• Title: Is there a doctor (PhD) in the room? The role of scientific advice in crisis response
  • Date: 1st November 2018, 17:30 – 19:30
  • Location: The Peter Richards Room, Hughes Hall
  • Registration: click here for the Eventbrite page.

In times of crises , the government can call experts to give scientific advice for response and management. This first workshop of the term will provide Cambridge early-career researchers with an understanding of how policy-making is affected by crises.

The workshop will be led by experts working in civil service and academia, in particular:

Dr Andrew Kaye – Government Office for Science, Head of International Resilience
Dr Julius Weitzdörfer – Center for the Study of Existential Risk, Research Associate
Dr Emily So – Cambridge Architectural Research Ltd, Director

The workshop will include discussions on ensuring the quality of scientific advice in a crisis, as well as how future policies could build resilience against such events. The speakers will deliver a short presentation about their work and how it influences policy, followed by a case-scenario for the workshop attendees where the speakers will advise and question their decisions to make them more robust.

This workshop will be followed by a drinks reception.

The Cambridge Science and Policy Forum aims to stress the importance of the interaction between science and policy, offering a view on where this interaction is still lacking but also giving positive examples where evidence has been crucial in decision making. Our main goal is to reach early-career researchers, increasing understanding and encouraging them to pursue a role in science policy.

Where? Old Divinity School, St John’s College

When? Monday 23rd April, 2 – 6 pm

 PROGRAMME

Call for Abstracts
Policy-related societies, event organisers and individuals are invited to participate actively in our event by presenting a poster. Whether the mission of your poster would be to introduce your society, report on the outcomes of an activity you organised, or advertise future events, we are interested to hear about your poster ideas. Abstracts (max. 250 words) can be submitted to forum@cuspe.org until 13th of April 12 PM.

5th March, 6:00 – 7:30 pm – St John’s College, Old Divinity School, Main Lecture Theatre

Recent technological developments, especially in the field of machine learning, robotics, and A.I. have both wiped out entire sectors and created demand for new skills. There is considerable evidence that the technological change observed over the course of the last century has created more jobs than it made redundant and that it has favoured high-rather than low-skilled jobs. Voices claiming that this technological change led to mass unemployment have been proven largely wrong.

But at the dawn of a new major technological shift, it is legitimate to revisit these questions and conclusions. Is the automation of labour as we might see it in the next few years fundamentally different? If almost all jobs that neither require a college degree nor advanced social skills were replaced by robots and sophisticated algorithms within the next two decades, what would human labour look like? How do we need to adapt our social organisation and tax system? And does this transformation make a Universal Basic Income inevitable?

Speakers:

Professor Guy Standing, co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network, author of many books about universal basic income (see list below) and the key advisor to the working group of the Labour party investigating universal basic income. His website can be accessed here.

Dr. Malcolm Torry, Director of the Citizen’s Income Trust and honorary research fellow in the Social Policy Department at the LSE. From 1980 to 2014 he served in full-time posts in the Church of England’s ministry. Since 2014 he has given most of his time to the debate on a Citizen’s or Basic Income and is the author of many books about this topic. His London School of Economics (LSE) webpage is here.

Please register on Eventbrite here.

February 16th, 7 pm – Winstanley Lecture Hall, Trinity College New Court, CB2 1TJ

Ever since agriculture was taken up by mankind as an organized pursuit, producing enough grain to make it to the next harvest season has always been a challenge for the farming communities. With falling water tables, soil erosion, plateauing grain yields and rising temperatures, it is increasingly becoming difficult to expand production fast enough to cater to the booming population growth. Food systems and food security have always been a matter of geopolitics and it is becoming all the more important in the contemporary times. 

Cambridge Food Security Forum (CamFSF) and the Cambridge University Science Policy and Exchange (CUSPE), in cooperation with the Trinity Postdoctoral Society, bring to you a lecture on the geopolitical nuances of food systems.

The event will start with a keynote by Dr. David Nally, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. This will be followed by a panel discussion and questions by the audience. We are happy to confirm the following panelists:

  • Carol Ibe, founder of JR Biotek Foundation
  • Professor Nigel Poole, SOAS University of London
  • Ian Manning, Cambridgeshire County Council Member

 

The event will be followed by a panel discussion and drinks reception.

Please register on Eventbrite here.

November 21st, 6:30 pm – Gonville and Caius College, Bateman Auditorium

Register here.

DESCRIPTION

Gene editing, where should we draw a line? How far can we go?

The use of genetic techniques to edit human genes is one of the most controversial topics in modern science.

Should these be used only as research tools, or should we aim to use them to eradicate diseases? If so, what would the implications be, and are the risks too high?

In this event we will aim to consider all of these questions and more, through lectures given by three experts in the fields of gene editing, bioethics and law. The intersection where these topics meet will be explored and further discussed through a panel and questions from the chair and audience.

SPEAKERS:

Dr. Sarah Chan

Sarah is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the Usher Institute for Population Health Sciences and Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with the degrees of LLB and BSc (Hons) and spent some years as a laboratory scientist in the field of molecular biology before moving to work in science policy and bioethics

Dr. Jayne Spink

Jayne is the CEO of Genetic Alliance UK where she develops strategies together with trustees and staff and oversees business support functions – including finance, fundraising and governance. She also provides oversight of their policy and public affairs work, member and public engagement, support services and research.

Elizabeth Bohm

Elizabeth was a Senior Policy Advisor at the Royal Society and is currently Head of International at the Academy of Medical Science. With a background in law, ethics and biology, she is interested in where these things meet.