Rewley House Research Seminars Oxford University

What is Hope? This seminar explored what hope is and invited us to consider what hope means to people in different circumstances. We were delighted to welcome as speakers Peter Hinton (DPhil student at the Department for Continuing Education), Dr Christine Jackson (Associate Professor in History at the Department for Continuing Education), and Prof Carl Heneghan (Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) who led a multidisciplinary discussion on the theme of 'Hope', particularly as it relates to their own work.

What is the impact we create? How is it measured, justified, used? Three speakers from a social, historical and professional background examine what impact means in different scenarios, both for academics themselves, and the public at large. We are delighted to welcome as speakers Gorgi Krlev (DPhil student in Social Impact Measurement at OUDCE), Matt Smart (Project Officer, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team (KEIT) at the University of Oxford) and Dr Jon Healey (University Lecturer in English Local and Social History). Our speakers will lead a multidisciplinary discussion on the theme of 'Impact', drawing inspiration from their own research and experiences. This seminar will also include a discussion of the funding and other assistance available at the University of Oxford, in support of the Impact agenda.

Speakers for our seminar on the theme of Danger have Medical and Humanities backgrounds, and will consider the following: experimentation to diminish danger; the risks of ignoring danger, danger to the self and the ideal. This series of multi-disciplinary research seminars is designed to highlight current and future research initiatives in the Department for Continuing Education, and events are held once a term at Rewley House. The aim of the series is to bring together academic staff, current postgraduate students and administrative colleagues of the University in an informal intellectual and social environment.

The presentations invite us to consider what truth means to people in different circumstances, and how definitions of truth can affect decision-making, from literary risks to clinical trials. Four speakers illustrate their engagement with the concept of Truth with talks drawn from their recent research. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Three speakers share their insights into pattern exploration and, in some cases, exploitation, in their fields of finance, mathematics and climate change. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

The presentations focus on the impact of the concept of future in changing debate, and how, in specific instances, concerns about the future affect behaviours in the present. We were delighted to hear from Jill Hind (currently a DPhil student in Archaeology) and David Howard (UL in Sustainable Urban Development and Director of the MSc in Sustainable Urban Development programme) who lead a cross-disciplinary discussion of the concept of 'Future', focussing on how the themes of future are involved in or direct their research.