Ann Furedi has been CEO of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (bpas) since 2003; which is the UK’s leading abortion service. Before then she was director of policy and press for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the UK’s regulator of embryo research and assisted conception. Ann has written extensively in defence of women’s autonomy of reproductive choice, and is the author of The Moral Case for Abortion (Palgrave […]
Speakers and Panellists
previous speakers
Michael Meadowcroft
Michael Meadowcroft has been active in Liberal politics for over fifty years. He has been a Leeds City Councillor, a West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Councillor, and was MP for Leeds West, 1983-87. Over the past twenty years he has been mainly concerned with new and emerging democracies, and has led or been a member of some fifty missions to thirty-five countries. His academic thesis was […]
Stephen Coleman
Stephen Coleman is Professor of Political Communication at the University of Leeds, Honorary Professor in Political Science at the University of Copenhagen and Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. His main research interests are: methods of political engagement; uses of digital media in representative democracies; intersections between popular culture and formal politics; political efficacy; citizenship education; political aesthetics, performance and rhetoric; literary and […]
Alastair Donald
Alastair Donald is the associate director of the Academy of Ideas, and coordinates planning and programming across projects including Battle of Ideas and Battle of Ideas Europe, and is co-founder of the IoI’s residential school Living Freedom which allows 18-25-year-olds to explore the meaning and ideals of freedom in the twenty-first century. Alastair is the co-editor of the books The Lure of the City: from slums to […]
Andrew Brown
Andrew Brown is Professor of Economics and Political Economy and Divisional Director of Research at the University of Leeds Business School. HIs research advances explanations of key developments in economy and society. He has published on theories of value and growth, financialisation, the euro, job quality and satisfaction, well-being, infrastructure economics, and ICT. He also stresses the research importance of methodology and philosophy, and leads large-scale interdisciplinary […]
Adam Crawford
Adam Crawford is Professor of Criminology, University of Leeds, and Director of the Leeds Social Sciences Institute. He is Director of the N8 Policing Research Partnership, a collaboration between universities and policing partners in the north of England. With Professor Shapland (Sheffield) he is exploring the use of restorative justice in policing. He is Co-Investigator on an AHRC project: ‘The future prospects of urban parks: The life, […]
Josie Appleton
Josie Appleton is convenor of the Manifesto Club; she oversees the club’s campaigns and publications, and coordinates the membership programme. She heads up the Campaign Against Vetting, and is author of its series of reports (starting with The Case Against Vetting in October 2006). She also founded and edits the Thinkpieces series, and chairs Manifesto Club salons. As a journalist and writer, she writes on the […]
Andrew Calcutt
Andrew Calcutt is Principal Lecturer in Journalist and the University of East London, and the author of Arrested Development: Pop Culture and the Erosion of Adulthood (Continuum 1998, reprint Bloomsbury Academic, 2016). As a journalism academic, he is concerned ‘for the future of journalism, alongside the future of my students in journalism.’ […]
Angus Kennedy
Angus Kennedy is the convenor of the Academy of Ideas’ educational initiative The Academy, and the author of Being Cultured: In Defence of Discrimination (Societas, 2014), and co-editor of a collection of essays From Self to Selfie: a critique of contemporary forms of alienation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). He is also working on a new book Borders: the foundation of freedom and security (Imprint Academic, 2019). […]
Nick Emmel
NIck Emmel is a senior lecturer in sociology and social policy, University of Leeds; author, Sampling and choosing cases in qualitative research (SAGE, 2013) I am a critical sociologist who always questions preconceived and common sense notions and names causes. I like to ask hard (and interesting) questions about complex social puzzles that demand interdisciplinary investigation. […]