2007

2007 Core Conference Programme

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

Senior Fellow

Speakers

The science: on what should policy-makers be focusing?

Business: how are corporations reacting to the climate change debate?

The economics: how far has the Stern Review changed the paradigm of debate?

Venture capital and investing in the battle against climate change: what will its trajectory be?

The BRIC countries: what will be the impact of emerging economies?

Case study: China

Technology: what are the prospects for the rapid development and take-up of mitigation technologies?

The longer-term view: technologies and global consequences

After Kyoto: what should be the international architecture responding to climate change?

Governments and peoples - ministers, governors, mayors and communities: what will be the most dynamic sources of change?

Advertised Synopsis

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.

Population and Health: facing up to the future

(In Partnership with the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Rostock Centre for the Study of Demographic Change and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock)

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock
28 October - 3 November 2007

Speakers

What major demographic changes are likely in the coming decades and what are the implications for health care?

What does “old” mean?: the science of ageing

The new challenges: changing disease loads and perceptions of disease in an ageing society

The patient as consumer: the death of deference and new demands on health care

Where will medical research focus and how will medical care advance?

Funding of health systems for an ageing population: finding the best mix of public and private

The politics of health care in an ageing society: public demands and conflicting priorities

International cooperation in health: Avian Flu as a case study

Globalization and health care

Advertised Synopsis

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.

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

(In Partnership with the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

Potsdam, Germany
2 - 8 December 2007

Senior Fellows

Speakers

What is innovation?

What is the role of government in supporting science and what are its limits?

Science education and public engagement: what should be the underlying principles?

How should the public accountability of science be undertaken? How are the limits to innovation best set?

Out of the lab and into the market: translating innovation to the real world (I) Case study: Metanomics

Out of the lab and into the market: translating innovation to the real world (II)

Information, Innovation, and the Open Source Dilemma: How the Nature of Information and the Democratization of Knowledge Society Challenge Public Policies in the United States

Scientific creativity and innovation in the emerging economies

How do you manage knowledge resources equitably and for the greatest global benefit?

Open Source: what have been the achievements of Open Source and how will it likely evolve?

IPR: what does business need to flourish in the ‘knowledge economy’?

Free and frank exchange: what is the significance for innovation of open access publishing and blogging?

Advertised Synopsis

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

1. Changing the world? The potential and pitfalls of the New Philanthropy

Columbia University School of Social Work, New York
27 - 28 April 2007

What’s new about the New Philanthropy?

How can philanthropy be scaled up further? What are the obstacles to be overcome?

What do business entrepreneurs bring to philanthropy? What are their greatest challenges in the sector?

What impact will the New Philanthropy have on long established foundations, and on the non-profit sector in general?

How can social investment best be targeted? How can outcomes best be measured?

What is the global reach of the New Philanthropy?

Description

Philanthropy has never been bigger business. It hit the headlines in summer 2006 when the $31 billion which Bill Gates had handed over to his foundation was more than doubled by Warren Buffett, and there may be more to come from Bill Gates’ remaining personal wealth, estimated at $50 billion. This dwarfs all previous philanthropy, even on the scale of the Rockefellers or the Fords. The new philanthropy is not just new in scale, but in type. Many entrepreneurs, like Bill Gates, who have made their fortunes before reaching middle-age are directly supervising their own charitable endeavors rather than awaiting old age or death before bestowing their cash. How far can they transfer their entrepreneurial skills from their businesses to their foundations, boosting not just the numbers but the impact of the dollars spent? What will be the significance of a small but growing feature, ‘venture philanthropy’, where donors take risks traditionally shunned by major foundations, aiming for loans to be repaid through growing social enterprise and a virtuous cycle of investment and growth? This entails more successes, but also more failures: how well can charities adapt to ‘creative destruction’ in this way? And what will happen to charities’ relationships with governments, with civil society at large, and with each other?

These developments in the scale and approach of philanthropy may lead to a step change in tackling hitherto intransigent global problems, such as poverty or HIV/AIDS. But the new philanthropy brings also a new set of problems. Wealthy foundations already find it difficult at times to identify enough worthy projects to support, despite the apparently limitless demand, and this could grow even more problematic as giving is scaled up. With scale will come keener questions of accountability and democracy which already beset the NGO world. And with scale and accountability come bureaucracies, which may cramp entrepreneurial approaches, for all the reasons they can in business and more. Success and failure may be tricky to assess; the problems philanthropy seeks to tackle are complex and outcomes often hard to measure, especially in the shorter term. What will ensure that the new philanthropy is working optimally and really changing the world for the better?

2. National identity and identity politics: where are the tensions and how are they best addressed?

Château Klingenthal, near Strasbourg
15 - 17 June 2007

Why is there a new emphasis on national identities?

Ethnicity, the nation state and foreign policy

Making peace, keeping the peace: Case study I - Northern Ireland

Making peace, keeping the peace: Case study I - Bosnia

The future of national identities and identity politics in a globalizing world

The national identity dilemma: who am I and where do I belong? What does this mean for my host country?

Description

The last fifteen years has seen a dramatic resurgence of identity-based conflict, including the several civil wars in the interconnecting Balkan crises. This brought to the fore questions of national identity and how that relates to ethnic or other culturally distinct groups within a state. With the rapid development of globalization - including increased migration and also the impact on ‘imagined communities’ of electronic communication - these questions have taken on a new significance in a much broader range of countries. This conference will explore how ethnic and cultural rivalries have been managed, or mis-managed, the prospects for peace and conflict these pose for the future, and how anxieties about national identities may be best addressed in public policy in different countries.

3. Dialogue between the West and Islam: new approaches

Kneze, Korcula, Croatia
2 - 5 August 2007

International Law, Islamic Law, and the Rule of Law: identifying common values, defining common goals

Western intervention in Islamic countries: perceptions and consequences

How to change the zero sum game: issues of security and dignity

Muslim communities in the West and the idea of a citizenship pact

History, myth and identity

Dialogue in the age of satellite channels - a new approach

Conclusions