What could be done about the crisis of imagination that is afflicting much of the world?
We can easily imagine ecological disaster or technological futures but struggle to picture how welfare, health or democracy could be better a generation from now. Geoff Mulgan, author of Another World is Possible will share both diagnosis and prescription, looking in particular at the role of universities in helping societies to think ahead.
The economist Milton Friedman once wrote that ‘only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around....[our basic function is to] develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.’
Was he right? And what does this imply at a time of accumulating crises?
This event will be moderated by Professor Ngaire Woods.
Speakers
Sir Geoff Mulgan is a Professor at University College London (UCL), former CEO of Nesta and the Young Foundation and director of the UK Government's Strategy Unit.
His latest book ‘Another World is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination’ was published summer 2022.
Ngaire Woods is the founding Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and Professor of Global Economic Governance at Oxford University.
Her research focuses on how to enhance the governance of organisations, the challenges of globalisation, global development, and the role of international institutions and global economic governance.