Green Templeton Lectures
The Green Templeton Lectures is an annual series of lectures in Hilary Term in which speakers explore a given contemporary theme through a number of different perspectives, such as historical, political, educational or philosophical.
2024: Planetary Health
The Green Templeton Lectures 2024 will focus on Planetary Health. More information about the series
2023: Philanthropy
The Green Templeton Lectures 2023 explored Philanthropy. More information about the series
2022: Science and the media
The Green Templeton Lectures 2022 were on science and the media. More information about the series
Climate change: journalism’s greatest challenge
Thursday 3 February
Wolfgang Blau, co-founder (with Meera Selva), Oxford Climate Journalism Network, and former President, International and Chief Operating Officer, Condé Nast
Watch discussion and read summary
Hell and back: On the road with the pandemic. What the virus taught us about equality, freedom and journalism.
Thursday 10 February
Barkha Dutt, leading Indian journalist and Visiting Fellow, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Watch discussion and read summary
What does it mean to be an honest broker?
Thursday 17 February
Professor Sir Charles Godfray, Director, Oxford Martin School and Professor of Population Biology, University of Oxford
Watch discussion and read summary
The Green Templeton Lectures 2022 were sponsored by Oxford PharmaGenesis, an independent, award-winning HealthScience communications consultancy. Its colleagues work globally, connected by a unique culture of integrity and compassion. Together, they help their clients bring evidence-based treatments to patients in areas of unmet medical need.
2021: Navigating the COVID challenge
The 2021 lectures focused on the theme ‘Navigating the COVID challenge’ and were held in partnership with Franklin Templeton, as an extension of their academic partnership scheme in which the college is a current partner. Under this overall theme, the lectures focused on different aspects, ranging from framing the coronavirus challenge to key lessons for recovery strategies to measuring the actual progress towards a better future these strategies deliver.
Framing the COVID challenge
Wednesday 27 January, 18:00
Speakers: Professor Rafael Ramírez and Professor Trudie Lang, University of Oxford
View report from Framing the COVID challenge
Key lessons for recovery strategies
Wednesday 10 March, 18:00
Speaker: Dr Giulio Boccaletti, University of Oxford
View report from Key lessons for recovery strategies
‘Building back better’ – but on what foundations?
Thursday 10 June, 18:30
Speaker: Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University
View report from ‘Building back better’ – but on what foundations?
2020: The Future of the Commons
The theme of 2020’s Green Templeton Lectures is the Future of the Commons. The three-part lecture series has been convened by Green Templeton Associate Professor and Research Fellow Dr Dustin Garrick.
More than a metaphor: the evolution of the commons in the past millennium
Thursday 23 January
Speaker: Professor Tine De Moor, University of Utrecht
Read a report of the lecture here
Globalisation and the grabbed commons: the shifting boundaries of water wars
Thursday 6 February
Speaker: Assistant Professor Jampel Dell’Angelo, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Read a report of the lecture here.
On the knife’s edge of tragedy and hope: markets and the commons in a divided world
Wednesday 4 March
Speaker: Dr Dustin Garrick, Research Fellow and convenor of the 2020 Green Templeton Lectures
2019: Leadership
The theme of 2019’s Green Templeton Lectures is Leadership. The four-part lecture series has been convened by Green Templeton Governing Body Fellow, Professor Sue Dopson.
A historical view of leadership and change
Speaker: Keith Grint, Emeritus Professor, University of Warwick
17 January 2019
Lecture report by Carlos Outeiral, Doctoral candidate in Statistics
Educating leaders
Speakers: Dr Andrew White and Jon Stokes, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
31 January 2019
Lecture report by Anna Clemente, MPhil Politics
Insights from female CEOs on their leadership journey
Speaker: Dr Andromachi Athanasopoulou, Queen Mary University of London
7 February 2019
Lecture report by Anna Clemente, MPhil Politics
Hidden from view: senior leaders’ experiences of depression and anxiety
Speaker: Professor Sally Maitlis, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
14 February 2019
Lecture report by Carlos Outeiral, Doctoral candidate in Statistics
2017: Delivering health
The talks in this GTC Lecture series, ‘Delivering health: clinical, management and policy challenges’, explored the many challenges involved with the immensely complex and expensive activity of delivering health and healthcare. The talks identified that collaboration between patients, clinical expertise, management and policy makes is needed if future improvements are to be realised.
Why is it so difficult to implement evidence-based healthcare?
Speakers: Richard Gleave, Public Health England, and Professor Sue Dopson, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
23 January 2017
What are the biggest challenges in global health and what needs to be done?
Speaker: Dr Luke Allen, Oxford GP Training programme and formerly with The WHO
30 January 2017
The economics of prevention
Speakers: Dr Louise Marshall, Senior Economic Fellow and Dr Anita Charlesworth, Director of Research and Economics, both of The Health Foundation
20 February 2017
The rational, political and emotional aspects of delivering health care
Speaker: John Drew, Partner at McKinsey Consulting and Dr Tony Berendt, Medical Director, Oxford University Hospitals
27 February 2017
2016: Living by numbers: big data and society
What is the digital future and how will it significantly change our lives? This series explored the nature of developments associated with big data and the implications for core aspects of everyday life.
Twitter and social life: tales from the frontline of social media research
Speaker: Professor Susan Halford, Director of the Web Science Institute, University of Southampton
25 January 2016
Politics by numbers: how social media shapes collective action
Speaker: Professor Helen Margetts, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Society and the Internet, University of Oxford
1 February 2016
Big data, food consumption and food policy
Speaker: Professor Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, City University London
8 February 2016
Big data and biomedical research: developments and implications
Speaker: Professor Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford
22 February 2016
2015: The world’s child
This lecture series was intended to raise questions about the changing nature of childhood and ‘adult world’ responses. The series explored some of the key influences on the conditions of modern childhood, aiming to locate children in regard to such developments as rapid technological change, marketisation and globalisation.
Children, war, insecurity and conflict
Speaker: Dr Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 2008-2014
26 January 2015
Children and the internet
Speaker: Professor Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics
2 February 2015
Global childhoods
Speaker: Dr Karen Wells, Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies, Birbeck University of London
9 February 2015
Children’s worlds through children’s literature
Speaker: Professor David Rudd, Professor of Children’s Literature, University of Roehampton
23 February 2015
2014: The tyranny of the normal
This lecture series asked: is normality – or conformity to certain parameters of behaviour and appearance – a necessary condition of all advanced societies or a tyranny which constrains individual aspiration and social evolution?
Cinematically challenged
Speaker: Adam Mars-Jones, novellist
27 January 2014
“I don’t like the way I look”: the psychological consequences of appearance norms
Speaker: Professor Nicola Rumsey, Co-Director of the Centre for Appearance Research (CAR) at the University of the West of England
3 February 2014
Feeling norms, feeling normal?
Speaker: Professor Sara Ahmed, Goldsmiths College, University of London
10 February 2014
Ordinary people do extraordinary things: what do the lives of Olympians tell us about the champion in all of us?
Speaker: Peter Keen CBE, Director of Sport, Loughborough University
24 February 2014
2013: Feeding a better future
The rising cost of food is impacting on people around the world, with up to one billion people, who live on the edge of poverty in 30 countries, at risk of hunger because of food shortages. This lecture series explored the causes and impact of the global food crisis, covering food policy, malnutrition and the importance of diet and nutrition in healthy minds and bodies.
One billion hungry: can we feed the world?
Speaker: Sir Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development, Imperial College
21 January 2013
The role of nutrition in mental health and performance: changing diets, changing minds
Speaker: Dr Alex Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention, University of Oxford; Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford; Founder Director, FAB Research
28 January 2013
Food democracy, food control and the social dimension of modern food policy
Speaker: Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, Centre for Food Policy, City University London
4 February 2013
Global malnutrition: can we make a difference?
Speaker: Professor Jeyakumar Henry, Director of Clinical Nutrition Sciences, Singapore Institute of Clinical Sciences; Director, Functional Food Centre, Oxford Brookes University
11 February 2013
2012: States in crisis
What are the pressures affecting the state in different parts of the world in the 21st century? Political conflict, economic collapse and civil uprisings are all contributing to tensions in various parts of the world. In this lecture series, the speakers explored aspects of these pressures from a largely regional perspective.
What will happen to African states?
Speaker: Paul Collier, Professor of Economics, Oxford University Economics Department, Director, Centre for the Study of African Economies, Professorial Fellow of St Antony’s College
16 January 2012
Behind the Arab Awakening: dynamics of civil resistance
Speaker: Mary Elizabeth King, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University for Peace, Fellow, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford
23 January 2012
Success in spite of crisis: the story of South Korea
Speaker: Stein Ringen, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Oxford, Fellow, Green Templeton College, Oxford
30 January 2012
The world as I see it
Speaker: Shaukat Aziz, economist, former Prime Minister of Pakistan
6 February 2012
2011: Living with the coalition
This lecture series explored how the policies and practice of the new Coalition government would affect key areas of public life in the UK. The speakers examined the intentions, tensions and impact of the government in areas of major interest to members of the college, University and society at large.
The implications for the health system
Speaker: Professor Sir John Tooke, Vice-Provost for Health and Human Sciences and Head of the Medical School at University College London
17 January 2011
The implications for the justice system
Speaker: Professor Dame Hazel Genn, Dean of Law and Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at University College London
31 January 2011
The implications for universities
Speaker: Professor David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, member of the Browne review of university funding and former Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England
7 February 2011
The implications for schools
Speaker: Professor Chris Husbands, Director of the Institute of Education, University of London
14 February 2011
2010: Uncertainties and insecurities
This lecture series sought to explore and explain the sources and forms of uncertainty in key aspects of contemporary life. Across a range of public and private arenas, there is a loss of confidence, a sense of insecurity, a decline of trust, and a generalised uncertainty about the direction in which society is travelling. These lectures looked successively at this uncertainty in health, in politics and in the media.
What’s all the fuss about? When individual risks meet policy uncertainties in health
Speaker: David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge
22 February 2010
Risk aversion and the climate of blame
Speaker: Helena Kennedy, leading barrister and an expert in human rights law, civil liberties and constitutional issues
8 March 2010
Trusting the news
Speaker: Stephen Coleman of the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds
15 March 2010
A fourth lecture in this series was cancelled
2009: Addicted to big pharma?
This four-part lecture series, ‘Addicted to big pharma? Reconciling business, medical and ethical needs’ explored the past, present and future of the pharmaceutical industry.
The origins and evolutions of the pharmaceutical industry
Speaker: Tilli Tansey, Professor of History of Modern Medical Sciences, University College London
5 May 2009
Pharmaceutical companies, government and society
Speaker: Sir Michael Rawlins, Chairman, National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence
Respondent: Chris Brinsmead, President of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI)
12 May 2009
A Pharma perspective on healthcare needs and innovations in drug discovery
Speaker: Dr Patrick Vallance, Head of Drug Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline
Respondent: Philip Bloomer, Director of Campaigns and Policy, Oxfam
2 June 2009
Is there a healthy future for Big Pharma?
Speaker: Dr John Patterson, former Executive Director, Development, AstraZeneca
Respondent: Sophia Tickell, Director, PharmaFutures
9 June 2009
