Big Ideas is an online success!

April 2022

There were many sore heads and tired eyes around the country on Monday morning 12th July last year, following England’s defeat at the European Championships the night before. In contrast, around the north of England, 86 Linacre students were bright-eyed and ready to go on the intellectual rollercoaster that was the Big Ideas summer school.

During 67 separate sessions, students engaged with a huge variety of experts, leading teachers, academics and professionals to discuss, debate and solve problems in their subjects.

Students took a deep dive into the fundamentals of their subjects, with workshops on subjects as diverse as cosmology, the rule of law, world literature, climate change, the role of the State, poetry and issues in translation.

One student commented:

‘The session with Patrick was amazing. I’ve never had to rationalise my way out of a moral corner before.’

We were really lucky to have a huge number of wonderful academics leading workshops, and helping students to understand the work they do. With Dr James Ellison of Queen Mary, students interrogated sources and examined how we write history; Jonathan Turnbull and Adam Searle of Cambridge university explored the meaning of nature and animal-human relations with the geographers, which students described as ‘eye-opening’; a crack team of chemists and biologists, led by Dr Nick Bampos of Cambridge university, introduced our scientists to their research and gave really valuable insights into academia.

The psychologists expanded their knowledge with Dr Emma Blakey of Sheffield university. One of our students commented;

‘Emma’s insight and knowledge were really inspiring. I hope I can follow in that path.’