“A thinktank for our times”: City launches the Finsbury Institute

Polycrisis interrogated

An audience of 140 policymakers, civil servants, academics, thinktank members and charity workers took part, with one attendee saying, “I’m very glad this event is happening.”

They heard from speakers from the knowledge sharing platform ROADS Initiative, the thinktank Foreign Policy Centre, as well as academics from universities including City, LSE and SOAS.

The conference was opened by the Lord Mayor Michael Mainelli, Rector of City. He said:

Harnessing shared knowledge to create solutions

Panels began with a short presentation from each speaker based on their work, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

From migration, health, and global order, academics and practitioners harnessed their collective knowledge to come up with solutions to the problems of our time. The panels were:

• “Conceptualising disorder, crisis, and the crisis of knowledge” defined the polycrisis, discussed global order, democratic participation, and debated whether we are in a New Cold War. With Dr Aaron McKeil (LSE), Professor Bobby Banerjee (Bayes Business School) and Professor Dan Mercea (City)

• “Geopolitics, geo-economics and the Global South” discussed the diplomacy of currencies like the dollar, and whether we are in a state of coloniality rather than polycrisis. The panel welcomed Dr Farwa Sial (SOAS), Professor Photis Lysandrou (City), Dr Ahmed Waheed (ROADS Initiative) and Dr Mark Ledwidge (City)

• “Health, pandemics and the crisis” touched on Covid, Ebola and vaccines, and investigated whether the public has lost trust in governments due to social media and policy. With Professor Sophie Harman (Queen Mary University of London), Dr Orkun Saka (City), Dr Agne Suziedelyte (City), Dr Stephanie Alice Baker (City)

• “Migration, borders and violent crime” focused on the ways in which race and class impact migration status, how border policies negatively impact refugees, and migrant labour. With Valentina Aronica (City), Dr Maya Goodfellow (City), Dr Liza Schuster (City), Dr Alice Mesnard (City) and Dr Can Cinar (City)

• “Crises, societal disorders, carceral state” drew on the speakers' expertise in criminology to explore the violence resulting from insecure migration, policing, incarceration in Rwanda and shoplifting. With Professor Eugene McLaughlin (City), Dr Alexandria Innes (City), Professor Carrie Myers (City), Dr Anna Katila (City) and Professor Emmeline Taylor (City)

• “War, conflict and disorders” included a discussion on whether it is time to prepare for war, as well as touching on the role of China and America in the international world order, and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. With Dr Ahmed Waheed (ROADS Initiative), Professor Michael Ben-Gad (City), Dr Zeno Leoni (King’s College London), Dr Madura Rasaratnam (City) and Professor Inderjeet Parmar (City)

• A roundtable conclusion with additional speakers Susan Coughtrie (Foreign Policy Centre), Professor Atul Shah (City), Dr Georgios Giannakopolous (City), Dr Bamo Nouri (University of West London) and Professor Sophie Harman (Queen Mary).

Susan Coughtrie, Director of the Foreign Policy Centre, an international affairs thinktank, said:

Professor Bela Arora (Keele University) said she was emerging from the conference with optimism. “It is a chaotic time, but there is potential to create more equitable environments,” she added.

Moving forward, the Finsbury Institute will be working with attendees to create papers, blogs and reports based on the conference. In the coming months, the centre will be creating an advisory board.

About the Finsbury Institute

The Finsbury Institute will offer a space for academics to collaborate with professionals and external institutions to think, debate, and find new ways forward.

The centre’s goal is to question the status quo, understand the power behind knowledge, and explore how we can think and act differently in our increasingly complex world.

It will offer Continued Professional Development (CPD) courses, consulting services, policy writing and other forms of commissioned research.

See the full conference schedule or find out more about the Finsbury Institute.