RSA Events

'The rock star of neuroscience', David Eagleman teams up with composer Anthony Brandt to present an agenda-setting investigation into human creativity. Our relentless drive to create makes us unique among living creatures. How can we harness this instinct, and where is it taking us? We face global, ‘wicked’ challenges that require all our ingenuity to address. Luckily, as a species we have a seemingly unlimited capacity to generate solutions to our problems. For the full visual experience, watch an edited version of the talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQQJP6mqHC4 This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 11th October 2017. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/10/what-is-creativity

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Friday 6th October 2017 From government to business, banks to the media, it would seem that public trust in our institutions is at an all-time low. And yet this isn’t an age of distrust – far from it. Author of Who Can You Trust? Rachel Botsman is joined by Chief Economist at the Bank of England Andy Haldane to debate whether we are moving to a new era, in which we trust institutions less, but people and networks more. If this is so, what does it mean for those industries that are critically reliant on trust – such as banking? Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/10/the-great-trust-shift

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 28th September 2017 Sleep is one of the most important aspects of our life, health and longevity and yet it is increasingly neglected in twenty-first-century society, with devastating consequences: every major disease in the developed world - Alzheimer's, cancer, obesity, diabetes - has very strong causal links to deficient sleep. And yet we’re sleeping less than ever – four out of five of us complain about disturbed or inadequate sleep, and nearly half of us get six hours or less a night. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why its absence is so damaging to our health. Matthew Walker, director of the Centre for Human Sleep Science, has one defining ambition – to reunite humanity with its sleep. He visits the RSA to explain why we need a sleep revolution, and why we need it now. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/why-we-need-a-sleep-revolution

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 27th September 2017 The world is facing urgent challenges – and design thinking can help us tackle them. Sue Siddall is a partner at leading design company IDEO, where she has over 20 years’ strategy experience in human-centred design and innovation; designing for behaviour change; and the role of design thinking and public private partnership in tackling systemic issues, such as climate change. To celebrate the launch of the 2017/18 RSA Student Design Awards briefs, Sue Siddall, partner at design consultancy IDEO, shares her journey to discovering design thinking. Whether it's what career path to take, how to approach innovation in business, or tackle social challenges, there's arguably never been a more turbulent time to be making important decisions. Sue looks at how design thinking can help all of us navigate the complexity, nuance, and speed of change, today, sharing her personal career journey, from law, to advertising, and design, and why sometimes, asking the right questions, learning and adaptation, are as important as having the answer. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/the-power-of-design-thinking

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 21st September 2017 Royal & Derngate, Northampton, Lyric Theatre Belfast, The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff and The RSA present 'The United Kingdom and Europe: Nations on the World Stage' a symposium introduced by Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England. As a partnership of leading theatres in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales embarks on an epic cycle of new play commissions which will explore Britain’s changing relationship with Europe, this panel discussion asks "How should theatre respond to and reflect the changing role of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Europe over the next decade?” Chaired by journalist and broadcaster Mark Lawson, the panel brings together a diverse range of leading playwrights from across the British Isles to offer their perspective. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/United-Kingdom-and-Europe-Nations-on-the-World-Stage

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 21st September 2017 Every time we queue up for petrol we empower the world’s most coercive, oppressive and dangerous regimes. But what can we do about it? ‘It’s all about oil’ may be the clarion cry of undergraduates worldwide, but the reality is deeper and darker than any half-baked conspiracy theories. ISIS, al Qaeda, Putin, Assad, Saddam, Gaddafi, the Ayatollahs - most of our biggest threats and crises come from oil states. Chair of Philosophy and Law at KCL, Leif Wenar’s work on petrocrats and ethics has been lauded by Steven Pinker, Michael Ignatieff, Angus Deaton and Rowan Williams, who called his book a ‘a serious and urgent appeal to the conscience of the west’. He visits the RSA to explain why conditions are now exactly right for us to abolish blood oil—and so to create a more secure, peaceful and just future for all. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/how-to-end-the-tyranny-of-oil

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 20th September 2017 Glenn Greenwald is the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who worked with Edward Snowden to uncover secret global surveillance programmes undertaken by the US and the UK. His partner, David Miranda, is a journalist and the first LGBTQ member of the Rio City Council. In this special RSA event, Greenwald and Miranda discuss power and accountability, surveillance and privacy, Trump and fake news, and the role of journalism in giving a voice to perspectives and events that are ignored and silenced by large media outlets. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/an-evening-with-glenn-greenwald-and-david-miranda

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 14th September 2017 A decade after the global financial crisis, deep scars remain. Despite recent data signalling a closing of the income inequality gap between the highest and lowest earners, this has been accompanied by mounting economic insecurity, wage stagnation and – particularly since Brexit – rising inflation. The shock of the financial crisis might have been weathered by buoyant employment, particularly at the low end of the labour market, but this too has been accompanied by rising in-work poverty. Is ‘inclusive growth’ a utopian oxymoron, or the means to fairer, more sustainable economies? How can it be achieved locally and nationally? What are the implications for global capitalism and the process of globalisation? What are the economic choices and trade-offs we might need to face if we are to respond to the ‘politics of the left behind’? Speakers: Gabriela Ramos, OECD Chief of Staff; Hon Wayne Swan MP, Former DPM and Treasurer of Australia; Indy Johar, architect, co- founder of 00, and member of the RSA Inclusive Growth Commission Chair: Rowan Conway, Director of Innovation and Development, RSA Discover more about this event here:https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/towards-inclusive-growth

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 14th September 2017 Robert Peston, who broke the story of Northern Rock’s emergency funding appeal to the Bank of England, and covered at close-hand the ensuing run on the bank, its eventual collapse, and the global crash that followed, reflects back on fast-moving events of the time, and the role of the key actors – from politicians, to bankers, to regulators - and traces the further reaching after-effects of the crash. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/breaking-the-northern-rock-story-and-beyond

This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 11th September 2017 As UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling was involved at the highest levels from the outset of the financial crisis, through the heart of the storm, and played a leading role in restoring stability to global financial markets. 10 years on from the collapse of the Northern Rock bank, an early signal of the global crash to come, he reflects on what we have and haven’t learned from the crisis, how vulnerable we remain, and what we have to do next to shape a fairer future prosperity. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/09/10-years-after-the-crash