Inaugural Lectures (audio)

Professor Sharon Abrahams, Personal Chair in Neuropsychology, delivers her inaugural lecture entitled Mind Matters in Motor Neurone Disease. In this lecture, Prof. Abrahams discusses her work with people living with a degenerative disease and in particular motor neurone disease. This disease was commonly thought to affect the system controlling movement exclusively, but Prof. Abrahams' work has contributed to demonstrating that the mind matters in motor neurone disease and that a large number of people will experience changes in cognition and behaviour in addition to progressive physical disability. Recorded on 28 October 2015 at the University of Edinburgh's 50 George Square.

Professor Andrew Morris, Chair of Medicine, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, Medicine in the Information Age. Recorded on 22 June 2015 at the University of Edinburgh's Chancellor's Building.

Professor Martin Chick, Chair of Economic History, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, "The Times They Are A-Changin': Time, Economics and a Political Economy of Britain since 1945". This lecture considers the changing use made of the concept of time in economics and economic policy-making in Britain since 1945. Recorded on 5 May 2015 at the University of Edinburgh's Medical School.

Professor Paolo Quattrone, Chair in Accounting Governance & Social Innovation, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, "Accounting, Governance and Social Innovation: Establishing the Links". In this lecture, Professor Quattrone will present the idea that accounting creates specific forms of ‘socie-ties’, where the ties amongst members of a community are represented in economic terms and ruled accordingly. It will also suggest that only by re-thinking these ties that new forms of governing social and economic relationships can become forms of social innovation. Recorded on 15 April 2015 at the University of Edinburgh's Business School Auditorium.

Professor Mark Dorrian, Forbes Chair in Architecture, delivers his inaugural lecture, entitled What's Interesting? On the Ascendency of an Evaluative Term. This lecture will consider the rise of 'interesting' as a critical category, and examine the sort of judgement-in-suspension that it seems to enact, addressing what kinds of issues might be at stake in it, and what it means in relation to our broader cultural expectations of architecture. Recorded on 1 April 2015, at the University of Edinburgh's Edinburgh College of Art Main Lecture Theatre.

Professor Chris Speed, Chair in Design Informatics, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, The Random Lift and Other Algorithmic Stories. This talk draws connections between a series of projects that explores the emerging conditions of living with algorithms. The playful presentation unpacks Professor Speed's growing neurosis about the uncertainty of what things are doing, a condition that he attributes to having been born during Apollo 13's loss of communication with planet Earth. Recorded on 24 February 2015 at the University of Edinburgh's ECA Lecture Theatre.

Professor Nicola McEwen, Personal Chair of Territorial Politics, delivers her inaugural lecture entitled, "Independence and Interdependence: The Dynamics of Scottish Self-Government". The Scottish independence referendum may have resulted in a No vote, but it has reignited debates over Scottish self-government. Professor McEwen explores the meaning of independence and interdependence, examining the interdependencies that would remain irrespective of the constitutional settlement, and considering the implications of the on going process of constitutional reform for Scotland and the UK. Recorded on 11 February 2015, at the University of Edinburgh's Business School.

Professor Richard Freeman, Personal Chair of Social Science and Public Policy, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, Doing Politics. How does politics happen? When we do politics, what are we doing? In this lecture, Professor Freeman will show how we might understand politics as action, as a mode of doing. Recorded on 4 February 2015 at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Richard Harrison, Chair in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, delivers his inaugural lecture, entitled The Owl of Minerva: Entrepreneurial Leadership and the Critic of Institutions. Based on his research in entrepreneurship and leadership development over many years Professor Harrison in this lecture discusses the nature of what we know of the business world and how we relate that to contemporary management and policy practice. Recorded on 21 January 2015 at the University of Edinburgh's Business School.

Professor Ailsa Henderson, Professor of Political Science and Head of Politics & International Relations, delivers her inaugural lecture entitled, The Imagined Electorate: Values, Perceived Boundaries and the Regional Rehabilitation of Political Culture. This lecture explores political culture as it operates below the level of the state, identifies the existence of two forms of regional political cultures, identifies markers by which we can identify and delineate political cultures and highlights the importance of perception. Recorded on 3 December 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Business School.

Professor Malcolm Macleod Personal, Chair in Neurology and Translational Neuroscience, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, "Rigour Mortis: How Bad Research is Killing Science".Recorded on 26 May 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Chancellor's Building.

Professor Fiona Mackay, Personal Chair in Politics, delivers he inaugural lecture entitled, "Nested Newness" and the Gendered Limits of Institutional Change. This lecture suggests that we need to pay more attention to examining and theorizing newness and processes of change. It uses the concept of "nested newness" to examine the promise and limit of institutional innovation. Drawing upon examples ranging from the Scottish parliament to the United Nations, it asks why gender reforms appear so vulnerable to regress and what can we do to make change "stick"? Recorded on 20 May 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Business School.

Professor Bettelou Los, Forbes Chair of English Language, delivers her inaugural lecture entitled Changing English.No language ever stays the same, and no part of it is immune. Changes affect not only sounds and vocabulary, but also grammar, word order, pragmatics, giving rise to different varieties and different dialects all the time. Professor Los discusses these changes.Recorded on 6 May 2013 at the University of Edinburgh's Old College.

Professor John M Davis, Professor of Childhood Inclusion, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled Including Children in Scotland: Concepts, Structures, Relationships and the Common Weal.With the referendum to be held in 2014 in Scotland there has been great debate concerning the type of society we want to live in. Professor Davis draws from over 25 years of collaborative research, practical work with children and eventful encounters to discuss what a more child focussed, inclusive and socially just society might look like.This lecture contains infrequent uses of strong language.Recorded on 13 May 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Old College.

Professor Nikolas Gisborne, Chair of Linguistics, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, What’s Grammar For? If you listen to how people talk about grammar in the press you could be forgiven for thinking that it is little more than an aesthetic matter, to do with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ writing. A hundred and fifty years after Henry Alford popularized the spurious ‘rule’ that the English infinitive should not be ‘split’, there are still people who—against all reason—insist, and trenchantly, that it’s wrong to put an adverb between TO and the bare form of the verb it’s associated with. But grammar is so much more than this. Find more information on this lecture at http://edin.ac/1nqN1SX.Recorded on 29 April 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Old College.

Professor Grant Jarvie, Chair of Sport, delivers his inaugural lecture entitled, Sport: More Than Just a Game. This lecture will comment upon Scotland's contribution to the world of sport then argue that sport is more than just a game and can be a resource of hope for many around the world. Recorded on 22 April 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Teviot Lecture Theatre.

Professor Clifford Leen, Honorary Professor and Consultant Physician Infectious Diseases, presents his inaugural lecture titled "Progress in Antiviral Treatment".Recorded on Monday 7 April 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Chancellor’s Building, Little France campus.Listen to podcast

Susan McVie, Professor of Quantitative Criminology, presents her inaugural lecture titled "Painting by Numbers: The Changing Landscape of Crime in Scotland". In this lecture, Professor McVie considers the dramatic change in patterns of crime that have been observed in Scotland in recent years and explore whether it represents real cultural and behavioural change. Recorded on 18 March 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Appleton Tower.

Professor Michael O'Boyle, Director of Institute for Computing Systems Architecture, delivers his inaugural lecture, "Return of the silver bullet or avoiding groundhog day? Auto-parallelisation reloaded". Professor O'Boyle will explore why compiler based code optimization has often failed to deliver. He will also look at ways we can recast compiler optimization so that it can really deliver for the many-core era. Recorded on March 10 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Informatics Forum.

Professor Michèle Belot, Professor of Economics, delivers her inaugural lecture, "Diseases of Affluence: On the Relationship Between Economics and Health". This lecture will ask, why are Western societies so rich and at the same time so sick? Recorded on 11 March 2014 at the University of Edinburgh's Old College.