Societies showed remarkable resilience and adaptability in 2020: in the face of public health crisis, political polarisation, and economic insecurity, we witnessed extraordinary examples of community solidarity and social innovation.

And yet deep uncertainties and challenges lie in wait in the year ahead. To meet these challenges, we need to strengthen the ties that bind us. To reimagine and renew our social contract. To build stronger, more resilient communities, from the ground up.

As we look for sources of inspiration and optimism, what lessons can be learnt from the way individuals and communities have navigated past national and global crises? What are the everyday values and practices that we need to re-discover, honour, create and share so that everyone, in every place, can thrive?

Authors Hilary Cottam and Marc Stears join Anthony Painter in conversation to explore where we are as a nation in 2021, our hopes and resolutions for the future, and the new ways of thinking, working and organising that we need to embrace in order to face the challenges ahead, united.

#RSAFutures

This conversation was broadcast online on the 14th January 2021. Join us at: www.thersa.org