Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

Luís Bettencourt argues that cities and urban systems provide a more useful basis for understanding development than national averages and targets. Regional, urban and neighbourhood differences expose limitations of treating countries as uniform units. The proposed framework describes development as expanding physical, social and economic connections and interdependence. The lecture examines how this approach accounts for empirical patterns across periods and geographies, simultaneous changes in multiple development measures, and heterogeneity at both national and neighbourhood scales. It contrasts national target setting, with its ecological fallacies and distributional effects, with coordinated processes involving innovation communities, infrastructure connectivity and basic services.

Graham Ryan examines how the Soufrière Hills volcano has shaped Montserrat since the eruption began in 1995. Fatalities, displacement and economic damage were followed by continuing volcanic unrest, leaving uncertainty even after eruptive activity stopped. The same geology also offers potential resources. The lecture considers indigenous geothermal electricity that could supply the island and research with the Oxford Martin School into extracting critical metals from magma-derived fluids. It connects ongoing volcanic risk with opportunities for energy independence and a more sustainable economic base.

This panel examines the UK housing crisis through affordability, supply, taxation and the institutions governing land and credit. High prices relative to incomes and rising rental burdens affect younger people particularly strongly, while inadequate social housing contributes to inequality and exclusion. Housing conditions also influence health, family formation, energy vulnerability, carbon emissions and productivity. The discussion assesses progress on planning reform, land-value capture, social housing and tenure security. It asks whether property taxation and the speculative private housebuilding model need reform, and explores alternatives for expanding access to adequate housing.

David Cooper assesses progress towards the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s 2030 targets and 2050 goals. He explains why biodiversity matters for human security and wellbeing, drawing on recent assessments of conditions in the UK and globally. The lecture considers prospects for recovery and argues that conservation efforts need complementary changes across economic sectors and society to address biodiversity loss and support people and nature together.

Steven Bernstein examines how international norms and practices interact to produce change and continuity in global governance. Contemporary descriptions of a rupture in the international order may exaggerate some changes while overlooking slower developments over preceding decades. The lecture develops four scenarios of change, using examples from ecological governance, development and the rules-based international system to assess the strengths and limitations of prevailing conceptual frameworks.

Yael Parag proposes degrees of isolation and connection as a framework for analysing energy systems, rather than a binary distinction between isolated islands and connected grids. The framework links infrastructure design, governance, operating practices, resource dependence and collective perceptions across spacecraft, community systems, microgrids, islands and countries. Comparative cases examine how security, independence, climate goals, costs, technical constraints, ideology and geopolitics shape these arrangements and change over time. Montserrat illustrates both vulnerabilities and opportunities, including coordinated design of water, sewage and energy microgrids. The lecture also considers how regional exchange, cooperation and shared identity influence resilience, treating energy islands as evolving configurations within wider social and geographical settings.

Maximilian Kasy examines the human choices and ownership structures shaping artificial intelligence. After introducing how AI works, he focuses on who determines its objectives and controls the resources needed to build it: data, computing capacity, expertise and energy. The lecture argues that these decisions, rather than autonomous technological inevitability, influence the distribution of AI’s benefits and harms in an already unequal society. It presents a framework for understanding AI capabilities and considers democratic control of objectives and public oversight as responses to those concerns.

Eric Beinhocker and Nick Hanauer present Market Humanism as a proposed framework for an economy centred on human flourishing. They interpret the period since the financial crisis as a gap between economic paradigms, with consequences for democracy, climate action and responses to artificial intelligence. Drawing on economics, philosophy, behavioural and social sciences, complex systems, evolutionary theory and computer science, they outline the proposed framework and its implications for policy and business. The discussion considers how it could alter politics and public narratives, and the practical opportunities and difficulties of moving towards such an economy.