RSA Events

What does joy look like? Designer Ingrid Fetell Lee exposes the power of ordinary things to create extraordinary happiness, and shows us how to find joy in the world around us. Our surroundings can have a profound effect on our wellbeing. Seeing flowers can improve our memories, looking at nature scenes reduces prisoner violence, and better sunlight increases our productivity at work – we can live happier, healthier lives if we open our eyes to the physical world and look for happiness in ordinary things. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 6th November 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/11/how-to-find-joy-in-the-everyday

LBC broadcaster and online talk show sensation, James O’Brien, shows how to dismantle small minds, expose falsehoods and conquer prejudice. The age of politely agreeing to disagree is over. O’Brien has become a breakout media star, with a million people tuning in each week to hear him trumping countless guests and politicians into total silence with his inimitable interview technique. But how does he expose these inconsistencies, fallacies and faulty opinions, and can the skill be taught? This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 5th November 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/11/how-to-be-right-in-a-world-gone-wrong

The world is rapidly changing and the future is more unknown than ever – Jens Beckert and Richard Bronk explore the narratives and predictions we use to help navigate economic uncertainty. We all make decisions with an eye to the future; we form expectations, calculate likelihoods, and predict the outcomes of every action we take. But in a culture of restless innovation, we can’t always be sure that the future will resemble the past, and as the pace of change increases, we often have to make decisions based on forecasts of a future that is still being written. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 1st November 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/11/economics-for-uncertain-times

What can hidden histories teach us about multiracial society in Britain today? With author Emma Dabiri, footballer Eartha Pond and gal-dem deputy editor Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff. Emma’s status as a professional footballer, in one of Britain’s earliest women’s football matches in 1895 attended by thousands of paying spectators, is hugely significant. That she travelled the country, accompanied by widespread media coverage, demonstrates the profile she would have enjoyed in the 1890s. But while her male contemporaries are championed as global icons with statues, TV dramas and fame, Emma’s life slipped into obscurity. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 31st October 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/10/celebrating-emma-clarke-black-female-football-pioneer

Sir Ian Cheshire welcomes an expert panel to discuss the interim findings of the RSA’s Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. Since the Commission launched last autumn, we’ve reviewed 1000 policy proposals, and hosted roundtables and discussions to explore the current policy domain. We’ve cycled right round the UK to meet people in their communities and workplaces, and set up separate long-term inquiries in the devolved nations and in three English counties to help us test ideas and understand more about what will work in practice. At this interim stage of our inquiry, we will be outlining some draft proposals which we believe provide radical and practical ways to address the challenges we’ve heard across the country. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 25th September 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/10/our-common-ground

Migration has long been a high-profile political issue. A panel including HOPE Not Hate’s Rosie Carter gathers to discuss the state of the conversation and how and why public opinion has shifted over time. Research suggests that public attitudes towards immigration in the UK are less extreme than national headlines and social media would have us believe, but it remains a contentious subject. Migration has been a key pivot point in the ongoing Brexit debate, and the Windrush scandal and “hostile environment” policy have kept migration at the centre of political attention. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 25th October 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/10/immigration-beyond-the-headlines

Award-winning social psychologist Michele Gelfand explains how the clash between ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ cultures drives many of our most polarised and intractable global challenges. With rave reviews from heavyweights such as Steven Pinker, Robert Cialdini, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Carol Dweck, Professor Michele Gelfand’s ‘ground-breaking analysis’ of cultural divides ‘Rule Makers, Rule Breakers’ has been hailed as the manual for how we approach today’s most intractable challenges. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 18th September 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/10/how-culture-divides-us

Youth champion Ruth Ibegbuna; Sam Conniff Allende, chair, Generation Change; Dame Julia Cleverdon, founder, Step Up To Serve; and education activist Adam Ramgoolie on young people leading change. As the RSA launches its latest report ‘Teenagency: how young people are changing the world’, which reveals the continued gulf between public perceptions and the reality of young people’s experiences and aspirations, we explore how to give every young person, from every background, the opportunity to engage in the kinds of social action that meet their altruistic impulse and creative potential. This is critical to delivering the “double benefit” of helping them develop personally, while making a positive difference to their community. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 15th September 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/10/teenagency-how-young-people-are-changing-the-world

First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon delivers a speech on the current state of play of the UK Government’s Brexit negotiations and the future of the UK and Europe. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 15th September 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/10/keynote-address-by-first-minister-of-scotland

How can we tackle our ignorance about what the world is really like? Bobby Duffy, Director of Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute, explains how we can get a handle on the facts in a ‘post-truth’ era. Evidence suggests that most of us are very wrong about what goes on in the world around us. Misinformation in the media is a growing worry, but it’s not all about fake news. No matter how impartial we think we are, we’re all biased towards information that confirms what we already believe – and our ability to filter and tailor what we see online only distorts our perceptions further. To avoid panic and gloom in a ‘post-truth era’, it’s more important than ever to check our facts, challenge our biases, and demand better from our media outlets. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 11th September 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/10/why-were-wrong-about-nearly-everything