ÌÇÐÄTV

Professor Ben Clift has been awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for a project entitled ‘The OBR and the Politics of UK Growth amidst Brexit, Uncertainty and Austerity’. This will run from October 1st 2018 to September 30th 2021. The trust noted that ‘The competition for these Fellowships has been particularly keen. The Trust received 186 applications and awarded 33 Fellowships. More importantly, the quality of the applications was extremely high and the Trust Board has been gratified both by the outcome and by the distinction of the successful scholars.’

Ben’s Major Research Fellowship will draw back the veil on how UK growth assessments are constructed amidst pervasive uncertainty to explore the implications of Brexit and the British model of capitalism. The project penetrates the world of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in path-breaking fashion to reveal an under-appreciated politics of economic forecasting, and to analyse the political economy of Brexit. The analysis will explore how economic concepts used to frame and pilot economic policy, even when advanced by technocratic bodies like the OBR, are political constructions, always founded upon contestable and contested normative assumptions. Growth forecasts crucially mediate the politics of austerity through their implications for the tax take, and in assumptions they make about effects of government policy (and shocks like the GFC or Brexit) on actual and potential growth. Government policy options are opened up or closed off by particular renderings of Britain’s growth trajectory and their assumptive foundations (notably about Brexit effects).

This hugely impressive achievement means that the Department of Politics and International Studies now holds a record four Leverhulme Major Research Fellowships — the others being held by Professors Richard Aldrich, Shaun Breslin, and Mike Saward.

Keith Hyams has been awarded a British Academy International Challenges Research Project Grant for his project ‘Remedying Injustice in Indigenous Climate Adaptation Planning’. The project investigates ethical aspects of the relationship between indigenous communities, climate change, and adaptation policies. It asks how adaptation policies that integrate indigenous knowledge on climate adaptation can work to reduce the inequitable distribution of climate impacts on indigenous populations. The project will be undertaken in collaboration with the University of Makerere in Kampala, and Batwa Indigenous Communities in the South West of Uganda.

We are delighted to announce that this academic year’s Students’ Question Time will be held on Monday 22 January 2018 at 6.30pm and will be all about current affairs.

Did you enjoy this year's Question Time event but wish you could have been more involved in the debate? Now it’s your chance to share your views on the issues affecting the world today.

The panel will be made up entirely of students, with the Department of Economics' Claudia Rei acting as Chair. The event is a collabertation with PPE and Economics, giving you the chance to debate not only with your own classmates but also students from other departments who will no doubt have differing views to your own.

We are currently looking for students to be on the panel and you can submit your one-minute application video online. Taking part in this event will give you the chance to practice your public speaking skills, as well as preparing a reasoned argument and improving your confidence.

If being on the panel doesn’t appeal to you then you can come along and see how the debate unfolds from the audience. Book your place now.

Keith Hyams has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Project grant for his project ‘Anthropogenic Global Catastrophic Risk: The Challenge of Governance’. The project looks at long term threats to humanity arising from advances in emerging technology, aiming to identify the political obstacles that stand in the way of progress on governing these risks, and ethical guidelines within which new governance solutions for specific risks will be advanced. The project focusses on three case studies, in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, and will be undertaken in collaboration with Co-Investigators in the departments of biology, chemistry and computer science.

On 23 November Her Excellency Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, The President of Malta and Honorary Professor in PAIS, gave a lecture entitled ‘Ensuring Equity: The Importance of Wealth Distribution in a Globalised World’.

Introduced by Nick Vaughan-Williams, Head of PAIS, Her Excellency spoke of the escalation in inequality, discrimination, and poverty globally, and argued for sustainable investment in human rights and dignity. She called for students to be activists in support of the transformations required for more equitable patterns of wealth distribution. Before becoming the 9th President of the Republic of Malta, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca served as an MP in the Maltese National Parliament and is former Minister of State for the Family and Social Solidarity. In 2016 Her Excellency received the ‘Agent of Change’ award, conferred by the United Nations, in recognition of her work as a champion of gender equality and women’s empowerment in the Mediterranean region.

Photos from the event can be found on Her Excellency's and the President's features commentary of her lecture.

The full text of Her Excellency’s lecture at The Shard can be found in the following press release: