Most face-to-face events and all online events conducted by the Royal Society of New South Wales are recorded and made available for subsequent viewing on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/royalsocnsw.

Challenges for Open Enquiry and Scholarship in a Divided Age

On the evening of Wednesday, 6 September, an audience of approximately forty people enjoyed a thought-provoking presentation titled “Challenges for Open Enquiry and Scholarship in a Divided Age“, in which Professor Alan Davison, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, considered the question of whether the current settings within the “ecosystem” of academia – career incentives, and the pressures of social media and public discourse – are optimal for generating the best research. His talk outlined some of the key drivers in our current academic environment and public discourse that are inimical to genuine research innovation and deep inquiry, how some disciplines are seeking to redress this, and what might be done here in Australia. The recording of Alan Davidson’s talk is now available on our YouTube channel.