Lse: Public Lectures And Events

Contributor(s): Professor Nick Couldry, Dr Eugenie Dugoua, Ceara Carney | Artificial intelligence is transforming the world around us, offering increased productivity and promising to help tackle difficult problems like global warming. But behind the scenes, its environmental costs are mounting. From massive energy use to vast quantities of water required to cool data centres, AI’s footprint is growing fast. So, in an age of water scarcity and climate crisis, can we justify this technological boom? In this episode of LSE iQ, Anna Bevan asks: Is AI destroying the planet? She travels to a data centre in Slough to find out exactly how data centres work, and speaks to Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at LSE; Eugenie Dugoua, Assistant Professor in Environmental Economics at LSE; and Ceara Carney, an actor and climate activist.  This episode explores the AI sustainability paradox: can AI be both a climate solution and a climate problem? And discusses surprising ways AI is being use

Contributor(s): Professor Valerie Ramey | Join us for the 2025 Economica-Phillips Lecture which will be delivered by Valerie Ramey. Starting in the 1930s, Keynesian fiscal stimulus was the leading policy tool for fighting recessions, but it subsequently fell out of favor with the discovery of the permanent income hypothesis and evidence for the effectiveness of monetary policy. However, Keynesian fiscal stimulus re-emerged as an important policy tool when interest rates hit the effective lower bound during the Global Financial Crisis. Most policymakers and many academics now believe that temporary transfers, infrastructure spending, and other types of government purchases and tax programs are effective ways to fight recessions. This lecture revisits the evidence for this view. Using a variety of methods to check the plausibility of some of the leading estimates and models, it identifies cases in which these types of spending did not appear to stimulate the macroeconomy as intended. It also discusses the costs

Contributor(s): Dr Suleman Lazarus, Professor Andrew Murray, Lisa Mills, Nikki MacLeod | This episode of LSE iQ looks at how we can avoid falling for online scams. We think it couldn’t happen to us, but incidents of online fraud are escalating at an alarming rate, affecting all areas of our day-to-day lives, from social media and dating apps to banking and business. As AI deepfakes and impersonation tactics become more advanced, scammers are finding new ways to exploit us, leaving victims emotionally and financially devastated. In this episode Oliver Johnson talks to a victim of a devastating romance scam, he hears about what motivates some of the fraudsters and what legal protections we have in the battle against the scammers. Contributors: Dr Suleman Lazarus, Professor Andrew Murray, Lisa Mills, Nikki MacLeod Research: Fraud as Legitimate Retribution for Colonial Injustice, Dr Suleman Lazarus et al Examining fifty cases of convicted online romance fraud offenders Dr Suleman Lazarus et al Information Technol

Contributor(s): Professor Michèle Lamont | Join us for this lecture in which Michèle Lamont will discuss her book Seeing Others: How Recognition Works and How it Can Heal a Divided World. She will also discuss ongoing collaborative research on whether and how American and British young workers in the “two Manchesters” are searching for recognition through politics; how indigenous people in Canada and Micronesia are seeking recognition through environmental justice and jobs, and the challenge of seeking recognition where it is impossible to obtain.

Contributor(s): Professor Jo Sharp | Join us for the Sylvia Chant Lecture which this year will be delivered by Jo Sharp, Geographer Royal for Scotland. Over the 25 years that Professor Sharp has been working on international development projects, the concept of empowerment has become mainstreamed. As participatory approaches have become more commonplace, the focus has moved to people as the source of change. But how – and why – this change happens is not always so clear. This talk draws on two research collaborations: one with Bedouin women and local academics in Egypt’s south-eastern desert, and another with an interdisciplinary and international One Health project in northern Tanzania. Reflecting on these experiences, Professor Sharp will explore the assumptions we make about people’s abilities and desires to act as agents of change.

Contributor(s): Alexander Stubb | Join us for this special event with LSE alumnus and President of Finland Alexander Stubb. Cai-Göran Alexander Stubb is the 13th President of the Republic of Finland. His inauguration took place on 1 March 2024. During his career, Alexander Stubb has served as a member of the European Parliament, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade of Finland, Prime Minister of Finland and Finance Minister of Finland representing the National Coalition Party. He was also Chairman of the National Coalition Party from 2014 to 2016. Before his election as President of the Republic, Stubb was director and professor of School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute. Stubb is an enthusiastic friend of sports and literature.

Contributor(s): Dr Gary Marcus | Is Generative AI morally and technically inadequate? Can we separate the hype around AI from its real potential? Gary Marcus describes the current situation as a perfect storm of corporate irresponsibility, widespread adoption of AI tools, a lack of regulation and a huge number of unknowns. Marcus has a deep love for AI and its potential for humanity, for years he’s foreseen AI’s abilities and limitations well ahead of other experts – from anticipating current problems with driverless cars in 2016 to accurately predicting issues with ChatGPT-4 well before its release.

Contributor(s): Professor Tiziana Leone | This inaugural lecture will look at key issues in the study of women’s health through the lens of reproductive histories, looking at both contingent and cumulated events to include physical and mental shocks such as conflict and disasters which would eventually have an impact later in life. The overview will start with the challenges of studying this topic in a low resource settings. It will then focus on key challenges and priorities in social science research from menarche to menopause and beyond going via key events such as abortion, maternal health care services in order to understand how women’s ageing process can be affected by their reproductive pathways.

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 innovation process, from the creation of technologies to their widespread dissemination. What do we know and what should we do to find the “Lost Marie Curies” and “Lost Einsteins” and give them their chance? Join us for Xavier Jaravel's inaugural lecture to find out the answers to these questions.

Contributor(s): Professor Denisa Kostovicova | In her inaugural lecture, Denisa Kostovicova discusses how former opponents engage with the legacy of mass atrocity. War crimes need to be addressed, if peace is to be built. But, in divided societies polarised by violence, war crimes talk can deepen the divisions. Kostovicova draws on her study of post-conflict Balkans and presents lessons for contemporary conflicts. She locates the possibilities for peace in political communication across conflict lines, assesses the risks and considers alternatives, such as arts-based approaches.

Contributor(s): Professor James A Robinson | Join us for this special lecture by LSE alumnus and co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics James A Robinson. During his talk, Professor Robinson will propose a new interpretation of African society, history and political and economic trajectories based on the notion of wealth in people and its institutionalizations.

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 Wavewalker—to leading some of the world’s largest companies. Suzanne will also discuss her biography What Does Jeremy Think?, exploring the remarkable career of her late husband, Sir Jeremy Heywood, who served four Prime Ministers as Cabinet Secretary. Suzanne will be offering unique insights on leadership, resilience, and navigating complex global challenges, Suzanne’s decades of experience in both business and government will provide a fascinating perspective for today’s current and emerging leaders.

Contributor(s): Leopoldo López | Join us for a public event with Leopoldo López, political leader in Venezuela and prominent advocate for democracy. Mr López will share his experiences as a former leader of the Venezuelan opposition and reflect on the political challenges facing Venezuela today. Leopoldo López is a Venezuelan opposition leader and pro-democracy activist. He founded the Venezuelan opposition party Voluntad Popular and served as mayor of the Chacao municipality in Caracas. In 2014, Leopoldo was arrested on trumped-up charges for leading peaceful, nationwide protests denouncing Nicolás Maduro’s regime. After a 19-month show trial, he was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison. Today, he continues to be a leading voice in calling for democracy not only in Venezuela but also across the globe. Leopoldo is a co-founder of the World Liberty Congress, which he strongly believes will be instrumental in unifying pro-democracy and human rights activists to combat the global trend toward authoritarianism.

Contributor(s): Dr Michela Giorcelli | British business productivity growth has been lagging for the past couple of decades, and key to the Labour government’s goal of improving economic growth is raising productivity. This lecture explores a period of very high productivity growth in history, WWII, to understand the sources of productivity growth generally. Traditionally, World War II has been considered the source of “an extraordinary surge of growth” in the US, thanks to the advancements in science and technology it pushed. Michela Giorcelli argues that wartime was also a major inflection point in the history of American business. The large-scale diffusion of innovative management practices to US firms involved in war production acted as a technology that put them on a higher growth path for decades, but also helped creating the “American Way” of business.

Contributor(s): Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva | In this year’s annual British Journal of Sociology lecture, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva will review the basics of his “racialized social system” with a focus on explaining how he has improved the theoretical apparatus over the years. Specifically, dealing with the import of racial ideology (color-blind racism) and racial grammar as swell as the matter of “racialized emotions” as central to maintain racial order. The lecture will explore his recent and ongoing work on (white) normativity and racial habituation, racial subjects and RWF (regular white folks henceforth), and the various roads to change.

Contributor(s): Professor Jonathan Roberts | Private actions for public benefit - philanthropy, charity, voluntary action or social entrepreneurship - have long been at the core of societies, religions and human activity. Fuelled by increasing frustration at the perceived inability of governments, markets and NGOs to solve social and environmental problems, this arena of private action for public benefit is currently experiencing both resurgence and disruption. New ideologies of doing good stress the importance of maximising the social impact of our altruism and seeking long-term solutions to social problems. Innovative mechanisms of financing and organisation mix business practice with philanthropy and charity, stretching from impact investing and venture philanthropy to the social enterprise and the purpose-driven corporation. These new institutions and approaches to private action for public benefit open valuable new windows for achieving social change. But they also create tensions, puzzles and discomfort

Contributor(s): Professor Sir Michael Marmot | In LSE Health's Annual Lecture, kicking off the centre’s 30th anniversary celebration, Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology at University College London and Director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity, will outline why the need to reduce inequalities in health is a matter of social justice. In developing strategies for tackling health inequalities we need to confront the social gradient in health, not just the difference between the worst off and everybody else. There is clear evidence when we look across countries that national policies make a difference and that much can be done in cities, towns and local areas. But policies and interventions must not be confined to the health care system; they need to address the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. The evidence shows that economic circumstances are important, but they are not the only drivers of health inequalities. Tackling the health gap will take action, based on sound evi

Contributor(s): Professor Kenneth Chambaere, Professor Emily Jackson, Father Hugh MacKenzie, Professor Alex Voorhoeve | A new bill proposes to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill patients in England and Wales. Many difficult philosophical, moral, legal and social questions are raised by end-of-life legislation. Do people have a right to die? Is suicide ethically permissible? Can we create laws that protect the vulnerable from being pressured into ending their lives? Should psychological as well as physical illnesses be covered by right-to-die laws? How do such laws work in other countries?

Contributor(s): Lord Maurice Saatchi | In an age of conformists and faux-contrarians, Maurice Saatchi has revolutionised British business and politics through his willingness to question received wisdom. He discusses with Larry Kramer his new book Orgasm, a vivid and engaging blend of memoir, philosophy and critical thinking, in which he debunks some of the modern world’s most widely-held social and cultural delusions, in his inimitably witty and pugnacious style.

Contributor(s): Professor Mike Hulme, Professor Elizabeth Robinson | This lecture explores the merits of epistemic pluralism in understanding climate change today. Epistemic pluralism emphasises the need for diverse ways of knowing, analysing, and interpreting climate change—drawing insights from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. This event is based on a recently published book Climate Change Isn’t Everything by Professor Mike Hulme. In this talk, Professor Hulme will discuss “climatism”, an ideology that reduces politics and society to the singular goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by a given date. Accordingly, this event seeks to broaden the conversation. Hulme critiques climate reductionism, which frames contemporary problems exclusively through the lens of climate science and which overemphasizes the role of climate in shaping the future. Instead, he advocates for a more holistic approach that acknowledges the complexities and indeterminancies of social, political, and ecological sy