Glyn Davis
Vice Chancellor
The University of Melbourne
Welcome to the University of Melbourne's Festival of Ideas.
This Festival is a response to the University's strategic plan Growing Esteem which recognises that the University of Melbourne occupies a public space, with community expectations of a broader contribution to intellectual, social and economic life.
It reflects the role academics play in stimulating and informing public debate in many forums, bringing scholarly expertise to complex public problems that the wider society faces, extending education to a broader canvas, offering and testing the wisdom of research in the public domain.
So the inaugural Festival of Ideas is a platform for the University to discuss and debate an issue of major social importance and great public interest – climate change. Adapting to climate change will require our society to undergo significant cultural change.
Our approach therefore is not to simply look at the science of climate change – although we will do that too – but to consider it alongside the cultural change taking place. The Festival will look for a range of responses - societal, political, economic, medical, geographic, creative - to this climate phenomenon seriously impacting on our society.
Over five days in June, more than 50 outstanding thinkers will lead Festival-goers in a program of evening keynote lectures followed the next day by challenging panel discussions, debates, forums, and seminars across the University campus.
Festival Director Professor Patrick McCaughey was asked to gather a selection of the University's expertise for the Festival and the program and speakers bear his personal stamp.
Joining some household names such as Peter Doherty, Ross Garnaut, David Karoly, Rob Moodie, Kate Grenville, and Roger Short are a new generation of thinkers, including Waleed Aly, Sana Nakata, Lisa Gorton, Sophie Cunningham, Randa Abdel-Fattah and Linh Do, Victorian VCE Young Achiever of the Year.
I would like to invite you to be part of this significant event. We may not find all the answers but hopefully we will identify many of the issues to be faced in coming years.
Glyn Davis AC
Vice-Chancellor
