21st Century Trust - 2007 Conferences & Events

Encouraging Scientific Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Age: owning knowledge and open source

The 2008 programme will be posted in early January.

Climate change:
science, politics and the management of uncertainty
(In Partnership with the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

Merton College, Oxford
17 - 23 September 2007
Applications now closed

Even with the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report making ever clearer the scientific consensus about humanity’s contribution to global warming, the severity of its impact remains highly uncertain – world temperatures, for example, could increase anywhere from 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius, and any given rise within this range also has consequences which can only be predicted with a wide degree of variability. Also, these consequences may unfold steadily and slowly, or there may be ‘tipping points’ when change occurs in a critical or even catastrophic way. This conference will consider the difficulties of making policies to address the problems of global warming within a context of such uncertainty. How effectively do scientists on the one hand, and economists and policy-makers on the other, communicate with each other and how can that be improved? How far have initiatives, such as the UK’s Stern Review, changed the paradigm of debate? What approach, or combination of approaches, is most likely to bring the highest ecological, social and economic benefits: attempts to reverse climate change, to mitigate partially its effects, or to adjust societies to new realities? What will be the hard choices – the increased use of nuclear power, for instance? How is the role of business changing, especially given growing concern over investment horizons and regulatory uncertainty? Reviewing lessons learned in recent years, from the working of the Kyoto Treaty to initiatives at the level of state governments such as California, or cities and communities, what can be best achieved at the international, national or sub-national levels? In what ways are the newly emerging economies, such as China and India, transforming the problem? How can policies and measures achieve the dynamic necessary to meet the challenge while being sufficiently differentiated to fit the needs and resources of diverse economies, or the various industrial sectors? Moreover, how does one address issues of international equity when it is difficult to judge ahead of time the particular degree of damage any particular country will face, and when the human activity causing global warming – in the IPCC’s opinion – goes back to the 1750s. This conference will use a scenario-building approach to try to examine different outcomes in these areas in order to help participants better grasp the nature of the long-term challenge which will face us over the coming decades. How we deal with them may affect the planet for centuries.

Senior Fellow: John Elkington, Founder and Chief Entrepreneur, Sustainability
Confirmed Speakers: Dr Ottmar Edenhofer, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Isabel Hilton, Editor, chinadialogue.net; Dr Saleemul Huq, Head of the Climate Change Group, International Institute for Environment and Development; Professor Nebojsa Nakicenovic, IIASA (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis), Vienna; Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi; Professor Steve Rayner, Director, James Martin Institute, University of Oxford; David Stevenson, The Rocket Science Group; David Vincent, The Carbon Trust.

Populations are ageing worldwide with few exceptions: the world percentage of those over 65 is set to rise from 6.9% to 12% by 2030, with the developing world, if anything, experiencing changes to an even greater degree. This will induce societal shifts on a grand scale – from the political issues most resonant for voters, through the nature of business markets, to the areas of deepest focus for NGOs and society at large – which will tax the ingenuity of the current and rising generation of leaders and thinkers. Among a host of areas, health care, already undergoing technology and cost upheavals, will see some of the biggest changes. Pressing relevant issues include: the degree of demographic shift; its real impact as older individuals might be healthier and behave more like younger ones; changing disease loads, both the shift to chronic care, and the arrival of new viruses from HIV/AIDS to bird flu; increasing demands from better informed patients which in some cases expand the boundaries of medicine itself; finding resources to pay for already rocketing medical costs, especially when a smaller percentage of the population remains in full-time employment; the changing roles of public and private sectors both in developed countries and in fast-developing ones which are likely to see rapid expansion of the latter; the effects on medical provision of technological advance, globalization and the rise of the Asian economies; and the ongoing challenge of finding enough trained medical personnel. This conference will use a scenario-building approach to try to examine different outcomes in these areas in order to help participants better grasp the nature of the long-term challenge which will face us over the coming decades. On the skillful navigation of these challenges – by both current leaders and their successors – will depend our physical and even financial health.

Societies and governments have over centuries developed a variety of means to encourage and reward creativity, from honours and university positions to exclusive, temporary patents on innovations. Such inducements co-existed comfortably because of accepted conventions about the type of research and recompense appropriate to different sectors of society. The advent of the knowledge society, however, is challenging this modus vivendi on a number of levels, by breaking down the distinction between pure and applied knowledge (making both of economic value) and by throwing up possible new models of innovation, in particular in areas such as software and biotechnology. As well as case studies of innovation in Germany and in Singapore, this conference will examine: How far are current arrangements truly encouraging research and creativity in a variety of fields and where are they failing? What are the tensions in the social contract under-pinning intellectual property rights and how can they be best resolved? What sort of alternative structures, legal or otherwise, might be better? What are the strengths and weaknesses of alternative methods of harnessing innovation, such as the Open Source movement, and how broadly applicable might they be to other areas? What is the appropriate role of government in encouraging scientific creativity, and what sort of reward should public institutions expect when such work is used by commerce? How can the democratic accountability of science best be facilitated? What role can science and technology play as an engine of development in the South? What distinguishes scientists as a group - why is the gender balance so skewed? - and what incentives most encourage their creativity?

2007 Fellowship Programme

NB: The Trust also holds short Fellowship Events for those who have attended its core conferences over the years (Trust Fellows), which are not open to general application. This year's include Changing the world? The potential and pitfalls of the new philanthropy (New York, 27-28 April), National identity and identity politics: where are the tensions and how are they best addressed? (Château Klingenthal, near Strasbourg, 15-17 June), Dialogue Between the West and Islam: New Approaches (Korcula, Croatia, 3-5 August), and Democracy v. Sustainability? (London, UK, 23-24 October). Fellows interested in these events should please contact John Lotherington.