RSA Events

In his annual RSA Chief Executive’s Lecture Matthew Taylor makes a case for radical reform of our political and policymaking systems in the face of a growing crisis of liberal democracy. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 2nd July 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/07/what-democracy-needs-now

Clive Grinyer, past RSA Student Design Awards winner and RSA Design Advisor delivers the keynote address at the 2018 SDA winners ceremony. The RSA Student Design Awards challenge emerging designers to tackle pressing social, environmental and economic issues through design thinking. Our goal is to empower a generation of savvy, employable designers who understand the potential of design to benefit society, and we do this by running an annual Awards programme that challenges students and recent graduates to think differently about design, through tackling briefs focused on real-world problems. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 27th June. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/designing-our-futures-the-2018-rsa-student-design-awards

The winners of the UK’s most prestigious awards for political writing are revealed, celebrating the best of this year’s books, journalism and innovative reporting on social issues. Each year, The Orwell Prize awards prizes for the writing and journalism which comes closest to George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. Prizes are awarded in three categories: for books, for journalism (commentary and reportage) and The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils, which rewards innovative reporting on social issues in the UK. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 25th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/the-orwell-prize-ceremony-2018

One year on from the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower, a panel gathers to reflect on what it exposed about the social and economic state of the nation, and how to secure safety and justice for everyone. In an area home to some of the country’s richest and poorest people side by side, where average incomes can drop ten times across a street, Grenfell has come to be seen as a microcosm not just of the broken housing market, but of how poverty and voicelessness meet to compound inequality. The number of people subject to poor living conditions, intersecting wealth, race, and class inequality, and poor civic representation indicates deep injustice in how our society is structured – how can these conditions be dismantled? This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 21st June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/after-grenfell-one-year-on

Creativity guru and founder of Free Range Studios, Jonah Sachs argues that ‘safe thinking’ ultimately causes failure, and shows how we can unleash our boldness and creativity to tackle systemic challenges. Sachs draws on cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to uncover the specific mental habits that account for the success of those who break the mould. And he reveals how, by embracing a handful of simple brain-hacks and cognitive tools, we can all harness the power of the unsafe thinkers. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 14th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/the-key-to-unsafe-thinking

Internationally acclaimed social entrepreneur Hilary Cottam shows how we can remake the relationships between us, and revolutionise the welfare state. Sharing her vision at the RSA, Hilary Cottam is joined in conversation by award-winning journalist Gary Younge to explore the principles behind this radically new approach, the design process that makes the work possible and the challenges of transition. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 7th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/radical-help

One of the UK’s leading political scientists, David Runciman, argues that democracy is collapsing before our very eyes. But what - if anything - should replace it? Democracy has died hundreds of times, all over the world. We think we know what this looks like: chaos descends, and the military arrives to restore order until the people can be trusted again. But perhaps we are focusing on the wrong threats. Until very recently, most citizens of Western democracies would have imagined that the end was a long way off, and very few would have thought it might be happening before their eyes as Trump, Brexit and paranoid populism have become a reality. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 7th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/how-democracy-ends

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett follow up their seminal work The Spirit Level with new insights into how inequality impacts us as individuals. Arguing that societies based on fundamental equalities, sharing and reciprocity produce much higher levels of wellbeing than those based on excessive individualism, competitiveness and social aggression, The Inner Level sheds important new light into how we should organise the way we live together. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 5th June 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/06/how-inequality-gets-inside-our-heads

If not the EU, then what? Mike Kenny and Nick Pearce explore the idea of the ‘Anglosphere’ as a forgotten factor in the decision to leave the EU. Amidst the ongoing Brexit negotiations, a question mark looms over Britain’s future place in the world. The wish for a post-Brexit ‘global Britain’ has driven the idea of an alliance between Britain and its old Commonwealth colonies to resurface, based on a belief in a special bond shared by English-speaking peoples across the world. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 31st May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/after-brexit-a-future-beyond-the-eu

Founder and former CEO of award-winning marketing agency Livity, Sam Conniff Allende re-purposes the innovative strategies of Golden Age pirates for 21st century would-be disruptors. How can we create radical change within an old-fashioned system, and in the face of unprecedented change and uncertainty? We must break and then re-make the rules – just like pirates did before us. This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 24th May 2018. Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2018/05/how-to-be-more-pirate