Sir Tim came to Wolfson in 2018 after 35 years in the British Diplomatic Service. He studied English at Christ’s College Cambridge. His last overseas posting was as British Ambassador to Tokyo. Before that he was Africa Director. His postings took him to Pakistan, Afghanistan, France and Japan. For four years he was Assistant Private Secretary to The Queen.

Sir Tim is also Chairman of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation (a charity which funds scholarships for young people to travel to Japan) and he is a Commonwealth War Graves Commissioner

If any college members would like to make an appointment with the President, please contact presidents.office@wolfson.ox.ac.uk.

Are you ready to revolutionise healthcare and optimise resource allocation? Immerse yourself in the world of economic evaluation of digital health technologies!

Discover how cutting-edge digital solutions can improve patient outcomes while streamlining costs. From telehealth platforms to wearable health trackers, explore the economic impact of these innovations on healthcare systems around the world.

Talk abstract:

Anthropogenic climate change is occurring at an unprecedented rate, and the magnitude of that change is expected to rival levels that characterize Earth’s largest extinction events. Despite the importance for future projections, understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which climate mediates extinction remains limited. The fossil record provides the unique opportunity to robustly test the interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic drivers of extinction under extreme climate change scenarios. We present the first integrated approach examining the role of potential intrinsic and extrinsic drivers in mediating extinction risk over the past 485 million years using state-of-the-art climate models to reconstruct physiological traits and localized climate change. We found that geographic range size, body size, realized thermal preference, realized niche breadth, and the magnitude of climate change are all necessary to predict extinction risk for taxa. Our results suggest that taxa previously identified as extinction resistant may still succumb to extinction if the magnitude of climate change is great enough.

Every term, Wolfson College's President Sir Tim Hitchens hosts a Seminar in which three members of the College of different academic levels (a Governing Body Fellow, a Junior Research Fellow, and a Graduate Student) present on a general theme from the point of view of their own research or field of study.



The theme for Trinity Term 2024 is "Sports Medicine".

The Seminar will be hosted in the Haldane Room in Wolfson College on Monday the 23rd of October 2023 at 18:00 (GMT). Everyone is welcome to join.



Speakers:

Nicole Votruba: "Stronger, smarter, happier: How Exercise can boost your Body, Brain & Mental Health"

Paul Leeson: "Personalised exercise plans for heart health: do they work?"

Tom Brennan: "Spectacle and virtuosity in live performance - A theatre maker's perspective"



The President’s Seminar presents a unique opportunity to bring Wolfson members from different areas and expertise to discuss topics that can be broad and approached diversely by different disciplines. This format, though more informal in nature, provides an auspicious environment for friendly and innovative discussions that may otherwise not occur in more specialised academic environments, seasoning the experience with rich and new ideas, a sense of discovery, as well as an opportunity for different perspectives to collide and conspire together to broaden horizons and provide views that may be different from what one is accustomed to.



In this manner, the President’s Seminar is a space that is both fun and safe that emulates a more informal conversation while also providing the experience, specially to young researchers, of presenting their research and fields of study to a group of peers in a more formal academic setting whilst removing the pressure that a more formal event might entail, and creating an accessible circumstancer for personal development that can contribute to their own professional growth.On this spirit, at the end of the Seminar all presenters and attendees are cordially encouraged to join in the College Hall for informal supper in a reserved table that anyone can join where ideas can be further discussed by everyone over dinner.



The Seminar, originally created by former president Dame Hermione Lee, has been a staple of the Wolfson academic life for several years and has already become a welcomed tradition that follows in style and spirit the egalitarian culture and ethos of Wolfson College.

Abstract:

With the launch of ChatGPT 3.5 by Open AI in November 2022 people gained unprecedented direct experience of AI using an exceptionally advanced Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) Model. Public interest in AI as a result surged, with a 900 % increase in searches on AI. Governments have in turn moved to start addressing AI’s perceived risks, both using existing law, and regulation, as well as by creating new AI specific laws and regulations. In February 2024 the UK Government for example announced its proposed strategy to regulating AI that will work through existing law and regulators based on five principles, while in March 2024 the EU passed the EU AI Act that adopts a more centralised, and prescriptive model. Thus only in the past two months, we have already seen both new law and regulation of AI, and greater variation in the nature of such law and regulation between countries. This talk will briefly review the law and economics of AI, and discuss emerging issues in relation to the application of law and regulation to AI, including recent developments and divergences in the EU, UK and US approaches, with particular attention given to the fast developing application of existing competition law in the EU, UK and US through AI inquiries and investigations. Research being undertaken on developments in other areas of law and regulation relating to AI, including copyright, contract, tort and criminal law, will also be briefly discussed.



Bio

Dr George Barker member of Wolfson College Oxford University, Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University. Doctorate in Economics from Oxford University, and a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Economics (Hons). Director of the Centre for Law and Economics at Australian National University (ANU) from 1997-2017. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics at Cornell University in 2000, and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE) (2015-2018); the Centre for Law and Economics at University College London (2010-2015); and Oxford University 2008. Founding Member of the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Law and Economics. Authored books, and articles and given expert testimony on the economics of law including: competition law, trade law (the Effects of China joining the WTO Cambridge University Press 2003), corporations and labour law (the economics of trade unions), intellectual property law (especially copyright), taxation law and environmental law; and the economics of industry regulation, including the digital economy, communications, internet, energy, transport, mining, agriculture, insurance, finance, pharmaceutical, software, and media industries; and on the economic role of government, the economics of public policy, public finance, public sector management, social services (education, health, and welfare) and income distribution. Provides expert economic testimony before courts, ministers, Parliaments and regulatory agencies in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, and in arbitration disputes in the Hague. His work has been cited in the UK House of Lords, by the High Court of England and Wales and by the European Commission. Elected Honorary Fellow of the Law and Economics Association of NZ. Past President of the Australian Law and Economics Association, a Founder and Past President of the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand. Chief Analyst and Economic Advisor at the NZ Treasury 1984-1997. Member of the Governing Board of Wolfson College, Oxford University from 1990 – 1992, Board member of LECG Asia-Pacific Ltd (1997-2005), Celtic Pacific Ltd, and Upstart Investments Ltd (1999-2003), KEA Global and past Chairman of KEA Australia (2001-2010).

The Law in Societies Cluster and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies will be holding a discussion as part of the joint event with the 2024 Annual Socio-Legal Lecture, which will be delivered by Professor Annelise Riles.



A key theme of Prof. Annelise Riles’ multi-faceted work is to explore law as a set of knowledge tools. This workshop builds on this theme and explores how the knowledge resources that law draws on are shifting in the age of surveillance capitalism, which harnesses data as a tradeable commodity. The governments seek access to big data for solving public policy challenges, such as the climate crisis. But do potentially enhanced ways of representing social worlds also enhance state law’s capacity of socio-legal ordering? What are the risks of climate smart technologies?



Three presenters will share their ideas with us in short presentations, leaving plenty of time for a broader discussion with the audience.



CHRIS DECKER

A changing role for state law in the age of surveillance capitalism?



LISA VOELZMANN

Harnessing big data for tackling climate change?



BETTINA LANGE

Surveillance capitalism and environmental regulation – changing techniques of law?

Professor Riles is the Executive Director of the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University and a Professor of Law and Anthropology. Her scholarship spans a wide range of substantive areas including human rights, managing and accommodating cultural differences, and the regulation of the global financial markets. Professor Riles work is known for its methodological contributions as well as for its contributions to the study of international institutions and expertise. She has conducted legal and anthropological research in China, Japan, and the Pacific and speaks Chinese, Japanese, French, and Fijian. Her publications span a range of topics, including comparative law, conflict of laws, financial regulation, and central banking.



Professor Riles is also the founder and director of Meridian 180, a multilingual forum for transformative leadership. Its global membership of 800+ thought leaders in academia, government, and business work together to generate ideas and guidance on the most important problems of our time, including global financial governance, environmental governance, and data governance.



The annual lecture will be followed by drinks to which all those who attend are welcome.



Please ensure that you register using the provided link.