Geoengineering: Fantasy or Feasible Future?

This Alumni Weekend panel discusses future energy needs and steps that must be taken to increase the chance that they can be met sustainably. World energy consumption is increasing, driven by economic development in countries where more is needed to lift billions out of poverty. Our energy is mostly provided by burning fossil fuels, which is driving climate change and producing debilitating pollution. The gap between realistic energy projections and low carbon aspirations is widening. 25th April 2015, Orangery, Schoenbrunn, Vienna Chaired by Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith (Director of Energy Research, University of Oxford) and featuring Juliet Davenport OBE (CEO of Good Energy Group), Dr Jan Dusik (Director of the Regional Office for Europe of the United Nations Environment Programme) and Graham van't Hoff (Exectuive Vice President, Shell Chemicals)

Re-visiting the time of Freud, Klimt and Schönberg, the Alumni Weekend panel surveys and analyse this unique period in Vienna’s history and in Western culture. In the opening years of the twentieth century, Vienna – the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire – provided the grand setting for a proliferation of artists, architects, composers, writers and thinkers whose explorations heralded a number of significant movements in modern culture. 25th April 2015, Orangery, Schoenbrunn, Vienna Chaired by Bethany Bell (BBC Foreign Correspondent) and featuring Professor Shearer West (Head of Humanities, University of Oxford), Professor Ritchie Robertson (Taylor Professor of the German Language and Literature, Fellow of the Queen's College) and Professor Jonathan Cross (Professor of Musicology and Student and Tutor in Music at Christ Church)

Panel discussion of the Ukraine reviewing the current situation, exploring the context of the conflict which broke out in 2014, assessing its impact on Europe, and identifying what the international community can learn and how it should respond. 25th April 2015, Orangery, Schoenbrunn, Vienna. Chaired by the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten on Barnes CH and featuring Jutta Edthofer (Head of Division Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, Austria) Professor Gwendolyn Sasse (Professor of Comparative Politics and Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College) and Michael Bociurkiw (Spokesperson for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine).

This talk illustrates how Tibetan Buddhism relates to the landscapes of the Tibetan plateau, to form a unique, truly Himalayan blend.

The causes of the First World War have long been controversial and remain so. The Warden of St Antony's College, Oxford, and author of The War that Ended Peace (2013) brings us up to date on the debate.

Ira Lieberman provides an expert analysis on the evolution of micro-finance institutions. Followed by Juan Guerra, founder of StudentFunder – a case study.

Social finance and social investment is creating a global buzz, with estimates that the sector will grow over the next decade – an emerging trend that may lead to both vibrant social change and financial returns on investment.

Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine and Will Hutton, Principal of Hertford, in conversation.

Chas Bountra, a popular speaker at the recent Meeting Minds: Alumni Weekend in Asia, will explain how Oxford is creating a new ecosystem for drug discovery.

Nigel Bowles explores Nixon’s politics that achieved a synthesis of strategy, imagination, ideologies, and calculation rare among Presidents.