Events

Infrastructure for Planetary Health: A blueprint for sustainable futures 

Monday 16 December 2024
1-2pm
CKK 3.15

This talk, based on the findings of the Asian Infrastructure Financing 2025 flagship report, will explore the critical interconnections between health, climate change, environmental degradation, and global development, emphasising the urgent need for a planetary health approach.

This event is part of the Economic Geography and Spatial Economics Seminar Series

The rise of Africa’s suburban middle classes

Tuesday 26 November 2024
6.30-8pm
Auditorium 

Speakers: Professor Claire Mercer, Professor Deborah James, Professor Ola Uduku, Professor Susan Parnell 

This event will discuss Claire Mercer's new book, The Suburban Frontier: Middle Class Construction in Dar es Salaam, which explores how self-built housing on city edges shapes Africa’s middle class and urban transformation. The book provides significant insights into urban social change in Africa and urbanization in the Global South.

This event is co-hosted with the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa

Fragments of Home: refugee housing, humanitarian design and the politics of shelter

Tuesday 19 November 2024
6.30-8pm
Auditorium

Speakers: Dr Tom Scott-Smith, Nick Henderson, Dr Myfanwy James 

Tom Scott-Smith, drawing on his new book, discusses the unconventional shelters provided to refugees, such as abandoned airports, shipping containers, and squatted hotels, highlighting various strategies by governments and charities.

He will explore the political implications of these shelters and propose how the principle of autonomy can enhance humanitarian action and create more inclusive refugee accommodations.

This event is co-hosted with the International Inequalities Institute

PhD Virtual Graduate Open Day

Monday 18 November 2024
3-4pm
Online

Join our live online event for prospective PhD students. Discover our PhD programmes and take the chance to ask questions.

Reversed Realities Revisited: 30 years of thinking in gender and development

Thursday 14 November 2024
6.30-8pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre 

Speakers: Dr Erin Lentz, Prof Andrea Cornwall, Prof Naomi Hossain, Prof Naila Kabeer 

Thirty years ago, Professor Naila Kabeer published "Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought," a landmark study in Feminist Development Studies that examined the exclusion of feminist knowledge in development practice and its resulting inequalities.

Leading thinkers in Feminist Economics and Development Studies will join us to reflect on the legacies of this groundbreaking text and the changes over the past three decades.

This event is co-hosted with the Department of International Development

Radically Legal: Berlin constitutes the future

Wednesday 13 November 2024
6-7.30pm
Yangtze Lecture Theatre, Centre Building 

Speakers: Dr Joanna Kusiak, Dr David Madden, Dr Anna Minton

Join us for the book launch of Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future, the Nine Dots Prize-winning book by Dr Joanna Kusiak.

This event is co-hosted with the Department of Sociology and The Urban Salon.  

The Impact of Work-from-home: The European Perspective

4-5 November 2024
Marshall Building

This workshop explores the latest theoretical and empirical developments in the field of work-from-home, with a focus on the economic and institutional frameworks of European economies.

Programme

Analog Labor in a Digital World: electronics repair and the circular economy

Tuesday 29 October 2024
11-11.30am

Speaker: Dr Julia Corwin

What happens to our electronics when we stop using them? While most of us depend on these technologies daily, we rarely see the labour that goes into making, selling, and repairing them. Drawing from her forthcoming book, Analog Labour in a Digital World, Dr Julia Corwin examines the often invisible but vital labour of electronics repair, as seen through repairers and scrap dealers in Delhi, India. From the local electronics repair shop to major electronics manufacturers and e-waste recyclers, she shows the interdependence of people, materials and communities, and reveals a globally connected world of commodity production, waste and revaluation.

This event is part of LSE's Research Showcase and is open to LSE staff, students, alumni and prospective students. 

White Nationalism and GOP Climate Obstruction 

Thursday 10 October 2024
6.30-8pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre 

Speaker: Professor Laura Pulido 

In this talk, Laura Pulido considers the relationship between U.S. white nationalism and the Republican Party’s (GOP) record of climate obstruction.

This event is the inaugural lecture in our new Sustainability Public Lecture Series

Advances with Field Experiments (AFE) 2024 Conference

5-6 September 2024
LSE campus

Keynote speakers: Susan Athey (Stanford University), Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Noam Yuchtman (University of Oxford)

The Advances with Field Experiments 2024 conference will gather a group of academics to present the best and most innovative new work using field experiments to address economic questions. 

Colonial power and climate change | LSE Festival

Wednesday 12 June 2024
1-2pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building

Speakers: Dr Mark Nesbitt, Professor Laura Pulido, Dr Danielle Purifoy, Dr Jake Subryan Richards

If climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today, then understanding how power shapes climate change, and our role within this dynamic, must be among the most urgent tasks for contemporary social science.  

This panel will discuss this relationship between history and contemporary environmental governance. 

This event is part of the LSE Festival.

7th Annual LSE/Imperial Workshop in Environmental Economics

10 - 11 June 2024

The workshop will bring together top scholars from around the world to share their latest research in environmental, resource, and energy economics. The workshop is also a great platform to identify areas where further academic work is needed and to foster new collaborations.

Global ocean governance: past, present, and future

Monday 11 March 
6.30-8pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre and Online

Speaker: Professor Scott Barrett

The ocean covers seventy percent of the Earth’s surface and is governed by a combination of property rights, established in customary law, and cooperative agreements, established under treaty law. Drawing from history, international law, and game theory, Scott Barrett will explain what these institutions have and have not been able to achieve, and why.

This event is co-hosted with Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Critical economic geographies of supply chains through crisis: working with and beyond global value chain frameworks

Thursday 7 March 
4-6pm
LSE Lecture Theatre and Online

Speaker: Professor Alexandra Hughes 

This event will discuss contributions of critical economic geography to understanding the presentation and management of diverse ecological, economic, and political crises in supply chains.

This talk is co-sponsored by the Economic Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG.

Meet the Author: Theory and Explanation in Geography by Henry Yeung

Wednesday 21 February
2-4pm

Come and engage with a world-leading scholar in economic geography. This event with Henry Wai-chung Yeung is an opportunity to critically assess the core concepts of his new book, Theory and Explanation in Geography.

This event is for current Geography and Environment students only.

Accelerating Green Innovation and Diffusion: insights from the IMF

Thursday 15 February
5-6pm
Yangtze Lecture Theatre

Speaker: Zeina Hasna

Join us for an insightful session with Zeina Hasna, economist at the IMF, as we explore her recent joint IMF note on Green Innovation and Diffusion.

Transforming rural Southeast Asia

Wednesday 14 February 2024 
6.30 - 8pm
Auditorium

Speaker: Tania Murray Li 

In this talk Tania Murray Li will outline the main powers and processes at work in transforming rural Southeast Asia and draw on her ethnographic research in Indonesia to illustrate how rural people navigate their ever-changing terrain.

This event is co-hosted with the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre and Department of Anthropology.

Growth through investment: what should the UK's FDI strategy look like?

Tuesday 13 February 2024 
6.30 - 8pm
Hong Kong Theatre

Speakers: Laura Citron, Riccardo Crescenzi, Nigel Driffield, Lord Harrington

An increasingly challenging global economic environment calls for an evidence-based discussion of the next stage of the UK’s strategy for the attraction and retention of Foreign Direct Investment to fast-track sustainable growth and productivity.

The Labor of Hope: Meritocracy and Precarity in Egypt

Wednesday 7 February 2024
6.30 - 8pm
Shaw Library

Speakers: Harry Pettit, Tatiana Thieme, Jo Littler and Salwa Ismail

In Egypt, a generation of young men desire fulfilling employment, meaningful relationships, and secure family life, yet find few paths to achieve this. The Labor of Hope follows these educated but underemployed men as they struggle to establish careers and build satisfying lives.

This event is co-hosted with the Middle East Centre.

Engaging the global urban agenda: from the south

Wednesday 6 December 2023
6.30 - 8pm
Hong Kong Theatre

Speaker: Professor Susan Parnell

Creating solutions to complex problems like gender inequality, informality, climate resilience or disease prevention, is the foundation of effective global governance.

This event is part of the Sylvia Chant Lecture Series and is co-hosted with the Department of Gender Studies.

The economic costs of British planning: unaffordable housing and lost employment and productivity

Tuesday 5 December 2023
6.30 - 8pm

Speakers: Stephen Aldridge, Dame Kate Barker, Professor Paul Cheshire, Lord Wolfson

It is 40 years since Paul Cheshire began to investigate the economic effects of our land use planning system and 20 years since Kate Barker published her first review of the impact of planning on housing supply. Their insights have helped us understand what can be done to ensure decent housing for all and boost productivity – but, after three failed attempts at significant planning reform - we are now in a time of economic stagnation and facing a housing affordability crisis that is only becoming more desperate as interest rates rise.

This event is hosted by the Centre for Economic Performance and co-hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment.

The elusive plantation: imagining development in Mozambique 

Wednesday 15 November 2023
6.30 - 8pm
Hong Kong Theatre

Speaker: Professor Wendy Wolford
Discussant: Professor Catherine Boone

For over 100 years, plantations have served as the imagined ideal for agricultural production and labor management in Mozambique. In this talk, I outline the colonial roots of this desire for the always-elusive plantation and argue that it manifests in contemporary Mozambique in a variety of ways.

This event is part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2023, taking place from 21 October to 17 November with events across the UK.

Transnational Geographies of Race

Thursday 9 November 2023
11.30am - 1pm

Speakers: Professor Laura Pulido, Professor Patricia Noxolo

Chair: Prof Claire Mercer

In this special event, two leading scholars will engage in a situated conversation of racial geographies. They will draw on their extensive knowledge of racial and spatial formations across the UK, the US, and the Caribbean to consider differences of historical and geographical location as well as transnational convergences and connections.

Listen to the recording 

Platform economy: utopia or dystopia?

*EVENT CANCELLED*

Wednesday 18 October 2023

Speakers: Dalia Gebrial, Kruskaya Hidalgo Cordero, Gabriella Razzano, Professor Kirsten Sehnbruch

In recent years, digital platforms such as Uber, Amazon, AirBnB, and Deliveroo have become increasingly popular across the globe, radically changing the economic landscape and the nature of work. But does the emergence of the platform economy and gig work create a utopia or dystopia for workers?

This event is hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and co-hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment.

Shattered nation: inequality and the geography of a failing state 

Monday 16 October 2023
6.30 - 8pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre 

Speaker: Professor Danny Dorling

Britain was once the leading economy in Europe; it is now the most unequal. Danny Dorling will explain why we are growing further and further apart, exposing a new geography of inequality. 

6th Annual LSE/Imperial/King's Workshop in Environmental Economics

19 - 20 June 2023

This workshop brings together top scholars from around the world to share their latest research in applied environmental and development economics. 

This year we have partnered with Imperial College London and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. 

Monumental Denial: U.S. cultural memory and white innocence

Friday 24 March 2023 
6.30-8pm
Auditorium, Centre Building

Speaker: Professor Laura Pulido 

In this talk I explore how U.S. cultural memory represents processes of white supremacy and settler colonization.

This event is co-hosted with the LSE Phelan United States Centre.

Dark Agoras Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place

Wednesday 25 January 2023
4-5.30pm
Graham Wallas Room, Old Building 

Speaker: J. T. Roane 

In this book, author J.T. Roane shows how working-class Black communities cultivated two interdependent modes of insurgent assembly—dark agoras—in twentieth century Philadelphia.

Getting to Zero Requires a Big Push: Climate-Technology Treaties and the Energy Transition

Tuesday 24 January 2023
6.30-8pm
Auditorium, Centre Building

Speaker: Professor Scott Barrett

The climate treaties have sought to limit the economy-wide emissions of individual countries with a view to meeting a collective goal, and economists have advocated achieving these emission limits using economic instruments. I present the case for a very different approach, one that focuses on sectors rather than whole economies, on the transformation of energy-technology systems rather than emission reductions, and on action at the global rather than the national level.

Interconnected Worlds: electronics global production networks after the pandemic

Wednesday 9 November 
5.00 - 6.30pm
Online and in person public event

Speaker: Professor Henry Yeung 

Henry Yeung discusses his recent monograph Interconnected Worlds, exploring how electronics global production networks have evolved since 2018.  

Co-hosted with LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre

Divided Environments 

Tuesday 8 November
6.30 - 8.00pm
Wolfson Theatre 

Speaker: Professor Jan Selby

Join us for the launch event of Jan Selby, Gabrielle Daoust and Clemens Hoffmann’s new book, Divided Environments: An International Political Ecology of Climate Change, Water and Security. 

Global Value Chains For Regional Development: mobilising trade and FDI for economic development

Thursday 27 October 
6.30 - 8.00pm
Online and in person public event

Speakers: Peter Berkowitz, Prof Riccardo Crescenzi, Oliver Harman, Ana Novik, Joaquim Oliveira Martins

Global value chains (GVCs) have a central role in the international economy, yet to many they are unwieldy flows of goods and services unable to be harnessed.

This event marks the launch of a new book which makes the case for GVC-sensitive development policies that target specific segments of selected GVCs as stepping-stones for local upgrading, innovation and development.

Co-hosted with LSE School of Public Policy

Threatening Dystopias: politics of climate change adaptation in Bangladesh 

Thursday 13 October 
4.00 - 5.30pm
Shaw Library 

Speaker: Dr Kasia Paprocki 

Join us for the launch of Kasia Paprocki's new book. 

Threatening Dystopias draws on over two years of multi-sited ethnographic and archival fieldwork in Bangladesh and offers an in-depth analysis of the global politics of climate change adaptation and how they are both forged and manifested in this unique site.

Behavioural Transformations in the 21st Century: Frontiers in Behavioural Public Policy

Thursday 7 July 2022

This free event is held both online and in person and is open to all policymakers and academics interested in learning about behavioral tools and their real world applications.

5th Annual LSE Workshop in Environmental Economics

20 - 21 June 2022

This workshop brings together top scholars from around the world to share their latest research in applied environmental and development economics. 

This year we have partnered with Imperial College London and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. 

Rethinking our Disposable Society: how to build a circular economy

Wednesday 15 June 2022
1.00pm-2.00pm
Marshall Building

Speakers: Jocelyn Blériot, Lara Pohl-Martell, Dr Jason Wong

The idea of a circular economy, in which waste and pollution are eliminated through better design, reuse of resources and regeneration, is a radical solution to climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as social problems. But is a shift away from a linear economy achievable, and how?

This event is part of the LSE Festival

Geography is destiny - Britain's complex relationship with Europe

Monday 13 June 2022
1.00pm-2.00pm
Online public event

Speaker: Ian Morris

Ian Morris discusses with Prof Michael Cox how geography, migration, government, and new technologies interacted to produce regional inequalities that still affect us today.

Co-hosted with LSE IDEAS

Too Much Information

Monday 6 June 2022
4.00pm-5.00pm
Old Theatre, Old Building

Speaker: Prof Cass Sunstein

How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought on our way into the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? 

In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives.

Co-hosted with the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science

Climate Change Diplomacy: a most dangerous game

Tuesday 17 May
6.30pm-8.00pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Prof Scott Barrett

This keynote lecture will explain: why, despite thirty years of diplomatic effort, global collective action on climate change has failed; how climate diplomacy can be made more effective; and what past and ongoing diplomatic failures imply for future climate diplomacy.

Co-hosted with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment

Digital and Green Recovery in all regions? Opportunities and challenges for economic and territorial cohesion

Tuesday 29 March 2022
5:30pm-7:00pm
Alumni Theatre, New Academic Building

Speakers: Dr Lewis Dijkstra, Prof Iain Begg, Dr Danae Kyriakopoulou, Prof Francesca Medda

The Report on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion is the flagship publication of the European Commission on the evolution of economic and social disparities between sub-national regions in Europe. Following the presentation of the key insights from the Cohesion Report the discussants will highlight opportunities and challenges for public policies when supporting the digital and green transitions in all regions.

Watch recording.

Painful truths: resisting gendered violence against women

Tuesday 15 March 2022
6:30-8:00pm
Online public event

Speaker: Prof Cathy McIlwaine

This lecture discusses the nature of and resistance to gendered violence against women from scalar and interdisciplinary perspectives. The lecture draws empirically on research conducted over the last 5 years on violence against Brazilian migrant women in London and among women living in the favelas of Maré in Rio de Janeiro.

This event is part of the Sylvia Chant Lecture Series

Co-hosted with the Department of Gender Studies

The State We're In at 25: reconsidering progressive politics

Wednesday 24 November 2021
6:30-8:00pm
Online public event 

Speakers: Will hutton, Geoff Mulgan, Alison McGovern MP

Will Hutton’s The State We’re In was one of the most important polemical works of the 1990s. The challenging, creative critique of the UK's political economy caught the public mood and provided intellectual underpinning for a period of progressive renewal. The book remains one of the bestselling books on UK public policy. But how relevant is it today?

Are the problems faced by the UK different now? And what lessons are there in progressive renewal? To mark the book's 25th anniversary, this event will bring together Will Hutton with leading political thinkers to update the work and consider parallels between the UK politics of the mid-90s and now.

Listen to the podcast

Communicating Coastal Ecologies: launch of bilingual podcast Alainagaram

Friday 29 October
2:00-3:30pm
Online public event

Speakers: Prof Ajantha Subramanian, Senthil Babu

Join us for the launch of Alainagaram, a new podcast exploring seacoasts, cities and the urban and political processes they’re entangled in.

Cohesion Policy: evidence-based lessons for digital and green recovery in Europe 

Friday 24 September

This workshop explores the opportunities and challenges triggered by the digital and green transitions in Europe and its regions. High-level speakers from a diverse set of fields and institutions will engage in an evidence-based debate on how Next Generation EU and the EU Cohesion Policy could support a digital, green and inclusive recovery in all EU regions. 

This workshop is organised jointly with the Rossi-Doria Centre (Roma Tre University) in collaboration with the European Regional Science Association (ERSA).

Watch the workshop on our YouTube channel. 

4th Annual LSE Workshop in Environmental Economics

21 - 22 June 2021

This workshop brings together top scholars from around the world to share their latest research in applied environmental and development economics.

This year we have partnered with Imperial College London and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Behavioural Transformations in the 21st century: Novel ways to make behavioural public policy more effective

27 - 28 May 2021

Join leading academic experts in behavioural science to engage in a two-day event focusing on the outreach of novel behavioural change tools like Nudge+, Thinks and Boosts. Let's go beyond nudges, and take first-class research today to apply for tomorrow.

Watch the recording on Facebook.

The EU Recovery Fund: can governments respond to COVID-19 with a green and digital transformation of our economies?

Thursday 1 April 2021
1–2:15pm
Online public event

Speakers: Isabel Blanco (EBRD), Prof Francesca Medda, Prof Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

This expert panel discuss the potential trade-offs between timely investments for recovery and digital and green transformations and how these objectives can be better reconciled in Europe and beyond.

Automation and the Future of Work: what, when, where?

Thursday 25 March 2021
2–3:15pm
Online public event

Are we doomed to lose our jobs? Join us for a discussion on the future of work with Ms Laura Frigenti (KPMG), Prof Lisa De Propris (University of Birmingham) and Dr Stijn Broecke (OECD), moderated by Miquel Vidal Bover (MSc LED student).

This event is organised by the students of the MSc Local Economic Development at LSE.

We Are All in This Together: has COVID-19 taught us how to save the world?

Monday 1 March 2021
2:30-3:30pm
Online public event

Can the massive shift in the way we now relate to each other, and the rules we choose to live by, help us tackle other collective threats to humanity, like climate change? 

We need coordinated and cooperative collective action. Experts in behavioural public policy and sustainability discuss how the experience of the pandemic can be leveraged to enable new, transformative behaviours and policies.

This event is part of the LSE Festival.

Gender and COVID-19: a feminist economics lens

Thursday 18 February 2021
4-5pm
Online public event

Professor Naila Kabeer will use a feminist economics lens to analyse a range of different impacts associated with COVID-19 and to explore the kinds of policies that such a lens would suggest for a more resilient and equitable future. This is the first event in our new annual series, The Sylvia Chant Lectures.

Co-hosted with the Department of Gender Studies

Our Slim Window of Opportunity: what the climate change agenda must achieve in 2021

Wednesday 3 February
12-1pm
Online public event

In a world beset by a global pandemic and an existential climate change emergency, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change Patricia Espinosa will provide her vision for 2021 and discuss why this year’s global climate change negotiations, or COP26, will play a crucial role with respect to addressing climate change, building forward from COVID-19 and reinforcing the very concept of multilateralism itself. 

Co-hosted with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Displacement: Global Conversations on Refuge

Thursday 28 January 2021
4-5:30pm
Online public event

A book launch and discussion around 'Displacement', co-edited by Silvia Pasquetti and Romola Sanyal. As an unprecedented number of people are displaced around the world, scholars continue to strive to make sense of what appear to be a series of constantly unfolding 'crises.'

Drawing on research in a range of regions - from Latin America, to Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, North America, post-Soviet regions, and South and South-East Asia - Displacement offers an interdisciplinary and transnational approach to thinking about structures, spaces, and lived experiences of displacement.

Watch the recording on Facebook.

Solutions for a planet in crisis

Wednesday 20 January 2021 
3:30pm to 4:30pm
Online public event

A public lecture with Inger Andersen, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. 

A podcast of this event is available to download from Solutions for a Planet in Crisis

A video of this event is available to watch at Solutions for a Planet in Crisis

A transcript of Inger Andersen's speech is available at Solutions for a Planet in Crisis

Innovation, Inequality and Sustainable Development

Wednesday 9 December
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Online Public Event

Speakers: Teis Hansen, Erica Pani 

In a session chaired by Nancy Holman, Teis Hansen and Erica Pani will discuss inequality and environmental sustainability in regional policy.

This event is free and open to all, and no registration is required. The event will be live streamed on the LSE Regional and Urban Planning Studies Facebook page.

Co-hosted with LSE London

Planning for Sea Level Rise

Wednesday 25 November
8:30am to 9:30am
Online Public Event

Speakers: Kiana Otsuka, Swenja Surminski 

In a session chaired by Nancy Holman, Kiana Otsuka and Swenja Surminski will discuss planning strategies for sea level rise in urban areas.

This event is free and open to all, and no registration is required. The event will be live streamed on the LSE Regional and Urban Planning Studies Facebook page.

Co-hosted with LSE London

Density: design and perception

Wednesday 11 November
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Online Public Event

Speakers: Fanny Blanc, Javier Iñigo, Beatrix Emo

In a session chaired by Alan Mace, Fanny Blanc, Javier Iñigo and Beatrix Emo will discuss how density is designed and perceived in cities. 

This event is free and open to all, and no registration is required. The event will be live streamed on LSE Regional and Urban Planning Studies Facebook page.

Co-hosted with LSE London

Can Urban Agriculture Play a Role in the Time of Crisis?

Wednesday 28 October 
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Online Public Event

Speakers: Alexandra Payne, Sarah Williams, Tom Henderson

In a session chaired by Dr Nancy Holman; Alexandra Payne, Sarah Williams and Tom Henderson will discuss how cities around the world can tackle the issue of food security. 

This event is free and open to all, and no registration is required. The event will be live streamed on LSE Regional and Urban Planning Studies Facebook page.

Co-hosted with LSE London

Regional Growth, Local Development and Euroscepticism

Wednesday 7 October 
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Online Public Event

Speakers: Prof Lewis Dijkstra, Prof Riccardo Crescenzi

Cities and regions across the world are experiencing pressures on the housing, governance and sustainability fronts. Challenges such as creating sustainable transport links, enhancing local democracy or tackling housing shortage push urbanists to think creatively. In this event, Lewis Dijkstra will discuss regional growth, local development and Euroscepticism with Riccardo Crescenzi. 

This event is free and open to all, and no registration is required. The event will be live streamed on LSE Regional and Urban Planning Studies Facebook page.

Co-hosted with LSE London

Industrial Policy, Agility and Innovation: COVID-19 as a new beginning

Thursday 2 July
2:45pm to 4:00pm
Online Public Event

Speakers: Prof Philippe Aghion, Prof Riccardo Crescenzi, 
Dr Joaquim Oliveira Martins, Dr Daria Taglioni

Chair: Prof Robert Wade

As governments around the world deal with the catastrophic economic impacts of COVID-19, industrial policy has taken centre stage. Previously considered a tool ‘that-shall-not-be-named’, in recent years there has been a fundamental shift in scholarly and policy thinking in this space, provoked in part by the failure of austerity measures to tackle the long-lasting negative effects of the Great Recession of 2008.

This panel will explore key questions that must be answered - from the dynamics of globalisation vs reshoring, to uneven development, and the need for effective operational tools if we are to design and implement the right industrial policy to navigate this crisis and promote inclusive and sustainable outcomes, both now and in the future.

This online public event is free and open to all but pre-registration is required.

3rd Annual LSE Workshop in Environmental Economics

22-23 June 2020

Our annual workshop brings together top scholars from around the world to share their latest research. Keynote speakers are Ann Harrison (University of California, Berkeley) and Matthew Kahn (Johns Hopkins University).

Behind the Tin Sheets: city makers of Bangalore

Friday 6 March 2020
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building 

Speakers: Prof Laura Bear, Ekta Mittal
Chair: Dr Sunil Kumar

Stories of ghosts, love and labour of the workers who made the Bangalore Metro are told in this screening and Q&A of two films by filmmaker Ekta Mittal.

This event is part of the LSE Festival.

The Carbon Conscious Consumer: going beyond nudges with nudge plus

Wednesday 4 March 2020
7:30pm to 8:30pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Speakers: Sanchayan Banerjee, Prof Peter John, Prof Theresa M Marteau, Prof Gerry Stoker
Chair: Dr Ganga Shreedhar

Recent advancements made by the UK's Committee on Climate Change (UKCCC) towards achieving the Paris Agreement goals by announcing their net zero emissions target shows the UK's commitment to tackling one of the most important challenges of the 21st century: the climate change dilemma. Can we sustain this behaviour change through old-school nudges only? Or is there a need for greater reflection on the part of individuals?

This event is part of the LSE Festival.

Listen to the podcast. 

Precarity, temporality and translocality in Africa's urban archipelagos

Wednesday 5 February 2020
6:30-8:00pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Prof Loren B Landau, Oxford University
Discussant: Prof Claire Mercer, LSE
Chair: Dr Romola Sanyal, LSE

Prof Loren B Landau will explore questions of solidarity, integration, the meaning of politics, rights and the city in Africa’s rapidly expanding, diversifying and mobile urban populations.

Read the lecture and see the slides. 

Less Poverty, More Precarity: Squaring the Circle of Southeast Asian Development

Thursday 30 January 2020
6:30-8:00pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

Speaker: Prof Jonathan Rigg, University of Bristol
Chair: Prof Hyun Bang Shin, LSE

Professor Rigg will give a public lecture on the different, but intertwined, narratives that paint Southeast Asia as exemplar of development success yet with deepening inequality.

Co-hosted with the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre

Centring housing questions in (neoliberalising) Asian cities: book launch

Tuesday 3 December 2019
4:30pm to 6:00pm
Sumeet Valrani Lecture Theatre (Centre Building, LSE)

Prof Hyun Bang Shin, along with Co-Editor Dr Yi Ling Chen (University of Wyoming), will be launching their new book, “Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia”, which explores a range of Asian cities including Bangkok and Hanoi. This event is co-hosted with the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre. 

'Protection Space': the humanitarian order and the rationalisation of rightless relief

Tuesday 19 November 2019
6 - 8pm
Vera Anstey Room, Old Building

Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment, the LSE Human Rights Centre and Birkbeck, University of London.

Speaker: Daniel Bertrand Monk, Professor of Geography and Middle East Studies, Colgate University

This presentation is part of a forthcoming monograph: Global Shelter Imaginary: The Rationalization of Rightless Relief, co-authored by Daniel Bertrand Monk and Andrew Herscher.

Podcast available here. 

The Case for the Green New Deal

Monday 4 November 2019
6:30-8:00pm 
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Speaker: Ann Pettifor

To protect the systems that sustain life on Earth we need to do more than just reimagine the economy – we have to change everything.

'Paris to Pittsburgh' film screening

Thursday 17 October 2019
6 - 8pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

Paris to Pittsburgh is a National Geographic documentary film about climate change mitigation, celebrating how Americans are demanding and developing real solutions in the face of climate change.

The film will be introduced by Dr Thomas Smith. Following the film there will be short Q&A.

Only open to LSE students and staff. Please register here. 

The Price of Risk: planning, infrastructure and community building

Wednesday 16 October 2019
6:30-8:00pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Peter Freeman (Co-founder of Argent)

Peter Freeman will argue that long-term, institutional investors should support mixed-use, master-planned developments because their social and commercial aims create value and reduce risk. 

Podcast available here. 

Given Half A Chance: ten ways to save the world

Thursday 10 October 2019
6-7pm
32L.G.03, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, ground floor, room 3

Speaker: Ed Davey, World Resources Institute

Ed Davey (MSc Environment and Development 2007-08) returns to LSE to present his new book about how we can address the climate and environmental challenges of our time.

Podcast available here. 

Environmental Economics Workshop June 2019

13-14 June 2019

EBRD, One Exchange Square, London

The Department of Geography and Environment is pleased to announce the second LSE workshop on Environmental Economics. This year we have partnered with CEPR, EBRD and Economics of Transition and Institutional Change to host a symposium on “Environmental Economics and the Green Transition”. 

Organisers: Cevat Giray Aksoy (EBRD & LSE) and Sefi Roth (LSE). 

Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change

Tuesday 28 May 2019
6:30-8:00pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Jared Diamond

At a time when crises are erupting around the world, Jared Diamond reveals what makes certain nations resilient in the face of tremendous upheaval.

There is no Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years

Monday 29 April 2019
6:30-8:00pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

Sustainability expert Mike Berners-Lee looks at the big environmental challenges facing Earth and offers some guidance on what we can all do to help humanity thrive on our only planet.

Hosted by The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Department of Geography and Environment.

Watch video here. 

Participatory approaches to natural resource conservation in the Brazilian Amazon - Research Output Seminar

Wednesday 27 March 2019
5:00-9:00pm
Thai Theatre, New Academic Building

Speakers: Prof Kathy Hochstetler, Dr Charles Palmer, Dr Edilza Laray de Jesus, Dr Grace Iara Souza, Valcleia dos Santos Lima Solidade, Steve Bass 

Organised under the auspices of the Newton Fund Institutional Links joint research project between the London School of Economics (LSE) and the State University of Amazonas (UEA), part of the British Council, Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS) and Schneider Electric 2016 call, this international seminar brings together academics and practitioners from both Brazil and the UK to discuss participatory approaches to natural resource conservation. 

Displaceability: A New Foundation of Urban Citizenship?

Thursday 21 March 2019
4.00-5.30pm
Graham Wallas Room, Old Building

Introducer: Irit Katz, Department of Sociology, LSE
Speaker: Oren Yiftachel, Ben-Gurion University, Israel and Visiting Leverhulme Professor, UCL

Chair: Hyun Bang Shin, Department of Geography and Environment and Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, LSE

The talk develops the concept of 'displaceability' as a central, yet often overlooked, dimension of urban citizenship. Displacement denotes the involuntary removal of individuals, communities or large collectivities from their houses, lands, rights and locations, as urban regimes. On the basis of studying urban regions of the global 'southeast' (Tallinn, Cape Town, Jerusalem and Colombo) the lecture advances three key arguments:

• The degree of displaceability provides a central foundation for understanding contemporary urban citizenship
• Displaceability is increasingly related to strategies of urban legal and planning regimes
• Displaceability is on the rise, creating pervasive new urban criminalities, instabilities and conflicts

The Politics of Urban Inequality in Brazil and South Africa

Friday 1 March 2019
6:00-7:00pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment and the LSE Festival: New World (Dis)Orders

Speakers: Dr Nate Millington, Dr Mara Nogueira-Teixeira

This comparative urban panel on Brazil and South Africa examines class, race, power and politics in the burgeoning cities of the two countries that have become influential yet unstable middle forces in the international order emergent over the last generation. 

New Reconcilliations: the two Koreas

Wednesday 27 February 2019
7:30-8:30pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment and the LSE Festival: New World (Dis)Orders

Speakers: Dr Jeong-Im Hyun, Dr Owen Miller, Prof Vladimir Tikhonov

Since early 2018, the two Koreas on the Korean Peninsula, known to be the last remaining divided countries since the end of the Second World War, have begun the road to reconciliation. A series of summit visits have taken place and are expected to continue, together with various events and projects that are expected to increase the level of interaction in terms of economy, politics, culture and infrastructure. What does this thawing relationship mean for the future of the Koreas and of the world?

Video and podcast available here. 

Innovation and the Nation: what can we learn from the history of the British case 1900-2000?

Monday 4 February 2019
6:30-8:00pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Prof David Edgerton
Discussant: Prof Ian Gordon

Among the claims made in the context of Brexit, the British Prime Minister has called for a new global Britain to lead the world into the fourth industrial revolution'. This lecture will survey the history of innovation in the United Kingdom over the twentieth century, and rationales for policy. It will also show how policy analysis has commonly profoundly misunderstood both policy and practice, and the realities of  national innovation in a global world. In particular it conflated  the nation and the world which lead to serious misunderstandings of the scope and power of national innovation. 

Copies of David’s book, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History, will be available to purchase on the night. 

Podcast available here. 

Market exuberance and exploiting legal norms in real estate finance – 'twas ever thus?

Thursday 17 January 2019
6:30-8:00pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Damian Perry (Consultant to Clifford Chance)

Damian Perry’s talk will focus on market ‘irrationality and exuberance’ leading up to the last financial crisis (2003-8) and the regulatory over-reaction that followed (2008-2015). He will then look at legal structures in the real estate debt markets that have recently emerged which are again at risk of being misused in a rising market.

Podcast available here. Slides available here. 

Cost Benefit Analysis and the Environment: Further Developments and Policy use

Thursday 22 November 2018
6:30-8:00pm
Shaw Library, Old Building, LSE

Speakers: Prof Giles Atkinson, Prof Ben Groom, Prof Susana Mourato, Nils-Axel Braathen, Joseph Lowe,Tanja Wettingfeld

A number of OECD countries make extensive use of cost benefit analysis (CBA) to help inform environmental policy decisions.  This discussion panel will reflect on this use and take stock of recent developments in environmental CBA and the challenges this presents to policy makers. The panel will be comprised of some of the LSE authors of a recent book published by OECD on environmental CBA as well as policy practitioners. 

Podcast available here.  

LSE-NHH Conference June 2018

15-16 June 2018

Shaw Library, Old Building

The Department of Geography and Environment (LSE) and the Department of Economics at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) have organised a conference on Environmental and Development Economics, which will take place on June 15-16, 2018 at the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

The conference will bring together top scholars from around the world to share their latest research in applied environmental and development economics. The programme features 15 papers presentations by leading scholars, as well as one session with short research sketches from PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. 

School Autonomy, School Choice and the Quality of Education: evidence from England

Wednesday 16 May 2018

6:30-8pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Prof Olmo Silva (Professor of Real Estate Economics and Finance, LSE)
Discussant: Amy Finch, OFSTED

Olmo Silva will discuss the conceptual framework and empirical evidence underpinning the idea that autonomy and choice can lead to improvements in education standards in England.

Podcast and video available here.  

The Future of Fashion: can the industry be in vogue and sustainable?

Saturday 24 February 2018 
11:00am to 12:15pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

As fashion production processes get faster and faster, this event will ask: how can fashion brands and producers adapt their business models, in the face of growing demands to reduce the environmental impacts from the production, consumption and disposal of clothing?

This event was part of the LSE Festival: Beveridge 2.0 running from Monday 19 to Saturday 24 February 2018.

Podcast and video available here.

RiverBlue: can fashion save the planet?

Friday 23 February 2018 
6:30-8:30pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Internationally renowned river advocate, Mark Angelo, journeys through some of the world’s most pristine to some of the most polluted rivers, in an unprecedented global adventure.  This quest set out originally to film rivers in an effort to protect them, but in the process uncovered the dark underside of the global fashion industry. 

This event was part of the LSE Festival: Beveridge 2.0 running from Monday 19 to Saturday 24 February 2018.

A World of Food in Change

Tuesday 30 January 2018
6:30-8pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Michael La Cour (Managing Director of IKEA Food Services AB)

Michael will discuss the role and responsibility of corporations in addressing current and future challenges of the food system, and how sustainability and health drives innovation.

Podcast and video available here.

Development Collective Know-how and Us

Monday 29 January 2018
6:30-8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building

Speaker: Prof Ricardo Hausmann (Director of Harvard's Center for International Development)

The difference between rich and poor countries is mostly explained by differences in “technology”. But what is technology and why does it not diffuse more quickly? 

Podcast and video available here.

The Multinational World: how cities and regions win or lose in the global innovation contest

Wednesday 15 November 2017
6:30-8pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

Speaker: Prof Riccardo Crescenzi
Discussant: Martin Sandbu, Financial Times

Global flows of capital, skills and knowledge bundled by multinationals have enormous transformative power. Why and how do they help some cities and regions to prosper?

Podcast and video recording available here.

Art and the City

Thursday 12 October 2017
6:30-8pm
Shaw Library, Old Building

Speakers: Luisa Bravo, Thierry Maeder, Nela Milic, Julie Ren, Martin Zebracki 

Artistic practices have long been disturbing relationships between art and space. This book launch features contributors introducing work from Beirut, London and Geneva.

Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason

Monday 18 September 2017
6:30-8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building

Speaker: Prof David Harvey

Leading Marxist scholar David Harvey discusses the profound insights and enormous power Marx’s analysis continues to offer 150 years after the first volume of Capital was published. His latest book is Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason.

Podcast and video recording available here.

Britain’s Housing Crisis: causes and cures

Tuesday 21 March 2017
6:30-8pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

Speaker: Prof Christian Hilber 

In his inaugural lecture, Prof Hilber will explain how Britain’s planning system and tax policy cause the country’s housing crisis and contribute to rising inequality. He will explore how we can do better. 

Listen to the podcast.

Seeing Our Planet Whole: A Cultural and Ethical View of Earth Observation

Thursday 2 March 2017
6:30-8pm
Thai Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Harry Eyres

Harry Eyres will talk about his new book, Seeing Our Planet Whole: A Cultural and Ethical View of Earth Observation (Springer, 2017), which came out of a collaboration with the European Space Policy Institute in Vienna where he was a part-time senior fellow from 2013-2016.

A free event for LSE staff and students only.

'Before the Flood' Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Friday 24 February 2017
6:30-8:30pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment 

On the panel:
Prof Simon Dietz, Dr Rebecca Elliott, Dr Michael Mason, Isabella Neuweg

"Before the Flood, presented by National Geographic, features Leonardo DiCaprio on a journey as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, traveling to five continents and the Arctic to witness climate change firsthand. With unprecedented access to thought leaders around the world, DiCaprio searches for hope in a rising tide of catastrophic news." Read more on the Before the Flood website.

The Fight for Beauty: Our Path to a Better Future

Tuesday 21 February 2017
6:30-8pm
Hosted by the Department of Geography and Environment and the Literary Festival
Wolfson Theatre, NAB

Speakers: Dame Fiona Reynolds, Nicholas Crane, Prof Giles Atkinson

We live in a world where the drive for economic growth is crowding out everything that can't be given a monetary value and it's getting harder to find space for the things that really matter but money can't buy, including our future. Fiona Reynolds proposes a solution that is at once radical and simple - to inspire us through the beauty of the world around us. Delving into our past, examining landscapes, nature, farming and urbanisation, she shows how ideas about beauty have arisen and evolved, been shaped by public policy, been knocked back and inched forward until they arrived lost in the economically-driven spirit of today.

Listen to the podcast.

Rethinking Punishment

Thursday 16 February 2017
6:30-8pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

Speaker: Didier Fassin (French anthropologist and sociologist, currently the James D. Wolfensohn Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton).

What is punishment? Why do we punish? Who gets punished? Based on a series of ethnographies conducted on policing, the justice system and the prison institution, this lecture will critically revisit theoretical discussions related to the definition, justification and distribution of punishment.

Do we do enough for the future?

Thursday 2 February 2017
6:30-8pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building

Speaker: Christian Gollier (internationally renowned researcher in Decision Theory under Uncertainty and co-creator of the Toulouse School of Economics).

Christian Gollier will discuss the way one should value and compare projects whose benefits materialize only in the decades or centuries to come.

The Political Geography of Brexit: an informal panel discussion

Weds 9 November 2016
14:00-15:45
Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Speakers: Professor Ian Gordon (LSE), Professor Ron Johnston (University of Bristol), and Professor Kevin Cox (Ohio State University).

Post-Quito Conversations on the New Urban Agenda

Speakers: Dr Ryan Centner, Assistant Professor of Urban Geography and Prof Sandra Jovchelovitch, Professor of Social Psychology

(in coordination with the LSE Planning Society)

Tuesday 8 November 2016
11am - 12pm
Tower 2, Room 204, LSE

A discussion with two LSE academics who recently participated in UN HABITAT III in Quito, Ecuador -- a convention to set a "new urban agenda" promoting just, sustainable, smart, compact, inclusive cities. The HABITAT meetings, which happen only every 20 years, aim to define lines of debate and ways forward for a generation.

Security, Risk and the Urban Imagination

Speakers: Dr Austin Zeiderman, Professor Matthew Gandy, Professor Gareth A Jones, Dr Kate Maclean

Chair: Dr Claire Mercer

7 June 2016
Shaw Library, Old Building, LSE

Security and risk have become central to how cities are imagined in the twenty-first century. In a forthcoming book, Endangered City, LSE Geography and Environment’s Austin Zeiderman critically examines this new political imperative to govern the present in anticipation of future harm. To mark the book’s publication, this event brings together an interdisciplinary panel of scholars to discuss the intersection of security, risk, and the urban imagination.

Podcast recording available here. 

Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation

Speaker: Professor Paul van Gardingen 
Chair: Professor Giles Atkinson

2 February 2016
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

How can ecosystem management in developing countries contribute to poverty alleviation, as well as to inclusive and sustainable growth?

Podcast and video recording available here.