We hope you will join us for 'Where is the Centre of Gravity? Public Service in Fractious Times' with Sir Ian Blatchford.

Where is the Centre of Gravity? Public Service in Fractious Times

Ian Blatchford has been Director of the Science Museum since 2010 and also of the Science Museum Group, the largest alliance of science museums in the world. He was also Chairman of the National Museum Directors' Council, which is the 'Russell Group' of the UK Museum Sector, for four years until March 2021. The past decade has seen the intense debate about the joys and perils of social media, the brutal realities of fiscal austerity since 2010, the fact of Brexit, the rising Culture Wars, and the harsh realities of Covid-19. It is a tough time to be a public leader, as the intense and churlish scrutiny of museum directors, university leaders and others can well attest. How is it possible to navigate such choppy waters and where is 'public service' in all of this?

Mansfield Public Talks are free and open to all. See this term's full programme here: https://www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk/mansfield-college-public-talks .

Mansfield College, University of Oxford

A welcoming academic community within the world’s leading University, Mansfield is the college at Oxford best known for being open, progressive and inclusive.

Since its founding in the 1880s as a non-conformist theological college, Mansfield is proud of its achievements in welcoming previously excluded constituencies to Oxford University. It is now the Oxford College with the highest proportion of students from state schools (on average 95% of its UK undergraduate intake year on year); of students who are the first in their families to go to University; and who come from the least advantaged backgrounds.