OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
On Monday 8th December 2025, join us for the OxCODE symposium 2025 to hear about the latest research in early cancer detection and prevention from Oxford and elsewhere. We are delighted to have Ros Eeles (The Institute of cancer Research, London) and Phil Jones (Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge) as our keynote speakers and there will be sessions themed on: Early detection, featuring Ros Eeles, Parinaz Mehdipour and Brian Nicholson Stratifying cancer risk, featuring Pradeep Virdee, Karl Smith Byrne, Anneke Lucassen Biology-informed prevention, featuring Phil Jones, Karin Hellner , Zinaida Dedeic and Maria Aggelakopoulou The Symposium will also feature: Panel discussion: Are industry/academia partnerships essential for advancing early detection and prevention research for patient benefit? Lightning talks (abstract submission deadline, 7th November; see guidance below). Poster session (abstract submission deadline, 7th November; see guidance below). At the end of the day, there will be a drinks and canapés reception to give you an opportunity to network and build connections. Register by 21st November, Please contact cancer@medsci.ox.ac.uk with any questions. Lightning talk abstract submission If you would like to submit an abstract for consideration for a 4-minute lightning talk, you will need to follow the guidelines below: • The abstract must be no longer than 200 words, submitted in Word format. • Please include a title, author list and your primary departmental affiliation. • All abstracts must be submitted to cancer@medsci.ox.ac.uk by Friday 7th November. Late abstracts will not be accepted. • All people submitting abstracts must also register via Eventbrite • Lightning talks will be selected by the OxCODE operational group • Applicants will be notified of acceptance from Monday 17th November Poster guidance If you would like to submit an abstract for consideration for the poster session you will need to follow the guidelines below: • The abstract must be no longer than 200 words, submitted in Word format. • Please include a title, author list and your primary departmental affiliation. • All abstracts must be submitted to cancer@medsci.ox.ac.uk by Friday 7th November. Late abstracts will not be accepted. • All people submitting abstracts must also register via Eventbrite • In the event of oversubscription, poster places will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis (40 places available). • Posters should be printed in portrait orientation and be no larger than A0 to fit the poster display boards.
Six NIHR Biomedical Research Centres; Oxford, Oxford Health, Cambridge, Barts, Birmingham and Moorfields are collaborating to bring you a series of engaging online training sessions with experts and researchers to help embed inclusion in your research. There are 3 webinar events for Research Inclusivity Training rolling out over November and December this year and they will be repeated in 2026. Socio-economic Disadvantage Inclusion training, with Dr. Heidi R Green Providing strategies to reduce barriers in health inequalities and understand challenges faced by disadvantaged communities. The session includes a case study and the NIHR INCLUDE Socio-economic Disadvantage Framework.
Dr. Karen Honey is the Executive Editor of Cancer Immunology Research at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Dr. Honey holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and served as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Senior Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. A. Rudensky at the University of Washington, Seattle. With more than 20 years of experience in research, publication planning, editing, and scientific writing, Dr. Honey brings a wealth of expertise to the fields of scientific publication and scientific communication. In her current role at AACR, she plays a vital role in driving the successful creation and implementation of editorial and communication strategies to advance the visibility and impact of cancer immunology research.
Adaptive immune responses unfold within complex tissue microenvironments that shape clonal selection, effector fate, and long-term immune resilience. I will discuss new spatial transcriptomic technologies we’ve developed which capture the state, receptor sequence, and location of lymphocytes directly in situ. These approaches reveal how T and B cell diversity is organized across germinal centers, inflamed tissues, and aging thymus. By integrating clonal and spatial information, we can map how immune interactions and tissue cues drive adaptation, regeneration, and decline, offering a framework for decoding adaptive immunity across health, aging, and disease.
*_Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors_* (Author: *Sara Farhan*) traces the institutionalisation of medicine in Iraq from late Ottoman reforms to the founding of the Medical College of Mosul. It shows how imperial, colonial, and national projects sought to cultivate physicians who could serve both state and society, while those very doctors navigated competing ideological demands. Drawing on diverse and rich sources, the book examines the contradictions of state-driven efforts in which doctors acted simultaneously as agents of reform and as subjects of bureaucratic oversight. In doing so, it illuminates the entanglements of medical pedagogy, professional authority, public health policy, and the broader political transformations that continually redefined medicine in Iraq. *Sara Farhan* is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Northern British Columbia. A social and cultural historian, her research focuses on medical education, disease and diplomacy, the politics of science and technology, and archival practices. Lunch will be provided.
In this talk, Professor Niall Winters will present convivial technology (CT) as an alternative to current rhetorics on the role of generative artificial intelligence in education. This will involve three foundations: 1. A Freirean approach that conceptualises education as a process; 2. A decolonial frame for understanding technology design and implementation; 3. An introduction to CT principles. Building on these, Professor Niall will then discuss the ways in which approaches to convivial technology can be understood as a socially just, participatory and environmentally aware. The seminar will end with a discussion on whether this is enough to counter the dominate AI narrative in education today. Speaker bio: Professor Niall Winters is an Honorary Norham Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College. His main research interest is advancing knowledge of the complex development processes involved in designing socially-just technology innovations. This research agenda has been supported by over €7m in funding. Niall was previously Professor of Education and Technology at the Department of Education, co-convenor of the Critical Digital Education Research Group, and Director of the MSc Education (Digital and Social Change.
Healthcare continues to undergo rapid transformation, driven by advances in technology, scientific discovery, and evolving system pressures. In this context, early-stage ideas and the environments that enable them to develop are increasingly important. This panel discussion will explore how initial concepts gain traction, the role of early-stage funding, and the support structures that help researchers and founders progress towards innovations with genuine clinical impact. The panel will share perspectives from across science, investment, and entrepreneurship, offering practical insights into the earliest stages of the innovation pathway. Speakers • Dr Danuta Jeziorska, Biotech executive, co-founder of Nucleome Therapeutics, and founder of Innovation Forum Oxford. • Dr Emilie Syed, Senior Investment Manager, Life Sciences and MedTech at Zinc VC. • Esther Richardot Reynal de Saint-Michel, founder of Thena Capital. Moderator: Dr Christiaan de Koning – Associate Fellow at Green Templeton College and Chair of the Founders & Funders Foundation, a network supporting researchers & entrepreneurs at Oxford through mentorship, events, and venture collaboration. About the Oxford Health Innovation Forum The Oxford Health Innovation Forum is a university-wide initiative piloted at Green Templeton in 2025. It builds on the college’s strong legacy in medicine, medical sciences, business, and management. The forum exists to bring together students, alumni, researchers, clinicians, start-up representatives, investors, and industry professionals to explore the future of medical and life sciences innovation. It aims to serve as a platform through which the college fosters entrepreneurship and drives dialogue on innovation in medical research, healthcare delivery and global health. More information Tea, coffee and sandwiches will be served from 17:00 in the Stables Bar. The speaker event begins at 17:30. Drinks and nibbles will be served in the Stables Bar at 18:30. Places are limited, so early registration is highly recommended. As this Forum places particular emphasis on networking and informal discussion, the event will be held in person only.
Green Windows of Opportunity for Industrialisation: still open? - Date: Monday, 8 December 2025 - Time: 17:00–18:30 - Venue: Nissan Lecture Theatre, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford As the global economy continues its transition toward sustainability, a central question remains: which green windows of opportunity are still open for latecomer economies? This panel brings together two of the authors of the landmark article “Green windows of opportunity: latecomer development in the age of transformation toward sustainability” — Roberta Rabellotti and Rasmus Lema — published five years ago. Their original work showed how structural changes in institutions, markets, and technologies were opening new pathways for industrialisation in emerging economies, driven by the global green transformation. Five years later, the landscape has shifted. Some windows have expanded, others have narrowed, and new dynamics are emerging. This discussion will examine: - How global green transitions, digitalisation, and value-chain reconfigurations are reshaping opportunities for latecomer development - Which sectors still offer viable green windows of opportunity - What new barriers have emerged as technologies mature and competition intensifies - What kinds of policies and capabilities do countries now need to seize remaining opportunities Moderated by Amir Lebdioui, Director of the TIDE Centre, the conversation will also reflect on the next phase of research needed to understand green industrialisation in an evolving global context. All are welcome.
For our next talk, in the BDI/CHG (gen)omics Seminar series, we will be hearing from Dr Joanna Howson, Senior Vice President, Novo Nordisk Research Centre Oxford. We’re delighted to host Joanna in what promises to be a great talk! Date: Tuesday 9 December Time: 9:30 – 10:30 Talk title: Putting the human at the centre of drug discovery Location: BDI/OxPop seminar room 0 ———————————————————————————————————————— All members of the University are welcome to join, please let reception at BDI know you’re here for the seminar and sign-in. We hope you can join us! We also now have a mailing list – To be added, ping genomics_bdi_whg-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk (with any message), you should get a bounce-back with three options to confirm your subscription. Follow any of those options, and with a bit of luck you should be signed up! As a reminder, the (gen)omics seminar series runs every other Tuesday morning and is intended to increase interaction between individuals working in genomics across Oxford. We encourage in-person attendance where possible. There is time for discussion over, tea, coffee and pastries after the talks. Hybrid Option: Please note that these meetings are closed meetings and only open to members of the University of Oxford to encourage sharing of new and unpublished data. Please respect our speakers and do not share the link with anyone outside of the university. Join the meeting now Meeting ID: 322 259 590 911 11 Passcode: CF3GZ2wv ——————————————————————————————————— If you wish to know more or receive information related to trainings and events at BDI, please subscribe by emailing bdi-announce-subscribe@maillist.ox.ac.uk. You’ll then receive an email from SYMPA and once you reply you’ll be on the list!
This webinar builds on insights from the South Asia Regional Global Health Solidarity Workshop held in New Delhi, where experts, youth leaders, grassroots activists, researchers, funders, and civil society representatives from India, Nepal, and beyond called on global institutions to place solidarity at the heart of health systems. The webinar will continue this conversation, providing a platform to: - Share grounded perspectives on understandings and practices of solidarity from South Asia - Surface practical challenges and lived experiences from frontline, policy, and community contexts - Discuss actionable steps for programmes, partnerships, and funders to strengthen solidaristic practices
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
In this session we will explore how families can navigate young children’s digital lives with confidence, calm, and connection. Parents today face a flood of mixed messages about “screen time”, from warnings by health bodies, to advice from educators and the media. Conflicting recommendations leave many parents feeling uncertain, judged, and even stressed about their children’s digital technology use. Join Professor Karen Murcia as she draws from research conducted in the Australian Research Council funded Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and reframes the conversation, rather than focusing on how much time children spend on screens, we consider how children use digital technologies and who they use it with. Realistic modelling of intentional, not ‘perfect’ use of digital technologies will be considered in the real world of digital parenting. We will leave this session with research-informed strategies and shared ideas for guiding children’s digital experiences, focusing on connection, creativity, and digital citizenship. Karen Murcia is a Professor of Education at Curtin University and Program Co-Lead of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (www.digitalchild.org.au). As a Chief Investigator, she leads education research exploring how digital technologies shape the lives and learning of children growing up in the digital age. Her internationally recognised expertise spans children’s creativity, computational thinking, and digital citizenship. A respected thought leader, she drives STEM education innovation through collaborative partnerships with industry and community organisations, both in Australia and around the world.
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 & NHS; Taught student; Researcher & research student.
An introduction to the what, why and how of public involvement
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 & research student
🐎 Think Horses…but don’t forget the Zebras! 🦓 Did you know in the UK, there are as many people who live with a rare condition as those living with cancer (approx 1 in 17 people)? So why are we classically taught to neglect this significant patient population? Though individually uncommon, rare conditions are - paradoxically - collectively common. They can share common challenges and red flags for referral. ThinkRare! is a new MSD Award-funded seminar series shining a spotlight on Rare Diseases from the inside-out, blending clinical case-based teaching, lived experience from patient partners, alongside interactive anatomy and histopathology. The first session "Brain and Bone" will focuses on the Musculoskeletal and Neurological systems. When: Tuesday 9 Dec 2025 1.30 - 5 PM Where: Conference Room, Academic Centre, Level 3 JR Hospital Who: This event is aimed at students with an interest in rare disease. Free food & drink and certificate of participation provided. Session 1 highlights: - OxRare Committee - Rare 101 - Prof Paul Wordsworth - "X-Linked Hypophosphataemia - A rare cause of mineralisation in the wrong places" - Dr Sithara Ramdas - "Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy - Beyond Textbooks and Toddlers" - Patient partners Mr OB / Mr DC with Dr Helen Stewart - "Lived Experiences of Neurofibromatosis Type 1 & Loeys-Dietz Syndrome" - Dr Rumyana Smilevska & Sharmila Rajendran - Rare and relevant anatomy Spaces are free, but limited due to patient preference - please sign up with the provided link. We look forward to seeing you there! The event schedule can be viewed here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DR3DVCdiGsP/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Abstract: This presentation will consider the political economy of higher education in early America, from the mid-eighteenth through the early-nineteenth century. It notes the various ways in which higher education was commodified and commercialized in that period and the strategies that institutions used to bolster their “market position.” It concludes with thoughts on the relationship between liberalization and polarization in the “modern” political economy of American higher education.
We are excited to host the 2025 Bennett Institute Medicines Symposium, two days of talks and workshops on medicines, NHS data, and open research. Day 1 will feature keynotes, lightning talks, and panel discussions. Day 2 will be dedicated to hands-on workshops. Whether you’re working in healthcare research, policy, or practice, this is a chance to connect and learn from those generating and using medicines data in the UK. Registration and abstract submissions are now open Note: symposium registration and abstract submissions are handled separately (see links below). If you wish to propose a talk or workshop, don’t forget to also register! Register for the symposium using the Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2025-bennett-institute-medicines-symposium-tickets-1570683509659 Propose a talk or workshop using the abstract submission form: https://airtable.com/appYkEJ7pQey5ic4F/pagolpfwNJg1oRSrS/form What you’ll learn This year’s symposium is focused on medicines, NHS data, and open research methods. You’ll learn about: Ongoing work and recent findings from the Bennett Institute and our collaborators Tools like OpenSAFELY, OpenCodelists, and OpenPrescribing, and how others are using them Approaches to high-quality, reproducible analytics in the NHS Real-life examples of how data is being used to improve care, safety, and access Hands-on workshops to explore methods, tools, and workflows Who you’ll meet We’re bringing together people who often use the same data but don’t always get to work together. You’ll meet: Clinicians, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals who generate and use medicines data in everyday care Medicines optimisation teams Researchers, epidemiologists, and data scientists Policy makers and experts Data infrastructure experts and platform developers
Convened by Victoria Musvik, Stephen Whitefield (Pembroke College, Oxford) & Florence Faucher (SciencesPo, Paris) In collaboration with OxPo With Kathy Rousselet, Directrice de Recherche/Senior Research Fellow, Sciences Po Alexandra Koroleva, PhD candidate, Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po/Centre for History (CHSP), Sciences Po Anna Sidorevich, Research Associate, Centre for History (CHSP), Sciences Po Carole Sigman, Tenured Senior Researcher (political sociology), CNRS Although very popular with Western scholars in the late 1980s-1990s, in the subsequent years perestroika has dropped out of the research mainstream and become poorly conceptualised. Recently, however, new generations of researchers have started to suggest new approaches and more complex perspectives. Methodologically, in the past few years, the field of ‘perestroika studies’ has been getting increasingly diverse, in several disciplines, and academic traditions. Besides, ‘newer’ research methodologies, such as visual studies, history of emotions, affect theory, trauma and memory studies, and decolonial, critical regionalist and imperial research, among others, have developed around or since 1985. Scholars mostly agree that the mainstream narrative about perestroika as a gift ‘from the centre’ and ‘from above’ should be subverted. This means concentrating on various regional roots and contributions, giving more space to non-metropolitan and local voices, and encouraging looking from previously marginalised perspectives. To celebrate perestroika’s 40th anniversary, the conference will bring together researchers from diverse disciplinary fields and countries.
Coaching skills are the key to fostering positive and effective working relationships with your colleagues and team members. This workshop is your gateway to the powerful world of coaching. It will introduce you to essential coaching concepts, approaches, and skills that will transform your leadership style.
Tim Witney is a Professor of Molecular Imaging and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London’s School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences. His group develops next-generation diagnostics to monitor treatment response and identify therapy resistance in cancer. They use pioneering radionuclide therapies to target the very features that cause refractive disease. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Nuclide Therapeutics, President-elect for the European Society for Molecular Imaging, and Editor-in-Chief of npj Imaging. Tim obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2010, where he worked in the laboratory of Prof. Kevin Brindle FRS on dynamic nuclear polarisation as a novel method for detecting tumour response to therapy. In 2010, Tim joined Prof. Eric Aboagye’s group at Imperial as a postdoc, developing novel positron emission tomography radiotracers for cancer imaging, before moving to Stanford University in 2013 to work under Prof. Sanjiv Sam Gambhir for further postdoctoral training. In 2015, he established his group at University College London’s Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, supported by a UCL Excellence Fellowship and a Wellcome Trust and Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellowship. He moved to King’s College London in 2018 to take up his current post.
Book talk for _Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule_, by *Michael David-Fox*, with roundtable commentary from Dan Healey, Stephen Smith, and Zbigniew Wojnowski. This event will be followed by a drinks reception. *_Please see the All Souls event page for the registration link, which will be posted closer to the event_*.
Overton is the world’s largest database of policy documents, indexing over 7 million policy documents from around the world and making them full-text searchable. During this workshop, participants will become familiar with Overton’s data and the three main search modes available in the platform. We will cover how to use Overton to see where research is cited in policy, where people are mentioned in policy and how to use Overton as a grey literature search tool. Intended audience: Researcher & research student; Staff
For our first AI workshop we will be joined by Dr Lei Clifton, Programme Director of the MSc in Applied Digital Health, Primary Care Department; Dr Bradley Segal, Rhodes Scholar, practising physician and DPhil candidate in Biomedical Engineering, and Gavin Hubbard, Senior Communications Manager with extensive AI experience, Primary Care Department. Title: AI Tools for Research: A Hands-On Workshop When: 11 December 2025 Time: 11:00 – 12:00 Venue: BDI/Oxpop Seminar room 1 Overview: Live demonstrations of AI tools that can cut admin time, speed up literature reviews, improve writing, and support research workflows – from hypothesis generation to peer review simulation. The content will be tailored on the experience levels and specific interests captured in the registration form. Who it's for: Any researcher curious about AI applications. No coding required, all experience levels welcome. Format: Interactive, hands-on session with concrete examples relevant to primary care research. Attendees can bring laptops to try techniques during live demos. The session will cover practical applications many researchers are curious about but haven't known where to start. Bio: Dr 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. Dr Bradley Segal: DPhil candidate, Computational Health Informatics (CHI) Lab Bradley is a Rhodes Scholar, practicing physician, and DPhil candidate from the CHI Lab in the Engineering Department. He specialises in AI applications in healthcare, from deep learning in medical imaging to large-scale patient analytics platforms. His clinical experience and healthcare technology ventures provide practical insights into implementing AI tools in real-world medical settings. Gavin Hubbard: Senior Communications Manager with extensive AI experience Gavin brings a unique perspective combining medical biochemistry background, 8+ years in drug development, and extensive science writing experience. He supports researchers in communicating their work to diverse audiences and has been exploring AI tools for research communication for several years, training NIHR communications professionals in LLM use since early 2023. Registration: https://forms.office.com/e/RcbjScFzyW?origin=lprLink – spaces are limited for the interactive format.
The Oxford Energy Lunches gather the vibrant, multidisciplinary community of Oxford academics, researchers, students and professionals who work in energy. We will present ZERO and Energy Network initiatives, and there will be an informal open mike for your questions and announcements. We look forward to meeting you there!
As part of the ANR SocioMA Project Please note that presentations will be given in French and in English The first study day of the ANR SocioMA project seeks to explore the foundations of categorical thought as applied to medieval society: what mechanisms or intellectual processes did social actors employ to define, delimit, and name social categories? Considering either the whole of Latin Christendom or a part of it, the contributions will examine the cultural structures and intellectual processes at work in categorical thinking through the following questions: what scholarly and/or practical taxonomies existed in Latin Europe? Who were the agents of these classifications, for what purpose did they produce them, and according to which specific criteria? What intellectual tools were used to produce these nomenclatures, and what vocabulary was employed to describe them? What influence did these nomenclatures exert on groups other than those that produced them, how did they contribute to a “social work of representation,” and how did they articulate a social imagination? What permeability existed between these categories, or, conversely, what conflicts arose between them? Convened by: Antoine Destemberg (MFO / CREHS – Université d’Artois) Aude-Marie Certin (CRESAT – Université de Haute-Alsace) Joël Chandelier (Université de Lausanne) Arnaud Fossier (LIR3s – Université de Bourgogne) Carole Mabboux (MéMo – Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) Sandrine Victor (Framespa – INU Champollion)
Dr Sally Cowley is a Wellcome Trust Career Re-Entry Fellow and the Head of the James and Lillian Martin Centre for Stem Cell Research within the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford where she leads the iPSCs reprogramming efforts across the school and also the projects on macrophage and microglial differentiation.
Join us to hear the results of two surveys run in Trinity Term 2025: Oxford's research practice survey, and the open research survey (run locally as part of a wider survey by the UK Reproducibility Network). Both surveys asked a representative sample of Oxford staff and students involved in research about their use, awareness and attitudes on various research practices, including open research practices and more. We will share findings and suggested actions off the back of these results.
Lesson of the week, clinical cases and research. All clinical and academic staff and students welcome. Coffee, Tea and Cake will be served.
Look but Fail to See (LBFTS) errors are those errors where we miss something that is ‘right in front of our eyes’, even though it is clearly visible and recognizable. Such errors can be amusing, as when we miss a gorilla in an inattentional blindness demo; vexing, as when we miss a typo; and serious, as when a tumor is missed in a CT scan or a weapon is missed at the airport. I will discuss how the capacity limits and operating rules of selective visual attention can give rise to LBFTS errors. LBFTS errors can also inform discussions about the awareness and/or consciousness. They falsify naïve theories that would claim that we are fully aware of everything we are seeing at the current moment, but we knew that wasn’t true. They also falsify or, at least, complexify more interesting theories that equate attention with awareness. Sadly, I will not have a neatly packaged theory of consciousness to offer. Perhaps that will emerge during the question-and-answer period.
All cells must continuously manage reactivity – the chemistry that sustains life but also threatens it. Endogenous aldehydes such as formaldehyde are unavoidable byproducts of essential metabolism that challenge genome integrity, while uncontrolled lipid peroxidation can lead to ferroptotic cell death when antioxidant capacity becomes compromised. Both stresses are mainly handled by the same nucleophilic molecule: glutathione, creating a fundamental trade-off that must be resolved. In this lecture, I will discuss how cancer cells rewire their nucleophilic metabolism to navigate this conflict, prioritizing aldehyde detoxification or ferroptosis resistance according to their oncogenic landscape.
Valeria R. Mas, MSc, PhD, Joseph and Corinne Schwartz, Professor of Surgical Sciences Research in Transplantation, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Chief, Surgical Sciences Division, Department of Surgery at University of Maryland. Dr Valeria Mas is a cellular and molecular transplant immunologist with expertise in high throughput molecular applications and big data analyses aimed to evaluate the molecular and cellular pathways and regulatory networks that are associated with kidney allograft response to injury and long-term outcomes. She plays critical roles in multiple national and international committees (e.g., Co-Chair Kidney Week 2027, American Society of Nephrology (2026-2027), President, International Liver Transplant Society, American Society of Transplantation (AST) Membership Committee, AST Community of Basic Scientists Executive Committee (2016-present), Chair AST Research Network Translational Scientific Review Committee and is an editorial board member of the American Journal of Transplantation. Open to all. Please register your intention to attend by email to Sue Patchett (susan.patchett@nds.ox.ac.uk).
Prof Kumar will be discussing his work with the RECLAIM Network Plus,* the GREENIN Network Plus** and GP4Streets***, as well as his wider Global Centre for Clean Air Research work. *RECLAIM Network Plus is a 'one-stop-shop’ for towns and cities to find the information and support you need to install green and blue infrastructure in your communities and to put you in touch with others with similar interests and experiences. **People have been using plants such as ferns and succulents to brighten up their homes for millennia, but how much of an impact do they have on our environment and wellbeing? A new project led by the University of Surrey’s Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) will explore the role of plants and green infrastructure in improving indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and promoting health in the face of climate change. ***At GP4Streets, we recognise that streets are the heart of our neighbourhoods, yet they are often the most deprived areas in terms of green-blue-grey infrastructure (GBGI). Our vision is to transform these urban spaces into resilient, sustainable environments through innovative, do-it-yourself (DIY) GBGI solutions.
Stroke is currently the third leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years and mortality worldwide. As the risk of stroke increases sharply with age, incidence, and prevalence are expected to rise even further because of an aging population. This disease affects about 3.5 million people in the EU, with 700 000 new cases yearly. More than half of the patients suffer significant residual impairments, causing huge economic and societal burdens. Acute clinical intervention, typically involving surgical removal or dissolution of the clot through the administration of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), aims to restore blood flow to the affected brain areas and is only possible within a very short time window after stroke onset. Stem cell therapy using human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell-derived neural precursors is a promising future therapy for stroke patients. Two main mechanisms have been proposed to give rise to improved functional recovery in animal models of stroke after the transplantation of these cells. First, the ”bystander” effect, which could modulate the inflammatory environment by releasing different factors from grafted cells, resulting in moderate improvements in the outcome of the insult. Second, the neuronal replacement and functional integration of grafted cells into the impaired brain circuitry. This will ultimately result in optimum long-term structural and functional repair. Our data show that human skin-derived cortical progenitors can be reprogrammed to differentiate into cortical projection neurons and functionally integrate (forming afferent and efferent synaptic connections) not only into stroke-damaged rat cortical networks but also into organotypic cultures of the adult human cortex. The grafted cortical neurons respond to sensory stimulation in live animals and, importantly, also affect spontaneous behavior when inhibited by optogenetic stimulation. Stroke results in the loss of oligodendrocytes and axonal demyelination, contributing to functional impairment. Additionally, for grafted neurons to become functional, their axons must be myelinated. Our data show that human iPS cell-derived cells can also be reprogrammed to differentiate into functional, bona fide oligodendrocytes. The generated cells exhibit the structural, molecular, and functional characteristics of mature human oligodendrocytes. They can wrap both grafted human cell- and host-derived axons from cortical neurons in different set-ups, after xenotransplantation into rat stroke-injured somatosensory cortex and the human adult cortical organotypic system. Our findings raise the possibility that injured neural circuitry might be restored by stem cell transplantation also in humans with stroke, which would have major clinical implications.
This workshop, 'Georgian Studies Today: Links between Culture, History and Identity', is convened by OSGA Georgian Fellow Dr Giorgi Macharashvili (https://www.rees.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-giorgi-macharashvili) Speakers: Jost Gippert — Georgian Manuscripts in Germany: New Insights Ana Kirvalidze — Resilient Bonds: On Social Cohesion in Georgia Giorgi Macharashvili — The Origins and Development of Georgian Historical Writing Tamara Meskhi — On the Etymology of the Anthroponym “Bagrat” and the Origin of the “Bagrationi” Dynasty Oliver Reisner — News of the World for the Caucasus at the Beginning of the 20th Century Luka Shanidze — The History and Development of Archaeology in Georgia: 19th Century to the Present Day
The Behind-the-Scenes Seminar Series is designed to learn about the production process of research papers, offering an opportunity for students and researchers in all fields and at all career stages to engage with the challenges encountered during project development and how they were overcome. The paper: "The dynamics of abusive relationships", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139 (2024), p. 2135-2180. (with Kristiina Huttunen, Emily Nix and Ning Zhang)
Convened by Marcandria Peraut & Christine Chivallon This international conference is part of a partnership between the University of Oxford, the Maison Française d'Oxford, the PHEEAC laboratory at the University of the Antilles, and the UMR LISA at the University of Corsica. It will be held on December 15 and 16 at the Maison Française d'Oxford. This academic meeting aims to explore, from a historical and anthropological perspective, the arts of resistance to central power in the Caribbean and Mediterranean islands from the 18th to the 21st century, as well as the various forms of repression (censorship, imprisonment, deportation) that resulted from it. https://mfo.web.ox.ac.uk/event/international-conference-island-and-empire-revolts-repressions-memories-mediterranean
This international conference is part of a partnership between the University of Oxford, the Maison Française d'Oxford, the PHEEAC laboratory at the University of the Antilles, and the UMR LISA at the University of Corsica. It will be held on December 15 and 16 at the Maison Française d'Oxford. This academic meeting aims to explore, from a historical and anthropological perspective, the arts of resistance to central power in the Caribbean and Mediterranean islands from the 18th to the 21st century, as well as the various forms of repression (censorship, imprisonment, deportation) that resulted from it.
This conversation will explore the potential for a new biodiversity finance policy discourse which moves beyond the narrative of “closing the funding gap” towards one focusing on addressing the macroeconomic injustices that drive biodiversity loss and social inequity. Sara Lofqvist and Sophus zu Ermgassen will discuss the respective roles that public and private actors can play as funders of equitable, long-term biodiversity conservation and restoration, as well as the risks and opportunities inherent in the current state of biodiversity finance tracking toward Target 19 under the CBD.
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.
In a fast-changing world, psychiatry needs to adapt to remain relevant. This presentation will summarize the changes in psychiatry that are considered to have been the most impactful for the practice and research in psychiatry since 1945. Based on this historical context, the current status of psychiatry and its future as one of the main medical specialties will be discussed. This seminar is hosted in-person at the Department of Psychiatry, Seminar Room. To join online, please use the details below: https://zoom.us/j/94567124781?pwd=sVxXabbSWibdU8A9W2clQlG9neRGbQ.1 Meeting ID: 945 6712 4781 Passcode: 470970
About the workshop Secure Data Environments (SDEs) and Trusted Research Environments (TREs) are increasingly being used to extend and enhance clinical trial data in addition to modelling health data at a population level. In this workshop we will provide information and insights on using these environments, with practical demonstrations including: · what SDEs/TREs are; · how to access data in an SDE/TRE; · how to create projects and dispense data in SDEs/TREs; · using large scale network databases; · practical approaches to the use of SDEs; · using routinely collected NHS data; · working across multiple SDEs/TREs Who is it for? Researchers with statistical training, and an interest in learning about the benefits of using SDEs and TREs; no prior knowledge is assumed.
Join leaders from across the research community to steer the future of sustainable research practice. Share lessons from implementing the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) and help shape the next phase by connecting with the funders, industry partners and researchers driving this change. For the closing session, we will be joined by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, CBE, FRS, FMedSci, to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contributions of teams and individuals who have championed sustainability across Oxford’s laboratories and departments.
Do you need help managing your references? Do you need help citing references in your documents? This online session will introduce you to EndNote, a subscription software programme which can help you to store, organise and retrieve your references and PDFs, as well as cite references in documents and create bibliographies quickly and easily. On completing the workshop you will be able to: understand the main features and benefits of EndNote; set up an EndNote account; import references from different sources into EndNote; organise your references in EndNote; insert citations into documents; and create a bibliography/reference list. Intended audience: Medicine & NHS; Taught student; Researcher & research student.
Higher education development is increasingly influenced by the complex context of growing impact of geopolitics, the intensified pressure for addressing economic purposes and the call for AI and STEM in education and skill formation. This webinar critically examines the role of liberal arts education in nurturing caring professionals with a strong emphasis on transdisciplinary studies orientation and whole-person development. This webinar invites dialogue from participants to critically discuss the importance of repurposing university education to address the complex changes facing the humanities. This webinar is part of our Ideas and Universities Dialogue Series.
This in person event will be chaired by Head of Department Professor Martin Maiden who will introduce Dr Beth Mortimer for an exciting talk on the fascinating world of animals with the ability to detect surface vibrations - a remarkable sense we call seismic sensing. From spiders that shake their webs and sing love songs, to elephants that rumble the ground when there's danger, many species use vibrations to communicate. Discover how detecting vibrations generated by elephants in the African savannah can aid in their conservation, and how the unique sensitivity of spiders could inspire new robotic systems that use vibrations as an information source.
This online version of this event will be chaired by Head of Department Professor Martin Maiden who will introduce Dr Beth Mortimer for an exciting talk on the fascinating world of animals with the ability to detect surface vibrations – a remarkable sense we call seismic sensing. From spiders that shake their webs and sing love songs, to elephants that rumble the ground when there’s danger, many species use vibrations to communicate. Discover how detecting vibrations generated by elephants in the African savannah can aid in their conservation, and how the unique sensitivity of spiders could inspire new robotic systems that use vibrations as an information source.
Songs of Solidarity is a bold interdisciplinary performance project that reimagines ancient epics through the voices of migrant communities today. Following on from the APGRD's highly successful Cultural Programme-funded workshop in December 2024, Fiona Macintosh (Emeritus Professor of Classical Reception and Senior Research Fellow, St Hilda’s) and Tom Nelson (Career Development Fellow in Ancient Greek, St Hilda’s) have received further funding from the University’s Cultural Programme to continue their collaboration and to support the development of a new epic narrative through devised performance, drawing on Gilgamesh, Iliad, Kalevala, and Ramayana. Led by Dash Arts and PROJEKT EUROPA, in partnership with APGRD, this phase will involve a Writers’ Room with a number of emergent and seasoned writers, together with academics from Classics, Ancient and Near Eastern Studies, and the University’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). Hosted at St Hilda’s from Monday 15 to Wednesday 17 December, the Writers’ Room will lay the foundation for a full-scale production in 2027. On Wednesday 17 December at 5pm, there will be a public discussion about the project. For further information, email fiona.macintosh@classics.ox.ac.uk"
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.
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. https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/events/smartbiomed-statistical-genetics-symposium
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Join the meeting now Meeting ID: 317 734 607 329 42 Passcode: F8QC77c4
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.
Dr James Gilchrist University of Oxford https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/team/james-gilchrist
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.
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
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
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
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.
TBC
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
_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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
_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
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.
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.
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. More information about how to attend and/or present will be shared shortly. In the meantime, please save the date!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chair: Professor Rachel Brooks
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
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.
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
_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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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_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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
Professor Guy Thwaites University of Oxford https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/team/guy-thwaites
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
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.
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
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.
TBC
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 first Machine Learning 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: ML Workshop: Combining Machine Learning (ML) with Medical Statistics - A Worked Example When: Thursday 26 February Time: 11:00 – 12:00 Venue: OxPop Seminar room 0 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 this session. Depending on the demand, we can deliver a hands-on coding session in the future, showing 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
TBC
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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 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
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 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.
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
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.
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
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
