|
The Ramsay Garden Seminars have become a highly regarded feature of Edinburgh’s public intellectual life since their launch in 1999.
The invitation to visiting speakers is simply to ‘make us think’ about an issue of importance.
The seminars are very informal. They take place in the John Duncan Room at No 4 Ramsay Garden, a beautiful room overlooking Princes Street Gardens, part of the historic development designed by Patrick Geddes in 1892. Both Louis Pasteur and Marie Curie have lectured there in the past. The premises were acquired some years ago by the late Michael Shea, who initiated the seminars, and are now maintained by his widow Mona.
The seminars are conducted under Chatham House rules. The participants, numbering no more than 30, are drawn from leading figures among Members of the Scottish Parliament, senior civil servants, business people, journalists, academics and others carefully chosen for their ability to contribute to the discussion. Our aim on these occasions is to introduce a fresh perspective into the debate – and to counter the risk of Scottish introspection.
From the start IFF has looked back to the spirit of the Scottish Enlightenment for clues about how to address confounding challenges in an age of rapid change and uncertainty. The critical enabling conditions for the Enlightenment have been identified as a commitment to independent thinking, a willingness to share ideas and tolerate difference, and a rootedness in practice. These are the values that also inspire the Ramsay Garden Seminars.
We have been fortunate over the years in attracting a diverse group of distinguished speakers including for example Frances Cairncross, Geoff Mulgan, Julia Unwin, Tim Jackson, Mervyn King, Sara Parkin, Andrew O’Hagan and many more. A full list is included below.
| Rt. Hon. George Reid (Former Presiding Officer, Scottish Parliament) |
Stateless Nation, Nation-less State. |
| Sir Peter Burt (Former Deputy Chairman, HBOS) |
What is One’s Real Business? – The Management of Change. |
| Blair Jenkins (Chair, Scottish Broadcasting Commission) |
Broadcasting and the Bigger Picture – Why We Need the Scottish digital Network. |
| David Milne (Wolfson Microelectronics) |
Creating a Sustainable Hi-Tech Company. |
| Sir Kenneth Calman (Chair, Calman Commission on Devolution) |
Serving Scotland Better: updating the devolution settlement. |
| Susan Rice (Chief Executive, Lloyds TSB) |
Personal and Collective Responsibility: who is responsible for financial capability? |
| Graeme Pearson (Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency) |
Serious Organised Crime – popular representations versus unpopular realities. |
| Professor Brenda Gourley (Vice Chancellor, The Open University) |
Higher Education in the UK and the Future of Open and Distance Learning. |
| Sir Brian Stewart (Non-executive Chairman, Scottish and Newcastle) |
Corporate Globalisation. |
| James McCormick (Scotland Advisor, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Former Director, SCF) |
Is Welfare in Working Order? |
| Dr Tom Shakespeare (University of Newcastle) |
The Disability Problem: what is it and how do we solve it? |
| Sir Michael Atiyah (President of Royal Society of Edinburgh) |
Science as Culture. |
Baroness Ford (Good Practice)
|
|
| Shonaig Macpherson, CBE, FRSE |
|
| Baroness Neuberger, DBE |
|
| Professor Paul Wilkinson (Centre for Study of Terrorism and Political Violence) |
The challenge of Al Qaeda – is it exaggerated and how should the international community tackle it? |
| Dr Catherine Fieschi (Director, Demos) |
Radicalism and Citizenship: hope and fear in 21st Century Britain. |
| Professor Anne Glover (Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland) |
Why We Must Put Science to Work – translating R&D into innovation by business. |
| Dr Rosemary Hollis (Director of Research, Chatham House) |
Britain and the Middle East: The Iraq effect. |
| Sir William Stewart (Chair of Health Protection Agency) |
|
| Sir Tom Farmer (Maidencraig Investments) |
My Personal Vision for Scotland – 10 years on. |
| John Lloyd (Editor of FT Magazine) |
News Media, Public Relations and the Truth. |
| Sir Alistair Graham (Chairman of Sub Committee on Standards in Public Life) |
Public Attitudes to Standards of Conduct in Public Life. |
| Lord Adair Turner (Chairman, Pensions Commission) |
|
| Nuala O’Loan (Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland) |
|
| Lord Robert Winston (Imperial College London) |
|
| Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien (Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh) |
|
| Sir Christopher Meyer (Chairman, Press Complaints Commission) |
|
| Sir John Kerr (Former Permanent Secretary of Foreign and Commonwealth Office) |
Do We Have to Choose Between Transatlantic Ties and the New Europe? |
| Liz Forgan (Chair, National Heritage Memorial Fund) |
What’s the Value in Heritage? |
| Professor Peter Hennessy (University of London) |
The Blair Style Government. |
| Rene Carayol (E-Business) |
Navigating the Unforeseen. |
| Andrew O’Hagan (Author) |
How Scotland Can Grasp the Modern Notion of Itself with Confidence. |
| Dr John A Garner (Chairman of BMA Scotland) |
Can we Afford a National Health Service?
|
| Professor Steve Bruce (University of Aberdeen) |
Is Scotland a Sectarian Society? |
| Professor Nigel Osborne (Reid Professor of Music, University of Edinburgh) |
Music and the Mind: Perspectives on post conflict Bosnia. |
| Sir Crispin Tickell (Chancellor of University of Kent) |
Sustainability - the way forward. |
| Alice Brown (Public Services Ombudsman Scotland) |
Public Service Accountability – striking the right balance. |
| Lord Puttnam (House of Lords) |
Facing the Future: Education and culture in the 21st Century. |
| Sir Andrew Foster (Deputy Chairman, Royal Bank of Canada, Europe) |
How can Business Help Improve Public Services? |
| Professor Allan J Lichtman (Department of History, American University, Washington) |
Who Will be the Next President? |
| Professor Sheila Maclean (University of Glasgow) |
Muzzling Medicine: Stopping science – is designing babies a step too far? |
| James Boyle (Chairman of Scottish Arts Council) |
Heave-Ho – Shifting the Arts in Scotland. |
| Wolfgang Michalski (Managing Director, WM International) |
Challenges for Economic and Social Policies at the Beginning of the 21st Century. |
| Hilary Cottam (Director of the Design Council) |
Designing Future Public Services – lessons from school and prison. |
| Richard Holloway (Former Bishop of Edinburgh) |
Can the War on Drugs be Won? |
| Professor Hugh Pennington (University of Aberdeen) |
What are we afraid of? Nothing much really except the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the land we live on and the energy we use… Thoughts on the risk society. |
| Mike Anderson (Managing Director, The Evening Standard) |
The Metro Experience. |
| Professor Richard Wilkinson (University of Nottingham) |
Individual Vulnerability, Social Environment and Inequality. |
| Suzi Leather (Chair of Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) |
Should we choose the type of children we have? |
| Max Hastings (Former Editor of The Evening Standard) |
The Devolving Union – From an English perspective. |
| Colin Jacobson (University of Westminster) |
How Photography Manipulates and Influences Our Perception of Current Affairs. |
| Kate Bingham (Schroder Venture Life Sciences) |
Investing in Biotech: Challenges and opportunities. |
| Dan Mulhall (Irish Consul General) |
Developments of Irish-Scottish relations against a backdrop of Scottish Devolution, the NI Peace Process and development of the EU. |
| Patricia Hodgson (Chief Executive of Independent Television Commission) |
Communication – Global and Local. |
| Harry Reid (Faculty of Divinity, University of Edinburgh) and Paul Sinclair (Political Editor of the Daily Record) |
Various Aspects of the Press in Scotland and the UK. |
| Sir Peter Petrie (Adviser to Governor of Bank of England) |
What do we want from Europe? |
| James Naughtie (Author and Presenter of Radio4 ‘Today Programme’) |
Where is Blair Going in the Second Term? |
| Geoff Mulgan (Director of Performance and Innovation Unit, Cabinet Office, Whitehall) |
What are the Big Challenges Facing the UK Government? |
| Susie Orbach (Psychotherapist, Antidote) |
The Politics of the Body and the Body Politic. |
| Clive Fairweather (HM Chief Inspector of Prisons) |
From Secrecy to Transparency. |
| Mervyn King (Deputy Governor of the Bank of England) |
Monetary policy in the UK. |
| Remi Bujold (Chairman of the Council for Canadian Unity) |
Quebec and the Challenges of Managing an Economy when the Constitution Settlement Appears Provisional. |
| Dr Jamie Shea (NATO Director of Information and Press) |
Crisis Communications - drawing on experience in handling the media during the Kosovo crisis. |
| David Whitton (Former Special Advisor to the late Donald Dewar, First Minister Scottish Executive) |
Has Spin Been Spun Too Far? |
| Lord Lipsey (Member of the Sutherland Commission) |
Reflection on the Sutherland Commission on Long-Term Care. |
| Lord Forsyth (Flemming Bank) |
Funding of the National Health Service. |
| Baroness O’Neill (Principal of Newham College Cambridge) |
Autonomy, Trust and BioEthics. |
| Geoffrey Martin (Head of Representation in the UK – European Commission) |
Britain’s Relationship with Europe and the Single Currency Beyond the UK General Election. |
| Hon. Roy MacLaren (Former Canadian High Commissioner in UK) |
Transatlantic Economic Relations. |
| Philip Lader (US Ambassador in UK) |
US view of Scotland – its significance and potential. |
| Richard Lambert (Editor of Financial Times) |
How the FT, an international newspaper, approaches its coverage of Scottish Issues which are, of course, local. |
| Lord Butler of Brockwell (Former Cabinet Secretary) |
The Challenge of Running the Machinery of Government Given the Pressures of Civil Reform and Political Change Including Coalition. |
| James MacMillan (Composer) |
Creativity and Artistic Freedom in the New Scotland. |
|
