Will AI free us from work?

Contributor(s): Juan Manuel Santos, Professor Mary Kaldor, Professor Lord Stern | Join Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and LSE alumnus Juan Manuel Santos and LSE academics Mary Kaldor and Nicholas Stern in a conversation to explore how we can build a sustainable, peaceful and stable world.

Contributor(s): Professor Claire Miller, Dr Sefi Roth | Join us as the University of Glasgow’s Claire Miller explores the statistical and data analytics approaches being developed to successfully bring different data sources together to improve environmental planning and management. We now have the potential to access more data than ever before, which can help us to explore important, complex and increasingly pressing environmental issues. However, each source of data often has its own limitations, meaning there's often missing information from an individual data source. To get a more complete picture, we can combine data from different data sources. Considerable challenges exist in integrating the data in this way as the data can be recorded at different time points and/or in different spatial locations, can be large but also have gaps, and data sources can have varying levels of uncertainty, different data structures and types.

Contributor(s): Professor Gordon Hanson | The decline of manufacturing and the acceleration of technological disruption have concentrated joblessness in distressed regions and blocked many workers from access to good jobs. In this lecture Gordon Hanson addresses the origins of job loss, the reasons for its geographic concentration, and what we’ve learned about policies intended to help left-behind places.

Contributor(s): Dr Swati Dhingra, Dr Matilde Mesnard, Dr Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Chris Skidmore, Professor Lord Stern, Sharon Yang | This event will serve as a timely preview of the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP), offering insights into where meaningful progress can be made on international climate action. It will explore the evolving landscape of global climate policy, with a particular focus on how both physical climate risks and transition-related risks are shaping the decisions of central banks, fiscal authorities, and financial regulators. Through expert discussion and cross-country perspectives, the event will reflect on the mounting challenges faced by policymakers in aligning climate objectives with broader macroeconomic and financial stability goals. While geopolitical fragmentation and economic headwinds continue to complicate the global policy environment, there remain significant opportunities to strengthen the design and implementation of monetary, fiscal, and regulatory frameworks. By identifying areas for coordinated progress, the event will highlight how both advanced and emerging economies can promote a more resilient global financial system, foster sustainable growth, and advance the just transition toward a low-carbon future even amid ongoing geopolitical turbulence.

Contributor(s): Professor Hilary Hoynes | Join us for the Department of Social Policy’s Annual Lecture at which Hilary Hoynes will explore the concept of viewing the social safety net as a long-term investment in children. Traditionally, economic research has emphasised the incentive effects of tax credits and transfer programs, often neglecting their potential benefits, particularly for children. Hoynes will review a growing body of evidence showing that childhood access to programs like food stamps, the EITC, and Medicaid leads to significant improvements in health, education, earnings, and reduced criminal justice involvement in adulthood. Using cost-benefit analyses like the Marginal Value of Public Funds (MVPF), Hoynes argues these programs often pay for themselves over time. She concludes that understanding these long-term benefits is crucial to shaping effective policy and reimagining the safety net as a strategic societal investment.