure and status of work have changed over time, and how it might be reshaped to become a means by which we live good lives together.#RSAworkThis conversation was broadcast online on the 14th October 2021. Join us at: www.thersa.org

Now is the time to rethink our future and how we get there.Can we harness digital technology to tackle poverty and increase social mobility? Could reforming work help reverse the mental health crisis? And what could happen if we empower communities to imagine and shape their futures?We are facing big questions about the kind of society and economy we need and want. Technological and demographic change, economic and climate crisis are intensifying insecurity and inequality. The need to seed cohesion, change and regeneration has never been more urgent. So how do we move forward?By taking a frank and honest look at the nature and scale of the problems we’re currently facing, we can begin to explore the scope of the change needed, and imagine how we might reform state and society to create a fairer, more sustainable future.There are huge challenges ahead, but if we respond with radical thinking, concerted action and serious ambition, we can create a future that is better than the present. Policy thinker James Plunkett and social innovator Sophia Parker share their ideas for how to get started.#RSAEndStateThis conversation was broadcast online on the 7th October 2021 . Join us at: www.thersa.org

The role of imagination for thriving and prosperous communities. As we emerge from the pandemic there is a collective opportunity to rethink and to create bold, community-led practices that can steer us towards a better future. This is the time for imagining radical initiatives that match the size and complexity of the challenges we face. The government’s overarching aim to ‘level up’ speaks to the need for community and social infrastructure to underpin recovery. Communities across the UK share common desires for the future and an appetite and ambition for change in the long term. Imaginative thinking is vital to help communities realise these ambitions and to prosper and thrive, but in the current crisis it can be hard for communities to find the capacity and capability for strategic foresight, leaving the act of imagining our collective futures to those in positions of privilege and power.So what will it take to resource and nurture community capacity to imagine better futures? How can we build the social, political, economic and cultural conditions that ensure communities have agency in shaping their futures? What can local authorities and communities themselves do to translate these visions into action? And what might the potential be of opening up this space? With a panel of leading voices and an original poem performed by Inua Ellams, this event explores the possibilities of futures thinking and the role of imagination for thriving and prosperous communities. Produced in partnership with the Emerging Futures Fund. The Emerging Futures Fund is a The National Lottery Community Fund funding programme investing in our collective imaginations by equipping communities with the capacity, skills and resources required to anticipate and shape the future.#RSAFuturesThis conversation was part of a webinar that took place on the 28th September 2021 . Join us at: www.thersa.org

As Chief Negotiator for the EU, Michel Barnier was at the very heart of the Brexit process over four turbulent years.He visits the RSA to reveal insights from one of the most complex sets of talks in modern political history, to share his perspective on the lessons learned on both sides of the negotiating table, and to look forward to a new chapter in EU-UK relations.At a time of interconnected crises, there is an urgent need to re-build trust between political leaders and institutions, and to re-commit to active partnership and collaboration on our shared challenges, from climate change to good work and economic security for all. Join us at RSA house as we explore how we can respond to these challenges.#RSABarnierThis conversation was broadcast online on the 29th September 2021 . Join us at: www.thersa.org

r versus g? Or a Debt Jubilee?David Graeber’s bestselling book “Debt: The First 5000 Years” revolutionised our understanding of the origins of money and the role of debt in human societies. But intellectual revolutions take time, and David’s sudden and untimely death left this revolution unfinished.David’s widow Nika Dubrovsky has established ‘The Fight Club’ to keep David’s unique way of challenging conventional wisdoms alive after him. Each ‘Fight’ will pit leading advocates of different visions of how society functions against each other.The inaugural fight, to mark the first anniversary of David’s death, is a debate between the renowned economists Thomas Piketty, author of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, and Michael Hudson, author of “And Forgive Them Their Debts”.Thomas Piketty wrote the preface to the tenth anniversary edition of “Debt: the First 5000 Years”. Michael Hudson’s anthropological research into the origins of money and debt in ancient Sumeria was the basis of much of David’s analysis in that book.Piketty and Hudson have advocated different ways to avoid capitalism collapsing under the weight of debt and inequality. For Piketty, it’s ensuring that the rate of return on private capital exceeding the economy’s growth rate (r>g) is counteracted by taxing the rich. For Hudson, it’s a Debt Jubilee: write down private debt and free us from debt peonage.Join us for an unmissable encounter between two celebrated and highly influential economic thinkers as they debate: what is money and what is debt? What are the most serious problems of today’s finance-capital economies? And what are the best remedies?#RSAdebtThis conversation was part of a webinar that took place on the 23rd September 2021 . Join us at: www.thersa.org

How can we make progress together when faced with increasingly complex challenges?The major challenges of our time demand creative and collaborative solutions. But they’re not always easy to come by: we face increasing complexity and, often, decreasing control. We need to work with people across more divides. How can we move forward in ever less straightforward situations?Adam Kahane presents transformative facilitation as a new way of creating change. By focusing on removing the obstacles to everyone connecting and contributing equitably, he says, we can enable real breakthrough. He offers a guide for how we can all become better mediators; bridging our differences, distributing power, and moving forward together.#RSAbreakthrough This conversation was broadcast online on the 23rd September 2021 . Join us at: www.thersa.org

How did the world become addicted to fossil fuels? How did we discover that electricity may be our saviour?Who first sounded the alarm bell for climate change, and how could we seemingly ignore all these papers from the 1960s or 1970s musing that “if” we didn’t do anything, climate change could worsen significantly after the year 2000?As we look forward to COP26, Alice Bell takes us back to explore the earliest signs and causes of climate change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the advancing realisation that global warming was a significant problem in the 1950s and right up to the growth of the environmental movement, climate scepticism and present-day political responses.The science and numbers are vital to understanding climate change but they’re only part of the story. If we really want to understand the evolution of the climate crisis, we’re going to have to look deeper at the story behind the science; who commissioned what, why, when, and how was it received? This is a new perspective on the climate crisis, exploring deep back-stories, fascinating characters and asking the crucial question: how can we harness the ingenuity and intelligence that has driven the history of climate change research to create a more sustainable and bearable future for humanity?Look out for more events on this theme coming up in our Regenerative Futures programme this autumn. #RSAclimate This conversation was broadcast online on the 16th September 2021 . Join us at: www.thersa.org