University of Cambridge

The Hay Festival is one of the most prestigious cultural and literary events in the world.

The University of Cambridge has partnered with the Festival for 11 years to deliver The Cambridge Series which gives a taste of the research being conducted at the University.

The Series is part of the University’s public engagement work and draws on the University’s two flagship public engagement events, the Cambridge Science Festival and the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. The 2019 Hay Festival ran from 25th May to 2nd June.

The Hay Festival is one of the most prestigious cultural and literary events in the world.

The University of Cambridge has partnered with the Festival for 11 years to deliver The Cambridge Series which gives a taste of the research being conducted at the University.

The Series is part of the University’s public engagement work and draws on the University’s two flagship public engagement events, the Cambridge Science Festival and the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. The 2019 Hay Festival ran from 25th May to 2nd June.

Throughout its ancient history, the UK has been home to many amazing creatures that are now long extinct. From dinosaurs to giant millipedes, discover how these animals shaped the land around them and what secrets are held within their prehistoric footprints.

Bill Sutherland, who holds the Miriam Rothschild Chair in Conservation Biology at the University of Cambridge, described attempts to make global evidence available to all, improve the effectiveness of experts and change attitudes toward the use of evidence, especially in relation to conservation.

Black holes are nature’s most extreme objects. Professor Christopher Reynolds described how they stretch our understanding of space-time to the limits and power some of the most energetic phenomena in the Universe.

The Industrial Revolution brings to mind famous male inventors and industrialists. In her new book economist Victoria Bateman instead argues that the everyday woman underpinned Britain’s – and indeed the West’s - rise.

The sequencing of the human genome has revolutionised how scientists search for the genetic causes of human diseases. Human geneticist Professor Nicole Soranzo described how the field has evolved in the last 15 years, and discussed how new genetic evidence is used to better understand the interplay between our DNA (‘nature’) and the environment (‘nurture’).

How do we counter fake news and can we inoculate public opinion against misinformation? Dr Van der Linden is Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab and is investigating the psychological mechanisms behind the spread of misinformation.

Holding her first grandchild in her arms in 2003, Mary Robinson was struck by the uncertainty of the world he had been born into. Before his fiftieth birthday, he would share the planet with more than nine billion people – people battling for food, water and shelter in an increasingly volatile climate. As the UN’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Robinson’s mission led all over the world, from Malawi to Mongolia, and to a heartening revelation: that an irrepressible driving force in the battle for climate justice could be found at the grassroots level, mainly among women, many of them mothers and grandmothers like herself. Robinson met with ordinary people whose resilience and ingenuity had already unlocked extraordinary change. Robinson is the former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and is now a member of The Elders. This year she was awarded the prestigious Kew International Medal for her work on climate justice.

Shuckburgh is a climate scientist and mathematician, and is co-author of the Ladybird book on Climate Change. She will speak about her research on modelling localised effects of climate change – from Arctic warming to flooding in Tewkesbury, from severe drought in Malawi to record-breaking temperatures in Thailand, and from the acidification of the Barrier Reef to the hurricanes battering the Caribbean.