OxTalks will soon be transitioning to Oxford Events (full details are available on the Staff Gateway). A two-week publishing freeze is expected in early Hilary to allow all events to be migrated to the new platform. During this period, you will not be able to submit or edit events on OxTalks. The exact freeze dates will be confirmed as soon as possible.
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The Healthcare Data Science CDT students are currently working in teams to complete an intensive Data Challenge addressing real-world clinical problems using electronic healthcare record data from Oxford University Hospitals. The groups will be presenting their findings on Thursday 18 December 2025 between 10:00am and 12:15pm so do come and join us. 10:00 am – Welcome 10.05 am – Challenge: 'Enhanced Emergency Department triage' 10.40 am – Challenge: 'PACE-D Predictive Allocation and Clinic Efficiency in Diabetes: transforming diabetes outpatient clinics in Oxford' 11.15 am – Challenge: 'Maximising operating theatre efficiency' 11.50 am – Judging 12 noon - Results and closing remarks
Previous scholarship on the Jesuit mission in late imperial China has paid little attention to the lived experience of the Chinese learned men who embraced Christianity. Scholars have rarely investigated the language of emotions, feelings, and sentiments employed by these Chinese 'converts' to detail their spiritual journeys. Studies on Wang Zheng (1571–1644) are exceptions. But these studies often proceed with the assumption of a Confucian–Christian divide. Using this 'clash of civilizations' framework, they present Wang’s dilemmas and struggles in relation to his frantic attempt to navigate and resolve the conflicts arising from two very different cultural expectations. Professor Ong contends that the conventional approach conceals more than it reveals. Instead, this talk examines Wang’s narrative of spirituality and emotion and brings to light the important roles kinship and examination played in how he recounted his life journey that led him to the discovery of Christianity. Chang Woei ONG is Raffles Professor of the Humanities at the National University of Singapore and Head of the Department of Chinese Studies. Trained as an intellectual historian, he is the author of Men of Letters within the Passes: Guanzhong Literati in Chinese History, 907-1911 (2008) and Li Mengyang, the North-South Divide and Literati Learning in Ming China (2016), both published by Harvard University Asia Center. He is currently working on a project that examines the life and writings of Wang Zheng (1571-1644), a late Ming Christian Scholar-official.
This in-person workshop will feature 14 presentations from scholars across various social science disciplines. Please register to attend. Please find the full programme here: https://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/event/facing-ai-research-opportunities-and-challenges-in-todays-social-sciences
Electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is an essential tool to visualize proteins in near-native conditions. This is particularly true when dealing with heterogeneity—a hallmark of biological systems in health and disease. I will discuss how cryo-EM can uncover clinically relevant structural states using the membrane channel Pannexin-1 (PANX1) as a case study. PANX1 plays key roles in inflammation, ischemic injury, and immune cell activation due to its central role in ATP release. Yet, its regulation of the ATP-release state remains poorly understood. Using cryo-EM, we separated two PANX1 conformations and identified how phosphorylation stabilizes the open, large-pore state, enabling the passage of ATP and metabolites. This provides a structural basis for PANX1 activation in inflammatory and disease contexts. In a second example, cryo-EM allowed us to resolve compositional heterogeneity in a mixed protein sample, identifying three distinct structures—including one previously uncharacterized complex—at better than 3.5 Å. Together, these studies highlight cryo-EM’s power in deciphering biologically and clinically important complexity.
Join us on January 15th for a one-day, in-person conference hosted by the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) Division, bringing together researchers, technicians, and research enablers to explore how artificial intelligence is shaping scientific inquiry—and the ethical questions that arise. This event is a showcase for cutting-edge research across the MPLS Division, with opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange, networking, and collaboration. Register by 5pm on December 15th to ensure a spot - places are limited.
Since the 1980s, the transnational mobility of university students has expanded dramatically, fueled by the twin engines of neoliberalism and liberal internationalism. From the 1990s onward, China emerged as the dominant source of international students for major Western destinations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Yet, in the current era of geopolitical realignment and intensifying U.S.-China competition, the overseas mobility of Chinese students faces unprecedented disruption. This presentation tackles the critical questions arising from this new reality: How will the UK adapt its international student policies in response? How are Chinese students recalibrating their decisions in light of these shifts? And what new patterns will characterize the flow of Chinese students to the UK? Drawing on a rich dataset of nearly 400 interviews conducted since 2020, this research reveals how geopolitical tensions are reshaping study abroad opportunities and driving strategic destination shifts—including a notable pivot from the United States to the United Kingdom.
Join us for a unique evening at Wolfson College as we delve into the fascinating world of neuroethics. This lecture brings together experts in neuroscience and ethics to explore the ethical implications of advances in brain research. Don't miss this opportunity to expand your understanding of the intersection between the mind and morality. Reserve your spot now! Neuroethics is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field that addresses some of the most profound questions at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and ethics. It explores two key areas: Firstly, the neuroscience and psychology of morality — What are the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying moral development and decision-making? Secondly, the ethics of neuroscience, mental health, and psychiatry — What are the ethical implications of interventions like neuromodulation and mental health treatments? Talk abstract: Recent advances in neurotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) have made it increasingly possible to infer mental states, emotions, and even intentions directly from neural activity, a prospect often referred to as “mind reading.” This lecture explores the scientific foundations and ethical frontiers of this emerging field. It will examine what current brain decoding technologies can and cannot reveal about the human mind, and the moral and regulatory boundaries that should govern their use. Special attention will be given to distinguishing the science and pseudoscience of mind reading, and assessing their implications for privacy, autonomy, cognitive liberty, as well as the social consequences of normalizing access to mental information. The talk aims to move beyond dystopian or utopian framings and toward a realistic ethical framework for responsible, human-centred and rights-oriented innovation in neuro-AI.
The SMARTbiomed Statistical Genetics Symposium is designed to bring together researchers from Denmark and Oxford who are working in the field of statistical/quantitative genetics. Focusing on methodological advances, the event will provide an opportunity to share cutting-edge research being developed across the participating universities, while strengthening the network and collaboration among the various SMARTbiomed centres. The symposium is open to all researchers from Oxford and Denmark. We encourage researchers to present their work and take part in this exciting moment of knowledge exchange. The call for abstracts is open for both oral and poster presentations. Please submit abstracts via the registration form by Friday 28th November.
The SMARTbiomed Statistical Genetics Symposium is designed to bring together researchers from Denmark and Oxford who are working in the field of statistical/quantitative genetics. Focusing on methodological advances, the event will provide an opportunity to share cutting-edge research being developed across the participating universities, while strengthening the network and collaboration among the various SMARTbiomed centres. The symposium is open to all researchers from Oxford and Denmark. We encourage researchers to present their work and take part in this exciting moment of knowledge exchange. The call for abstracts is open for both oral and poster presentations. Please submit abstracts via the registration form by Friday 28th November. https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/events/smartbiomed-statistical-genetics-symposium
A joint online conference with the Centre for Baptist Studies, Acadia Centre for Baptist and Anabaptist Studies, and Georgetown College. Held on two consecutive Fridays, 9th and 16th January 2026, between 2 and 4pm UTC (9-11am EST, 10am-noon AST) 9th January – Slow Wisdom in the Local Church 16th January – Slow Wisdom in the Wider Church Register for free via TicketSource
Several decades after the first observation of DNA modifications in mammals, we still do not know why some DNA bases are modified and whether it really matters to begin with. Although there are only three DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) and three DNA oxygenases (TETs), an infinite number of DNA modification patterns can be observed throughout development and disease. Over the past decades, several functional links with other epigenetic pathways and cellular metabolism have been described. In this talk, I will focus on the surprising and opposing roles of TET, UHRF1 and DPPA3 in the regulation of DNA modifications and pluripotency. I will present data on the pivotal role of ubiquitination in regulating DNA modifications, as well as new regulatory mechanisms.
A pop-up exhibition offering a snapshot of the variety of posters held in the APGRD's archival collections, with speakers from the V&A, the National Theatre (London), and the Universities of Hertfordshire and Oxford. Foregrounding the work of the designers, illustrators, and photographers, and providing an overview of the evolution of theatrical advertising, the event will explore how different approaches - typographical, illustrative, photographic - enforce, reshape, or reject, shifting cultural notions of ancient Greece and Rome and specific moments within the ancient texts. from 2.30pm: the Ioannou Centre Outreach Room will be open for people to see the exhibition from 3pm: move into Ioannou Centre Lecture Theatre for talks starting at 3.15pm, followed by drinks For full details, see the APGRD website: https://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/events/2026/01/advertising-antiquity
In this talk I will outline framework I have designed and used that has helped me create engaging history of mathematics lessons and workshops for pupils aged 11+ as well as train teachers to do the same. This presupposes a use of history of mathematics to enchant and engage, rather than create an academic account or lecture for a listening audience. It is, in other words, a practical guidance to be discussed further at the end of the talk. Starting from familiar contexts such as Flatland, honeycombs, and cannonball stacks, a number of lessons and workshops can be designed to motivate curiosity for learning more about exciting mathematical ideas as well as exploring high-dimensional concepts. This talk is suitable for all and anyone interested in the role the history of mathematics can play in mathematics education.
In this webinar representatives from the Open Book Futures project on work package 7 Archiving and Preservation will discuss issues faced in digitally preserving Open Access Monographs and Theses from the perspective of publishers, university repositories and authors. They will also discuss the work that Open Book Futures is doing in these areas, and the implications this will have for the audience, including the support, tools and policy recommendations being developed. Speakers: Rupert Gatti is a co-founder and director of Open Book Publishers and Thoth Open Metadata - both established as non-profit community interest companies. He has been co-lead (with Gareth Cole) of the Archiving and Preservation work packages within the COPIM and Open Book Futures projects, and is actively involved in several other non-profit open access publishing initiatives, including the Open Book Collective, the Open Journals Collective and the OPERAS metrics service. Gareth Cole is the Open Research Manager at the University of Exeter. Until recently he was the Open Research Lead at Loughborough University. With Rupert Gatti he has been co-lead of the Archiving and Preservation work packages within the COPIM and Open Book Futures projects. Holly Turpin is a Research Associate in Archiving and Preserving Open Access Books at Loughborough University and is part of the Archiving and Preservation work package within the Open Book Futures project. Before joining the project, she completed her PhD at Loughborough University on using immersive digital storytelling in homelessness contexts.
Time: 2pm to 4pm (including 30 minutes for tea and coffee and networking at the end). The aim of the event is to explore with the speakers/audience what research organisations are doing to create infrastructures and incentives for environmentally sustainable research in dry labs, what opportunities and challenges they face, how funders are influencing this, what tools and approaches are out there and how all this is understood and experienced by researchers. This will ensure that our research community is both aware of the wider context from the institutional perspective, and also that it has a voice in leadership team decisions on environmentally sustainable research. Confirmed panel members include Joseph Arroway-Myatt, Sustainable Laboratories Co-ordinator at Oxford, Martin Farley, Associate Director of Sustainability at UKRI and Federica Lucivero, Associate Professor in the Ethics of Technology at Oxford.
This presentation examines how Ukrainian universities have strategically leveraged internationalization and academic mobility as instruments of resilience during the Russian military invasion. The study is part of a broader research project supported by the British Academy and Cara, which investigates internationalization during war as an institutional strategy for resilience and continuity. Drawing on original empirical research conducted among Ukrainian students at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, the University of Oxford, and the University of Glasgow – including surveys and research interviews – the study explores how the nature and meaning of academic mobility have fundamentally shifted since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Against the backdrop of disruptions that have affected Ukrainian higher education since 2014 – including occupation, displacement, loss of facilities, and fragmentation of academic communities – universities have demonstrated remarkable institutional continuity and civic commitment. The analysis shows that mobility has therefore moved beyond its pre-war function as a pathway for individual development and institutional cooperation. It now operates as a mechanism of wartime agency, academic diplomacy, and knowledge sovereignty, contributing to identity preservation and long-term capacity-building for post-war reconstruction. In parallel, Ukrainian universities have adapted their internationalization strategies under extreme circumstances, maintaining global partnerships, securing new formats of collaboration, and engaging more deeply in European initiatives. The presentation argues that internationalization, once primarily a developmental priority, has become a core resilience strategy for Ukrainian higher education during the Russian military invasion – with academic mobility emerging as one of its most significant strategic instruments. Internationalization is now driven by the need to safeguard knowledge continuity, strengthen global visibility, and protect Ukraine’s intellectual sovereignty. Finally, the study examines how this reorientation is reshaping not only institutional policies, but also students’ own sense of agency, responsibility, and contribution to Ukraine’s future.
Spines are ubiquitous morpho-functional elements of excitatory synaptic transmission and plasticity in the neocortex. Whether functional spines are also present in the thalamus is currently unclear. Here I demonstrate that layer 5 cortico-thalamic terminals arising from several frontal cortical regions preferentially target functional spines in the thalamus via variable and complex synapses. These axo-spinous L5-thalamic connections are surprisingly powerful, able to selectively recruit a subset of thalamic neuron and are involved in motor learning.
We are pleased to announce that the Oxford Photonics Day 2026 will take place on Wednesday 14th January in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. - Light-Driven Intelligence: Integrated Photonics for Computation, and Quantum Technologies Prof. Alina Karabchevsky, Lancaster University. - Adaptive Optics for Astronomical Telescopes Prof. Tim Morris, Durham University. - Optical Picometrology Prof. Kevin Francis Macdonald, University of SouthamptonUniversity of Southampton
This workshop will cover the basics of copyright as they apply to researchers at the University of Oxford. It will explain the different types of copyright work that are used or generated in research and the rights and responsibilities for researchers and academic authors in an age of increasingly open scholarship. We will discuss the practical implications of copyright law on the publication process, as well as the production and sharing of research data. This will include the licensing of research outputs and data and the use of open licences such as Creative Commons. We will also cover ownership of copyright, author agreements with publishers and the benefits of signing up to the University of Oxford rights retention pilot. Finally, the session will cover the use of copyright content owned by others as part of the research process. This will involve looking at the role of rights clearance, copyright exceptions, due diligence and risk management in common research scenarios. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
For our next talk, in the Digital Phenotyping seminar series, we will hear from Dr Yi-Cong Zhi, postdoctoral researcher in machine learning for infectious diseases, Big Data Institute, on Wednesday 14 January, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm, at the Big Data Institute (BDI). Title: Bayesian machine learning enables discovery of risk factors for hepatosplenic multimorbidity related to schistosomiasis Date: Wednesday 14 January Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm Venue: BDI/OxPop, Seminar Room 0; followed by refreshments in the atrium Abstract: One in 25 deaths worldwide is related to liver disease, and often with multiple hepatosplenic conditions. Yet, little is understood of the risk factors for hepatosplenic multimorbidity, especially in the context of chronic infections. We present a novel Bayesian multitask learning framework to jointly model 45 hepatosplenic conditions assessed using point-of-care B-mode ultrasound for 3155 individuals aged 5-91 years within the SchistoTrack cohort across rural Uganda where chronic intestinal schistosomiasis is endemic. We identified distinct and shared biomedical, socioeconomic, and spatial risk factors for individual conditions and hepatosplenic multimorbidity, and introduced methods for measuring condition dependencies as risk factors. Notably, for gastro-oesophageal varices, we discovered key risk factors of older age, lower hemoglobin concentration, and schistosomal periportal fibrosis. Our findings provide a compendium of risk factors to inform surveillance, triage, and follow-up, while our model enables improved prediction of hepatosplenic multimorbidity, and if validated on other anatomical systems, general multimorbidity. Hybrid Option: Please note that these meetings are closed meetings and only open to members of the University of Oxford. Please respect our speakers and do not share the link with anyone outside of the University. The purpose of these seminars is to foster more communication among employees throughout the University, so we strongly advise in-person attendance whenever feasible. Microsoft Teams meeting Join the meeting now Meeting ID: 317 734 607 329 42 Passcode: F8QC77c4
Are you baffled by open, confused by embargoes? Does the mention of the colour gold or green catapult you into a realm of perplexed irritation? Come to this session, where we’ll break down open access and all its many jargon terms, confusing publishing structures and hint at the advantages you can reap by publishing open. In this session you’ll learn: what is open access? Key terms – Gold, Green, Article Processing Charges; where to get more information and help; where to look for open access material; and useful tools to assist you in publishing open access. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
The rapid evolution of educational technologies (edtech) has transformed the landscape of education, particularly through the use of digital networks, data, and AI. In response, a growing number of studies dedicated to the critical analysis, evaluation, and (re)design of educational technologies has emerged, examining the pedagogical, social, technical, political, economic and cultural dimensions of edtech. This Critical EdTech Studies (CES) has sought to uncover the underlying power dynamics, biases, and unintended consequences that often accompany the introduction of technology, as well as to contribute to the envisioning of alternative edtech futures, often oriented towards overcoming the harmful consequences of technocratic decision-making in education. In a first part, this seminar will address how this emerging field can contribute to higher education research and practice specifically. The second part will present atmospheric analytics as one specific methodological framework that can be deployed in the field of CES. This framework explicitly challenges a view of technology as simply being a tool for augmenting human-computer interactions. Instead, it posits that technologies have atmospheric qualities, shaping experiences through a complex interplay of infrastructure and affect. Three analytical optics will be outlined: density, saturation, and viscosity. These concepts help us analyse the intensity, vitality, and resistance associated with edtech in our daily lives. By focusing on how technologies are woven into our practices, atmospheric analytics offers a nuanced perspective on the social, political, and ethical implications of edtech, opening up ongoing critical study of education technologies as they continue to unfold in higher education and beyond. This event is co-hosted by the Critical Digital Education Research Group (CDER) at the Department and the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE). Speaker bios: Mathias Decuypere is Professor of School Development and Governance at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. His research adopts an international, macro-level perspective on educational policymaking and governance. It is interested in how distinct global developments in governance (e.g., behavioural governance; platform governance; synthetic governance) affect local educational practices. Over the last years, Mathias has become particularly interested in how schools operate in a condition of digitality nowadays, where digital technologies are embedded in just about every educational practice. In that respect, he investigates how educational technologies can be used to foster pedagogically meaningful digitization processes in education. Before working at PH Zurich, Mathias was Associate Professor at KU Leuven (Belgium), where he held a chair in qualitative research methods. Carlo Perrotta is Associate Professor of Digital Education in the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. His research examines the impact of technology on multiple aspects of education, from pedagogy to policy. Carlo’s recent work focuses on automation and Artificial Intelligence. He has published in several leading journals at the intersection of education studies and the sociology of new media. They include Learning Media and Technology, the British Journal of Sociology of Education, New Media & Society and Critical Studies in Education. Carlo’s research has been funded by leading international bodies such as the European Commission, the UK's ESRC and UNESCO. Before joining the Faculty of Education in 2023, he held research and teaching posts at Monash University, the University of Leeds, and the UCL-Institute of Education in London. Prior to Academia, Carlo worked at Futurelab, a UK-based, non-for-profit think-tank that explored the potential of digital technology in education.
The inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease & ulcerative colitis are increasingly rapidly in incidence and prevalence throughout the World. Current projections estimate that 1.5 – 2.0 % of the population may be affected when prevalence equilibrium is reached in countries in Western Europe and North America. Over the last 30 years, genetic studies have been highly successful, allowing the characterisation of genetic architecture of IBD; over 300 genetic loci have been implicated by GWAS studies allowing identification of pathways involved in pathogenesis, and targets for therapeutic intervention. However, it is very clear that genetic factors contribute less than 30% disease variance - genetic variation alone fails to explain disease epidemiology or familial risk. The need to characterise gene-environmental interactions and the disease exposome is fundamental to understanding pathogenesis, and in turn to moving towards prevention. We hypothesise that epigenetic mechanisms are likely to be critical in gene-environmental interactions - with well characterised effects of smoking, and of air pollution on DNA methylation providing catalysts for these studies. Our studies over the last decade have taken advantage of technical advances in characterising the epigenome in health, in ageing and in disease; and have built on the known effects of the exposome on the circulating DNA methylome. Thus, we have characterised the circulating methylome in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in adults and children; we demonstrate a stable highly reproducible series of changes at diagnosis in inception cohorts across Northern Europe and characterise the influence of genetic and non-genetic factors in shaping the methylome. The findings provide further insights into disease pathogenesis. Early clinical applications include the potential for biomarkers in predicting disease susceptibilty, in diagnosis, and in stratification for therapy. Excitingly, causal inference analysis using genetic and epigenetic data allow identification of a series of molecular pathways involved in the effects of the exposome on disease.
Infection is a key barrier to child health globally. Exposure to infection in childhood is ubiquitous, with most exposures resulting in trivial illness requiring no treatment. For some children, however, an infectious exposure can result in severe and life-threatening illness. Moreover, the consequences of infection in children are commonly thought of in terms of death and disability directly resulting from an episode of severe infection. It is unclear, however, if there are long-term health consequences of repeated episodes of infection from which a child recovers. To better design control strategies for childhood infection, and to more fully predict their impacts, we need to understand why some children develop severe infections and what the consequences of infection are for long-term health. My group uses human genetic tools to address these questions. In this talk I will illustrate this with work exploring the human genetics of rotavirus infections in African children, describing how genetic variation shapes immune response and disease risk and how we can leverage this to define how infections may affect wider health outcomes. James is a principal investigator in the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford and an honorary consultant in paediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital in Oxford. He completed his PhD with Adrian Hill’s infectious disease genetics group in 2016, supported by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship, performing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of invasive bacterial infection in African children. He expanded on this interest during his post-doctoral training within a NIHR clinical lectureship, working with Ben Fairfax’s cancer immunogenomics group, developing an interest in mapping genetic regulatory variation in immune cells to better understand infection-associated genetic variation identified by GWAS. In parallel, his postdoctoral work also focussed on describing the epigenetic consequences of infection and inflammation in immune cells and understanding whether this is informative of longer-term health outcomes. He established his group within the Oxford Vaccine Group in 2025 supported by a Wellcome Career Development Award.
This seminar will discus recent research from our group exploring spatial navigation in cities and in the pacific ocean. Discoveries from project Sea Hero Quest will be presented where we tested over 4 million participants on their navigation ability in an virtual navigation task in a mobile app. Insights from route planning in London taxi drivers and navigation test with over 100 people in a crowded fabricated 1:1 art gallery space will be discussed. Finally the preliminary insights from the Voyage to Aur project will be presented where we sailed over 3 days in pacific ocean collecting continuous spatial estimates from indigenous sailors from the Marshall Islands aboard the yacht Stravaig.
Omer Bartov is the Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University and the author of many books, including Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz, which won the National Jewish Book Award; Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past; and Genocide, the Holocaust, and Israel–Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis. Professor Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the Israel Defence Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become an expert on the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country. In 'Israel: What Went Wrong?', Bartov explores the transformation of Zionism from a movement of Jewish emancipation and liberation into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism, exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians. He traces the process whereby Israel – whose establishment received international support in the aftermath of the Holocaust – stands accused of war crimes and genocide. Less than eight decades after its founding in 1948 – the year in which the UN Genocide Convention was adopted in response to Nazi crimes – Bartov argues that, for the past two years, the Jewish state was engaged in a genocidal undertaking in Gaza. What are the implications of Israel’s near total impunity for the post-1945 regime of international law? And how do we understand the widespread support for these policies by Israel’s Jewish citizens? Eye-opening and urgent, Israel: What Went Wrong? is a powerful and vital primer for anyone trying to understand this century’s most violent and devastating conflict.
With the Human Rights Act under pressure, leaving the refugee convention and the ECHR on the table and the UN apparently incapable of resolving conflicts as well as suspicion of WHO, what does/should internationalism look like in the modern world.
The event will feature three of our Wycliffe academic community who have recently been published. We will hear how they were drawn to their research topic, and how they condensed thousands of words into these short booklets. We also hope to touch upon how others can get their own work published, and what Grove Booklets can offer. All are welcome! All of our speakers are current students or recent graduates of Wycliffe Hall, and we are proud to present their published works and contributions to theology and Anglican practice
The U.S. health care system in a period of turmoil and innovation due to system inflation, political and social change, workforce disruptions, and the ascendance of technology driven patient care. This update will cover the main changes occurring now in the U.S. health care system, analyzing these changes in the context of larger trends that may remain present for some time into the future.
Are you planning to present a poster at an upcoming conference, meeting or symposium? This introductory session will provide you with some top tips on how to create a poster presentation which will help you to communicate your research project and data effectively. There will be guidance on formatting, layout, content, use of text, references and images, as well as advice on printing and presenting your poster. This session will also provide help with locating resources such as templates, free-to-use images and poster guidelines. By the end of this online session you will be able to: evaluate the effectiveness of templates, formatting, text and images; and plan, prepare and present your poster. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Researcher and research student
Learn how and when to select a journal and how this step can affect your publishing chances and career. Understand the different kinds of journals and what they mean for your research, publishing and your professional development. With more than 200,000 academic journals in the world to select from, our event will provide guidance to help you navigate the wider publishing world. Understand what open access is and why it may be a good choice for publishing your research, balancing the costs versus the benefits. What happens once a paper is submitted? How do editorial triage and peer reviewer selection work? What kind of comments are you likely to get back, and how to respond? How long does it all take, and how can you best manage the process? Hear from Sci-Train's: *Gareth Dyke, PhD - Co-Founder & Academic Director of Sci-Train*. Gareth Dyke is a prolific academic author and writer, publishing more than 300 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals (including Nature and Science) over a career spanning 20+ years. His goal now is to pass on writing and publishing skills to researchers around the world for whom English is not their first language. *Maria Machado PhD - Expert Trainer & Contributor at Sci-Train*. Maria Machado is a physiologist turned consultant. She attempts to bridge the gap between researchers, the academic publishing industry, and society at large. Maria has broad experience in helping scientists transmit the core message uncovered from their data and disseminate new knowledge quickly.
AI is often seen as a job killer — but our latest OII study suggests it could actually help you get hired. A new international experiment with 1600 recruiters and HR professionals in the US, UK, and Germany shows that AI skills significantly improve a candidate’s chances of being invited to an interview. Applicants with certified AI skills — through online courses, platforms, or university programs — were even more likely to be shortlisted. These certifications not only increase visibility in hiring processes but, in some cases, also help offset traditional disadvantages, such as lower levels of formal education or career changes. As AI continues to reshape the world of work, it may also be opening new doors to employment. The findings highlight the need for inclusive reskilling programmes and accessible certification pathways to ensure broader access to the benefits of AI. Investing in micro-credential infrastructure can play a key role in making the future of work more equitable. Visit www.skillscale.org for more details on the study.
Derek Presentation
Bob Seely MBE is a Conservative Party politician who served as the MP for the Isle of Wight from 2017 until 2024. He is a former journalist and soldier. From 1990 to 1995, he worked as a foreign correspondent in the USSR and in post-Soviet states. From 2008 to 2017, he served in the British Armed Forces on the Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and ISIS campaigns.
Do you want to make sure that your work complies with the open access policy for REF 2029? In this focused online briefing, we will: step you through the changes and new requirements; provide links to further REF information and guidance; let you know where to find help at Oxford; and answer as many questions as we can. Ideally the 'Fundamentals of Open Access' course will have been attended. If you're not in a position to attend this course you can find similar information in our e-learning package (Digital induction to open access (MSD)) to work through prior to attending. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
Do you want to make sure that your work complies with the open access policy for REF 2029? In this focused online briefing, we will: step you through the changes and new requirements; provide links to further REF information and guidance; let you know where to find help at Oxford; and answer as many questions as we can. Intended audience: Researcher and research student; Staff
Globally, university students, particularly those from under-represented groups, continue to depart early from university at significant volume. Whilst leaving university without qualifications impacts everyone, for those who are the ‘first’ to attend university, the repercussions can be significantly greater. For first-generation or first-in-family (FIF) students, the decision to attend university is rarely straightforward and may mark a radical departure from an expected biography or trajectory. Identifying the reasons why students depart university early remains an enigma across higher education settings. Early departure can have profound impacts for individuals, not only financially but also emotionally and socially. However, if we only focus on understanding why students ‘leave’ university we miss an important opportunity to consider their rationales for staying. This talk will report on three studies conducted across Australia, Austria, Ireland and the UK that considered why first-generation learners persist in what can often be an alien and complex university environment. The combined qualitative data points to the recurring theme of the role of ‘mantras’ or spoken statements in encouraging this persistence. In this CGHE webinar, we will highlight the key mantras that learners drew upon to enact persistence and indicate how they are not only rooted in biography but also contradict and challenge dominant discourses within university.
We estimate a model of intra-household allocation of time-intensive parental investments. To address the identification challenge of separating preferences, expectations, and bargaining power, we leverage a unique data combination. First, we derive the quantity and quality of maternal and paternal speech from day-long audio recording using a state-of-the-art neural network classifier. Second, we elicit expectations from each parent about the returns to speech. Third, we exploit hyper-local variation in female bargaining power arising from inheritance practices. Our model and estimation reveal how female bargaining power influences paternal investments: fathers provide more and higher-quality speech investments when women have greater bargaining power, but only when mothers expect investments to improve child language development. These results align with a collective model in which powerful women elicit paternal investment when they believe it is productive. Our results highlight the role of economic power as opposed to other forms of social status in driving these investments.
Public debates about vaccination often turn on evidence and persuasion, yet beneath these lie deeper differences in how people prefer to make health decisions. In January's Balliol Online Lecture, Professor John Drake, examines how such decision-making preferences—whether one leans toward autonomy or authority, caution or intervention—shape vaccination attitudes and behaviors. Drawing on empirical evidence from large-scale surveys, he will show how preferences complement more familiar factors such as risk perception and social norms. Recognizing these patterns helps explain why communication strategies resonate with some audiences but not others. He then will turn to the broader implications: when individual preferences aggregate, they influence vaccine uptake and, in turn, the dynamics of epidemics. Linking psychology and epidemiology, the lecture offers a richer view of agency in public health. Professor John Drake, (Oliver Smithies Visiting Fellow 2025) and Professor of Ecology at the University of Georgia. His research seeks to understand the dynamics of biological populations and epidemics, focusing on how to bring experimental and observational data together with mathematical theory. Biological phenomena of interest include extinction, fluctuations in variable environments, the spatial distribution of populations (niche theory), Allee effects, demographic stochasticity, spatial spread, and near-critical dynamics. Current projects concern the dynamics of Ebola virus in West Africa, spread of White-nose Syndrome in bats, and the development of a new theory for early warning systems of emerging infectious diseases. He received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in 2004 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California from 2004-2006. He has been at the University of Georgia since 2006. He was Leverhulme Visiting Professor in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University in 2012.
Amjad M. Tadros is an award-winning investigative journalist and media entrepreneur with more than three decades of leadership in journalism, digital media, and communications. As CBS News' Middle East producer from 1990 to 2023, he managed regional coverage of transformative events, including Iraq's wars, the 9/11 hijackers' backstories, the Arab Spring, and Syria's chemical attacks on civilians earning him major international awards. In 2013, Tadros co-founded Syria Direct, an independent media organization empowering young Syrians to deliver impartial news about their country's conflict. Publishing in Arabic and English, it reaches audiences in Syria, the Syrian diaspora, diplomats, and scholars. It serves as a resource for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Commission of Inquiry on Syria. He holds an honors degree in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London and a diploma in public narrative from the Harvard Kennedy School. 'The Fixer' dives deep into the heart of the Middle East. Amjad M. Tadros, a Jordanian born to Palestinian refugees, was unexpectedly thrust into the world of journalism. While working with CBS, Tadros survived a U.S. missile strike in Baghdad, leading to a kiss on the cheek from Saddam Hussein in his hospital bed. This memoir details Tadros' whirlwind career, from tracking the origins of 9/11 hijackers to documenting the Arab Spring and its long-lasting effects on the region, cementing his legacy with CBS’s '60 Minutes'. Balancing between two worlds, Tadros was sometimes perceived differently — by Arabs as a spy, and by Westerners as a defender of tyrants. But to Tadros, journalism was about highlighting the stories of those who suffer in a region engulfed in chaos. He fought to get the truth out, even as he battled the status quo.
TBC
Sustainable development is one of the most influential concepts in contemporary international policy. The talk traces the origins of this ubiquitous yet elusive notion in the 1970s and 1980s, discussing specifically the ideas of the two women who are credited with its invention, Barbara Ward and Gro Harlem Brundtland: how they imagined sustainable development as the pillar of a new, post-Cold War international order, how they problematised growth and social justice, and how they envisioned a special responsibility of Europe/the European Community in promoting it.
Twenty years ago the World Summit on the Information Society established the United Nations’ approach to achieving what it called ‘a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society’. What that means has changed enormously since then – through the spread and capabilities of new technologies, the impact they have had on economy and society, our understanding of the risks as well as opportunities involved, and in the balance of power between governments, businesses and users. The United Nations has reviewed the Summit’s outcomes over twenty years during 2025, culminating in a special session of the General Assembly in December. What has happened since 2005? What did governments agree about in December – and as importantly, what did they disagree about? How should we and indeed how can we assess and influence the impact of digital technologies in future? And how does the United Nations go about the business of negotiating an agreement on a highly controversial subject such as this at a time of international divisions and uncertainties? How does it seek to involve other stakeholders, such as those from businesses and civil society? Those processes are very complex and widely misunderstood.
As a college freshman, Shabana Basij-Rasikh co-founded SOLA, which would become the only boarding school for girls in Afghanistan. In 2021, days after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, she led the dramatic evacuation of the school from Afghanistan to Rwanda, where it operates as the only boarding school for Afghan girls in the world, a place of hope and promise. Shabana describes this haven where Afghan girls will always be free to learn.
COURSE DETAILS The course will include: Critique of readability in relevant papers. Use of tenses in academic papers. Writing with impact. Concise writing. Grammar and proof reading. Scientific table and chart technique. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of the session participants will be able to: Develop understanding of the characteristics of scientific writing; write in simple, clear and concise scientific English. Develop knowledge of how to write grammatically correct English. Improve proof reading skills; organise the sections of a scientific paper effectively. Develop a scientific argument with appropriate language that conveys the message effectively. Make effective use of charts and tables.
This workshop will cover the basics of copyright as they apply to lecturers and tutors at the University of Oxford. It will explain the different types of copyright work that are used or generated in teaching and the rights and responsibilities for teaching staff and students. By attending this session you will have the opportunity to: identify copyright works and usages in teaching contexts; compare different types of licence available for teaching – proprietary and open; follow the requirements of the CLA licence; and apply risk management principles to the use of copyright exceptions for teaching. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
We will have a plenary session with a talk by Professor Dominic Wilkinson, Deputy Director, Uehiro Oxford Institute; Director of People, Uehiro Oxford Institute; Professor of Medical Ethics, University of Oxford.
Across the world, governments are invoking AI sovereignty as they confront rising geopolitical tension, strategic competition, and deepening technological interdependence. Yet sovereignty, in a globalised AI ecosystem dominated by a small number of firms and nations, may not be the most meaningful lens to apply. This talk draws on research conducted with by the Tech Policy Design Centre and Oxford Internet Institute researchers, which suggests that the debate around AI sovereignty can be better understood for policymaking as AI agency—a country’s capacity to steer outcomes, exercise strategic choice, and shape value flows even while embedded in dense networks of dependence. The research introduces an AI Agency Tool that maps national capability across 101 measurable elements and six layers, spanning infrastructure, data, models, skills, diffusion, and governance. Using Australia as the first detailed case study, the framework demonstrates how national strengths, dependencies, and leverage points can be identified, and how these insights may inform more coherent, evidence-based national AI strategies. We have used the Tool to provide a snapshot of Australia’s current capability, but it also serves as a method for exploring policy options. It’s updatable, scalable, and designed to be applied by any nation seeking to build its own AI agency. The framework is particularly salient for middle-power nations navigating an AI landscape shaped by US–China rivalry, emerging regional blocs, concentrated industry power, and competing regimes of norms, standards, and platforms. Rather than treating autonomy as self-sufficiency, the framework aims to help policymakers identify where to build, where to partner, and where to hedge—helping clarify the strategic choices facing countries seeking to maintain influence and protect their interests in an era of accelerating AI-driven power shifts. Project: https://techpolicy.au/ai-agency Rebecca Razavi is a Visiting Policy Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, where her work focuses on technology and geopolitics, distribution of social and economic power in the digital age and the role of the state and international institutions, emerging technologies and implications for policy making, regulation and society. Rebecca is an independent consultant whose background as a senior diplomat and technology regulator for the UK and Australian Governments and as a policy leader for a global tech company positions her at the intersection of technology, government, and industry, where the competing interests of techno geopolitics, commercial freedom, responsible governance, safety and security try to strike a balance. She has served on a range of government, industry and not-for-profit Boards, including as co-Chair of the Digital Platform Regulators Forum, as a seconded expert to the EU Commission, and as a mentor and investor for start-ups and technology policy professionals, with a special interest in responsible technology and human-centred design.
A general online introduction to the vast range of electronic resources which are available for all historical periods of British and Western European history. Learning outcomes are to: gain an overview of some of the key online resources for medieval, early modern and modern British and Western European history; know how to access subscription resources.; and gain awareness of key examples of useful resources: bibliographic databases; reference sources; primary sources; maps; audio-visual resources; and data sources. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher and research student
Neural activity-regulated myelin plasticity is increasingly recognized as a dynamic regulator of neural circuit function shaping cognition and learning. However, its role in pathological circuit remodelling remains largely unexplored. Drugs of abuse, including opioids such as morphine, target the dopaminergic reward system and drive persistent synaptic and circuit-level modifications. Although microglia and astrocytes have been implicated in these adaptations, the contribution of myelin-forming oligodendroglial lineage cells, which are uniquely positioned to modify circuit function, has remained unknown. In this talk, I will discuss our findings demonstrating that myelin plasticity is a key modulator of dopaminergic circuit function and opioid reward. Increased dopaminergic neuron activity, evoked by either optogenetic stimulation or morphine, induces oligodendrogenesis within the reward system in a circuit- and region-specific manner. Disrupting this myelin plasticity through conditional blockade of oligodendrogenesis abrogates morphine-associated reward learning, identifying oligodendroglial cells as critical regulators of reward behaviour. Real-time dopamine recordings reveal that myelin plasticity is necessary for modulating network synchrony and ensuring a timely dopamine release required for reward learning. Our findings establish myelin plasticity as a previously unappreciated feature of dopaminergic reward circuitry that critically contributes to the behavioural reinforcing effects of opioids.
The Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation Public Seminar series brings together members of the public, researchers and practitioners interested and engaged in urban health issues. The principal aim of the series is to provoke debate and constructive action, linking current best practice in urban development with emerging areas of health research. In a world increasingly affected by the climate emergency it is imperative that we have coherent strategies in place to make our cities climate resilient and adaptive. We also face a public health crisis as both climate change and socio-economic factors impact on people’s health in cities and create further health inequalities. Initiatives such as ‘Marmot Places’, which recognise the links between the social determinants of health and the impact of climate change in specific urban areas, offer one way of tackling these problems, and the emergence of participatory (or people-led) approaches to decision-making through ‘citizen assemblies’ provides a possible way of helping rebuild people’s trust in the urban planning process. This seminar brings together four experts to explore these themes through short provocations: What really determines the outcomes for people’s health in the climate emergency at city level? What is the role of urban planning in developing adaptation strategies that help tackle both climate change and public health issues? What are citizen assemblies, and can they help in planning for healthy and adaptive cities? Do we need new and stronger policies to resolve health-climate planning issues at national and sub-national levels? There will also be time for interactive discussion as part of the audience Q & A. Speakers: Professor Adam Briggs -University of Southampton and Oxfordshire County Council Dr Audrey de Nazelle -Imperial College Lucy Bush - Demos Dr Rosalie Callway - Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) This event will be chaired by Timothy J. Dixon, Emeritus Professor, School of the Built Environment, University of Reading and Visiting Fellow/Research Associate, Kellogg College/Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation (GCHU), University of Oxford This in-person event is free and open to all. Refreshments will be served from 17:00. The seminar will begin at 17:30, followed by a drinks reception at 18:30. Please note that we will be recording this event and a link to view it will be available on the GCHU website at a later date. There will also be a photographer taking photos at the event. If you unable to attend after booking, please email events@kellogg.ox.ac.uk
COURSE DETAILS The session will cover preparing for interviews, creating a question line, finding your authentic voice and active listening. Participants will be paired up and asked to conduct short interviews with a fellow participant which will be recorded over Zoom. As a group we'll listen back to them and workshop the interviews for constructive feedback. This course is aimed at anyone looking at working on interviewing skills as a presenter but is also useful to those asked to be a guest on a podcast. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will have: Increased your awareness of strategies for effectively planning an interview. Explored principles of good practice for interview hosts. Explored the components of a good interview question.
This informative and practical online training session will discuss the importance of lay summaries (or Plain English Summaries) in medical research and what’s involved in a lay reviewer role. Link to event - https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/a5b679b4-5c69-4a81-b016-c7948eda329e@25d273c3-a851-4cfb-a239-e9048f989669 Who this is for? It’s aimed at any adult who would like to contribute to the research process. This session will give you the skills and confidence to be a lay reviewer when the opportunity arises. You will get practical advice from a public partner and researchers who work in patient and public involvement and research. You can have a go at reviewing a lay summary as part of a supportive team. You will also get a checklist of what to do if you are asked to be a reviewer. Speakers: Sue Duncombe: Patient and Public Advisory Group member, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre Cassy Fiford: Public Engagement Officer and infectious disease researcher, University of Oxford Polly Kerr: Patient and Public Involvement Manager, Medical Sciences Division, Department of Primary Health Care Research, University of Oxford Angeli Vaid: Training and Inclusion Manager, Patient and Public Involvement, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre
Part of the Dementia Research Oxford seminar series Our vision is to transform research and healthcare in dementia. Dementia Research Oxford, led by Professors Masud Husain and Cornelia van Duijn, brings together researchers and clinicians across the University, our hospitals, patients, and industry partners to translate our growing insights in the basic molecular origin disease into effective treatment and prevention. We aim to take science further from drug target to treatment, from molecular pathology to early diagnosis and prognosis and from early intervention to prevention.
The Financial Times' annual review of UK Management Consulting evaluates the performance some 200 firms in 29 different industries and consulting services, only one of which is Strategy Consulting! There is therefore a huge diversity of options within the consulting world alone. However, there is a host of alternatives too, whether other client-facing services in different industries or organisations looking to recruit to future leaders through their management development programmes or internal strategy and consultancy roles. Finding Roles in Consultancy: Am I Too Late will review the consulting landscape and the skills required for and developed through roles in consulting. We will examine the options for students and alumni who are looking for internships and roles as a consultant, including time-lines and and finding options that are open. We will also stand back to consider some of the alternatives. If consultancy is sometimes described as an ‘apprenticeship in business’, how many roles in business can be repurposed as an apprenticeship in consultancy? * Which routes can help to build the relevant skillset and experience? * Are there roles that offer similar patterns of work or personal development? * And are there alternative roles that might be an even stronger start to a career in business, offering more early responsibility and the opportunity to make a bigger impact in the workplace?
Our research group (www.SHOALgroup.org) takes a curiosity-driven approach to understanding animal behaviour across species and contexts. In this seminar, I will begin by showcasing examples of our fundamental blue skies research, highlighting insights gained from studying a range of animal species. I will then demonstrate how this foundational work informs, and advances applied themes, including animal management strategies and the development of bio-inspired engineering solutions. To end, I will outline some of our latest comparative research that I am really excited about, which aims to investigate the origins and evolution of collective movement in vertebrates. Bio Sketch: Andrew King is a Professor of Animal Behaviour at Swansea University. He has previously worked at The Zoological Society of London, University College London, The Royal Veterinary College, and the University of Cambridge, and has held visiting positions in Germany and South Africa. His research group (www.SHOALgroup.org) study animal behaviour and ecology in a range of animal systems. His research has strong applied themes, and he works across disciplines and sectors to apply behavioural studies to topics ranging from wildlife management to swarm robotics.
The second in a duo of courses (attendees should attend the Fundamentals course prior to Logistics) that will cover the logistics of researching, publishing, and locating open scholarship resources and tools at the University of Oxford. Subjects include: what is the Oxford University Research Archive? depositing work into ORA via Symplectic Elements; depositing data into ORA-data; applying for one of Oxford’s APC block grants; registering or connecting your ORCID; how to be included in the rights retention pilot; and locating and checking funder policies. Ideally the Fundamentals of open access course will have been attended. If you’re not in a position to attend this course you can find similar information in our e-learning package (Digital induction to open access (MSD)) to work through prior to attending Logistics. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
This presentation examines the historical trajectory and contemporary dismantling of the United States’ “sympathetic state”—a welfare architecture that has long provided disaster relief as a core component of social provision, embedded in a moral economy of deservingness and deeply intertwined with asset-based welfare and property ownership. The presentation builds on histories of the welfare state that have connected disaster relief to welfare state development, and traces this imbrication through the course of the 20th century and the disaster safety net that developed. Today, this system faces unprecedented strain. Climate disasters threaten the stability of housing markets, while recent policy reversals signal an ideological retreat from federal responsibility. These shifts raise critical questions: How will fiscal constraints and political projects reshape the state’s obligation to citizens in distress? Will disaster relief continue to reinforce property-based inequalities, or can alternative models of housing and redistribution emerge? By situating current developments within a long history of welfare and property politics, this talk explores the stakes of dismantling the disaster safety net amid intensifying climate risk and deepening social inequality. ————————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Rebecca Elliott is Associate Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she is also affiliated with the Grantham Research Institute and the Phelan US Centre. Her research examines the intersections of environmental change and economic life, as they appear across public policy, administrative institutions, and everyday practice. She is author of Underwater: Loss, Flood Insurance, and the Moral Economy of Climate Change in the United States (Columbia University Press, 2021), which was the co-winner for the 2022 Viviana Zelizer Book Award from the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association and received an Honorable Mention for the 2022 Alice Amsden Book Award from the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. In addition to publishing in academic journals, she has contributed to The New York Times, The Houston Chronicle, and Harper's Magazine. Rebecca is one of the editors of The British Journal of Sociology. ————————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register.
This lecture lays three kinds of foundations: it defines the project of exploring the ‘language of social science in everyday life’; it suggests how this project can revise or challenge classic accounts in social theory of the power/knowledge complex from Foucault to Koselleck, Raymond Williams and Giddens; and it gives an indication of the new vocabulary generated by the emergence of social science from the late 18th century.
We are pleased to announce the upcoming Winter Lecture Series which will take place between January and March 2026. Across five thought-provoking lectures, special guests will discuss a range of subjects, with topics to be announced soon. Each lecture will be hosted at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. Join us on Thursday 22nd January when renowned garden designer and presenter Adam Frost will deliver his lecture.
In this talk we present different modeling approaches to describe and analyse the dynamics of large pedestrian crowds. We start with the individual microscopic description and derive the respective partial differential equation (PDE) models for the crowd density. Hereby we are particularly interested in identifying the main driving forces, which relate to complex dynamics such as lane formation in bidirectional flows. We then analyse the time-dependent and stationary solutions to these models, and provide interesting insights into their behavior at bottlenecks. We conclude by discussing how the Bayesian framework can be used to estimate unknown parameters in PDE models using individual trajectory data.
In this online workshop you will be shown the functionality of Zotero, which is a free-to-use software programme used to manage references and create bibliographies. Zotero will be demonstrated on a Windows PC but users of MacOS or Linux computers will be able to follow the demonstration. The workshop will cover: understanding the main features and benefits of Zotero; setting up a Zotero account; importing references from different sources into Zotero; organising your references in Zotero; inserting citations into documents; and creating a bibliography/reference list. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Taught student; Researcher and research student
During acute hypoxia, increases in cerebral blood flow maintain brain oxygen delivery. In vitro and in vivo experiments conducted in rodent models show that during hypoxia, cortical astrocytes produce the potent vasodilator nitric oxide (NO) via nitrite reduction in mitochondria. Inhibition of mitochondrial respiration mimics, but also occludes, the effect of hypoxia on NO production in astrocytes. Astrocytes display high expression of the molybdenum-cofactor-containing mitochondrial enzyme sulfite oxidase, which can catalyze nitrite reduction in hypoxia. Replacement of molybdenum with tungsten or knockdown of sulfite oxidase expression in astrocytes blocks hypoxia-induced NO production by these glial cells and reduces the cerebrovascular response to hypoxia. These data identify astrocyte mitochondria as brain oxygen sensors that regulate cerebral blood flow during hypoxia via release of nitric oxide. Methods to study cerebral perfusion and hypoxia in rodents will also be discussed, with a particular focus on the physiological interpretation of MRI methods. SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY Isabel undertook a PhD at the Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging (CABI) in UCL working with Jack Wells and Mark Lythgoe to use fMRI, arterial spin labelling and optogenetics to study brain blood flow. Next Isabel undertook a post-doctoral research position with Alexander Gourine at the Centre for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Neuroscience (CCMN) also at UCL. In 2021 Isabel relocated to Sheffield soon after the birth of her third child. In 2024 Isabel received a wellcome trust career development award to study the use of hyperpolarised xenon for non-invasive brain oximetry.
This talk will cover both the theory and practice of producing good photographs. Corneliu will consider a few theoretical aspects around what images tell us, looking at what one wants to convey, what needs to be included and how to engage the audience effectively. Rory will then move on to a discussion of practical elements in more depth, referring to photographs that he thinks make them worthy of notice and highlighting aspects of photography that can help one to take good photographs.
Join us as we remember Bona Malwal and his achievements in Sudan and South Sudan. Organised by The Sudanese Programme in collaboration with the Middle East Centre of the University of Oxford. Registration is free but essential in order to know numbers for College catering purposes. Bona passed away on Sunday 2nd November in Juba, South Sudan (aged 87). He served with dedication Sudan and South Sudan in many administrative capacities including as Presidential Advisor and as a Minister. His career began as a journalist editing The Vigilant newspaper which highlighted South Sudan's political development and affairs. He was a pioneer in advocating self-determination for South Sudan. This was achieved and culminated in the establishment of The Republic of South Sudan in 2011. He was happy with this but he emphasized the important link between North and South Sudan. Bona will be much missed by his family, by his many friends in numerous countries. He will be remembered with affection and admiration. Oxford was a second home to him where with Dr Ahmed Al-Shahi, he co-founded The Sudanese Programme in 2002 with sponsorship from the Middle East Centre and the African Studies Centre at St Antony’s College. Further information is available at https://www.sudaneseprogramme.org/news
Modern research, even that not involving humans or animals directly, can potentially be used in a wide variety of both positive and negative ways. It is the researcher’s responsibility to think about, and plan for the potential impact of their work, and how their work can be carried out in an appropriately ethical and responsible manner. In this course we will discuss a variety of case studies to understand responsible research and innovation principles and practice, and plan our research according to ethical and professional standards, avoiding and mitigating the risks of negative impacts.
All welcome, and to join us for lunch afterwards.
Summary This lecture will describe the origin of the production of recombinant bioconjugate vaccines and recent developments in the technology (for recent review see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40733680/) I will describe the development of bioconjugation for the low-cost production of glycoconjugate vaccines in three areas; (i) against pathogens where no current vaccine exists (eg Group A Streptococcus), (ii) improving existing glycoconjugate vaccines (eg pneumococcal vaccine), and (iii) affordable glycoconjugate vaccines for the veterinary market (eg poultry). I will speculate on the production of low-cost bioconjugate vaccines in Low- and Middle-income countries including Campylobacter, S. pneumoniae and Group A Streptococcus Bio Brendan Wren moved to the LSHTM from St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London in 1999. He is currently Co-Director of the LSHTM Vaccine Centre and Co-Director of GlycoCell, a consortium for the efficient expression of glycan products in bacterial cells for improved vaccines. He has authored over 450 scientific peer-reviewed publications. Current research focuses on glycosylation in bacterial pathogens and developing a “glycotoolbox” for glycoengineering. The major application of this technology is the construction and production of affordable recombinant glycoconjugate vaccines.
Are you looking to learn about the ways in which to transmit scientific ideas and make your research accessible to a non-specialist audience through a variety of mediums? This session will serve as an introduction to science communication and how it can be successfully incorporated into our roles. By the end of this session you will be able to: define science communication and provide a list of examples; explain why science communication is important for both our CPD and the public; and list ways in which we can all get involved in science communication. Intended audience: medicine and NHS; taught student; researcher and research student
The Industrial Revolution gave us a take-off in economic growth, urbanisation, trades unions, political realignment and the 1832 Great Reform Act. What will the AI Revolution give us? How do we cope with the transition, including in the labour market?
Self-regulation enables important kinds of freedom for children: freedom from needing constant direction from others, from maladaptive impulses, and from unproductive distraction. A child adept at self-regulation can resist distractions, sustain their attention, persist with challenging activities, endure temptations, delay gratification, wait their turn, and consider the consequences of their actions. They can initiate (e.g., brushing their teeth) and cease behaviors (e.g., stop playing for lunch) that conflict with their immediate preferences or impulses. Of concern, however, an estimated one-fifth of children do not show expected growth in self-regulation prior to entering school, and a significant proportion of children at age 7 remain at levels of self-regulation expected of 4-year-olds. Indeed, our (and others’) research and comprehensive meta-analyses show at least a doubling of risk of poor academic, health, wellbeing, and economic outcomes conferred by low early childhood self-regulation. Importantly, self-regulation is malleable and any-cause improvements in childhood self-regulation are associated with better outcomes decades later. This has instigated a raft of diverse early intervention and education efforts aiming to stimulate the development of early self-regulation, yet most show small effects and few indicate that improvements transmitted to real-world outcomes. In short, we now understand enough about self-regulation to establish it as a priority target for education and intervention efforts from early childhood, yet not enough to meaningfully and reliably alter current trajectories. This lecture will discuss some of the likely reasons for this situation and overview a broad program of research that aims to better understand the nature, development, and mechanisms of self-regulation, and the diverse contexts and ways in which we can support its continued growth. Bio Professor Steven Howard is a Senior Academic Research Leader in Child Development and Education with the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. He is a leading researcher of children’s self-regulation, executive function, and related abilities. He has published well-cited papers in leading journals regarding self-regulation and executive function meta-analyses and reviews, and on their development, antecedents, outcomes, intervention, and assessment.
COURSE DETAILS You will learn how to read a group, deal with difficult situations, use humour, match your presentation to the audience, and make an impact. You will learn how to get your message across so it is remembered. You will learn about timing and when you should deliver key messages. You will develop your self-awareness and understand its role in presenting. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand more about: How to structure your presentation for impact. How your psychological state affects your presentation skills and how you can manage it. How to read a group and how to deal with difficult situations. How to deliver your presentation with more confidence.
In this panel discussion, members of the Oxford delegation will share their perspectives on the events and outcomes of COP30 in Belém. Panel: Erika Berenguer, Senior Research Associate at the Ecosystems Lab (Chair) Aline Soterroni, Research Fellow at Nature-based Solutions Initiative (NbSI) and Oxford Net Zero (ONZ) Selam Kidane Abebe, Senior Research Fellow in Net Zero Law at Oxford Net Zero (ONZ) Isha Yadav, Co-President of the Oxford Climate Society Hansa Mukherjee, Nature Programme Associate, Climate Champions (COP30) Further panellist soon to be announced. This is a joint event with Oxford Climate Research Network.
This talk examines how relational poverty perspectives can provide a compelling foundation for pedagogically informed research on family poverty and child welfare and protection services, by highlighting the relational determinants of poverty and the ways in which poverty, in turn, shapes relationships within families, across communities, and between families and child welfare services. We argue that integrating these perspectives with pedagogical frameworks enables a detailed analysis of micro-relational dynamics in contexts of poverty. Such analyses can generate insights that inform the development of relational, critical, and poverty-aware social work models, offering guidance for more responsive and equitable child welfare practice. Our research agenda is exemplified through two ongoing studies that foreground micro-relational analysis: one examining parenting as a form of resistance to poverty, and the other exploring everyday relational dynamics between families experiencing poverty and residential care teams.
Would you like to shape policy in a particular sector? Working in a Think Tank can be exciting, influential and very fulfilling for those seeking to have impact through their work. Through conducting research and generating novel ideas, Think Tanks influence policies, foster innovation, and contribute to global discourse across broad topics from agriculture and technology to social care and economics. This careers advisor-led session will explore the function and diversity of Think Tanks, discuss how to research routes into careers within Think Tanks, and highlight key skills and experience required for pursuing employment.
Few of us like the idea of ‘networking’. But we know that forging good relationships helps us understand how things work in new spheres of research or employment, and can open doors. Come along for an hour of myth-busting insights and tips on effective networking through various mechanisms including social media.
BIO Neil Davies is a Professor of Medical Statistics at the Division of Psychiatry, UCL. He holds a joint appointment with the Department of Statistical Sciences. Neil gained a BSc in Economics and Econometrics at the University of Bristol (2005) and completed an M.Sc. in Economics (Bristol) in 2006. Under the supervision of Richard Martin, Frank Windmeijer and George Davey Smith, he completed his Ph.D. in Epidemiology (Bristol, 2012). He has held an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellowship 2014-2018. From 2018-2022 he leads a stream of research at the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit which used family-based designs to improve causal inference in genetic epidemiology. Neil Davies joined UCL in 2022 as a Professor of Medical Statistics.
Academic mobility has been long regarded as the epitome of excellence. Yet not only the rise of far-right governments threatening migrant population and academic freedom, but also the idealisation of mobility rooted in the human capital approach, and narrow definitions of migration based solely on border crossing or nationality, underscore the urgent need for novel conceptualisations of mobility – beyond and within the nation state. In this webinar, I discuss two aspects. First, at a conceptual level, I present the ‘Critical Mobilities Heuristic’ and discuss its four lenses, focusing on: (1) broader definitional and normative aspects; (2) the construction of the academic subject and the enactments of (im)mobility; (3) the temporal and processual nature of (im)mobility; and (4) the importance of a methodological stance that is sensitive to participants perspectives and context. Second, I explain the application of the heuristic and how I constructed the figure of the (im)mobile academic in a research project exploring the dissimilar experiences of academics in enacting local and international research collaboration at Centres of Excellence in the Social Sciences and Humanities (see 10.1111/hequ.70027). I conclude the presentation by reflecting on the broader implications of rethinking migration, beyond the exclusionary categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’, in the pursuit of a more inclusive society and the protection of democracy.
Over the past three years, we have developed The Learning Collective (TLC), a community of 70+ learners from across the UK and overseas. There are currently six groups that meet physically and one online group (all venues linked via Zoom). Our approach pays close attention to content, but also to what happens at the edges of learning - the often-overlooked moments in community where formation takes root. Join us for a conversation about attentiveness as we explore four key areas: The preparation and reflection that happen before and after each session. The careful curation of both physical and online learning spaces. The building of community and shared formation between sessions. The individual needs and development of each learner throughout the programme. Rev Jane Day is an ordained Baptist Minister, Lecturer at Regent’s Park College in Community Learning. Jane has recently co-led a three-year participatory research project exploring the missional, theological and structural obstacles women in Baptist ministry experience. Jane’s current focus is on overseeing The Learning Collective (TLC) alongside her doctoral studies on the ripple impacts of accompaniment. Dr Alan Kerry worked as an NHS GP, trainer, and training programme director for 25 years. He thought he’d retired in 2018 but COVID briefly spoiled that idyll before he finally hung up his stethoscope and studied for a Masters in Theology at Bristol Baptist College. He now works part-time as an administrator for Regent’s Park College, mainly with the Centre for Baptist Studies. He loves being a grandad.
_Taxis_ and _kosmos_, both translated as “order,” signify differently in Plato’s dialogs. Taxis orders souls and cities through the giving of orders, which, taking their bearing from what is divine and immutable, prescribe, command, and compel obedience. By contrast, and like the crafts of weaving and architecture analogized to statecraft in _Statesman_, kosmos gives order by taking its bearing from what is being ordered and the interdependent and dynamic relationships across craftspeople, their materials, and their ends. This lecture develops an account of _democratic order_ by exploring the political and theoretical implications of these differences in _Statesman_ and other dialogs.
TBC
Digital platforms now shape everything from childhood social interaction to democracy – with fears growing that not enough is being done to protect vulnerable users from harmful online content. The UK government’s Online Safety Act promises to tackle illegal and harmful content, including child sexual exploitation and abuse, terrorism, and suicide and self harm. But critics warn of sweeping state powers, vague definitions and unintended consequences for privacy, free speech and innovation – especially as AI supercharges both risks and regulation. Dame Melanie Dawes is the Chief Executive of the media regulator Ofcom, and will explore the growing role of the public sector in keeping users safe online, the legal and ethical challenges this presents, and what’s at stake as we redraw the boundaries of digital freedom.
The 3 Minute Thesis competition challenges doctoral candidates to present a compelling spoken presentation on their research topic and its significance in just three minutes to a non-specialist audience. This course helps you prepare for the competition and ensure that you have the best chance possible to represent Oxford nationally.
Parks Group Speaker: Tom Parks Title: Strep A Disease - Lessons From The Host Bull Group Speaker(s): TBC Title(s): TBC
Psychosis is a core feature of severe mental illness, yet its biological basis remains poorly understood. This talk presents a cross-species research programme combining behavioural paradigms, computational modelling, circuit neuroscience and immunology to identify mechanistic treatment targets. We developed a paradigm to measure hallucination-like perception in both humans and mice, revealing key roles for dopamine and acetylcholine. We also established a novel mouse model of autoimmune psychosis, showing how brain-reactive antibodies can disrupt circuits and behaviour and how antipsychotic drugs modulate autoimmune processes. Ongoing work in humans and mice investigates how neural and immune mechanisms interact to drive psychosis and shape perception.
Please join us to celebrate the launch of the NDS Bioresource and hear more about our team and the amazing research we support. This event is free to attend and open to everyone. We will hear talks from academic and industrial researchers who have used the tissue and services available in the Bioresource over the years, as well as a 'Meet the Bioresource' fireside chat, and a plenary talk from Dr Joakim Lundeberg (SciLifeLabs). While the content will feature high quality, world-class research, all talks will be delivered in accessible language, making this a celebration of the Bioresource that is truly open to all, whether or not they are trained researchers. The talks will be followed by lunch and networking in the atrium. Spaces are limited, so please register to let us know you would like to come along!
COURSE DETAILS From time to time we all face difficult situations, or behaviour in others that we find difficult. This session will cover the factors that underlie these situations, and provide a set of skills for managing the difficult conversation that needs to be had. The most important part of the session will be an opportunity to practice the skills in a safe space. As this is so important, it is crucial that you come ready to take part. We will provide some example situations you can use for practice, or if you are comfortable doing so you may practice on one of your own situations. However if you choose to do this please make sure the situation you bring does not have significant emotional investment for you, or is not currently live or unresolved.
COURSE DETAILS The session will introduce approaches to podcasting, present inspiration from a range of different podcast styles, and take you step-by-step through the basic technical skills of recording, editing and publishing audio files. You’ll have the chance to develop an idea and have a go recording it with support and feedback during the day. LEARNING OUTCOMES Upon completion of this course students will have an: Understanding of what podcasting is and its benefits in relation to communicating science to wider society. Ability to identify, develop and create narratives for the purposes of podcasting. Understanding of the skills required to record and edit audio, including making use of music and sound effects. Increased awareness of platforms for publishing podcast material.
Retrotransposition — the reverse flow of genetic information from RNA to DNA is the major route by which new genetic material enters our genome, with retroelements comprising over 40% of human DNA. This process drives innovation but threatens genome integrity, demanding precise regulation. Our discovery of the Human Silencing Hub (HUSH) revealed a genome-wide transcriptional immunosurveillance system that detects and epigenetically silences invading DNA. How HUSH distinguishes self from invading DNA was unclear. We found that HUSH discriminates ‘self’ from ‘non-self’ based on introns: The majority of cellular genes are intron-containing, while RNA-derived retroelements are intronless, marking their cDNA as foreign. This intron-based recognition mechanism uncovers an unexpected innate immune surveillance system that protects the genome from the reverse flow of genetic information.
Information technology is in the midst of a revolution in which omnipresent data collection and machine learning are impacting the human world as never before. The word "intelligence" is being used as a North Star for the development of this technology, with human cognition viewed as a baseline. This view neglects the fact that humans are social animals, and that much of our intelligence is social and cultural in origin. Thus, a broader framing is to consider the system level, where the agents in the system, be they computers or humans, are active, they are cooperative, and they wish to obtain value from their participation in learning-based systems. Agents may supply data and other resources to the system only if it is in their interest to do so, and they may be honest and cooperative only if it is in their interest to do so. Critically, intelligence inheres as much in the overall system as it does in individual agents. This is a perspective that is familiar in economics, although without the focus on learning algorithms. A key challenge is thus to bring (micro)economic concepts into contact with foundational issues in the computing and statistical sciences. I'll discuss some concrete examples of problems and solutions at this tripartite interface.
In order to mitigate the catastrophic effects of climate change whilst avoiding widespread political backlash, governments around the world are considering enacting a just energy transition that addresses the concerns of various social groups in the working age population. Focusing on the gender dimension of the energy transition, this paper explores the gender-labour dynamics around support for energy jobs, and investigates under what conditions women and men may be differently inclined to take on green industry work. We argue that men and women may be interested in energy jobs for different reasons. Building on existing research on gender and climate politics, we argue that women may be more attracted to green energy jobs, even if at the expense of pay, due to their intrinsic interest in non-legacy sectors and cleaner activities. However, consistent with other economic and social research, we also expect that women give a higher premium to inclusive employment conditions and flexible work ecosystems than men. Consequently, we also expect that women may be less inclined to move out of social roles and trade lifestyle for green jobs. Experimental data from a novel online survey in the UK largely confirms that, while women are more inclined to take on green work than men, this preference is conditional on the socialization conditions of the job. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Federica Genovese a professor of political science at the University of Oxford, a member of the Department of Politics and International Relations, and a Fellow at St Antony's College. Her work focuses on international and comparative political economy, with attention to climate politics and policy, globalization, redistribution, and the politics of crises. Her research has been supported by grants of the British Academy, the Balzan Foundation, the Climate Social Science Network, and the World Bank, among others. In 2024 she won the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Politics and International Relations. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register.
How do people learn the language of social science? This lecture surveys some key entry points – mass print, mass broadcast media and mass education – and illustrates some simple digital humanities tools that can be used to analyze a huge volume of material and assess its propagation and uses.
Professor Prasanna Sooriakumaran will discuss 'The PRESIDENT trial- an HTA-funded multi-centre UK full randomised controlled trial of surgery plus current best care versus current best care alone in men diagnosed with low volume metastatic hormone sensitive prostate cancer using novel molecular imaging with PSMA PET/CT.' Prasanna Sooriakumaran, known as PS, is a Consultant Urologist at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where he performs the unit's largest volume of complex and salvage robotic prostatectomy surgery. He holds visiting professorships in urology at Oxford and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and is also the Clinical Lead for Robotic Soft-Tissue Surgery at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). He has been interested in the topic of surgery for metastatic prostate cancer for over a decade and has conducted many observational studies as well as the world’s first feasibility randomised controlled trial (RCT) in the field. He has recently been funded by the HTA as the Chief Investigator on a multi-centre full UK-wide RCT of surgery in metastatic prostate cancer. The Chief Medical Officer has confirmed that attendance at the Surgical Grand Rounds can count toward internal CPD, with 1 point awarded per hour. Please note that in-person attendance is required, and you will need to sign the attendance register. All members of the University and NHS clinical staff are welcome. Please email Tarryn Ching (tarryn.ching@nds.ox.ac.uk) if you would like to attend online.
Formatting your in text citations, footnotes and bibliography correctly for your thesis or publication is crucial. Reference management tools make this easier and save you time. This classroom-based session comprises a 30-minute presentation, which gives an overview of reference management tools. The rest of the session is dedicated to practical exercises at the computers, giving you the opportunity to try out four tools (RefWorks, EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley), so that you can work out which one is best for you. Library staff will be there to help and guide you, and answer any questions you might have. You can leave at any point once you have tried out the tools you want, and do not have to stay until the end. At the end of the session you will be able to: understand how reference management works; understand the advantages and disadvantages of a range of reference management tools; add, edit and organise references using a number of different tools; add references to documents and create bibliographies using a number of different tools; and make an informed decision about which reference management tool works best for you. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Overview: Clinical trials are essential for evaluating new treatments, and there is growing interest in harnessing health systems data (HSD) to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. HSD can offer researchers and trialists valuable opportunities to streamline key processes such as identifying eligible participants, monitoring trial progress in real time, enabling remote follow-up and capturing outcomes. Yet, its use also presents challenges, as researchers must navigate complex regulatory and legal frameworks that can hinder broader adoption. Aim: In this masterclass series, we aim to explore how HSD can advance clinical research, with a particular focus on decentralized and large simple trials. By examining the challenges and sharing lessons learned, the talks will highlight practical strategies, methodological considerations and opportunities to strengthen the integration of HSD into trial design and execution. A further hands-on session relevant to all clinical trial roles particularly DPhils and ECRs will explore some useful resources and skills for researchers to develop and optimise their trial design. Agenda: 12:00 - 12:45: Networking & Light Lunch 12:45 - 13:00: Welcome & Introduction 13:00 - 13:20: Challenges in undertaking decentralized clinical trials using health systems data in primary care settings Speaker: Professor Ly-Mee Yu 13:20 - 13:40: Supporting large simple trials with healthcare systems data: lessons learned Speaker: Associate Professor Marion Mafham 13:40 - 13:50: Q&A 13:50 – 14:10: Panel Session: Unlocking Health Systems Data for Clinical Trials: Challenges and Opportunities Moderator: Professor David Preiss (Professor of Metabolic Medicine and Clinical Trials, Oxford Population Health) Panel: Professor Ly-Mee Yu (Professor of Clinical Trials and Biostatistics, Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit) Associate Professor Marion Mafham (Associate Professor, Oxford Population Health) Dr Charlie Harper (Trial Data Scientist, Oxford Population Health) Ms Lucy Cureton (Senior Trial Manager, Primary Care Clinical Trials Unit) 14:10 - 14:20: Audience Q&A and close main session 14:20 - 14:40: Break 14:40 - 16:00: Hands-on Session: Incorporating health systems data when planning a trial (Relevant to all clinical trials roles particularly DPhils and early-stage researchers) Facilitators: Professor Ly-Mee Yu, Associate Professor Marion Mafham, Dr Charlie Harper, Dr Michelle Goonasekera and Ms Lucy Cureton In this session participants will discuss and find real-time solutions for challenges in using HSD to streamline clinical trials based on real clinical trial scenarios. 16:00 - 16:30: Networking and close
I provide an axiomatic characterization of the class of location parameters derived from well-defined convex minimization problems. The resulting class includes a broad set of estimators, such as the mean and --- in the limit --- the median, but excludes the mode. I also address the problem of comparing location parameters within this set by reframing the optimization problem as the one of a decision maker selecting a point forecast to minimize an expected loss. I formalize the decision maker's preferences over two key attributes of the resulting estimator: robustness (sensitivity to outliers) and directionality (asymmetry in weighting positive vs. negative deviations), and I discuss how they depend on the shape of the loss function. While a direct comparison of estimators can be difficult because of the underlying trade-off between robustness and directionality, I show that, under mild conditions, differences between estimators can be fully reinterpreted as differences in directionality only.
A balanced intake of different classes of nutrients is a key determinant of health, wellbeing, and aging. To ensure nutrient homeostasis animals adapt their foraging strategies according to their current and future needs. We want to understand how animals decide what to eat, how these decisions are shaped by brain-body interactions, and how these decisions affect the fitness of the animal. To achieve a mechanistic, integrated, whole-animal understanding of nutritional decision-making we work at the interface of behavior, metabolism, microbiome, and physiology in the adult Drosophila melanogaster. I will discuss how the powerful combination of activity imaging approaches, neurogenetics, connectomics, automated, quantitative behavioral analyses, and nutritional and microbial manipulations is allowing us to achieve a mechanistic understanding of how internal states shape neuronal circuits to optimize complex foraging decisions.
We develop a quantitative task-based model of automation in which machines feature task-level fixed costs, e.g., application-specific training or fine-tuning costs in the case of AI models. Machine’s comparative advantage over workers across tasks reflects both the conventional marginal-productivity differences as well as a novel scale advantage (whether task scale justifies the fixed cost). We characterize the resulting production function given the firm’s task composition, deriving expressions for the degree of machine-labor elasticity of substitution, nonhomotheticity, and returns to scale. We illustrate the quantitative potential of the model in an application to computer vision AI automation. Using scaling laws that map computing requirements to task characteristics, estimated from a fine-tuning experiment and LLM-based task descriptions, we recover the patterns of AI comparative advantage for 1,920 vision tasks across the U.S. economy. Calibrated to 2023 firm-level adoption rates, the model projects the future path of automation under current trends in computing prices. Aggregate output rises by about 18% by 2075; substitutability is high early on but falls as automation deepens, real wages increase throughout, and the labor share follows a U-shape, declining initially before recovering as AI and labor gradually become complements.
Curious about using AI to find research papers? Not sure how to properly reference GenAI and avoid plagiarism? This beginner-friendly workshop introduces three GenAI tools (ChatGPT, Elicit, and Research Rabbit), showing how they can support information discovery and analysis. Designed for those new to AI, this practical session will allow you to independently experiment with these tools and participate in group discussions to explore their strengths, limitations, and suitability for different tasks. By the end of this session, you will be able to: explain what AI means and some key terms; differentiate between several categories of AI tools; describe how some GenAI tools can be used to discover information, including their strengths, limitations, and best practices; critique GenAI tools and their outputs at an introductory level using evaluative criteria; and state the University’s policies on AI, and avoid plagiarism by creating citations for AI-generated content. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher and research student
This talk delves into the time Michela Wrong spent with le Carré in the lakeside town of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, which served as a lesson in the art of observation – at which David excelled – while also showing a young writer the difference between the fiction and the non-fiction writing approach. But the book which resulted - The Mission Song - betrayed a certain unease on the writer’s part when it came to matters African, Wrong argues, an unease that characterises all his African novels. Michela Wrong is a former correspondent for Reuters, the BBC and The Financial Times. Of British and Italian heritage, she has written five books on Africa, including a novel. She lives in north London.
A LEGO-based game where each player is given a series of tasks related to the patient’s journey through the hospital – from admittance to diagnosis and treatment through to discharge. Through several rounds of the game, using reflection and facilitated improvement processes, the players are given a unique insight into interdisciplinary team-work and optimization of patient flow using game-based learning.
In this talk, I will present our lab’s latest research on generative AI models designed to simulate cellular and tissue-level perturbations with unprecedented resolution. These models enable us to ask fundamental questions such as: Which interventions can revert a disease phenotype back to a healthy tissue state? and What perturbations can reprogram cells from state A to state B? By learning causal structure from high-dimensional multi-omics and spatial data, our frameworks can propose actionable interventions, predict patient-specific responses to treatment, and identify the most promising therapeutic targets. I will highlight how these models support target discovery, guide experimental design, and accelerate the development of personalized and precision medicine. Overall, this work demonstrates how generative AI can transform our ability to understand, predict, and engineer complex biological systems.
Professor Kate Baker University of Cambridge https://www.infectiousdisease.cam.ac.uk/staff/kate-baker
Bacterial genomes vary in sequence due to mutations but also vary in their gene content and order due to horizontal gene transfer. Whether the variation in gene content and order, known as the accessory genome, is typically neutral, nearly neutral or adaptive is still the subject of debate – different theoretical arguments support all three scenarios. The availability of large sample collections across many thousands of bacterial species offers the opportunity to bring data to bear on this question. I will first present methods being developed in my group to make it possible to analyse collections of millions of genomes. Using these approaches, I will then show how a mechanistic model of gene gain and loss can be fitted to different pathogen species to determine whether their accessory genome shows signals of adaptation. Finally, I will show how transformer-based AI architectures can learn gene content and ordering across even more species, giving another way to look at this problem.
Are you planning to present a poster at an upcoming conference, meeting or symposium? This introductory session will provide you with some top tips on how to create a poster presentation which will help you to communicate your research project and data effectively. There will be guidance on formatting, layout, content, use of text, references and images, as well as advice on printing and presenting your poster. This session will also provide help with locating resources such as templates, free-to-use images and poster guidelines. By the end of this classroom-based session you will be able to: evaluate the effectiveness of templates, formatting, text and images; and plan, prepare and present your poster. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Researcher and research student
Git & GitHub Fundamentals: Version Control for Beginners Monday, 2 February | 15:00 – 16:00 BDI/OxPop seminar room 1 Learn the essential skills to track your code, manage project history, and back up your work like a professional software developer. This beginner-friendly course introduces Git, the industry-standard version control system used by millions of developers worldwide. Starting from scratch, you'll learn how to initialise repositories, track changes, and create meaningful snapshots of your work through commits. We'll cover the fundamental Git workflow – staging, committing, and reviewing your project history – giving you the confidence to manage your code effectively. In the second half, we'll connect your local projects to GitHub, the world's leading platform for hosting and sharing code. You'll learn to push your work to the cloud, pull updates, and clone existing repositories, ensuring your projects are safely backed up and accessible from anywhere. By the end of this course, you'll have hands-on experience with: 1. Creating and managing Git repositories 2. Tracking changes and viewing project history 3. Writing clear commit messages 4. Connecting local projects to GitHub 5. Pushing and pulling code to the cloud 6. Cloning repositories Led by – Dr Mcebisi Ntleki, DPhil, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford This session will cover: 1. Introduction to Git & Initial Setup 2. Creating Your First Repository 3. The Core Git Workflow 4. Viewing and Managing Changes 5. Connecting to GitHub 6. Pushing, Pulling, and Cloning Learning Objectives: 1. Initialise Git repositories and track changes to project files 2. Stage and commit changes with clear, descriptive commit messages 3. View project history and inspect differences between file versions 4. Connect local repositories to remote GitHub repositories securely 5. Push local commits to GitHub and pull updates from remote repositories 6. Clone existing repositories from GitHub to their local machine Intended Audience: Undergraduates, graduates and early researchers; No prior experience required – just bring your laptops, curiosity and willingness to learn! To register here - https://forms.office.com/e/F0YGjvRWJR?origin=lprLink 40 minutes: A judicious mix of presentation and practical 15 minutes: Practical exercise 05 minutes: Questions & Answers Pre-Course Preparation - To make the most of this session, please complete the following tasks before attending: Install Git Download and install Git on your computer from git-scm.com.
The difficulties in making change happen are often attributed to different ‘blobs’. How can you build an eco-system for delivery in the modern era?
In this online interactive workshop, you will learn how to create an effective search query and have the opportunity to try out a range of tools that you can use to search for scholarly materials to support your research. You will: learn how to find books and other scholarly items in Oxford libraries using SOLO; search for journal articles using subject databases and scholarly search engines; and be signposted towards learning materials you can use if you are interested in searching for conference proceedings, theses and dissertations. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher and research student
Bio Patrick (Paddy) Mark is Professor of Nephrology and Honorary Consultant Nephrologist at the Glasgow Renal and Transplant Unit based at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow. He was appointed as Clinical Senior Lecturer in 2011 following clinical training in Medicine and Nephrology combined with a Clinical Lecturer post between 2006-2011. He was promoted to Reader in 2015 and to Professor in 2018. He leads the United Kingdom Cardio-Renal Clinical Study Group, as part of the United Kingdom Kidney Research Consortium. He is the Chief Scientist Office Scotland Clinical Lead for Renal Research. His PhD, awarded the Bellahouston Medal for outstanding thesis by medical graduate, was funded by a British Heart Foundation Junior Clinical Fellowship. He graduated in Medicine in 1999 as Brunton Medallist awarded to the highest achieving student that year.
In an era characterized by complex mobility patterns, health crises, shifting geopolitical landscapes and personal and family’s views toward international education, it is imperative to recognize the concurrent (im)mobility challenges at a global scale. Despite a growing body of literature on international students, little attention has been given to prospective international students who defer their overseas education and remain in their home countries for various reasons. This cohort—having initiated pre-departure educational mobility but not commenced their studies—has been largely overlooked in international education research. This study addresses this critical gap by examining the “in-between” state of prospective Chinese international students, who exist in a liminal space between domestic and international identities. The study foregrounds the centrality of Third Space and liminality as analytical lenses to understand how students and their families negotiate uncertainty, construct hybrid identities, and reimagine educational pathways within fractured global contexts. The ‘in-betweenness’ in the study expands mobility frameworks to encompass temporal discontinuities, fragmentations, and non-linear trajectories of educational mobility that stir up challenges in this cohort’s wellbeing and family and social relationships. By advocating for the ongoing, processual nature of international education experiences, we call for universities and policymakers in both home and host countries to develop supportive infrastructures for these ‘in-betweeners’, ensuring they are not marginalized within international education systems.
Large language models (LLMs) have taken the world by storm, enabling new applications, intensifying GPU shortages, and raising concerns about the accuracy of their outputs. In this talk, I will present several projects I have worked on to address these challenges. Specifically, I will focus on Ray, a distributed framework for scaling AI workloads, vLLM and SGLang, two high-throughput inference engines for LLMs, and LMArena, a platform for accurate LLM benchmarking. I will conclude with key lessons learned and outline directions for future research. Professor Ion Stoica is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the Xu Bao Chancellor Chair. He is the Director of the Sky Computing Lab, and the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Databricks, and Anyscale. Professor Stoica's current research focuses on AI systems and cloud computing. His work includes open-source projects vLLM, SGLang, Chatbot Arena, SkyPilot, Ray and Apache Spark. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, an Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy, and an ACM Fellow.
In this online workshop you will be shown the functionality of Zotero, which is a free-to-use software programme used to manage references and create bibliographies. Zotero will be demonstrated on a Windows PC but users of MacOS or Linux computers will be able to follow the demonstration. The workshop will cover: understanding the main features and benefits of Zotero; setting up a Zotero account; importing references from different sources into Zotero; organising your references in Zotero; inserting citations into documents; and creating a bibliography/reference list. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Taught student; Researcher and research student
In this session we will cover how to locate and interpret journal level metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). We will examine the tools you can use to locate journal level metrics, such as Journal Citation Reports and Scopus Sources. We will also consider the uses, limitations and pitfalls inherent in these metrics and how they can be used responsibly. By the end of the session, you will be familiar with: the major journal metrics and how these are calculated; accessing journal citation data using Journal Citation Reports and Scopus Sources; using JIF, CiteScore and SJR journal metrics to rank journals; and the limitations of different metrics, including how journal metrics may be skewed or distorted. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher & research student
'Twelve Years Away from Constantinople' was an instant classic in its time. For well over a century, it has endured as a uniquely candid and entertaining account of Armenian émigré life during the reign of the authoritarian Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamid II. Best known for his trenchant satires, its extraordinarily cosmopolitan author, Yervant Odian, was and remains one of the most recognizable and active figures of his generation. His multifaceted international career as journalist and civil society leader embedded him deeply in Ottoman-Armenian intellectual and revolutionary circles both in Constantinople and well beyond. This remarkably unabashed memoir relates his observations as a well-loved and committed member of those inner circles. His twelve-year journey begins with the 1896 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman capital, when Odian, like many of his contemporaries fled as a political refugee to safer shores. His migrations led him to Greece, Egypt, France, Austria, and England, where he witnessed and withstood the numerous hardships plaguing the Armenians of the ‘senior diaspora.’
_Homonoia_, usually translated as a “same-mindedness,” “unanimity,” or “consensus” in Plato, is said to underwrite political unity through an agreement across souls secured by the cultivation or implantation of true opinion in the many by those with epistemically superior knowledge. Exploring the repeated implication of homonoia with _harmonia_, harmony, in _Republic_ and other dialogs, this lecture retheorizes homonoia as a speaking together, _homolegein_, within and across souls, that secures agreement and unity, if it does at all, as a coming to terms that, like harmony, depends not on sameness but on plurality and difference.
COURSE DETAILS The key factors in developing successful proposals will be identified as will the requirements of specific research councils. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand more about: The significance of winning research grants for your academic career The technical aspects of how to submit a research funding application. The key issues when writing a research proposal, and the pitfalls to avoid. What to look for when reviewing a research proposal.
Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care (HESAPC) data are a comprehensive national dataset collected by NHS England that captures detailed information on all inpatient and day-case hospital activity across England. With around 16 million episodes of care recorded each year, HESAPC provides valuable insights into patient demographics, clinical diagnoses, and medical procedures, serving as a crucial resource for planning and research. Led by – Charlie Harper, Trial Data Scientist, Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU), Oxford Population Health Raph Goldacre, Senior Health Data Scientist and Epidemiologist, Oxford Population Health This session will cover: 1. How HESAPC data are collected and the purpose behind this national effort 2. What information is included in the HESAPC data 3. How researchers can effectively use HESAPC data in their projects 4. The challenges and limitations of working with large-scale administrative data Intended Audience: Research staff and DPhil students interested in using healthcare systems data for research. Learning Objectives: By the end of the session, participants will: 1. Understand how and why HESAPC data are collected 2. Have a basic understanding of what information is recorded 3. Be able to interpret HESAPC data for their own projects and critically appraise its use in others’ research 4. Recognise the limitations and challenges of using HESAPC data in different research settings Register - https://forms.office.com/e/aMpZSNmLbA?origin=lprLink
Join Chris Morrison (Copyright & Licensing Specialist) and Ami Pendergrass (Copyright Literacy Lead) to play Copyright the Card Game. This interactive, games-based session introduces you to the key concepts of copyright law and allows you to apply them in practice. No prior knowledge is required, and the session caters for all whatever their level of experience with copyright. At the end of the session participants will be able to: explore how copyright really works in practice; interpret the legislation and apply the relevant legal concepts to their own work; practice using the exceptions and licences in sector-specific examples; and discuss the role of risk management in making decisions about the ethical creation and use of copyright material. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
At first glance, it seems uncontroversial that the primacy of patient welfare must not be restricted by physicians’ profit motive. Yet, the many economic considerations the allocation and distribution of limited resources introduce into health care systems challenge this presumption and call for a more nuanced discussion. To exemplify: Certain cancer drugs can be administered on different routes: intravenous and subcutaneous. Administration route does not affect effects or increase side effects of the drug. However, intravenous administration takes longer than subcutaneous administration, meaning that patients’ welfare is restricted as they spend more time in the healthcare setting when receiving intravenous treatment. In German outpatient healthcare, physicians generate more profit if those drugs are administered intravenously. The German outpatient healthcare depends on registered private practices, therefore, it is important to generate profit. “Private” not referring to the patients’ insurance status, but to the practice being privately run and owned by one physician or more. Those physicians finance their registered outpatient practice and make their living with what they earn by treating patients while being the cornerstone of outpatient care. In this context, is it acceptable to restrict patient welfare for physicians’ profit? In my research, I analyse the notion of profit and distinguish between different kinds of profit motives. Based on that, I critically examine whether patient welfare may, under certain conditions, legitimately be restricted by profit motives within healthcare systems. This is a hybrid seminar. If you would like to register to join online, please complete the form below: https://forms.office.com/e/zxvjji4fgk
The Data Engineers meeting seeks to connect data wranglers and professionals in related data engineering roles across the University. This group aims to provide a platform for individuals to share their expertise and interests, fostering a sense of community and encouraging knowledge exchange across research teams. While primarily designed for those working at the intersection of data generation and analysis – covering areas such as data collection, wrangling, modeling, visualization, and communication – the group is inclusive and open to all members of the University. Please join us for the next Data Engineers meeting: Date – Thursday 5 February 2025 Time: 11:00 – 12:00 Venue: BDI/OxPop Seminar room 0 Agenda: 11:00 - Introduction 11:05 – 'Comparing various generative AI for extracting key information from long free texts and flag where conditions are met' Dr Yurika Sakai, IDDO Data Manager, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, University of Oxford 11:25 - Q&A 11:30 - 'Phenotypic and Genetic Data Analysis in Our Future Health' Vincent Straub, Doctoral researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science in Oxford Population Health, University of Oxford 11:50 - Q&A 12:00 - Refreshments and networking in the atrium Dr Yurika Sakai, Data Manager at the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO), NDM As a Data Manager, Yurika’s main focus is on the management and transformation of clinical, epidemiological, molecular and pharmacology data sets to ensure completeness and accuracy of data in the IDDO data repository. She also experiments with various generative AI to evaluate its accuracy and time efficiency on data extraction from long free texts. Vincent Straub, Research Scholar for Our Future Health, DPhil Student in LCDS, NDPH Vincent is a Research Scholar for Our Future Health and MSCA DPhil student in the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, working with director Professor Melinda Mills and Professor Augustine Kong. His research spans population health and technology governance, with a focus on health risk behaviours and the use of AI in public settings. To attend, please register: https://forms.office.com/e/SXub1krkBM?origin=lprLink
Recent advances in ophthalmology have shown that retinal images can detect much more than just ocular disorders. Retinal imaging can identify early signs of systemic diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and cardiovascular (heart) conditions, often years before traditional symptoms appear. This emerging field, known as Oculomics, shows the eye’s potential as a window into overall health.
If you are new to the University of Oxford and want to find out more about the University’s network of libraries or have been at the University a while and would like a refresher, join us for this online introduction to understanding and accessing the libraries, their services and resources. By the end of the session, you will: be familiar with the network of Oxford libraries and the differences between them; know the logins needed to access Bodleian Libraries services; be able to conduct a search in SOLO (the University’s resource discovery tool), filter results and access online and print resources; and know how to manage your library account including loans and requests. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Who bears the costs of decarbonization—and who is blamed for such costs—has become a central cleavage in contemporary party competition. Building on research on “green backlash” and the populist radical right (PRR), Zach argues that sharp and uneven household energy price shocks create fertile ground for PRR entrepreneurs to frame the transition to renewable sources of energy as unfairly costly. He examines the United Kingdom’s 2021–2023 energy price surge and shows two linked patterns. First, using a new text measure applied to party communications in press releases and in YouTube videos, Zach documents explicit blame attribution of higher energy bills to Net Zero and climate-related policies. Second, using pre-shock geographic energy price vulnerability measured using administrative data on over 27 million household energy efficiency inspections, he leverages difference-in-differences and triple-differences designs to find that individuals more vulnerable to higher energy prices become more likely to support PRR parties. Further evidence using survey panel data suggests that voters indeed blamed the government's environmental policies instead of the economy, implying that political support for a green transition hinges on insulating the most vulnerable households. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Zach Dickson is a Fellow in Quantitative Methods in the Department of Methodology at the London School of Economics, where he is also affiliated with the Data Science Institute, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and the Public Opinion Analytics Lab. His research lies at the intersection of political behaviour and political communication, with a particular focus on right-wing populism and climate politics. Using quantitative and causal inference methods, his current projects examine the distributive consequences of climate policies and the political effects of public service decline. His work has been published in leading journals including Political Communication, Comparative Political Studies, and the American Political Science Review. His research has also been featured in outlets such as The Economist, The New Statesman, The Guardian, and Forbes, as well as in a range of research blogs. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register.
In the first half of the 20th century, the ‘New Psychology’ – in which Freudian psychoanalysis played only a minor role – offered people a new vocabulary for understanding the self in modern conditions, in what has been called a transition ‘from character to personality’. Ideas about the unconscious, personality types, the developmental self, sex and intelligence reached unprecedentedly large audiences.
We are pleased to announce the upcoming Winter Lecture Series which will take place between January and March 2026. Across five thought-provoking lectures, special guests will discuss a range of subjects, with topics to be announced soon. Each lecture will be hosted at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. Join us on Thursday 5th February when TV producer and urban gardener Martha Swales will deliver her lecture.
This ½ day course is run by Professor Helen Higham (Director of OxSTaR & a Consultant Anaesthetist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford) and is suitable for clinical and non-clinical staff and aims to provide an introduction to the fundamentals of human factors in healthcare. The course introduces participants to basic human factors frameworks, including the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS), and focuses on practical applications in the workplace to improve understanding of systems in healthcare. This course will align with the new National Patient Safety Syllabus Learning Objectives Improve understanding of human factors principles Introduce and explore a human factors framework (SEIPS) Provide opportunities to practise applying SEIPS to real world examples Course content Definition and background of human factors Human factors applied to healthcare Importance of work place culture (including Just Culture tool) Explanation of SEIPS framework Exercises using SEIPS Plenty of opportunity for discussion and questions
The annual LGBT+ History Month Spotlight is running for the second year! Academic, professional staff and postgraduate students are invited to attend a day of talks and panels related to LGBTQIA+ research at the Education Department. What is involved? Presentations from researchers on their work, roundtable discussions on key questions in LGBTQ+ research and opportunities to network over free pizza at lunchtime.
Zotero is a reference management tool that helps you build libraries of references and add citations and bibliographies to word processed documents using your chosen citation style. This classroom-based session covers the main features of Zotero and comprises a 45-minute presentation followed by practical exercises at the computers. You can leave at any point once you have tried out the software, and do not have to stay until the end. The learning outcomes for this classroom-based session are to: create a Zotero library and add references to it; edit and organise references in your Zotero library; add in-text citations and/or footnotes to your word-processed document; create bibliographies; understand how to sync your Zotero library across multiple computers; and understand how to share your Zotero library of references. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Enhance your critical thinking and research skills in this practical workshop designed for undergraduate students. Learn to question assumptions, analyse sources critically, and develop information discovery and search strategies that will set you apart in your academic studies. By the end of this session, you will be able to: describe what critical thinking is; understand a critical thinking method; apply the method to your academic work; and explain the fundamentals of conducting research, including how to evaluate information sources in SOLO. Intended audience: Taught student
Certain models of collective dynamics exhibit deceptively simple patterns that are surprisingly difficult to explain. These patterns often arise from phase transitions within the underlying dynamics. However, these phase transitions can be explained only when one derives continuum equations from the corresponding individual-based models. In this talk, I will explore this subtle yet rich phenomenon and discuss advances and open problems.
Modern researchers need to have an up-to-date understanding of working with research data. This relates equally to the material they create themselves and that obtained from other sources. Academic institutions, funding bodies and even publishers are now expecting competence in these issues. This workshop will provide a grounding in the different ways quantitative and qualitative data is being made available to benefit researchers. By the end of the session you will also have some insight into how your own future work could add to the process and become part of the research discourse. The course aims to provide an overview of macro and micro data sources available at the University of Oxford, including national data archives, subscription services, business data, and offers some pointers for further searching. Topics to be covered include: overview of the landscape of data sources for health researchers, social scientists and most other researchers; how to obtain macro and micro data via specific sources; qualitative and quantitative data resources; additional data services such as the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Eurostat, Researchfish and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative's online interactive databank and global Multidimensional Poverty Index; plus specialist sources for business and economic data subscribed to by Oxford University; the value of resources for informing research design and methodological innovation; and the importance of data management and cybersecurity. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student; staff
The Earth's mantle has elevated Fe3+ contents relative to those of other telluric bodies, a property thought to reflect the disproportionation of ferrous iron into its metallic and ferric counterparts during core formation. However, how the oxidation and electronic state of iron change as a function of pressure in compositions relevant to that of Earth's mantle are not fully understood. In this study, we present in-situ energy domain synchrotron Mössbauer spectra of 57Fe-enriched peridotitic- and basaltic glasses at 298 K compressed from 1 bar to 174 GPa in a diamond anvil cell. Glasses were synthesised with different Fe3+/[Fe3+ + Fe2+] ratios, 0.02 ± 0.02 and 1.00 ± 0.02, respectively, as determined by colorimetry. At 1 bar, the spectrum of the Fe3+-basaltic glass is well fit by a single doublet. In contrast, the spectra of both Fe2+-rich peridotitic and basaltic glass are fit by two doublets, D1 (~92 %) and D2 (~8 %) at 1 bar. As pressure increases, the integral area of the D2 doublet increases at the expense of D1 to reach a D2/(D1 + D2) ratio of 0.65 by 172 GPa. Because this transition is reversible with pressure and no metallic iron is detected, the D2 feature is ascribed to Fe2+ in its low spin (LS) state, whereas D1 is consistent with Fe2+ high spin (HS). This assignment resolves a long-standing controversy on the interpretation of the Mössbauer spectra of basaltic glasses. As a consequence of the stabilisation of Fe2+ with pressure, terrestrial planets more massive than Earth likely do not host increasingly oxidising mantles.
This paper studies how the intergenerational transmission of political preferences shapes citizens’ political involvement. I develop a two-period model in which parents choose a costly level of transmission effort, and children decide their level of political involvement. Higher transmission effort increases children’s incentives to choose a high level of involvement. Each child is then randomly paired with another child and incurs a cost when their political preferences differ, with this cost being larger when both are highly involved. The model shows how parental influence links the evolution of political preferences with political involvement.
Central nervous system (CNS) neurons govern every aspect of physiology, demanding an exceptionally tightly controlled environment. To preserve tissue homeostasis, the CNS has develop a unique rlationship with the immune system restrictsing conventional immune surveillance to CNS border compartments. How this CNS immune privilege is established, maintained, and dynamically regulated remains a fundamental question in neuroimmunology. We have proposed that the brain barriers divide the CNS into different compartments with different access for immune mediators and immune cells. To test this hypothesis we have developed novel reporter mouse models that enable direct visualization of the different brain barriers and borders in vivo. Leveraging these border reporter mice together with state-of-the-art intravital imaging, we found that different brain barriers precisely control immune mediator distributaion and immune cell migration in the CNS during immune surveillance and neuroinflammation. These findings shape our understanding of how brain barriers orchestrate CNS immune privilege and how failure of brain barrier function will contribute to neurological disorders. This knowledge will provide a foundation for targeted therapeutic strategies in neurological and neuroinflammatory diseases. SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY Since 2003 Britta Engelhardt is Professor for Immunobiology and Director of the Theodor Kocher Institute at the University of Bern in Switzerland. After studying Human Biology at the Philipps-University, Marburg in Germany she pursued her PhD thesis with Prof. Hartmut Wekerle at the Max-Planck Research Group for Multiple Sclerosis in Würzburg, Germany and the Max-Planck Institute für Psychiatry in Munich, Germany and obtained a PhD (Dr. rer. physiol.) in January 1991. After a post-doctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Eugene C. Butcher at Stanford University, California, she set up her own research group at the Max-Planck Institute for Physiological and Clinical Research, Bad Nauheim, Germany in the department of Werner Risau in 1993. In 1998 she obtained the Venia Legendi for Immunology and Cell Biology from the Medical Faculty of the Philipps University Marburg, Germany. From 1999 to 2003 she headed her independent research group at the same institute and the Max-Planck Institute for Vascular Cell Biology in Münster, Germany. Britta Engelhardt is a renowned expert in brain barriers research. Her work is dedicated to understanding the role of the brain barriers in maintaining central nervous system (CNS) immune privilege. Using advanced in vitro and in vivo live cell imaging approaches her laboratory has significantly contributed to the current understanding of the anatomical routes and molecular mechanisms used by immune cells to enter the CNS during immune surveillance and neuroinflammation. She has published over 300 manuscripts that are highly cited. She is an opinion leader in her field as shown by her regular presentations as invited and keynote speaker at international meetings. Britta Engelhardt has served the scientific community by coordinating several national (Sinergia UnmetMS, ProDoc Cell Migration) and international collaborative networks (JUSTBRAIN, BtRAIN) dedicated to brain barriers research and neuroinflammation. Together with Peter Vajkoczy she has received the Herman-Rein-Prize for their pioneering in vivo imaging of T cell migration across cervical spinal cord microvessels. She was elected Vice-Chair and Chair of the Gordon Research Conference Barriers of the CNS in 2016 and 2018, respectively. In 2023 she has obtained the Malpighi Award of the European Society for Microcirculation (ESM). In 2024 she was honored by the Keynote Lecture Award from the Journal of Comparative Pathology Education Trust ESVP/ECVP and the Camillo Golgi Lecture from the European Academy of Neurology and the nomination as member of AcademiaNet – The Portal to Excellent Women Academics. In 2025 besides receiving the Research Prize of the Swiss MS Society she has been awarded an prestigious ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). She presently serves as president of the International Brain Barriers Society.
Integrated autoregressive conditional duration (ACD) models serve as natural counterparts to the well-known integrated GARCH models used for financial returns. However, despite their resemblance, asymptotic theory for ACD is challenging and also not complete, in particular for integrated ACD. Central challenges arise from the facts that (i) integrated ACD processes imply durations with infinite expectation, and (ii) even in the non-integrated case, conventional asymptotic approaches break down due to the randomness in the number of durations within a fixed observation period. Addressing these challenges, we provide here unified asymptotic theory for the (quasi-) maximum likelihood estimator for ACD models; a unified theory which includes integrated ACD models. Based on the new results, we also provide a novel framework for hypothesis testing in duration models, enabling inference on a key empirical question: whether durations possess a finite or infinite expectation. We apply our results to high-frequency cryptocurrency ETF trading data. Motivated by parameter estimates near the integrated ACD boundary, we assess whether durations between trades in these markets have finite expectation, an assumption often made implicitly in the literature on point process models. Our empirical findings indicate infinite-mean durations for all the five cryptocurrencies examined, with the integrated ACD hypothesis rejected -- against alternatives with tail index less than one -- for four out of the five cryptocurrencies considered.
We investigate stochasticity in choice behavior across diverse decisions. Each decision is modeled as a menu of actions with associated outcomes, and a stochastic choice rule assigns probabilities to actions based on the outcome profile. We characterize rules whose predictions are not affected by whether or not additional, irrelevant decisions are included in the model. Our main result is that such rules form the parametric family of mixed-logit rules.
All welcome, and to join us for lunch afterwards.
Abstract: Human leucocyte antigens (HLAs) bind peptide fragments for recognition by T-cell receptors. An individual's HLA genotype determines which specific pathogen peptides their T cell responses are able to target. It is widely accepted that HLAs and various human pathogens must co-evolve, and that this accounts for the extraordinarily high HLA polymorphism seen across human populations. I use mathematical models and individual-based computational simulations to understand HLA/pathogen co-evolution. I will present general predictions about the population genetic signatures of pathogen selection we might expect to find among HLA loci, as well as discussing a model motivated specifically by Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Bio: Bridget Penman studies the genetics of infection. She uses mathematical and computational models to simulate interactions between pathogens and genetically diverse host species. Bridget is especially interested in malaria parasites and in how humans and other primates have adapted to malaria. Bridget studied her undergraduate degree and DPhil at Oxford and was also a postdoctoral fellow in the Zoology department and at Merton College. She then moved to the University of Warwick, where she worked in the School of Life Sciences and the Zeeman Institute. Bridget is now an Associate Professor Tutorial Fellow in the Biology Department and St Peter's College here in Oxford.
This paper quantifies the effect of water pollution due to oil spillage on local economic development outcomes in Nigeria. We assemble a geo-referenced panel of more than 13,000 oil spills occurrences recorded in the country between 2006 and 2019, and develop a hydrological model that traces contaminant transport over water networks, allowing spill exposure to extend beyond the point of discharge. We use arguably as good as random exposure within close range of spill sites to distinguish between directly treated locations, upstream locations, and downstream locations along watersheds and exploit this setup in a staggered difference-in-differences framework to estimate impacts on local socio-economic outcomes, including a novel proxy for extreme poverty obtained by combining high-resolution residential buildings data and nighttime lights. Relative to comparable cells, spill-exposed cells exhibit marked declines in nighttime lights, remotely-sensed extreme poverty, and the number of residents without electricity. Candidate mechanisms include environmental degradation, with annual declines in forest cover and vegetation health, and increased out-migration from affected locations. Dynamic event-study estimates show that these effects intensify from four to twelve years post-spill. We relate our remotely-sensed proxies to high-resolution survey data in order to estimate money-metric magnitudes of economic damages. Finally, we investigate the relationship between global oil price shocks and oil spillage intensity, in order to trace the complete causal chain from global commodity markets to local development outcomes.
The session will give you practical tools, frameworks, and real-world case studies to help you feel more confident acting as a first point of contact for media-related questions. The session is designed to be interactive, with group exercises, scenarios, and helpful take-away resources.
Goal-directed movements rely on both egocentric (target relative to the observer) and allocentric (target relative to landmarks) spatial representations. So far, it is widely unknown which factors determine the use of allocentric information when we localize objects in space. To probe allocentric coding, we established an object shift paradigm and asked participants to encode the location of multiple objects presented in naturalistic 2D scenes or 3D virtual environments. After a brief delay, a test scene reappeared with one of the objects missing (= target) and the other objects (= landmarks) systematically shifted in one direction. After the test scene vanished, participants had to indicate the remembered location of the target. By quantifying the positional error of the target relative to the physical shift of the landmarks we determined the contribution of allocentric target representations. In my talk, I will present a series of behavioral experiments in which we identified key factors influencing the use of allocentric spatial coding, such as spatial proximity, task relevance, scene coherence, and scene semantics. Overall, our results show that low-level as well as high-level factors influence how humans represent objects in naturalistic environments.
Viewed from one perspective, research funders run a “service factory”, a process that seeks to turns grant applications into research grants and rejection letters, with efficiency and fairness as prime goals. Viewed from another perspective, research funders are investors, seeking to identify the highest potential intangible investments, where the returns of different potential projects are highly heterogenous. Different proposals for reform of the research funding are predicated on different – usually unstated – assumptions about what research funders are actually doing. This talk offers a framework for how to think of what research funders do, together with observations on what this means for different reform proposals, informed by emerging findings from the UK Metascience Unit, the R&D Missions Accelerator Programme, and the wider field of metascience. About the speaker: Stian Westlake has a decade’s experience of leading research funding organisations. He is currently Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation. Previously, he was Executive Director of Research and Policy at Nesta, the UK’s national foundation for innovation, and as adviser to three UK science and universities ministers. He is co-author of “Capitalism Without Capital” and “Restarting the Future”, two books about the economics and politics of intangible investment. Chair: Professor Rachel Brooks
Government projects for transformation that have been a success can seem rarer than hens’ teeth. There’s a growing sense that Government itself cannot achieve change but is that true or have there been examples that offer lessons that are overlooked and what does that tell us about how to deliver?
Get ready to understand the stages of your literature review search process by using your own research questions to build a successful search and apply it to a range of library resources. By the end of the session you will be able to: build a successful search strategy; use a range of bibliographic databases and search tools in the social sciences; source highly cited papers relevant to your research; and set up alerts for newly-published papers on your topic. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher and research student
Are you looking to learn about the ways in which to transmit scientific ideas and make your research accessible to a non-specialist audience through a variety of mediums? This session will serve as an introduction to science communication and how it can be successfully incorporated into our roles. By the end of this session you will be able to: define science communication and provide a list of examples; explain why science communication is important for both our CPD and the public; and list ways in which we can all get involved in science communication. Intended audience: medicine and NHS; taught student; researcher and research student
Bio: Parminder K Judge is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow based in the Renal Studies Group at the Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU). There, she aims to develop her knowledge and experience of clinical trials, testing new treatments aimed at managing and reducing the progression of chronic kidney disease. Parminder studied medicine at the University of Birmingham. After completing her core medical training in Leicester, she undertook specialty training in nephrology in the Oxford rotation. In 2013, she took time ‘out-of-programme for research’ to work on clinical trials. She worked primarily on the UK HARP-III trial which compared the effects of sacubitril/valsartan (a novel angiotensin-receptor neprilysin inhibitor) with irbesartan (an angiotensin receptor blocker) on in 400 people with chronic kidney disease. The trial formed the basis of her PhD thesis. She also undertook the adjudication of clinical outcomes for the 3C trial and provided clinical support for the REVEAL and ASCEND trials. She participated in epidemiological analyses of the SHARP trial assessing the effects of blood pressure on cardiovascular outcomes. Parminder used HES data to establish and quantify previously undocumented hepatorenal complications in polycystic kidney disease and, to determine the risk of many established complications of the disease. After completing her nephrology specialty training in 2020, Parminder returned to CTSU to work on clinical trials in nephrology and cardiovascular disease, including the EMPA-KIDNEY trial. She continues to practice nephrology within the Oxford Kidney Unit and has an active interest in teaching clinical trainees, undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Labor reallocation across sectors has become a central mechanism of adjustment in response to asymmetric shocks such as the pandemic, trade and energy disruptions, climate events, and the rise of artificial intelligence. How does reallocation interact with sectoral heterogeneity in unemployment risk, consumption insurance, and production-network linkages, and to what extent is it shaped by countercyclical fiscal policy? In this paper, we first document the magnitude and cyclical behavior of reallocation and the systematic differences across sectors in risk and insurance. We then address these questions through a structural multi-sector New Keynesian model that integrates heterogeneous agents (HANK), search and matching frictions (SAM), and input–output linkages (IO), while allowing workers to endogenously choose the sector in which to search. Calibrated to US data, the model quantifies how labor reallocation amplifies or mitigates the transmission of sectoral shocks and how untargeted fiscal policies, such as unemployment insurance extensions, interact with heterogeneity to shape aggregate demand and unemployment dynamics.
In this session we will examine article level metrics. We will discuss how citation counting can help identify influential papers in particular fields and how altmetrics provide a different perspective on research output. Using tools such as Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus you will learn how to locate different article metrics. The session will also allow you to appreciate the limitations of different metrics and the importance of their cautious interpretation. By the end of the session, you will be familiar with: using Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar to track and count citations to papers and individual researchers; measuring impact using altmetrics; understanding how to contextualise metrics against other, similar papers in a field; and the limitations of different metrics. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher & research student
This talk introduces the emerging research field of Futures-Oriented Science Education (FOSE), focussing on its potential to revalue physics teaching as a source of rich and important competences for navigating societies where acceleration and uncertainty are intensified by multiple, intersecting crises. Drawing on the history of Futures Studies, I will discuss how FOSE prompts us to reconsider the epistemic and axiological foundations of physics, and to draw on interdisciplinary approaches that bridge the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities to foster futures literacy. Examples from empirical studies and classroom implementations developed in the European project FEDORA will be used to illustrate two key findings. The first concerns the persistence—and the strong influence—of Modernity’s dominant conception of the future within contemporary schooling. The second shows that core ideas from complex systems science can strengthen secondary students’ futures literacy by opening them to alternative forms of temporality and by supporting more positive and imaginative engagements with possible futures.
_Kratos_ and _dunamis_ appear as “power” in Plato’s dialogs but they signify differently. Kratos is a practice of mastery, according to which “might makes right.” Dunamis is the individual and collective capacity to do or not to do, a capacity that makes exercises of power of any kind possible. This lecture explores in _Gorgias_ and other dialogs the ethical and political implications of the dialogs’ representations of kratos in terms of dunamis, including for democracy as _demokratia_.
Create content for your teaching or research with greater confidence by attending our session on Creative Commons (CC) licences. Learn how they work, how they interact with copyright and how to use them to best effect. The session will make special reference to images but is applicable to all media, including written works. The workshop is classroom-based. In this playful, interactive face-to-face session we will cover: what Creative Commons Licences are; where to find Creative Commons material; how to apply Creative Commons to your own work; and how to reuse Creative Commons materials. We’ll finish the session with a Creative Commons card game. Intended audience: Researcher and research student; Staff
COURSE DETAILS This session looks at the way in which we can have useful conversations in career development reviews. It examines the blockages to such conversations and how we can overcome them using active listening and coaching techniques. There will be an opportunity to discuss the policy and process surrounding CDRS. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will have an understanding of: The Career context and support for CDRs. How coaching and active listening can enable positive CDR conversations. An opportunity to practice relevant skills.
TBC
Are you baffled by open, confused by embargoes? Does the mention of the colour gold or green catapult you into a realm of perplexed irritation? Come to this session, where we’ll break down open access and all its many jargon terms, confusing publishing structures and hint at the advantages you can reap by publishing open. In this session you’ll learn: what is open access? Key terms – Gold, Green, Article Processing Charges; where to get more information and help; where to look for open access material; and useful tools to assist you in publishing open access. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
In a world of clickbait headlines and algorithm-driven feeds, thinking critically about the information we consume is more vital than ever. This interactive workshop aimed at undergraduates will help you to evaluate the credibility and bias in today’s news and social media. Through hands-on activities and real-world examples, you'll learn how to assess sources, identify misinformation, and trace claims and quotes to their original context. By the end of this session, you will be able to: describe what critical thinking means in the context of news articles and social media sources; identify different forms of bias in news and social media; recognise misinformation and 'fake news'; and understand and apply the SIFT Method to evaluate claims in news and social media sources. Intended audience: Taught student
COURSE DETAILS Join us for an insightful session that aims to equip researchers with the tools needed to engage confidently and effectively with the public on controversial and sensitive topics. In this interactive online session, Science Communicator Hana Ayoob will take us through the importance of engaging with these topics, aiming to equip researchers with the skills and knowledge to engage confidently in an empathetic and effective way. This session is relevant to scientists across the sciences, and will explore topics ranging from the use of animals in research, to nuclear power, and topics arising from your research area. Upon completion of the course, participants will be well-prepared to engage with sensitivity and confidence on controversial topics, contributing to a more inclusive and informed public discourse within their respective fields. LEARNING OUTCOMES Attending this session will give you the opportunity to: Recognise why certain research topics are sensitive or controversial for diverse audience groups. Develop skills to communicate controversial topics empathetically and respectfully. Acquire knowledge and techniques for engaging the public on sensitive subjects. Understand and apply ethical considerations when addressing controversial issues with the public. Build confidence in communicating complex ideas related to sensitive topics. Explore specific controversial themes relevant to your research areas for practical application
An online introduction to using alerts to keep up to date with new research and save you time. A combination of presenter-led instruction and the opportunity for participants to set up email alerts to receive notifications for publications in their field of research. We invite you to send any questions you have in advance to usered@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for the instructors to cover in the session. There will also be opportunities to ask questions in the class. The workshop will cover: how email alerts can help you; setting up alerts on your favourite databases and other platforms for new content in your field; and managing your alerts. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Abstract tbc ———————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Paul is a Visiting Professor at the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register.
Camille Serchuk (Southern Connecticut State University) is in conversation with Elizabeth Baigent (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford).
Historians are familiar with the idea of the nation as an ‘imagined community’ that bound people across time and space from the late 18th century, predicated on modern communications. This lecture extends this idea into the 20th century and to a wider range of ‘invisible structures’ that were made more palpable via languages of social science, political and especially economic structures.
Good research data management is a vital component of academic practice. Part of this is the principle that the data used to develop the arguments and outcomes of your research should be effectively stored and managed during a project, preserved for the future and - where possible - shared with other academics. This session introduces the University’s research data policy and outlines the practical impact this will have on your work. The services available at Oxford to assist you will be outlined. This session is not only essential during your current studies but will be invaluable if you plan to continue in research as a career. Topics to be covered include: common dangers and pitfalls of digital data; key principles of RDM and organising your data effectively; producing a data management plan; institutional, funder and publisher requirements; issues around preserving data and cybersecurity; ORA-Data, GitHub and other preservation services; sharing thoughts and insights about the potential of data management in your own field; and accessing Oxford based tools for research data management. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student; staff
Aquaporins facilitate the passive, bidirectional flow of water in all cells and tissues. In the brain and spinal cord, aquaporin-4 is highly expressed and enriched at astrocyte endfeet, synapses and the glia limitans. It facilitates the exchange of water across the blood-spinal cord and blood-brain barriers, controlling cell volume, extracellular space volume and astrocyte migration. The perivascular enrichment of aquaporin-4 is consistent with its central role in CNS fluid flow and brain clearance, although the mechanism by which that role is exerted remains unknown. We have demonstrated that aquaporin-4 localization is dynamically regulated at the subcellular level, affecting membrane water permeability. In animal models of ageing, stroke, traumatic injury and sleep disruption, impairment of CNS fluid flow is associated with changes in perivascular aquaporin-4 localization. Each of these conditions represent established and emerging risk factors in developing neurodegeneration. Brain and spinal cord oedema are caused by the influx of water through aquaporin-4 in response to osmotic imbalances that occur following insults such as traumatic injury, stroke or tumour development. We have demonstrated that reducing dynamic subcellular relocalization of aquaporin-4 to the blood-spinal cord or blood-brain barriers reduces oedema and accelerates functional recovery in rodent injury models. Given the difficulties in developing pore-blocking aquaporin-4 inhibitors or activators and controversies in the field over the status of many proposed molecules, targeting dynamic aquaporin-4 subcellular relocalization provides a new approach to modulating aquaporin-4 function. This approach also opens up new treatment avenues for CNS oedema, neurovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, and provides a framework to address fundamental unanswered questions about water homeostasis in health and disease. SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY Roslyn Bill is Aston University’s 50th Anniversary Professor of Biotechnology and Director of Aston Institute for Membrane Excellence, which is funded by a £10M grant from Research England. Roslyn obtained her Batchelor, Master and Doctoral degrees from Oxford University and spent postdoctoral periods in Cambridge, the University of Michigan (as a Fulbright Scholar) and Gothenburg University before moving to Aston in 2002. She was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant in 2023 for her work on the regulation of aquaporin water channels in the human brain. She is a founding member of the aquaporin sub-committee of the IUPHAR/Guide to Pharmacology and Chief Scientific Officer of Estuar Pharmaceuticals. She served two terms as Chair of BBSRC Research Committee E and recently completed her tenure as Executive Editor of BBA Biomembranes. Roslyn is currently a Visiting Fellow hosted by Corpus Christi College and DPAG and a ‘Big if True Science’ Fellow supported by Renaissance Philanthropy and ARIA.
Identification in Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVARs) often relies on external proxy variables that are assumed to be valid instruments—highly correlated with a single structural shock and uncorrelated with all others. In practice, however, researchers often face a ``proxy zoo'' of imperfect candidates, where these exclusion restrictions are unlikely to hold. This paper develops a novel framework for set identification in SVARs that relaxes the need for valid instruments. We introduce a generalized ranking assumption, requiring only that a proxy is more strongly correlated with the target shock than with any other. This much weaker condition allows us to work with contaminated proxies that would be invalid under a standard instrumental variable approach. We combine this with traditional sign restrictions to construct sharp identified sets for monetary policy impulse responses. We characterize the geometric structure of the feasible set of structural parameters, which is formed by the intersections of spherical caps determined by the proxy information. Our method provides a robust tool for researchers to compute valid bounds on dynamic causal effects when only imperfect proxies are available.
A principal seeks to contract with an agent but must do so through an informed delegate. Although the principal cannot directly mediate the interaction, she can constrain the menus of contracts the delegate may offer. We show that the principal can implement any outcome that is implementable through a direct mechanism satisfying dominant strategy incentive compatibility and ex-post participation for the agent. We apply this result to several settings. First, we show that a government that delegates procurement to a budget-indulgent agency should delegate an interval of screening contracts. Second, we show that a seller can delegate sales to an intermediary without revenue loss, provided she can commit to a return policy. Third, in contrast to centralized mechanism design, we demonstrate that no partnership can be efficiently dissolved in the absence of a mediator. Finally, we discuss when delegated contracting obstructs efficiency, and when choosing the right delegate may help restore it.
On 13 February 2026, the University of Oxford will mark the centenary of the death of Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, one of the most original and influential figures in the history of Economics. Edgeworth held the Drummond Professorship of Political Economy at Oxford and was a Fellow of All Souls College. He is celebrated for pioneering the use of mathematical methods in Economics, developing utility theory, and introducing concepts - such as indifference curves and the Edgeworth box - that remain at the core of microeconomics today. To honour Edgeworth’s legacy, we invite you to a special two-hour event designed for a broad economics audience, from interested undergraduates and graduate students to faculty and friends of the subject. The event will also recognise Edgeworth’s central role in the profession: as founding editor of the Economic Journal, the journal of the Royal Economic Society, he shaped economic discourse for 35 years and helped to establish standards that still influence the field. The programme will feature four short talks highlighting different dimensions of Edgeworth’s life and work. Prof Sir John Vickers will reflect on Edgeworth as an Oxford figure and theorist of monopoly. Prof John Sutton will explore Edgeworth’s contributions to oligopoly theory. Prof Mary Morgan will discuss Edgeworth in the context of her work on models in economics, and Prof Kevin O’Rourke will examine Edgeworth’s insights on trade and international economics. Together, these perspectives will offer an accessible yet intellectually rich introduction to Edgeworth’s ideas and their lasting impact. The event is organised by Michael McMahon and John Vickers. It will take place in Oxford from 4pm to 6pm and will be streamed live for those unable to attend in person. All those with an interest in economics - students at all levels, faculty, and members of the wider economics community - are warmly encouraged to join
Why should clinicians care about economic value? How does the economics of the health system affect day-to-day working practices and experiences? How can clinicians influence resourcing decisions that improve value? During the seminar, Jacque will explore the economic paradigm of the NHS, and how economics can help grow value through cycles of improvement. The workshop is organised in two parts: Part A: The economics of the system Who pays for what and how does the money flow? What are the opportunities for increasing value as we move forward? Part B: Using the economic lens to drive value over time How can clinicians use economic principles to influence investment and resource allocation.
We study the distributional impacts of carbon pricing policies using a multi-sector general equilibrium (GE) model with input-output linkages, heterogeneous agents and segmented labor markets. Households differ in their consumption patterns, labor types, and ownership of equity and capital. Pricing the carbon content of products affects households real income through an expenditure channel, according to the emissions intensity of their consumption baskets, and an earnings channel, as GE responses shift the relative demand for labor types, and returns on profits and rents. Calibrating the model with matched microdata for the Brazilian economy, we find regressive effects stemming from both channels. Ignoring the production networks and the gross complementarity between fuels, inputs and factors leads to a substantial underestimation of both aggregate and distributional effects. The incidence of the policy depends on how the revenue is recycled: expanding targeted social transfers fully offsets the regressive impact, whereas using the revenue to reduce preexisting consumption taxes improves efficiency but does not eliminate regressivity.
What are the implications of AI for state and non-state threats, conventional and hybrid warfare, and our international relationships?
As a leading administrative-cultural center, the Roman metropolis constituted a major tourist attraction for visitors from both the center and the periphery of the empire, among them Jews from the land of Israel. Using ancient Jewish culture as a test case, this lecture addresses the extent and type of influence of such visits on local cultures. It focuses on how the encounter with the city’s spatial aspects, its buildings and traditions, left their impress on Jewish culture, law, collective memory, and art in the first centuries CE. The examples taken from the literary realm – rabbinic law and legend – and the numismatic sphere, all relate to space identity and shed light on how the encounter with the city of Rome influenced a minority culture. The presentation will be followed by discussion and drinks. The event is free. This event will take place in accordance with the framework developed by a number of Oxford colleges, including Worcester College, to promote free speech at Oxford. Details of this framework and 'tips' for productive discussion of difficult topics are to be found at: www.worc.ox.ac.uk/fos. By attending this event, attendees agree to adhere to these guidelines and the terms and conditions of the event which uphold Worcester College's commitment to freedom of speech: www.worc.ox.ac.uk/fos/massada
While existing literature often connects the persistent gender gap in South Asian student migration to parents’ patriarchal biases and fears about female safety overseas, we argue that parents’ views in the South Asian diaspora are far more nuanced. Drawing on a survey of 110 South Asian parents in the UAE and 32 in-depth interviews, we found no statistically significant difference in the proportion of daughters versus sons sent overseas to Western universities. This decision was largely motivated by parents’ beliefs in gender egalitarianism. However, our research also revealed that parents’ gendered safety concerns continued to play a role in a series of “sub-migration decisions” where parents steered their daughters’ country, university, and accommodation choices even as they supported their international migration overall. These risk mitigation strategies were a byproduct of parents’ view of the UAE as exceptionally safe, while almost all other countries, but especially the United States and India, were seen as more dangerous in geographically specific ways. Simultaneously, parents rationalized their daughters’ international studies using a narrative previously reserved for male migrants—that independent migration helps these young women learn to live with risk and develop independence. In other words, gender continues to shape the international student migration process even amongst South Asian families holding egalitarian gender views, but in more nuanced ways than previously acknowledged.
In this session we will examine metrics for individual researchers. Using tools such as Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus you will learn about the researcher h-index and its limitations. You will be introduced to additional metrics tools such as author beamplots which help to contextualise a researcher’s output over time. By the end of the session, you will be familiar with: accessing citation data for specific researchers on Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar; understanding how the h-index is calculated and its inherent limitations; creating an ORCID number to help track all your own research outputs; and the importance of research outputs beyond journal and conference papers when assessing a researcher’s impact. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher & research student
Are you preparing a poster presentation for an upcoming conference, meeting or symposium? This interactive session, or ‘poster clinic’, will include a group discussion of different examples of poster presentations, as well as an opportunity to present your own draft of your poster presentation to your fellow attendees. It is expected that the small group of peers in attendance will provide feedback and respectful comments on each other’s work. By the end of this classroom-based session you will be able to: evaluate the effectiveness of your poster presentation and others; and summarise the content of your poster concisely in preparation for a conference. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Researcher and research student
TBC
_Isos_ and _homoios_, both often translated as equality in Plato’s dialogs, signify differently. In _Phaedo_, for example, isos appears as “the Equal itself,” knowable by intellect, while homoios appears as “what is equal,” and refers to things that are perceived by the senses as the same in some respects and not in others. This lecture develops an account of _democratic equality_ by exploring the political and theoretical implications of these differences, including by attending to the distinction between arithmetic equality and geometric or proportional equality in _Statesman_.
COURSE DETAILS The ability to influence others is a significant skill in any walk of life. This workshop will explore the impact of our communication preferences on others when seeking to influence. By also understanding the thinking process that underlies people’s decision making, we can use learnable skills to help people say ‘yes’ to us. The aim is always to influence others to the right decision, not just the decision we may want. LEARNING OUTCOMES After attending this workshop you will: Understand the impact of your own communication preferences when seeking to influence. Review how people think things through when making decisions and develop skills to positively impact the thinking process. Plan for the right outcomes and work out a healthy motive for the influence conversation. Help people say ‘yes’ to you. Understand the role of emotions when seeking to influence. Spot and adapt to the communication style of others to better land your message. Develop assertive communication skills. Plan for, and practice, an influence conversation.
Newspapers are a valuable resource for researching not only news but also many other aspects of political, economic, social and cultural life. In this session we will introduce key online sources of news and how to make best use of them. The focus will be on historical and contemporary newspapers from the 17th century across most countries of the world. After the session participants will understand: the value of newspapers in research; the difficulties of using newspapers in research and effective search techniques, and be able to use a range of sources for searching and reading: 1. historical newspapers 2. contemporary newspapers 3.audio-visual news sources. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher and research student
With the reform of adult social care once again being considered – this time by the Casey Commission – this session builds on lessons from the work of IMPACT, the UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care. It looks at what we mean by evidence, why lived experience is an important form of evidence in its own right, and how to get evidence of what works implemented in practice. In the process, it draws out key lessons from IMPACT’s work across the four nations of the UK that could form the building blocks of a future National Care Service. Jon Glasby trained as a social worker, and is now Professor of Health and Social Care at the University of Birmingham and Director of IMPACT. In his spare time, he is a Non-Executive Director of an NHS Trust and of a local authority children’s services. In 2022, he was an advisor to the House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee. This hybrid event is run by Green Templeton’s long-running Care Initiative, led by Professor Mary Daly. After the talk there will be a short drinks reception in the Stables Bar.
The event will feature Wycliffe's own John Screnock, presenting his new publication. Expect an exciting new look at well-known biblical texts and meet the ancient Scribes through what we can see of their work. Though current scholarship has extensive knowledge of these ancient texts, there is much we can learn from the scribes of the Second Temple period. When we focus our attention on the places in the text where the scribes were at work — when we explore some of the paths that scribes have made in the text — we can consider psalms and other ancient Hebrew texts in new ways.
COURSE DETAILS This short practical session will help you understand more about the career context for research staff at Oxford and beyond. It will enable you to identify the skills and abilities that you need to develop and give you guidance on how to enhance them so you are prepared for a useful conversation in your next CDR. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will have: An understanding of the career challenges and opportunities facing research staff at Oxford. An understanding of the skills you need to acquire. Started to apply a process of developing these skills.
COURSE DETAILS During the course you will have the opportunity to manage a project. You will be able to apply the techniques you learn to a project that you bring along. Topics covered: project initiation, managing stakeholders and risk, time estimation, planning. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand more about: The importance of planning. The tools to make project management succeed. How to estimate the time a project will take realistically. The skills you need to be a good project manager.
Open access publication of monographs and other longform works is an emerging movement, offering many opportunities to scholars looking to publish their research. With several major funding agencies now requiring longform open access publication, the impact of this is only set to grow. However, for those looking to publish their monograph open access, the novelty of this can present a challenge. What do funders require? What are the different publishing models? This webinar will cover the basics of this emerging field, including benefits, funder requirements, publication models and tools and resources. At the end of the session participants will be able to: explore the benefits of open access publication for longform works; consider the more challenging aspects of open monograph publication that that may not arise in traditional monograph publishing; follow the open access requirements of major funders for longform works; and understand the range of open access publication models offered by publishers. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
Recent advances in ophthalmology have shown that retinal images can detect much more than ocular disorders. Retinal imaging can identify early signs of systemic diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and cardiovascular (heart) conditions, often years before traditional symptoms appear. This emerging field, known as Oculomics, shows the eye’s potential as a window into overall health. Charity-owned Foresight Research Ltd. aims to collect community-level, pre-disease data from hundreds-of-thousands participants, through a UK-wide network of optical practices. Through collaborations with national health research initiatives, they plan to build comprehensive datasets from early-stage and healthy participants – and make these accessible for industry and academic researchers working on healthcare innovation (biomedical, AI, health economics, etc.). These datasets will be fundamental for enabling prevention and early interception of various ocular and systemic diseases.
In this online workshop you will be shown the functionality of Zotero, which is a free-to-use software programme used to manage references and create bibliographies. Zotero will be demonstrated on a Windows PC but users of MacOS or Linux computers will be able to follow the demonstration. The workshop will cover: understanding the main features and benefits of Zotero; setting up a Zotero account; importing references from different sources into Zotero; organising your references in Zotero; inserting citations into documents; and creating a bibliography/reference list. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Taught student; Researcher and research student
Oxford DPhil students are required to deposit a copy of their thesis in the Oxford University Research Archive (ORA). This online session will focus on what ORA is and how to deposit one's thesis in ORA, and how to access help with this process. It will also cover the relevant rights and permissions required and other issues that DPhil students need to take into account when preparing their thesis for upload to ORA. Topics include: what ORA is and what you need to deposit; how to deposit your thesis in ORA; observing relevant rights and permissions; and accessing help with depositing your thesis in ORA. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
Are you looking for a streamlined approach to gathering, managing and citing your references? Join us for this interactive online session in which we introduce RefWorks, a subscription reference management tool that University of Oxford members can use for free during their time at the university and as alumni. RefWorks is web-based and helps you to collect and manage references and insert them into your word-processed document as in-text citations or footnotes, and you can generate bibliographies. Being web-based, RefWorks can be used with any operating system and, to cite your references in a document, provides a plugin for Microsoft Word on Windows or Mac computers. By the end of the session, you will understand: how RefWorks can help you; how to add references to RefWorks from a range of sources; how to manage your references; how to add in-text citations and/or footnotes to your documents; how to create bibliographies; and where to get help with RefWorks. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Why has the world performed so poorly in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting climate change? Humanity has performed far better in addressing other environmental challenges, such as protecting the ozone layer, mitigating acid rain, improving air quality, and reducing people's exposure to dioxins and lead. In this talk Professor Fairbrother will consider different environmental outcomes in comparative perspective, and conditions leading to better versus worse outcomes. He will argue, contrary to other perspectives, that there have been two key differences between climate change and more successfully mitigated problems. First, polluting industries have resisted regulation more strongly in the case of climate change, with exceptional political efforts to deny and delay in turn due to the uniquely unconvertible character of key industry assets. Second, in the success cases, ordinary people were asked to make little or no material sacrifice, whereas in the case of climate change there is more of a price to be paid--and most people appear unwilling to pay a price, even though it is modest, because of distrust. Professor Fairbrother will conclude by elaborating implications for how we should seek to resolve the climate crisis.———————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Malcolm Fairbrother is a professor of sociology at Uppsala University and the Institute for Futures Studies, Sweden. His research focuses on climate and environmental policy and politics, social and political trust, globalization, and social science research methods. His current projects investigate the decoupling of greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth, and public attitudes towards policies for environmental protection. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, he received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley; worked for ten years in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol; and has been a visiting researcher at institutions in Mexico, the U.S., Canada, Italy, and Catalonia. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register.
The decades between the late 1940s and the late 1970s are widely seen as the heyday of social science (and of social democracy), though usually from the point of view of educated or cultivated elites. This lecture seeks evidence of the ‘sociological imagination’ in everyday life, in conditions of ‘affluence’, ‘permissiveness’ and a therapeutic society.
We are pleased to announce the upcoming Winter Lecture Series which will take place between January and March 2026. Across five thought-provoking lectures, special guests will discuss a range of subjects, with topics to be announced soon. Each lecture will be hosted at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. Join us on Thursday 19th February when natural history writer and photographer Jon Dunn will deliver his lecture.
EndNote is a desktop-based reference management tool for Windows and Mac users. It helps you to build libraries of references and insert them into Word documents as in-text citations or footnotes, and to automatically generate bibliographies. This classroom-based introduction to EndNote is open to all University of Oxford students, researchers and staff and teaches you how to use the software so that you can effectively manage your references. Please note we also run an online EndNote workshop. Please check the iSkills course listing for availability. The workshop will cover: what EndNote can do for you; adding references to EndNote from a range of sources; managing your references in an EndNote library; adding in-text citations and/or footnotes to your essays and papers; and creating bibliographies. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Normal heart function relies of the fine-tuned synchronization of cellular components. In healthy hearts, calcium oscillations and physical contractions are coupled across a synchronised network of 3 billion heart cells. When the process of functional isolation of rogue cells isn’t successful, the network becomes maladapted, resulting in cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure and arrythmia. To advance knowledge on this normal-to-disease transition we must first address the lack of a mechanistic understanding of the plastic readaptation of these networks. In this talk I will explore coupling and loss of synchronisation using a mathematical model of calcium oscillations informed by experimental data. I will show some preliminary results pointing at the heterogeneity hidden behind seemingly uniform cell populations, as a causative mechanism behind disrupted dynamics in maladapted networks.
We demonstrate that a ubiquitous feature of network games, bilateral strategic interactions, is equivalent to having player utilities that are additively separable across opponents. We distinguish two formal notions of bilateral strategic interactions. Opponent independence means that player i's preferences over opponent j's action do not depend on what other opponents do. Strategic independence means that how opponent j's choice influences i's preference between any two actions does not depend on what other opponents do. If i's preferences jointly satisfy both conditions, then we can represent her preferences over strategy profiles using an additively separable utility. If i's preferences satisfy only strategic independence, then we can still represent her preferences over just her own actions using an additively separable utility. Common utilities based on a linear aggregate of opponent actions satisfy strategic independence and are therefore strategically equivalent to additively separable utilities---in fact, we can assume a utility that is linear in opponent actions.
Join writer Adam Sisman in conversation with Bodley’s Librarian, Richard Ovenden, as they explore the secrets of John le Carré’s archive. As le Carré’s biographer, Sisman spent four years researching the author, navigating his unsorted archive and engaging in revealing discussions, often surprising Le Carré with his discoveries. The archive spans le Carré’s childhood, National Service, Oxford years—where he spied for MI5—and his early intelligence and writing careers. It also includes drafts of his novels, showcasing his meticulous writing process. Richard Ovenden, who worked with the author and his family over the bequest, discusses its significance and its journey to the Bodleian. Richard Ovenden OBE, Hon FBA is the 25th Bodley's Librarian and the Helen Hamlyn Director of the University Libraries, and Head of Gardens, Libraries and Museums at the University of Oxford. He is also the author of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack. Adam Sisman FRSL is a writer specialising in biography, who has written the lives of AJP Taylor, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Asa Briggs and John le Carré. His second book, Boswell’s Presumptuous Task, won a National Books Critics Circle award. In 2019 he published The Professor and the Parson: A Story of Desire, Deceit and Defrocking. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews.
Heritage physics involves the application of scientific techniques and technologies to answer questions about our cultural heritage and to enable our understanding and conservation of this. As scientific techniques have evolved across the past century from the earliest methods for age determination to modern day composition analysis, these have increased our ability to deepen our knowledge about ancient and historical artefacts as well as to preserve and restore them. This conference will survey the history of how the illumination of the past has developed as new fields of physics have progressed.
Heritage physics involves the application of scientific techniques and technologies to answer questions about our cultural heritage and to enable our understanding and conservation of this. As scientific techniques have evolved across the past century from the earliest methods for age determination to modern day composition analysis, these have increased our ability to deepen our knowledge about ancient and historical artefacts as well as to preserve and restore them. This conference will survey the history of how the illumination of the past has developed as new fields of physics have progressed. There will be a conference dinner at St Cross College at 18:30, for which booking is required. For programme, and to book for the dinner, please see website: https://www.stx.ox.ac.uk/event/happ-one-day-conference-heritage-physics-illuminating-the-past Registration is required for both in-person and livestream.
Python is one of the most popular programming languages for data science, both in academia and industry. It is also a good entry programming language for anyone trying their hand at coding for the first time. This gentle introduction to Python is aimed at all students or staff around campus with little to no prior experience with Python or programming wanting to take that first step. The course will cover all the basics needed to get future coders started on their journey. By the end of the session, you will have written your first bits of code and be ready to explore what Python can do for your own data or personal projects. The training will be delivered by Matthieu Miossec, Head of Computational Genomics Group, Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford. The course is divided into two sessions: Session 1, 23 February, 9:00 am – 11:00 am Session 2, 26 February, 9:00 am – 11:00 am This will be an interactive session where participants will be expected to follow along with the demonstration, coding throughout the session. Topics to be covered: -Why use Python? -Data types and data structures in Python. -Conditional statements and loops. -Writing flexible functions. -Reading and writing to files. -Putting it altogether in a simple bit of code. Intended Audience: Staff and students with little to no prior experience with Python or programming in general. Objectives: -Become more comfortable with Python and programming in general. -Have a basic understanding of the main data types and structures in Python. -Have a basic understanding of error messages and how to resolve them. -Write some code to automate the resolution of a small problem. -Be able to write a short bit of code to extract or write information from a file. -Learn how to break a bigger problem into smaller problems through divide and conquer approach. -Know where to find additional information on Python. Requirements: Participants are expected to bring their own laptops so they can follow along with the interactive session. Pre-course work: None. There will be a small challenge in between the two sessions for participants to attempt. Software required: Python with Python IDLE or similar Register - https://forms.office.com/e/hsUZ3FHdMw?origin=lprLink
All welcome, and to join us for lunch afterwards.
In this event we will introduce the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries, providing information on the types of roles available, the skills needed and ideas on how you can build experience There will be opportunities to ask questions.
Professor Guy Thwaites University of Oxford https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/team/guy-thwaites
During this forum speakers from Bodleian Open Scholarship Support and across Oxford will discuss current changes in the field of open scholarship. Including subjects like data, open access, open monographs, copyright and more. It is advised that attendees of the forum have previously attended the Fundamentals and Logistics courses to improve understanding. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
Are you planning to present a poster at an upcoming conference, meeting or symposium? This introductory session will provide you with some top tips on how to create a poster presentation which will help you to communicate your research project and data effectively. There will be guidance on formatting, layout, content, use of text, references and images, as well as advice on printing and presenting your poster. This session will also provide help with locating resources such as templates, free-to-use images and poster guidelines. By the end of this classroom-based session you will be able to: evaluate the effectiveness of templates, formatting, text and images; and plan, prepare and present your poster. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Researcher and research student
Does the democratisation of news and information sources help or hinder actual democracy? How do we tackle disinformation (hostile states, fraudsters or other bad actors) and balance resisting misinformation with protecting free speech?
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is responsible for assessing most medicines launched in England, diagnostics, devices and digital products and creating clinical guidelines that identify the most clinically and cost-effective care. We’ll discuss how NICE assesses clinically and cost-effective care, including an interactive session where we work through different scenarios, such as a very expensive medicine for a few people and a very cheap medicine for many people. Finally, we’ll end with what kinds of innovations NICE are seeing now and anticipate in the near future, what they may mean for the health and care service, the practice of medicine and NICE assessment.
Are you looking for a streamlined approach to gathering, managing and citing your references? Join us for this interactive online session in which we introduce Zotero, a reference management tool that helps you to collect and manage references and insert them into your word-processor document as in-text citations or footnotes, as well as generating bibliographies. The demonstration will be on Windows although Zotero is also available for Mac and Linux. By the end of the session, you will understand: how Zotero can help you; how to add references to Zotero from a range of sources; how to manage your references; how to add in-text citations and/or footnotes to your documents; how to create bibliographies; and where to get help with Zotero. Please note that, whilst this session is mostly aimed at beginners, there will be a chance at the end to ask more specific questions about how to use Zotero. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Narrative CVs are being adopted by many funders, nationally and internationally, to give researchers the opportunity to showcase a wider range of skills and experience than is possible in a traditional academic CV; an example is the UKRI Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI). Writing a narrative CV requires a different way of thinking about and describing your skills, experience and contributions to research and innovation compared to a traditional CV. Writing your first narrative CV will take some time and effort; you might not be sure about what activities to include, and how to describe their quality, relevance, and your involvement in them. This presentation will try to demystify and simplify narrative CVs by providing advice, prompts and suggestions for how to write one. Speakers Mary Muers Research Culture Facilitator, MSD Kanza Basit Senior Research Facilitator, SSD Gavin Bird Head of Research Facilitation and Support, SOGE, SSD Susan Black, Careers Adviser, Oxford Careers Service Everyone welcome, please register to receive the TEAMS link for this event If you are a student or researcher with a CareerConnect account, please register "here":https://oxford.targetconnect.net/leap/event.html?id=22970&service=Careers%20Service All other staff register "here":https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=G96VzPWXk0-0uv5ouFLPke7xLB0LNIFKuA055EWF9ZtUOUhSTjVFMExHUzlVSkU1WFZER1JKTU9VTy4u, the joining link will be in the registration confirmation email
Unlock the full potential of your literature review with Scopus, a vital database for social sciences, medical sciences, and physical and life sciences. This interactive session will cover basic and advanced searching, highlighting features unique to Scopus and recent updates to the database. Ideal for new researchers and a great refresher for experienced researchers, with plenty of hands on searching and time for questions. By the end of the session you will be able to: construct simple and complex searches; navigate filters; understand effective search query techniques; save and export results; and extract further information from your results. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Beyond the dramatic and consequential attacks by the Trump administration, American higher education is under pressure to demonstrate its effectiveness in enhancing student success and employability. There has been criticism that students don’t learn enough, are disengaged, and are not getting value for money. This presentation presents the results of a recent study The Multi-Engagement Model: Understanding Diverse Pathways to Student Success at Research Universities that provides a unique data driven and holistic perspective on understanding the undergraduate experience at large U.S. public research-intensive universities. Leveraging 11 years of survey and institutional data collected by the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium, our research shows the significance and interconnectedness of various college experiences — academic engagement in and outside of classroom settings, research activities, extracurricular, civic, and career development — and that this results in distinct and diverse pathways to success. This research contradicts the narrative of students being academically adrift popular in the media, and offers a path for institutions to better understand the experience of students from diverse backgrounds, and to better articulate to stakeholders the robust nature of their educational enterprises. This study also found that student engagement across the areas we measured declined during the pandemic and had yet to fully recover in 2023. My co-authors and I also found inequities in experiences and opportunities for students from lower-income families and underrepresented groups.
Usually translated as the “admirable,” “noble,” or “fine,” to _kalon_ in Plato is generally parsed as “Beauty in itself” and counterposed to what is _poikilon_, the “ornamentation,” “embroidery,” “variety,” or “diversity” perceived by the senses. In _Hippias Major_ and other dialogs, by contrast, including in the context of the democratic souls and constitution under scrutiny in _Republic_, kalon appears to be embedded with poikilia. This lecture argues for a phenomenological understanding of beauty in Plato and explores the implications of this understanding for the dialogs’ political philosophy.
TBC
You’re invited to explore the History of Science Museum after dark through guided creative writing. Everyone’s welcome, from history, science, or writing buffs to complete newbies in any or all of those. In this workshop you will: - Discover the astrolabes up close with a museum curator - Take part in a writing workshop with a published poet and experienced teacher to create something that delights you - Collaborate in a friendly supportive atmosphere to create a poem about the museum’s astrolabes – no experience necessary All in the magical space of the museum’s vaulted Basement Gallery and sweeping Upper Gallery, after dark.
COURSE DETAILS Topics will include presenting your CV, how to approach employers, writing covering letters and interview skills. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand: How to improve your CV. How to approach employers. How to write a covering letter. How to plan for an interview. How to interview well.
COURSE DETAILS The supervisory relationship is key to the success of your DPhil and we know that positive and effective relationships contribute to the timely completion of the doctorate. As with many things, the more you put into the relationship with your supervisor, the more you will benefit from it. There is much you can do to be proactive and play and active role in the relationship. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of the session participants will be able to: Find information about University, divisional and departmental regulations and the supervisory relationship. Be aware of the student's areas of responsibility in the relationship. Take appropriate responsibility within the relationship. Develop a range of skills and strategies to manage relationships effectively. Find and make appropriate use of additional sources of help and support.
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This session will help you to understand what IP is, who "owns" it, and the things to think about when you think you have created IP. Whether you're an undergraduate, masters or DPhil student, or Staff at the University of Oxford, it is important to understand your rights and responsibilities when it comes to intellectual property (IP). This session will help you to understand what IP actually is, who "owns" it, and the things to think about when you think you have created IP. Case studies will also be presented to help explain the University's policy. Come prepared to ask any IP related questions in the second half of the session, where our expert presenters will give you the official University answers to any of your queries. In collaboration with Research Services, Oxford University Innovation, and The Careers Service. The talk will be from 12:30-1:30pm. If you have specific questions, the presenters will be available to answer questions until 2pm. Note: The sign up is through Inkpath, you will need to create an Inkpath account to sign up if you’ve not already got one.
The 3 Minute Thesis competition challenges doctoral candidates to present a compelling spoken presentation on their research topic and its significance in just three minutes to a non-specialist audience. This course helps you prepare for the competition and ensure that you have the best chance possible to represent Oxford nationally.
For our next AI/ML workshop we will be joined by Dr Lei Clifton, Programme Director of the MSc in Applied Digital Health, Primary Care Department, Dr Joshua Fieggen, DPhil candidate, CHI Lab, Department of Engineering Science and Greg Simond, DPhil student, NDPH. Title: Combining Machine Learning (ML) with Medical Statistics - A Worked Example When: Thursday 26 February Time: 11:00 – 12:30 Venue: OxPop Seminar room 0 11:00 – 12:00 – Presentation and Q&A 12:00 – 12:30 – Optional coding session to show pipeline work (Python) In person only Overview: As larger biomedical datasets emerge, it becomes increasingly challenging to identify potentially relevant features using only conventional approaches. In this workshop we will demonstrate how one can combine machine learning (ML) with classical statistical models for disease predictions, using worked examples on the UK Biobank. Who it’s for: Any researcher curious about combining AI and statistics. No coding required for the presentation. An optional coding session after presentation to show how we have implemented this approach in our published papers. Bios: Lei Clifton: Programme Director of the MSc in Applied Digital Health, Primary Care Department. Lei has 20+ years of experience at the intersection of medical statistics and AI. As Programme Director of the MSc in Applied Digital Health, she specialises in foundation models and large language models for healthcare, bringing expertise from engineering, machine learning, and medical statistics. Joshua Fieggen: DPhil candidate, Computational Health Informatics (CHI) Lab. Josh is a medical doctor, and DPhil candidate from the CHI Lab in the Engineering Department. He has an MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and his DPhil has focused on applications of ML and generative deep learning to the plasma proteomics data in UK Biobank. Gregory Simond: MD-DPhil candidate in Cancer Science, conducting his doctoral research in the UK Biobank group at the Big Data Institute. His research focuses on developing multi-modal machine learning approaches to improve early cancer detection and risk prediction in the general population. Registration- https://forms.office.com/e/ddQhg7pG2N?origin=lprLink
Revealing the cellular impact of immune-mediated disease-associated (IMD) variants requires measuring their effects within the dynamic gene expression and phenotypic programmes that shape immune cell function. In this seminar, I will present our recent work, which resolves context-specific eQTLs across T cell activation states and reveals how polygenic IMD risk converges on discrete, activation-dependent gene programmes. These analyses uncover regulatory axes that link genetic architecture to effector function and disentangle proliferation, differentiation, and metabolic rewiring to pinpoint key contexts in which disease variants exert their impact. I will then introduce TGlow, our high-content imaging platform that profiles T cell morphology at scale, enabling us to capture phenotypes beyond transcript abundance. By quantifying morphodynamic trajectories during activation and exhaustion, TGlow provides an orthogonal layer for studying variant-relevant biology, allowing us to map how genetic- and drug-induced perturbations, reshape T cell states. Together, these approaches outline our strategy for decoding IMD variant effects through large-scale multimodal profiling of gene regulation, cellular programs, and functional phenotypes.
What secrets about sanctions evasion are hidden in trade data? Who fears secondary sanctions - and who shrugs them off? And why has Russia’s pivot toward the Chinese renminbi accelerated so dramatically under Western restrictions? This talk explores these questions in the context of the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Abstract tbc ———————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Christof is Assistant Professor of Social Innovation at the Emlyon Business School. ———————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register.
The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri in a massive car bomb in Beirut on Valentine’s Day 2005 sends shockwaves through the Middle East. With a rolodex of international contacts, the murder of this billionaire-turned-statesman known as ‘Mr Lebanon’ triggers a massive investigation. But the terrorists behind his murder have done everything to hide their tracks. With all the twists of a dark conspiracy thriller, this feature documentary follows the complex investigation to track down his killers.
Critics of neoliberalism claim that in the final decades of the 20th century ‘homo politicus’ was replaced by ‘homo economicus’. This lecture challenges the primacy of either of these imaginings of the human condition and draws attention to other burgeoning identities – the very word ‘identity’ being one of them – supported by the language of social science.
Abstract The idea that worlds around other stars could develop and maintain environments hospitable to life, in a way like our planet, has captivated scientists for centuries. Yet, to investigate this question, we must recognize and characterize the key conditions that make a planet habitable. Earth ― the only planet on which life is known to have originated ― is unique in many ways, including the presence of abundant surface water, a large moon, a long-lived magnetic field, and plate tectonics. Yet, which of these and other characteristics are essential for its long-term habitability? A major challenge is that habitability factors vary because they are time-dependent due to changes in the Sun’s energy and our planet’s chemical, thermal and (thereby) physical and tectonic evolution. Plate tectonics regulates interior temperatures, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and surface temperatures. Subduction enables recycling of volatile elements between the surface and the mantle and is probably essential for sustaining planetary habitability. Because the questions of when, why and how plate tectonics started are debated, an improved understanding of Earth’s evolution is critically needed. It is not necessarily obvious that key habitability factors such as plate tectonics will persist once started, a dynamo-driven magnetic field can stop and perhaps re-emerge later through inner-core nucleation, and the Earth’s axial tilt may also become unstable as the Moon is moving away. Ultimately, all planets lose their habitability, and in about two billion years when the Sun’s energy has increased by 15%, Earth will enter a moist greenhouse, followed by runaway evaporation of the oceans. An in-depth knowledge of Earth-like habitability, and how our planet sustained conditions for life’s evolution over geological timescales, is critical for identifying habitable planets orbiting other stars that potentially are, or have been, habitable around other stars.
How do organisms survive when food becomes scarce? My lab investigates the extraordinary metabolic strategies evolved by animals that thrive under extreme nutrient limitation. A central model in our work is the Mexican cavefish Astyanax mexicanus, a species that has repeatedly colonized lightless, nutrient-poor caves and evolved remarkable adaptations to starvation. These fish exhibit metabolic phenotypes that resemble human disease states—such as insulin resistance, extreme hyperglycemia, and fat accumulation—yet remain healthy and long-lived. Using tools ranging from transgenic lines, gene editing, and organoid models to multi-omics and cell-based assays, we explore how cavefish rewire classical metabolic pathways. Our work reveals how evolutionary processes can turn pathological states into adaptive solutions, shedding light on fundamental questions in energy balance, resilience, and longevity. In this talk, I will present recent findings from our group, including cellular and systemic adaptations to starvation, evolved shifts in autophagy and sugar metabolism, and emerging parallels to mammalian fasting biology. By combining evolutionary biology with molecular physiology, we aim to uncover new principles of metabolic resilience with relevance far beyond the cave.
Curious about using AI to find research papers? Not sure how to properly reference GenAI and avoid plagiarism? This beginner-friendly workshop introduces three GenAI tools (ChatGPT, Elicit, and Research Rabbit), showing how they can support information discovery and analysis. Designed for those new to AI, this practical session will allow you to independently experiment with these tools and participate in group discussions to explore their strengths, limitations, and suitability for different tasks. By the end of this session, you will be able to: explain what AI means and some key terms; differentiate between several categories of AI tools; describe how some GenAI tools can be used to discover information, including their strengths, limitations, and best practices; critique GenAI tools and their outputs at an introductory level using evaluative criteria; and state the University’s policies on AI, and avoid plagiarism by creating citations for AI-generated content. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher and research student
We study the information content of bids in auctions about the distribution of values. Which auction formats provide better information about the value distribution? Our main result shows that among a large class of standard auctions (e.g., kth-price, all-pay), the first-price auction is (Lehmann) most informative.
In this paper we study a class of weighted estimands, which we define as parameters that can be expressed as weighted averages of the underlying heterogeneous treatment effects. The popular ordinary least squares (OLS), two-stage least squares (2SLS), and two-way fixed effects (TWFE) estimands are all special cases within our framework. Our focus is on answering two questions concerning weighted estimands. First, under what conditions can they be interpreted as the average treatment effect for some (possibly latent) subpopulation? Second, when these conditions are satisfied, what is the upper bound on the size of that subpopulation, either in absolute terms or relative to a target population of interest? We argue that this upper bound provides a valuable diagnostic for empirical research. When a given weighted estimand corresponds to the average treatment effect for a small subset of the population of interest, we say its internal validity is low. Our paper develops practical tools to quantify the internal validity of weighted estimands.
Patents and standards are a valuable source of technical information relevant to the fields of engineering, materials sciences, and more. Together, they provide approved rules and guidelines whilst helping to protect inventions and innovative ideas. They can, however, be tricky to find. Join this session to find out more about what patents and standards are, why they might be useful for your research and how to find them in specific databases. By the end of this session, you will: know what a patent is and where to find it; know what a standard is and where to find it; and be able to reference patents and standards. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Professor Brian Angus University of Oxford https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/team/brian-angus
This talk outlines how mathematical modelling can inform sustainable public health policy when integrated with other disciplines, illustrated through work on Cystic Echinococcosis, a parasitic zoonosis. I present practical examples that bring together transmission models, field epidemiology, veterinary practice, social science and economic assessment to co produce interventions that are feasible, acceptable and maintainable over time. Emphasising a One Health perspective, the session shows how integrated approaches improve surveillance, target control measures, and clarify trade offs and uncertainties for decision makers. Attendees will see how collaborative, people centred modelling generates operational recommendations that are more likely to be adopted and sustained in real world settings.
We develop and quantify a novel growth theory in which economic activity endogenously shifts from material production to quality improvements. Consumers derive utility from goods with differing environmental footprints: necessities are material-intensive and polluting, while luxuries are more service-based and emit less. Innovation can be directed toward either material productivity or product quality. Because demand for luxuries is more sensitive to quality, the economy gradually becomes “weightless”: growth is driven by quality improvements, services become the dominant employment sector, and material production stabilizes at a finite level. This structural transformation enables rising living standards with declining environmental intensity, providing an endogenous path to degrowth in material output without compromising economic progress. Policy can accelerate the transition, but its burden is uneven, falling more heavily on the poor than on the rich.
Are you looking to learn about the ways in which to transmit scientific ideas and make your research accessible to a non-specialist audience through a variety of mediums? This session will serve as an introduction to science communication and how it can be successfully incorporated into our roles. By the end of this session you will be able to: define science communication and provide a list of examples; explain why science communication is important for both our CPD and the public; and list ways in which we can all get involved in science communication. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Researcher and research student
The Autism Long-term Outcomes Study (ALTOS) examined adolescents and young adults who were diagnosed with autism early in development according to gold standard expert clinical evaluation, who currently have no symptoms. In prior work, we described the unique brain networks that were involved in language processing in such a population, in comparison with individuals with a current autism diagnosis and those without a history of autism. This talk will describe results of our current behavioral and fMRI studies of language outcomes and their association with other cognitive and communication abilities as well as mental health and quality of life.
Governments are spending a lot of money, including on debt interest, but most reforms cost money and society needs to pay for them. How and what consequences does this have for government planning?
For generations, many Christians have imagined the Bible’s story as one in which we leave earth behind and “go to heaven” when we die. But, as Tom Wright has spent decades patiently explaining, from Surprised by Hope to his latest major work God’s Homecoming, that is simply not the scriptural narrative. The Bible does not give us a tale of souls escaping upward; it gives us the astonishing announcement that God intends to come and dwell with us. In this special Oxford evening, Tom Wright will guide us through the central biblical theme that has been hidden in plain sight: God’s longing to make creation his home. Drawing on careful historical scholarship, robust biblical exegesis, and the earthy, hope-filled tone familiar from his recent conversations on the Ask NT Wright Anything podcast, Tom will show how the whole sweep of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation moves towards one destination: the renewal of all things through God’s personal presence. Following the taped interview, there will be a time for audience questions, followed by a reception, book sale and signing. All are welcome!
COURSE DETAILS The course will include: Critique of readability in relevant papers. Use of tenses in academic papers. Writing with impact. Concise writing. Grammar and proof reading. Scientific table and chart technique. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of the session participants will be able to: Develop understanding of the characteristics of scientific writing; write in simple, clear and concise scientific English. Develop knowledge of how to write grammatically correct English. Improve proof reading skills; organise the sections of a scientific paper effectively. Develop a scientific argument with appropriate language that conveys the message effectively. Make effective use of charts and tables.
Are you baffled by open, confused by embargoes? Does the mention of the colour gold or green catapult you into a realm of perplexed irritation? Come to this session, where we’ll break down open access and all its many jargon terms, confusing publishing structures and hint at the advantages you can reap by publishing open. In this session you’ll learn: what is open access? Key terms – Gold, Green, Article Processing Charges; where to get more information and help; where to look for open access material; and useful tools to assist you in publishing open access. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
Which firms drive aggregate productivity growth? A strong form of Gibrat's Law says that firm growth rates are iid, so that their expected contribution is proportional to their sales share. In contrast, we document that firms with high price-earnings ratios tend to see increases in their subsequent earnings relative to sales, which we interpret as rents from ideas. We construct an endogenous growth model with shocks to firm innovation step-sizes and R&D efficiency and calibrate it to match patterns in the data. The model implies that growth would be much lower, even with the same innovative effort, if firms had the same step sizes. The model can be used to infer expected growth contributions of individual firms (such as members of the Magnificent Seven) and individual sectors (such as AI firms). We find that the share of growth coming from the smallest listed firms substantially exceeds their 10\% sales share, whereas the largest firms account for less than their 10% sales share.
Since the summer 2020 racial reckoning in the U.S., which reverberated across the world, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts have come under political scrutiny from conservative policy actors. Prior to the 2025 Trump administration’s federal anti-DEI policy stance, anti-DEI action was created and crafted at the state level. From 2021 to 2024, hundreds of legislative and administrative actions were introduced and/or passed that limited speech, curriculum, and programming designed to create inclusive and equitable college environments for students, faculty, and staff. This presentation is based on a national qualitative study of 30 diversity officers responding to pre-Trump administration anti-DEI actions. Results will focus on organizational responses to various anti-DEI actions, and a second set of findings will highlight the personal consequences of such actions for diversity officers. While this is a specific U.S.-based study, anti-DEI actions have transcontinental foundations and reach. Implications for future research and action for higher education leaders and scholars will be discussed.
This paper investigates whether severe economic hardship undermines preferences for honesty. We use controlled, incentivized measures of cheating for private benefit in a large, diverse sample of 5,676 Kenyans, exploiting three complementary sources of variation: experimentally manipulated monetary incentives, randomized increase in salience of own financial situation, and the Covid‑19 income shock, exploiting randomized survey timing as a natural experiment with respondents surveyed before and during the crisis. We find that severe economic hardship—marked by a 40% drop in monthly earnings— leads to a sharp increase in the prevalence of cheating, from 43% to 72%. Cheating behaviour is highly responsive to financial incentives and increases gradually with prolonged hardship. The effects are largest among the most economically impacted and are amplified when salience of own financial situation is experimentally increased. Predictable seasonal income fluctuations, in contrast, do not affect honesty. The results demonstrate that while most individuals exhibit a strong preference against cheating under normal conditions, severe economic hardship substantially erodes honesty.
'Contemporary Islamist Opposition in Morocco: Resisting Inclusion and Moderation' offers an in-depth and yet-unexplored analysis of the evolution and actions of Moroccan Islamist association Justice and Spirituality (al-Adl wa-l-Ihsane). By examining its mobilisation structure, the book enhances the understanding of Islamism as an oppositional force in non-democratic regimes, with a particular focus on Morocco. Contrary to the common premises of inclusion–moderation theory, al-Adl wa-l-Ihsane has undergone a politicisation process but rejects political inclusion; it promotes street mobilisation but refuses to resort to violence. Despite its illegal status and disregard for the regime’s red lines, al-Adl wa-l-Ihsane remains highly relevant as an anti-establishment actor. Addressing these apparent contradictions broadens our understanding of inclusion–moderation approaches by introducing novel explanatory factors into the relationship between authoritarian regimes and Islamist opposition actors, including responses to shifts in opportunity structures and the effects of internal dynamics and learning mechanisms. It also deepens our knowledge of al-Adl wa-l-Ihsane, Morocco’s largest opposition actor, which nevertheless remains largely understudied.
This lecture draws together the findings of the first five lectures to paint a different picture from the rationalist, transcendentalist, idealist, and universalist depiction of “Plato’s Theory of Forms” that dominates the history of political thought. Analyzing the co-implications of _eidos_, usually translated as “Form,” with _eidos_ as a “look” or “shape” grasped by the senses, the lecture develops an account of _democratic form_ that inhabits the spaces of opinion, appearance, and practice explored in the preceding lectures.
Please mark 4-5 March 2026 in your diary for the next IDEU Symposium. We will showcase the work of the IDEU researchers, especially our early and mid-career researchers, and will also have speakers from across Oxford who will discuss their recent work. It will be two days of excellent science and plenty of opportunities for networking, so please do join us! More details to follow in due course.
In this online workshop you will be shown the functionality of Zotero, which is a free-to-use software programme used to manage references and create bibliographies. Zotero will be demonstrated on a Windows PC but users of MacOS or Linux computers will be able to follow the demonstration. The workshop will cover: understanding the main features and benefits of Zotero; setting up a Zotero account; importing references from different sources into Zotero; organising your references in Zotero; inserting citations into documents; and creating a bibliography/reference list. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Taught student; Researcher and research student
The aim is to look at the development of regional identities within state structures since the late nineteenth century and how they linked to regional government bodies or other regional organisations designed to promote the interests of the region, for example economic development, tourism, agriculture and preserving regional cultures.
We all decide our own paths in space and time, and we all have intuitive expectations as to how space and time behave. Before relativity space and time were just a blank canvas; an empty stage where events can occur. Our intuitions about space and time are still grounded in this notion, but relativity tells us that this is just a glimpse of a far grander picture. In this talk, we’ll discover how space and time are woven together to form the dynamic fabric of space-time, and explore how relativity explains some of the last great questions of classical physics. We’ll discuss how relativity not only had a seismic effect on the history of the 20th century, but also provides a unique perspective on our own path in space-time. As we study phenomena in the wider Universe beyond the distance-, speed- and time-scales of human experience, we encounter a wide range of relativistic phenomena in ‘extreme’ environments and in the fabric of the Universe itself. We will explore some of these situations that present a compelling validation of Einstein’s theory.
EndNote is a desktop-based reference management tool for Windows and Mac users. It helps you to build libraries of references and insert them into Word documents as in-text citations or footnotes, and to automatically generate bibliographies. This online introduction to EndNote is open to all University of Oxford students, researchers and staff and teaches you how to use the software so that you can effectively manage your references. Please note that we also run a face-to-face EndNote workshop. Please check the iSkills course listing for availability. The workshop will cover: what EndNote can do for you; adding references to EndNote from a range of sources; managing your references in an EndNote library; adding in-text citations and/or footnotes to your essays and papers; and creating bibliographies. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student
Olink’s mission is to accelerate proteomics together with the scientific community, to understand real-time biology and gain actionable insights into human health and disease. Their innovative solutions deliver highly sensitive and accurate protein quantification, giving scientists the power to investigate complex biological processes with precision.
Engagement describes the ways in which we can share our research and its value by interacting with wider public audiences, generating mutual benefit. In this introductory session tailored to those new to engagement, we look at what public engagement is and some of the reasons why you might want to do it. We’ll highlight the multitude of different approaches you can take, and provide tips on getting started and where to get support.
Abstract tbc ————————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Milena is Professor of Sustainable Welfare at the University of Leeds. ————————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register
We are pleased to announce the upcoming Winter Lecture Series which will take place between January and March 2026. Across five thought-provoking lectures, special guests will discuss a range of subjects, with topics to be announced soon. Each lecture will be hosted at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. Join us on Thursday 5th March when writer and organic food grower Claire Ratinon will deliver her lecture.
The Chief Medical Officer has confirmed that attendance at the Surgical Grand Rounds can count toward internal CPD, with 1 point awarded per hour. Please note that in-person attendance is required, and you will need to sign the attendance register. All members of the University and NHS clinical staff are welcome. Please email Tarryn Ching (tarryn.ching@nds.ox.ac.uk) if you would like to attend online.
A workshop outlining some of the key principles to bear in mind when working with sensitive or restricted research; whether collected yourself or obtained from a third-party source such as a data archive. Issues of confidentiality, informed consent, cybersecurity and data management will be covered. Examples of scenarios or concerns drawn from the research of participants are particularly welcome. The role of support services at Oxford will also be outlined and in particular the role of the Bodleian Data Librarian who will lead the session. Follow up consultations with the Data librarian or other subject consultants are also offered. Topics to be covered include: key best practice principles when working with sensitive or restricted research data; issues around creating original data; informed consent agreements; maximising the usage potential of data during and after a project; strengths and weaknesses of anonymisation, data blurring and similar techniques; key strategies for protecting data including encryption, embargoes, future vetting and access restrictions; and obligation put on researchers by legislation and research partners. Intended audience: taught student; researcher and research student; staff
Effective application of mathematical models to interpret biological data and make accurate predictions often requires that model parameters are identifiable. Requisite to identifiability from a finite amount of noisy data is that model parameters are first structurally identifiable: a mathematical question that establishes whether multiple parameter values may give rise to indistinguishable model outputs. Approaches to assess structural identifiability of deterministic ordinary differential equation models are well-established, however tools for the assessment of the increasingly relevant stochastic and spatial models remain in their infancy. I provide in this talk an introduction to structural identifiability, before presenting new frameworks for the assessment of stochastic and partial differential equations. Importantly, I discuss the relevance of our methodology to model selection, and more the practical and aptly named practical identifiability of parameters in the context of experimental data. Finally, I conclude with a brief discussion of future research directions and remaining open questions.
Throughout its life the ocean crust is a key boundary between Earth’s interior and the oceans/atmosphere. Hydrothermal circulation of seawater-derived fluids through the cooling and aging crust results in chemical exchange between Earth’s interior and oceans and atmosphere, playing an important role in long-term biogeochemical cycles. Altered ocean crust provides a time-integrated record of its geochemical exchange with seawater. Furthermore, hydrothermal minerals formed from ridge flank fluids record the evolving chemistry of the overlying oceans – itself an integrator of a range of Earth processes. I will present an overview of how scientific ocean drilling experiments across ridge flanks contribute to our understanding of the processes that control ridge flank hydrothermal exchanges, the role these exchanges play in global geochemical cycles, and the extent to which they record and respond to wider changes in the Earth system. In particular, the South Atlantic Transect (IODP Expeditions 390/393), designed to recover the upper crust and overlying sediments across the western flank of the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge to investigate hydrothermal aging and microbiological evolution of the ocean crust, and the paleoceanographic evolution of the overlying South Atlantic.
Megakaryocytes are one of the rarest, yet largest, cells in the human body and have huge synthetic capabilities - with a handful of megakaryocytes releasing billions of platelets into our bloodstream every day. To achieve this, they undergo a unique form of the cell cycle that results is successive rounds of whole genome doubling (WGD) and an average ploidy of 16N. They then give rise to platelets - with no nucleus at all. This talk will cover two projects: The first - focusing on these fascinating and unusual aspects of their cell biology. Firstly, we performed a detailed interrogation of the megakaryocyte genome to unpick how megakaryocytes bypass cell cycle checkpoints and tolerate whole genome duplication while retaining p53 responses to other triggers, and examined the consequences for the genome integrity. Unexpectedly, we uncovered a conserved tolerance mechanism shared between megakaryocytes and WGD+, p53-intact solid tumours. In the second part of the talk, I will outline our recent discovery that despite lacking a cell nucleus, platelets contain a repertoire of DNA fragments acquired by sequestration of cell free DNA during peripheral circulation, including free fetal and cancer cell-derived DNA. SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY Beth is a Professor of Haematology and Group Leader at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford. Her group has two research areas - identifying targetable disease mechanisms in myeloid blood cancers, and studying the cell biology of megakaryocytes and platelets, and their roles in cancer. Beth spends 20% of her time in the clinic, including running clinical trials with a particular interest in emerging mutation-selective targeted therapies for patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms, and has a national role in the delivery of clinical research as Chair of the Blood Cancer UK Research Network MPN Subgroup. Outside of work, she enjoys adventures with her family and running around beautiful Oxford with her overly-enthusiastic but surprisingly obedient cockapoo.
The International Commission on the History of Mathematics are holding a meeting to celebrate honours recently awarded to historians of mathematics. A book of abstracts can be found here: https://www.bshm.ac.uk/sites/default/files/international_commission_on_the_history_of_mathematicsmeetin_0.pdf, and you can register for the meeting here: https://www.bshm.ac.uk/registration-ichm-meeting-celebrate-recent-honours. This event is followed by the annual Research in Progress meeting of the BSHM on 7 March, also in Oxford: find out more here: https://www.bshm.ac.uk/events/ichm-celebration-honours-recently-awarded-historians-mathematics *Programme* 14:00-14:45 Ursula Martin (University of Oxford) – DBE 2025 _Hidden figures: the women who made Oxford computing_ 14:45-15:30 Henning Heller (University of Bonn) – ICHM Montucla Prize 2025 _Mellen Woodman Haskell (1863–1948): An American mathematics student of the Wanderlust generation_ 15:30-16:00 Break 16:00-16:45 David E. Rowe (University of Mainz) _What Riemann learned from Gauss: When and How_ 16:45-17:30 Jan Hogendijk (University of Utrecht) _Applied mathematics in Ottoman Palestine: The treatise by Taqi al-Din on sundials_ 17:30-18:30 Drinks reception
*Kiera Vaclavik* (Department of comparative Literature & Culture, QMUL) and *Sophie Ratcliffe* (Faculty of English, Oxford) will talk about how their work crosses the boundaries of childhood histories and literary studies, opening up a wider discussion about interdisciplinarity in childhood studies. All welcome, and to join us for lunch afterwards.
Constitutions like the US’s were deliberately designed to slow down decision-making and put ‘grit in the system’ (and England’s did so organically). Tech can speed things up dramatically with real-time polling and electronic voting, and facilitates a huge increase in immediate voter-to-legislator contact. Is that a boon for good decision-making or a challenge? Are there implications for parties and parliaments?
Disputes between colleagues can have a significant impact on performance and wellbeing as well as affecting patient experience and safety. This course is designed to help healthcare professionals understand how and why conflicts arise within and between teams, as well as what they can do to try and resolve issues. This course aims to help participants: understand the causes and impact of colleague-to-colleague conflict in a healthcare context appreciate different types of conflict personalities identify how conflict develops learn de-escalation strategies
The way we work and interact with our peers and wider networks, has a huge influence on research outputs and outcomes. This workshop explores a set of core skills and mindsets to help you thrive in research and positively influence your working environment and teams. You will also be able to share your lived experience with peers and participate in focused discussions. COURSE DETAILS A powerful workshop for senior postdocs, aspiring PIs, new PIs, and research group leaders wanting to increase their impact and agility at a strategic time. Join this highly participative, in-person workshop, facilitated by Natacha Wilson, to explore three core skills and mindsets to thrive in research and positively influence your ecosystem: Developing and nurturing effective interdisciplinary and multi-sectorial collaborations for impact. Embracing openness and visibility in research across specific stakeholder groups to increase reach (including open science practices). Boosting creativity and innovation in your research project and team to overcome challenges. LEARNING OUTCOMES At the end of the workshop you will be able to: Prioritise areas supporting your own personal development. Identify relevant frameworks and guidelines. Share your experience with peers and reflect on best practice.
Are you planning to present a poster at an upcoming conference, meeting or symposium? This introductory session will provide you with some top tips on how to create a poster presentation which will help you to communicate your research project and data effectively. There will be guidance on formatting, layout, content, use of text, references and images, as well as advice on printing and presenting your poster. This session will also provide help with locating resources such as templates, free-to-use images and poster guidelines. By the end of this online session you will be able to: evaluate the effectiveness of templates, formatting, text and images; and plan, prepare and present your poster. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Researcher and research student
Higher Education in the UK and worldwide faces multiple challenges and calls for reform. Some people argue for a higher level of participation, some for less, and some for more focus on employer needs, some for more attention to the wider self-formation of students. At the same time, there are deepening concerns about the sustainability of an economy based on over-consumption and trust in knowledge amid epistemic fracture. In this talk, Tim Blackman sets out why the dominant qualification in the sector – the full-time, often residential, honours degree – is a cause of many of the issues higher education and society face on these fronts. Past policy failures point to a need for a radical rethink, including limiting higher education providers’ freedom to design their own courses and a complete overhaul of how they are accountable for their contribution to a sustainable economy and rebuilding trust in knowledge.
TBC
Does public sector employment make graduates less likely to join anti-regime protests? Recent scholarship argues yes, with consequences for bottom-up democratization in late-developing economies with expansive public and higher education sectors. This paper examines whether this thesis travels to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We find that well-educated public sector employees were actually more likely to join anti-regime protests in Algeria and Egypt, while we estimate null effects for state dependency in Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, and Tunisia. Supplementary analyses show that educated public sector employees who protested in Algeria – a critical case for the state-dependency argument – prioritized political rights and grievances over economic considerations. Importantly, these preferences were not visible in surveys from the pre-protest period. The findings put bounds on the external validity of the state middle class thesis, caution against inferring future protest participation from attitudinal data, and identify political conditions when the state middle class may suddenly become more protest prone.
LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand more about: What experience and characteristics you need to have to gain a fellowship. The application process. How to work with University’s systems and procedures to optimise your application and its chance of success. You will have an opportunity to practice interviewing/being interviewed for fellowship applications.
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This popular day seminar provides an ideal opportunity for practitioners to update their current immunisation knowledge and learn the latest news on the topic of vaccination. Our target audience consists of (but is not limited to) practice nurses, health visitors, school nurses, community nurses and general practitioners. Click here to for the full programme: https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/events/2026-imms-seminar Programme highlights: • Determinants of future health with Dr James Gilchrist, Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases & Immunology • Communicating the importance of maternal vaccination programmes with Professor Chrissie Jones, Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity, University of Southampton • Chickenpox and Shingles vaccination with Dr Gayatri Amirthalingam, Immunisation and Vaccine Preventable Diseases, UKHSA • Advantages and disadvantages of higher valent pneumococcal vaccines with Professor Stefan Flasche Einstein-BUA Strategic Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics and Global Health, CharitéCenter for Global Health, Berlin Click here to register – https://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk/product-catalogue/paediatrics/events/ovg-immunisation-seminar-2026-hcps
Designed for research staff who are considering their next career move—whether within Oxford, within academia more broadly, or in other sectors. This interactive workshop supports researchers in navigating their career development with greater confidence and clarity. It offers participants the space to reflect on their ambitions, explore alternative futures, and engage in structured peer discussions to share insights and challenges. Participants will use design-thinking approaches to consider different career scenarios. The session then moves into goal setting and peer advice-sharing, helping researchers to build practical short-term plans and identify supportive resources and networks. Participants are introduced to key tools and services available through Oxford to support their development as they prepare for their next step, whatever that may be. By the end of this session, participants will be able to: * Articulate multiple possible career directions, including both preferred and alternative pathways. * Identify actionable short-term goals that support career progress. * Reflect on and assess their professional development to date, including skills, motivations, and values. Everyone welcome, please register to receive the TEAMS link for this event If you are a student or researcher with a CareerConnect account, please register "here":https://oxford.targetconnect.net/leap/event.html?id=23006&service=Careers%20Service All other staff register "here":https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=G96VzPWXk0-0uv5ouFLPke7xLB0LNIFKuA055EWF9ZtUNFk4NDEwVkVLWklPNDc5WjZKWFU2VEMwWC4u, the joining link will be in the registration confirmation email
Abstract tbc ————————————————————————————————————————————— Speaker bio: Dr Liam Beiser-McGrath is an Associate Professor in International Social and Public Policy in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. ————————————————————————————————————————————— Booking is required for people outside of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI). DSPI Members do not need to register
We are joined by Alister McGrath, speaking on a cross-section of some of his most well known areas, Science and Religion, and C.S Lewis. Interviewed by Ruth Jackson co-host of Premier Unbelievable's The CS Lewis Podcast , Alister will be speaking to us about his newest publication, followed by a time of audience questions, refreshments, and selling initial release copies of the book. About the event Alister McGrath’s Science and Religion in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis offers the first comprehensive exploration of Lewis’s perspectives on the interplay between science and religion. Written by a globally recognized expert on both Lewis and the science-religion dialogue, this work offers an original and penetrating analysis of Lewis’s views on the roles that science and religion play in humanity’s quest for meaning and significance. This study emphasizes the vital, constructive role of imagination—not just the analytical function of reason—in shaping an authentic “model of the universe.” It breaks new ground by investigating Lewis’s apologetic use of scientific concepts and methods, particularly the idea of identifying the “best explanation” or “best model” of our universe. This book serves as an essential introduction to a crucial yet often overlooked dimension of Lewis’s thought and its relevance to the life of faith today. The evening continues with a drinks reception, book sale and signing. All are welcome, and booking will be essential!
We are pleased to announce the upcoming Winter Lecture Series which will take place between January and March 2026. Across five thought-provoking lectures, special guests will discuss a range of subjects, with topics to be announced soon. Each lecture will be hosted at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. Join us on Thursday 12th March when Plantsman and horticultural educationalist Fergus Garrett will deliver his lecture.
Everything you have been taught about Turing patterns is wrong! (Well, not everything, but qualifying statements tend to weaken a punchy first sentence). Turing patterns are universally used to generate and understand patterns across a wide range of biological phenomena. They are wonderful to work with from a theoretical, simulation and application point of view. However, they have a paradoxical problem of being too easy to produce generally, whilst simultaneously being heavily dependent on the details. In this talk I demonstrate how to fix known problems such as small parameter regions and sensitivity, but then highlight a new set of issues that arise from usually overlooked issues, such as boundary conditions, initial conditions, and domain shape. Although we’ve been exploring Turing’s theory for longer than I’ve been alive, there’s still life in the old (spotty) dog yet.
This paper presents a novel application of graph neural networks for modeling and estimating network heterogeneity. Network heterogeneity is a concept characterizing the dependence of an individual’s outcome or decision on their diverse local network scenarios. Graph neural networks are powerful tools for studying this dependence. We delineate the convergence rate of the graph neural networks estimator, as well as its applicability in semiparametric causal inference with heterogeneous treatment effects. The finite-sample performance of our estimator is evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations. In an empirical setting related to microfinance program participation, we apply the new estimator to examine the average treatment effects and outcomes of counterfactual policies, and to propose a Pareto frontier of strategies for selecting the initial recipients of program information in social networks.
We study the design of procurement contracts when the buyer faces uncertainty about both the value of the good and the seller’s cost. The buyer holds a conjecture— based on a model estimated or calibrated from past data—but does not fully trust it. They first identify all worst-case optimal mechanisms, which maximize the buyer’s guaranteed payoff across a set of plausible value and cost specifications. Among these, the buyer then selects the mechanism that maximizes their expected payoff under their conjecture. We show that robustness leads the buyer to procure larger quantities from the least efficient sellers and smaller quantities from those with intermediate costs, relative to the optimal mechanisms under full trust in the model. Finally, we apply our framework to monopoly regulation and identify conditions under which quantity regulation dominates price regulation.
Are you preparing a poster presentation for an upcoming conference, meeting or symposium? This interactive session, or ‘poster clinic’, will include a group discussion of different examples of poster presentations, as well as an opportunity to present your own draft of your poster presentation to your fellow attendees. It is expected that the small group of peers in attendance will provide feedback and respectful comments on each other’s work. By the end of this classroom-based session you will be able to: evaluate the effectiveness of your poster presentation and others; and summarise the content of your poster concisely in preparation for a conference. Intended audience: Medicine and NHS; Researcher and research student
Are you looking to learn about the ways in which to transmit scientific ideas and make your research accessible to a non-specialist audience through a variety of mediums? This session will serve as an introduction to science communication and how it can be successfully incorporated into our roles. By the end of this session you will be able to: define science communication and provide a list of examples; explain why science communication is important for both our CPD and the public; and list ways in which we can all get involved in science communication. Intended audience: medicine and NHS; taught student; researcher and research student
COURSE DETAILS By participating in exercises and discussions the attendees will learn how to review manuscripts quickly and effectively. Learning Outcomes By the end of this session participants will have: Developed an understanding of how the peer review system works. Developed an understanding of reveiwers' responsibilities. Awareness of what editors expect in a review; critically evaluate a manuscript. Developed an understanding of what to include in written comments to editors and authors. Developed practical methods for reviewing a manuscript quickly and effectively.
COURSE DETAILS Issues covered will include work-life balance, planning, prioritising, the need to differentiate between importance and urgency, and using a range of strategies and time-saving ideas. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand more about: A range of time saving techniques. Time wasting activities and learn how to deal with them. The difference between important and urgent. The importance of planning and setting time aside.
An introduction to the what, why and how of public involvement
A showcase of recent innovations in surgical practice and policy. For surgically inclined students, trainees and consultants. Save the date. Tickets available in December 2025. Call for abstracts for posters and presentations will open in December 2025.
Discover what elements of storytelling and narrative can be used to enhance a profession in the sciences. Craft compelling and moving stories from your experiences as a scientist using these key story elements: character, conflict, structure, metaphor and description. Apply these storytelling and narrative skills to working in the sciences: communicating research to a range of audiences (including publics, media and funding bodies); enhancing presentation skills; telling scientific stories across a range of media.
This session provides doctoral students in the third year and above with information about the viva, guidance on planning a proactive approach to it, and opportunities to practise. COURSE DETAILS The course will look at the rules and expectations of the viva exam and identify and practise practical ways to prepare. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of the session participants will be able to: Develop their awareness and understanding of the rules and expectations of the viva exam. Use tools and strategies to prepare for the exam. Develop an awareness of the examiner's perspective. Know what to expect of the exam.
John le Carré’s books famously explored the constantly shifting ethical borders “between us and them” in the murky world of espionage. This talk explores how the concept of spying differs in reality between authoritarian regimes—marked by internal security obsessions and paranoia—and democracies, and how it manifests itself in Putin’s Russia today. Andrei Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist in exile, a visiting fellow at King’s College London and the co-author of Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation (2025). Irina Borogan is a Russian investigative journalist in exile, a visiting fellow at King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence, and the co-author of Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation (2025).
The speaker will argue that as the most diverse employer in the country, the NHS faces the formidable task of not only becoming an inclusive and fair workplace for its employees but also promoting the fair treatment of patients in relation to healthcare access, experiences and outcomes. This workshop will begin by looking at five schisms or tensions being witnessed in relation to EDI, and how that might challenge work as healthcare professionals. It will then utilise the following three-step framework to develop a sense of self-awareness and presence that can promote cultures that build greater inclusion: Looking inward: Self-reflection Looking outward: Considering others Looking around: Mindful presence
Do you want to make sure that your work complies with the open access policy for REF 2029? In this focused online briefing, we will: step you through the changes and new requirements; provide links to further REF information and guidance; let you know where to find help at Oxford; and answer as many questions as we can. Ideally the 'Fundamentals of Open Access' course will have been attended. If you're not in a position to attend this course you can find similar information in our e-learning package (Digital induction to open access (MSD)) to work through prior to attending. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
Do you want to make sure that your work complies with the open access policy for REF 2029? In this focused online briefing, we will: step you through the changes and new requirements; provide links to further REF information and guidance; let you know where to find help at Oxford; and answer as many questions as we can. Intended audience: Researcher & research student; Staff
We are thrilled to invite you to attend the European Phagocyte Workshop taking place on March 23-25, 2026 at Keble College, in the historic and iconic city of Oxford, United Kingdom. This popular workshop series highlights the latest advances in phagocyte biology. We will bring together 250 researchers from across the globe, providing plenty of networking opportunities to encourage new connections and collaborations. Our keynote speakers will be Ana-Maria Lennon-Duménil (Institut Curie) and Steffen Massberg (Ludwig-Maximilians University) and expert speakers from varied career stages will discuss key topics including Phagocytosis & Efferocytosis; Paediatric Innate Immunity; Phagocyte Mechanosensing; Phagocyte Flavours; Evolution & Development of Phagocytes; Phagocytes in Infection; Phagocyte-stromal interactions in Disease. The programme offers opportunities for junior researchers to deliver oral presentations, flash talks and posters. Registration is now open, please register early to avoid disappointment. Visit the conference website for more details: https://www.phagocytes2026.com/ Key dates Early registration deadline: 1 December 2025 Abstract submission deadline: 9 January 2026 Standard registration deadline: 1 February 2026 Late registration deadline: 1 March 2026 Please direct any questions about the workshop and registration to Charlotte: phagocytes2026@kennedy.ox.ac.uk
Coaching skills can help you build positive and effective working relationships with all those you work with. Coaching is a highly impactful approach to people development and can support individuals to identify goals, gain insights into challenges, consider options and plan actions. They are a valuable asset to leaders and managers and can be useful in a range of workplace conversations, such as feedback, delegation and career development reviews.
How do you ensure that your research is credible, to yourself and others? Preregistration means specifying in advance your hypotheses, methods, and/or analyses for a study, in a time-stamped file that others can access. Many fields, including behavioural and medical sciences, are increasingly using preregistration or Registered Reports (where a journal accepts your study at preregistration phase, and guarantees to publish the results if you follow the registered plan). If you've never preregistered a study before (or even if you have!) it can be complicated and hard to do well. In this workshop, we will go over the 'what,' 'why,' and 'how' of preregistration, and after some practice exercises, you will start drafting your own preregistration. We will also discuss some of the common challenges of preregistration, and its limitations. After the course, you will be able to: describe what preregistration and Registered Reports are (and how they differ); explain the benefits (and drawbacks) of preregistration and Registered Reports; identify what types of research are most suited for preregistration and Registered Reports; recognise the common pitfalls in writing a preregistration; identify the logistics of preregistering: which format and platform to use; and demonstrate the ability to write an effective preregistration, with an appropriate balance of specificity and concision. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
COURSE DETAILS The session will cover: What makes a good DPhil Planning to write up your DPhil – structure, content and what makes good writing What the viva will explore What the examiners are asked to consider FAQs and Q&A LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of the session participants will be able to: Engage productively with the final stages of the DPhil. Apply a range of time management techniques. Identify and apply the characteristics of effective writing. Apply effective structure to the thesis. Understand what is required in the viva. Take opportunities to raise and discuss concerns.
The second in a duo of courses (attendees should attend the Fundamentals course prior to Logistics) that will cover the logistics of researching, publishing, and locating open scholarship resources and tools at the University of Oxford. Subjects include: what is the Oxford University Research Archive? depositing work into ORA via Symplectic Elements; depositing data into ORA-data; applying for one of Oxford’s APC block grants; registering or connecting your ORCID; how to be included in the rights retention pilot; and locating and checking funder policies. Ideally the Fundamentals of open access course will have been attended. If you’re not in a position to attend this course you can find similar information in our e-learning package (Digital induction to open access (MSD)) to work through prior to attending Logistics. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
The Centre’s Annual Symposium is a celebration of the passion and commitment to cancer research that is shared across our community. Registration to attend the symposium will be open until Tuesday 3rd March 2026. With approximately 300 people attending each year, it provides an opportunity for our members to network and build new collaborations.
Are you baffled by open, confused by embargoes? Does the mention of the colour gold or green catapult you into a realm of perplexed irritation? Come to this session, where we’ll break down open access and all its many jargon terms, confusing publishing structures and hint at the advantages you can reap by publishing open. In this session you’ll learn: what is open access? Key terms – Gold, Green, Article Processing Charges; where to get more information and help; where to look for open access material; and useful tools to assist you in publishing open access. Intended audience: researcher and research student; staff
The present study focuses on persistence in research productivity over the course of an individual’s entire scientific career. We track “late-career” scientists—scientists with at least 25 years of publishing experience (N = 320,564)—in 16 STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) and social science disciplines from 38 OECD countries for up to 5 decades. Our OECD sample includes 79.42% of late-career scientists globally. We examine the details of their mobility patterns as early-career, midcareer, and late-career scientists between decile-based productivity classes, from the bottom 10% to the top 10% of the productivity distribution. Methodologically, we turn a large-scale bibliometric data set (Scopus raw data) into a comprehensive, longitudinal data source for research on careers in science. The global science system is highly immobile: Half of global top performers continue their careers as top performers and one-third of global bottom performers as bottom performers. Jumpers-Up and Droppers-Down are extremely rare in science. The chances of moving radically up or down in productivity classes are marginal (1% or less). Our regression analyses show that productivity classes are highly path-dependent: There is a single most important predictor of being a top performer, which is being a top performer at an earlier career stage.
From militarised border regimes to racialised technologies of policing, from extractive geopolitics to nationalist media and electoral campaigns, the grammar and practice of fascism is global. This interdisciplinary conference examines how fascism and global Africa are entangled politically, economically, and imaginatively across time and space. By foregrounding geographies of anti-Blackness and imperial capitalism as core dimensions of fascist rule, we set out to look at how racial capitalism, colonial legacies, and authoritarian formations intersect in the making of global fascist orders. The concept of global Africa builds upon contemporary Pan-African thought and practice as generative and contested geographies of thought, solidarity, resistance. We are witnessing a revival of Pan-African solidarities in activist, intellectual, and cultural spaces, including transnational campaigns against state violence, police brutality, constitutional amendments, arbitrary detainment, mobilisations for liberation, and more in Burkina Faso, Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Congo, Senegal, South Africa (and so many more!), signalling renewed possibilities for anti-imperial, anti-fascist, and (potentially) anti-capitalist futures. Across the Americas, from Brazil and Colombia to the United States and the Caribbean, Black and Afro-Indigenous movements continue to confront police killings, environmental dispossession, and authoritarian repression while forging alliances that link struggles on the African continent. We are particularly interested in bringing geographers into conversation with scholars of politics, history, anthropology, and media studies. Geographers, with our attention to spatiality, mobility, territory, and networks, possess a valuable toolkit for examining how fascism travels and operates transnationally—through shared ideas, international activist and organisational networks, capital (including surveillance capital, far-right tech investors and platform owners, and artificial intelligence systems), militarised technology, and the legal, activist, intellectual, and political struggles that resist it.
This interactive workshop will take participants through the full journey of health service improvement, beginning with the importance of defining and understanding the problem before leaping to solutions. Participants will consider how to approach problems thoughtfully, experiment with designing interventions, and reflect on the challenges of making change in complex health systems. Through practical activities and group discussion, the session will encourage participants to think critically about what makes interventions succeed or fail.
Professor Judith Breuer University College London https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/9641
Incumbency advantage in U.S. congressional elections has been a well-established feature of American politics. Since the late 2000s, this advantage has significantly declined, falling from a longstanding average of 10 percentage points to just 3, as we document using a regression discontinuity design. We show that this decrease was driven primarily by the expansion of mobile broadband. Both Democrats and Republicans were affected, though the decline was initially greater for the party holding the presidency at the time. Mobile broadband disadvantaged incumbents and benefited challengers. It improved voter knowledge of both, increased disapproval of incumbents, and enhanced challengers’ fundraising capacity.
TBC
Course description This ½ day course is run by Professor Helen Higham (Director of OxSTaR & a Consultant Anaesthetist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford) and is suitable for clinical and non-clinical staff and aims to provide an introduction to the fundamentals of human factors in healthcare. The course introduces participants to basic human factors frameworks, including the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS), and focuses on practical applications in the workplace to improve understanding of systems in healthcare. This course will align with the new National Patient Safety Syllabus Learning Objectives Improve understanding of human factors principles Introduce and explore a human factors framework (SEIPS) Provide opportunities to practise applying SEIPS to real world examples Course content Definition and background of human factors Human factors applied to healthcare Importance of work place culture (including Just Culture tool) Explanation of SEIPS framework Exercises using SEIPS Plenty of opportunity for discussion and questions
We study how immigrant legalization affects political representation and public service delivery, focusing on the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted legal status to nearly three million undocumented Hispanic migrants. Using geographic variation in IRCA exposure and newly digitized data on 12,000 Hispanic officials, we find legalization increased Hispanic representation in local government and facilitated upward mobility from school boards into municipal and county offices. These changes altered institutional behavior, shifting education spending toward capital investment and diversifying the racial composition of the teaching workforce. Immigration policy thus reshapes who governs and how public goods are allocated.
We examine the rapid growth of Brazil's private online higher education sector and its impact on market structure and college enrolment. Exploiting regional and field-specific variation in online education penetration, we find that online programs increase enrolment for older students but divert younger students from higher-quality in-person programs. Increased competition lowers the prices of in-person programs but leads to a decline in their provision. Using an equilibrium model of college education, we quantify that in the absence of online education, the average student would experience 3.4% higher value added. While young students benefit from fewer online options, older students are disadvantaged. Targeted policies limiting online education to older cohorts have the potential to improve value added across all groups.
Complimentary refreshments from 3:30pm in the Hume-Rothery Meeting Room. Composites with intricate microstructures are ubiquitous in the natural world where they fulfil the specific functional demands imposed by the environment. For instance, nacre presents a fracture toughness 40 times higher than its main constituent, a crystalline form of calcium carbonate. This relative increase in toughness value is obtained as a crack propagating within this natural brick-and-mortar structure must interact with multiple reinforcing mechanisms, leading to a millimetre-sized process zone. The boost in performance obtained has pushed scientists for a few decades to use nacre as a blueprint to increase the toughness of synthetic ceramics and composites. Our ability to reproduce accurately the structure of nacre from the nanometre to the millimetre scale has improved with the introduction of Magnetically-Assisted Slip Casting (M.A.S.C.), a technique that combines an aqueous-based slip casting process with magnetically-directed anisotropic particle assembly. Using this technique, we can now fine-tune the structural properties of nacre-inspired alumina-based composites to reach strengths up to 670 MPa, KIC up to 7 MPa.m1/2 with subsequent stable crack propagation and this even at temperature up to 1200°C. While these materials already present interesting properties for engineering applications, we fail to see the large process zones that are acting in natural nacre. This led us to work on a new composite system, using this time monodisperse silica rods that can self-assemble into bulk colloidal crystals to finally test the effect of order in the microstructure on the toughness. The presence of this regularity in the microstructure proved crucial in enabling a large process zone. We obtained a 40-fold increase in toughness compared with the polymer use as a matrix in a composite made of 80% in volume of ceramic, all of which is processed at room temperature. From these two studies, we can extract the role of the interface and grain morphology in tough bioinspired composites and what will be the next steps for these materials. Brief biography Florian Bouville is a senior lecturer in the Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics in the Department of Materials of the Imperial College London. His group is researching both colloidal processing and fracture mechanics, to design more robust and durable materials based on their microstructure and not composition, with applications ranging from high temperature structural components for aerospace to energy storage devices. These studies are supported by various funding sources, including an ERC Starting Grant and the European Space Agency. He obtained his Master's degree in Material Sciences at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (INSA de Lyon, France) in 2010. He then moved to the South of France for his PhD between three partners: the company Saint-Gobain, the Laboratory of Synthesis and Functionalization of Ceramics and the MATEIS laboratory (INSA de Lyon). From 2014 to 2018, he was a postdoctoral researcher and then scientist in the Complex Materials group at the Department of Materials at the ETH Zürich.
Professor Merryn Voysey University of Oxford https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/team/merryn-voysey
In this session we will cover how to locate and interpret journal level metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). We will examine the tools you can use to locate journal level metrics, such as Journal Citation Reports and Scopus Sources. We will also consider the uses, limitations and pitfalls inherent in these metrics and how they can be used responsibly. By the end of the session, you will be familiar with: the major journal metrics and how these are calculated; accessing journal citation data using Journal Citation Reports and Scopus Sources; using JIF, CiteScore and SJR journal metrics to rank journals; and the limitations of different metrics, including how journal metrics may be skewed or distorted. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher & research student
This paper proposes a new class of time varying models for which a vector of unknown parameters may vary stochastically or deterministically over time or be a mixture of both types. There are novel features to this class and its econometric treatment differs from the existing literature which typically separates stochastic and deterministic time variation in the parameters. Estimation methods for the former are often based on Bayesian resampling algorithms whereas nonparametric estimation methods are usually employed for fitting unknown deterministic functional forms. This paper develops instead a unified approach based on orthonormal series decompositions to estimating time variation irrespective of whether that variation is stochastic or deterministic. The proposed procedure has wide applicability, covering linear and nonlinear time series models as well as stochastic trends. Consistent estimators of the time varying structures are developed and the limit theory for each of the settings is established. A notable outcome is that unit root time-varying parameters can be estimated with asymptotic validity and fast rates of convergence when the unit root structure is captured by an orthonormal series representation. Other advantages include the flexibility and convenience of the approach in practical implementation. Simulations are conducted to examine finite sample performance and the procedures are illustrated in several real data examples.
Capital in modern economies increasingly takes the form of intangible capital, whose formation heavily depends on the contributions of specialized workers—such as inventors, managers, and entrepreneurs. To examine the macroeconomic implications of this fact, we develop and calibrate a general neoclassical model where capital formation requires both investment goods (tangible investments) and specialized labor (intangible investments). We show that rising intangibles renders the supply of capital more inelastic owing to the limited supply of specialized labor. Rising intangibles also change the incidence of capital taxation: whereas in traditional neoclassical models the tax burden falls entirely on production workers, in intangible economies, it is borne primarily by specialized workers and capital owners.
TBC
This interactive session exploring the personal need to address Authority, Presence and Impact, for healthcare leadership.
In this session we will examine article level metrics. We will discuss how citation counting can help identify influential papers in particular fields and how altmetrics provide a different perspective on research output. Using tools such as Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus you will learn how to locate different article metrics. The session will also allow you to appreciate the limitations of different metrics and the importance of their cautious interpretation. By the end of the session, you will be familiar with: using Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar to track and count citations to papers and individual researchers; measuring impact using altmetrics; understanding how to contextualise metrics against other, similar papers in a field; and the limitations of different metrics. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher & research student
This session will help you to understand what IP is, who "owns" it, and the things to think about when you think you have created IP. Whether you're an undergraduate, masters or DPhil student, or Staff at the University of Oxford, it is important to understand your rights and responsibilities when it comes to intellectual property (IP). This session will help you to understand what IP actually is, who "owns" it, and the things to think about when you think you have created IP. Case studies will also be presented to help explain the University's policy. Come prepared to ask any IP related questions in the second half of the session, where our expert presenters will give you the official University answers to any of your queries. In collaboration with Research Services, Oxford University Innovation, and The Careers Service. The talk will be from 12:30-1:30pm. If you have specific questions, the presenters will be available to answer questions until 2pm. Note: The sign up is through Inkpath, you will need to create an Inkpath account to sign up if you’ve not already got one.
This informative and practical online training session will discuss the importance of lay summaries (or Plain English Summaries) in medical research and what’s involved in a lay reviewer role. Link to event – https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/5d178171-7adc-45f8-90e8-f808a9cdd83f@25d273c3-a851-4cfb-a239-e9048f989669 Who this is for? It’s aimed at any adult who would like to contribute to the research process. This session will give you the skills and confidence to be a lay reviewer when the opportunity arises. You will get practical advice from a public partner and researchers who work in patient and public involvement and research. You can have a go at reviewing a lay summary as part of a supportive team. You will also get a checklist of what to do if you are asked to be a reviewer. Speakers: Sue Duncombe: Patient and Public Advisory Group member, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre Cassy Fiford: Public Engagement Officer and infectious disease researcher, University of Oxford Polly Kerr: Patient and Public Involvement Manager, Medical Sciences Division, Department of Primary Health Care Research, University of Oxford Angeli Vaid: Training and Inclusion Manager, Patient and Public Involvement, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre
In this session we will examine metrics for individual researchers. Using tools such as Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus you will learn about the researcher h-index and its limitations. You will be introduced to additional metrics tools such as author beamplots which help to contextualise a researcher’s output over time. By the end of the session, you will be familiar with: accessing citation data for specific researchers on Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar; understanding how the h-index is calculated and its inherent limitations; creating an ORCID number to help track all your own research outputs; and the importance of research outputs beyond journal and conference papers when assessing a researcher’s impact. Intended audience: Taught student; Researcher & research student
Land use and the geographic distribution of economic activity are key determinants of a territory’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Emissions depend on whether land is built-up in cities, used for agriculture, or covered with forests. In cities, emissions depend on the extent of sprawl. We develop a quantitative spatial theory of land use where different sectors compete for land. Technological and demographic evolutions trigger structural change and shape land use, commuting and residential choices. Emissions change as a result. We estimate the quantitative model using French spatial data since 1950 across sectors. The estimation delivers novel insights on the determinants of land use and emissions across space and time and allows to evaluate the effect of technological change and agricultural policies on welfare, productivity and the environment.
COURSE DETAILS During the course you will have the opportunity to manage a project. You will be able to apply the techniques you learn to a project that you bring along. Topics covered: project initiation, managing stakeholders and risk, time estimation, planning. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand more about: The importance of planning. The tools to make project management succeed. How to estimate the time a project will take realistically. The skills you need to be a good project manager.
Joint with CSAE
https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/7097-david-goldblatt
This session will provide an introduction to the production, implementation and implications of the 10 Year Health Plan (10YHP) for England. It will provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on how it might affect them and the opportunities and risks that it creates. Nick is currently seconded into the Department of Health’s System Strategy Unit that supported the development of the 10YHP and chairs a working group of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme Taskforce.
COURSE DETAILS Topics will include presenting your CV, how to approach employers, writing covering letters and interview skills. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand: How to improve your CV. How to approach employers. How to write a covering letter. How to plan for an interview. How to interview well.
Uhlig Group Speakers: Nima Gharahdaghi & Pai-Jui Yeh Title: “Anti-IL10 as a cause of intestinal Immunopathology” Lang Group Speaker(s): TBC Title(s): TBC
COURSE DETAILS This short practical session will help you understand more about the career context for research staff at Oxford and beyond. It will enable you to identify the skills and abilities that you need to develop and give you guidance on how to enhance them so you are prepared for a useful conversation in your next CDR. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will have: An understanding of the career challenges and opportunities facing research staff at Oxford. An understanding of the skills you need to acquire. Started to apply a process of developing these skills.
Narrative CVs are being adopted by many funders, nationally and internationally, to give researchers the opportunity to showcase a wider range of skills and experience than is possible in a traditional academic CV; an example is the UKRI Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI). Writing a narrative CV requires a different way of thinking about and describing your skills, experience and contributions to research and innovation compared to a traditional CV. Writing your first narrative CV will take some time and effort; you might not be sure about what activities to include, and how to describe their quality, relevance, and your involvement in them. This presentation will try to demystify and simplify narrative CVs by providing advice, prompts and suggestions for how to write one. Speakers Mary Muers Research Culture Facilitator, MSD Kanza Basit Senior Research Facilitator, SSD Gavin Bird Head of Research Facilitation and Support, SOGE, SSD Susan Black, Careers Adviser, Oxford Careers Service Everyone welcome, please register to receive the TEAMS link for this event If you are a student or researcher with a CareerConnect account, please register "here":https://oxford.targetconnect.net/leap/event.html?id=22972&service=Careers%20Service All other staff register "here":https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=G96VzPWXk0-0uv5ouFLPke7xLB0LNIFKuA055EWF9ZtUMDI4VEEwVVk3RkNGRE5MTjRWWDNLRFRRTy4u, the joining link will be in the registration confirmation email
Dr Charlene Rodrigues LSHTM and St Marys Hospital London https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/rodrigues.charlene
Designed for medical students, doctors in training and other healthcare professionals, this experiential and practical workshop will focus on personal qualities, developing self-awareness, managing yourself, building and maintaining relationships, working with teams and developing networks.
Professor Kirsty Mehring-Le Doare World Health Organisation & St. George's https://www.sgul.ac.uk/profiles/kirsty-le-doare
An important driver of climate change inaction is the belief that individuals cannot have any tangible impact on climate change through their own actions. Currently available statistics are not suited to systematically assess or challenge this belief. In this paper, I derive the marginal impact of emission reductions – the effect of reducing emissions by 1 tonne of CO₂ (tCO₂) – on physical climate change outcomes, document important misperceptions, show how they affect behavior, and derive policy implications. Using climate models, I find that the impact of reducing emissions by 1 tCO₂ is thousands of liters less glacier ice melting, several additional hours of aggregate life expectancy, and multiple m² less vegetation undergoing ecosystem change. Subjects underestimate these figures by orders of magnitude. Moreover, their mental model is inconsistent with climate models. First, they misperceive climate change as a threshold public goods game. Second, they incorrectly assume that the marginal impact increases when others also reduce their emissions (strategic complementarity). Providing subjects with the climate scientific findings causally increases perceived self-efficacy, intentions to reduce own emissions, and real donations to reduce global emissions. The misperceptions and treatment effect are consistent with a mental model of threshold thinking, which predicts positive overall emission reductions of information provision in equilibrium. Providing information about the marginal impact is a cost-effective demand-side mitigation strategy. The information can also serve as a catalyst for other climate policies by reframing their benefits and challenging arguments against unilateral action that are based on threshold thinking.
Designed for research staff who are considering their next career move—whether within Oxford, within academia more broadly, or in other sectors. This interactive workshop supports researchers in navigating their career development with greater confidence and clarity. It offers participants the space to reflect on their ambitions, explore alternative futures, and engage in structured peer discussions to share insights and challenges. Participants will use design-thinking approaches to consider different career scenarios. The session then moves into goal setting and peer advice-sharing, helping researchers to build practical short-term plans and identify supportive resources and networks. Participants are introduced to key tools and services available through Oxford to support their development as they prepare for their next step, whatever that may be. By the end of this session, participants will be able to: * Articulate multiple possible career directions, including both preferred and alternative pathways. * Identify actionable short-term goals that support career progress. * Reflect on and assess their professional development to date, including skills, motivations, and values. Everyone welcome, please register to receive the TEAMS link for this event If you are a student or researcher with a CareerConnect account, please register "here":https://oxford.targetconnect.net/leap/event.html?id=23008&service=Careers%20Service All other staff register "here":https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=G96VzPWXk0-0uv5ouFLPke7xLB0LNIFKuA055EWF9ZtUNDZHUzhVQ1RSTjRJNjA4QkJTWDROVkwwNS4u the joining link will be in the registration confirmation email.
An introduction to the what, why and how of public involvement
COURSE DETAILS You will learn how to read a group, deal with difficult situations, use humour, match your presentation to the audience, and make an impact. You will learn how to get your message across so it is remembered. You will learn about timing and when you should deliver key messages. You will develop your self-awareness and understand its role in presenting. LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this session you will understand more about: How to structure your presentation for impact. How your psychological state affects your presentation skills and how you can manage it. How to read a group and how to deal with difficult situations. How to deliver your presentation with more confidence.
More information and how to apply for a bursary: https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/iic Hot Topics in Infection and Immunity in Children (IIC) – The ESPID-Oxford Course is a residential training course which aims to provide basic information and updates in key areas of paediatric infection. The course is targeted at paediatric infectious disease PID trainees and trainers, including SAS, LED & Consultant doctors and all those who manage children with infections, covering topics in Paediatric infection. Delegates come from all over the world there is usually a 50/50 mix of trainees/consultants. All sessions are plenary and include a mix of lectures, case rounds, The Debate and the Annual IIC Quiz. Click here to view the programme - https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/iic/programme Programme Highlights: • The McCracken lecture: Meningitis, a history with Professor Xavier Sáez-Llorens Chief of Infectious Diseases and Director of Clinical Research, Dr José Renán Esquivel Children’s Hospital, Panama • Climate Change and Health with Dr Kate O’Brien Director, Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, World Health Organization (WHO) • Determinants of Future Health with Dr James Gilchrist Wellcome Career Development Fellow, Oxford Vaccine Group & Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases & Immunology • Sustainable antibiotic prescribing by Dr Emma Lim Paediatric Consultant and Paediatric Sepsis Lead, Great North Children’s Hospital • AI and microbiology with Professor Adrian Egli Director, Institute for Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich Early bird Registration Fees • Earlybird Trainee - ESPID/BPAIIG/PID Member £700.00 • Earlybird Trainee £790.00 • Earlybird Consultant - ESPID/BPAIIG/PID Member £825.00 • Earlybird Consultant £925.00 • Ensuite Accommodation with Breakfast £115 per night
Coaching skills can help you build positive and effective working relationships with all those you work with. Coaching is a highly impactful approach to people development and can support individuals to identify goals, gain insights into challenges, consider options and plan actions. They are a valuable asset to leaders and managers and can be useful in a range of workplace conversations, such as feedback, delegation and career development reviews.
TBC
Delivering effective health care requires a significant amount of teamwork among different groups of workers. Team structures are acknowledged increasingly as vital to delivering value, efficiency, and quality for patient care, particularly in the general practice space. But why are teams necessarily better than more traditional hierarchical work structures? When are teams best deployed for maximum success in patient care? How does one best work within a team? What are the key leadership approaches to making health care teams fulfil their potential? This workshop will address these questions in depth, through an interactive session that allows participants to gain exposure to the best practices associated with health care teams and their implementation.
Course description This ½ day course is run by Professor Helen Higham (Director of OxSTaR & a Consultant Anaesthetist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford) and is suitable for clinical and non-clinical staff and aims to provide an introduction to the fundamentals of human factors in healthcare. The course introduces participants to basic human factors frameworks, including the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS), and focuses on practical applications in the workplace to improve understanding of systems in healthcare. This course will align with the new National Patient Safety Syllabus Learning Objectives Improve understanding of human factors principles Introduce and explore a human factors framework (SEIPS) Provide opportunities to practise applying SEIPS to real world examples Course content Definition and background of human factors Human factors applied to healthcare Importance of work place culture (including Just Culture tool) Explanation of SEIPS framework Exercises using SEIPS Plenty of opportunity for discussion and questions
A five-day intensive course exploring the critical challenges facing those working towards universal access to safe and affordable surgical, anaesthesia and obstetrics care. The course is suitable for those in all disciplines interested in global surgery, anaesthesia and obstetrics.
