Past Events

ICOSS is the home of Social Science in Sheffield and as such we play host to a wide range of events from across the faculty. Here is a taster of some of the events previously held at ICOSS...

1st March 2012 - ICOSS Annual Lecture: "The Insubstantial Pageant: Producing an Untoward Land"

The annual lecture in 2012 was given by Professor Nigel Thrift, Vice-Chancellor, The University of Warwick and titled 'The Insubstantial Pageant: Producing an Untoward Land'.

"The lecture will consider how we might think about the capitalist economy that now seems to be emerging, one based on spontaneous synthesis. Following an extended introduction, the first part of the lecture examines the main changes that have been taking place in the economy grouped around the notion and value of innovation. It will argue that these changes might be thought of as adding up to a second Industrial Revolution. The second part of the lecture will consider how these changes are producing a different kind of production - one which is both industrial and cultural at once - which is constructing naturalism. The industrial revolution is often characterized as the first break in human history with the natural economy. But what if the natural economy was now being recovered - but by other means - as a redefinition of what counts as land? The final part of the lecture will then turn to modern cities and the imprint that these changes are making upon them as this new land is founded and endowed and rented out to grow new kinds of crop upon."

29th September 2011 - Launch of The BIG Energy Upgrade

The launch event of The BIG Energy Upgrade, which takes a 'whole house' approach to energy conservation, was held here at ICOSS and featured a keynote address from the Rt Hon Chris Huhne MP who explained the importance of tackling energy efficiency. The innovative project is set to install low carbon measures in houses in some of the most deprived areas in Yorkshire and Humber. The BIG Energy Upgrade partnership, led by Kirklees Council, includes six local authorities, four Arms Length Management Housing Organisations, two Registered Social Landlords across Yorkshire and the Humber, Yorkshire Energy Services and the University of Sheffield.

31st May 2011 - ICOSS Annual Lecture: Professor Richard Sennett

The 2011 ICOSS Annual Lecture was be given by Professor Richard Sennett of New York University. His talk was based on an upcoming work on 'Cooperation as a developmental process - what happens in adult life to weaken capacities for cooperation developed in early childhood'.

3rd March 2010 - ICOSS Annual Lecture: "Inequality: The Enemy Between Us?"

ICOSS and the Public Services Academy welcomed Professor Richard Wilkinson to the University of Sheffield for a public lecture on the subject of inequality.

Professor Wilkinson is Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, Co-Founder of The Equality Trust and best-selling author of "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better" (described as "What might be the most important book of the year" by the Guardian and "One of Top Ten books of the decade" by the New Statesman).

"If you look at rich countries and compare life expectancy, mental health, homicide rates, conflict between school children, teenage birth rates, drug abuse, obesity rates, levels of trust, the educational performance of school children, or the strength of community life, you find that countries which tend to do well on one of these measures tend to do well on all of them, and the ones which do badly, end to do badly on all of them. What accounts for the difference?"

21st January 2009 - Re-Launch of ICOSS & Guest Lecture: "Complexity, climate change and social science"

ICOSS was officially re-launched as the "Interdisciplinary Centre of the Social Sciences" in January 2009. The launch event featured a lecture titled "Complexity, climate change and social science" by special guest John Urry, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University.

In this talk John Urry suggests that the social sciences should be central to the debates and arguments on global climate change although currently they are wholly marginal. Thinking through the lens of complex systems provides both the means to begin to understand high carbon social relations and their possible mitigation, and provides a language to develop connections and to work with various climate change sciences. Establishing such working relations across disciplinary borders is a suitable task for ICOSS which would place it as central to the biggest issue for the social sciences in the decades to come, namely developing analyses and policies to slow down the 'juggernaut' of global climate change.

A video recording of the lecture is available to watch here - follow the link on the right...

(You will need Apple's free Quicktime Player to watch this video - available from www.apple.com/uk/quicktime/)