Public lecture podcasts

A recording of Professor Timo Kivimäki’s inaugural that delivered on 4 February 2016. In this lecture, he reveals the paradox of deadly solidarity and outlines a research program that aims to produce lessons on how global protection of civilians could work for peace.

Dr Jeremy Watson, Chief Scientist & Engineer at BRE presents the Third Biennial Lecture for the Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering on sustainability and ethics in the built environment.

Prostate Cancer (PC) is the most common male-specific form of cancer and the third most common form of cancer in the UK. Although cancer treatments are initially effective they become less effective and have significant disadvantages. Against this, there is an urgent need for better treatments. In this lecture, Dr Matthew Lloyd describes a number of different strategies to identify small molecules ('drugs') that can be used to stop the protein AMACR from working and therefore potentially be used to treat prostate cancer.

In his inaugural lecture, Deputy Director of the PVRC in the University's Department of Mechanical Engineering, Professor Chris Brace discusses what the future holds for automotive propulsion. During the 20th century the growth of affordable personal mobility changed the way we live and work. Today the passenger car as we know it is under increasing pressure from changing expectations, including air quality, safety, sustainability and CO2. In addition, driver needs and expectations are changing as we move to a more urban way of living. This lecture sets out some of the challenges ahead and examines some likely directions that personal mobility will take in the future. Once we have an idea of future developments, what will the implications be for powertrain research?

Like the mutating cells it was trying to investigate, and through a serendipitous series of unrelated coincidences, what started out as a multi-disciplinary UK-based research project to explore the stratosphere using helium balloons somehow evolved and mutated into a high-powered rocketry based research collaboration with NASA Astrobiologists in the Nevada Desert. This high-octane talk by University of Bath researcher Dr Paul Shepherd explores the highs and lows of his journey into High Altitude Bioprospecting for a project which has fused structural engineering, electronics, computer science and biology.

In 2008 Fernando Lugo came to power in Paraguay promising a 'new dawn' based on social justice, democracy and greater empowerment of the country's poor but just four years later, with his reform programme in tatters. In his inaugural lecture, Professor Peter Lambert examines the failure of Lugo's reform programme through analysis of both immediate causes and wider factors related to domestic power relations and political culture. This in turn raises questions about the very nature of Paraguay's ongoing transition to democracy.

Professor Galbreath's inaugural lecture asked whether the evolution of technology requires us to be forever vigilant in the face of a new type of warfare. Against new threats to security, posed most recently by organisations like Islamic State, what is the current role for states, and what is the future for power and security, security and defence?

'Internet of Things' technologies have emerged over recent years as enabling technologies for life-long healthcare. Increasingly these technologies are seen as moving health from the hospital to the home, whilst at the same time shifting responsibility for health from the clinician to Computer Scientists and Engineers. The 27th Designability Annual Lecture, 'Data Scientist - heal thyself', explored the possible scenarios with this vision for data-led personalised medicine.

In his inaugural lecture, titled 'Disembedded elites? Policy communications and the transformation of elite networks', Professor David Miller reviewed the main writing on 'power elites' in the tradition of power structure research and asked what's changed with the advent of neoliberalism?

This lecture from Dr Lynette Goddard (Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London) focuses on the tradition of the Caribbean yard play to examine how the organisation of stage space relates to the experiences of the characters.