Dystopia and crisis: How can we imagine a better world when the world is burning?

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.