Latest thinking

The Hidden Wealth of Student Researchers (plus a survey)

Blog

15 Dec 2010

Benedict Dellot

A couple of months ago now, Matthew Taylor offered up an idea in his blog about how we might kill two birds with one stone. The basic gist of this idea was to match postgraduate students searching for thesis ideas with the many organisations and individuals up and down the country that might like to tap into some of that spare research capacity, particularly those who are engaged in work with a social impact. An online matchmaking tool with a set-up similar to sites such as Kiva, Wowsociety and Simpl could effectively act as a broker linking the two parties together.

Do clever people care about the X Factor?

Blog

13 Dec 2010

Matthew Taylor

I hope I may have persuaded Radio 4's Moral Maze to make X Factor, and celebrity culture more generally, its focus this week. I have told the producer that I am happy to open by declaring: 'I am an X Factor addict but I am ashamed of myself' and then go on to attack the pernicious impact of the programme and its ilk on our moral fibre. 

Boing boing Martha Nussbaum

Blog

10 Dec 2010

Matthew Taylor

This morning on the tube on my way to speak about 21st century enlightenment to 200 sixth formers of St Paul’s Girls’ School, I began reading ‘Not for profit’, the new book by leading American intellectual Martha Nussbaum (she is speaking at the RSA next week).

What is a Creative Gathering?

Blog

09 Dec 2010

The Arts and Social Change strand of Citizen Power just held the third Creative Gathering last night in the Beckett Chapel within Peterborough Cathedral. We will be holding many more but I realize that for those not there, this term of ‘creative gatherings’ may be confusing. Don’t I just mean meetings? And if so, who for? And why?

Back to drugs (policy)

Blog

09 Dec 2010

Matthew Taylor

The new drug strategy, published yesterday, is the high level vision that my colleague, Rebecca Daddow, described in a  recent RSA Comment article.  Steering away from the nuts and bolts of implementing the vision, it leaves the room for ‘leaders… in local areas’ to shape the service landscape.

Will I live to be sixty?

Blog

07 Dec 2010

Matthew Taylor

Apparently I should start drinking milk with powdered aspirin if I want to live longer. I’m not sure how useful this is for me. Yesterday was the first day of my fifties but if the sixth decade goes on like it started there’s no way I’ll make it to the end.

Fellows lead the way...

Blog

03 Dec 2010

Matthew Taylor

This post reveals a good news story, but to get to it you’ll have to read some background…...

Something to think about as you trudge through the snow

Blog

02 Dec 2010

Matthew Taylor

Much has been said about the limitations of the neo-classical economists’ view of human behaviour.  The idea that we are perfectly informed, utility maximising individuals has been under a sustained critique, especially since the credit crunch. As I often tell audiences we are more instinctive, more socially conditioned and more idiosyncratic than we have been led to believe.

The virtual time machine

Blog

01 Dec 2010

Julian Thompson

This time last year our Projects team marked the coming of Christmas by having a whip round and hiring a Blue Badge guide to take us on a wintry, mulled wine-fuelled tour of the area around the RSA building in John Adam Street.