RSA Global Update

The RSA Team has been out and about in different parts of the world recently building partnerships and sharing our thought-leadership to accelerate our impact.

 In Europe

For the third year running the RSA contributed to the prestigious European Forum Alpbach’s Political Symposium. This year, Rowan Conway, RSA Director of Research and Innovation,  Tony Greenham, RSA Director of Economy, Enterprise and Manufacturing and Adanna Shallowe, Senior Manager - RSA Global hosted an exclusive retreat with UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, led by Professor Mariana Mazzucato, to explore with a group of leading city level policy makers and international stakeholders how a mission–oriented approach could be applied to a city level green challenge. Invitees included people from OECD, City of Barcelona, European Commission, Impact Hub, Earth Institute and Green Investment Bank. Have a look at the RSA Report on Mission Oriented Innovation Policy for more details.

Reema Patel, Programme Manager – RSA Citizen’s Economic Council delivered the keynote speech at The Future of Governance Summit at Techfestival in Copenhagen. Reema spoke about the global challenges facing democracy and why governments need to adopt a Digital Strategy. Techfestival is a week-long festival exploring the potential of a new progressive agenda on technology.

Also in Europe, as part of the annual Design Day coordinated by the RSA’s Finnish Fellows, Sevra Davis, RSA Director of Design and Adanna Shallowe, Senior Global Manager formally launched the RSA Student Design Awards in Helsinki last week. Sevra delivered the keynote address to Fellows and Adanna met with a core group of Fellows to discuss sustainability and governance. Matthew Taylor also addressed the Fellows during the Design Day on his way to participating in the NextEra Task Group run by Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund.

In the US

Our outgoing RSA Director of Public Services and Communities, Charlotte Alldritt along with  RSA US Director Alexa Clay hosted  a workshop for civil society organisations and funders in Chicago to scope what an inclusive growth initiative looks like for the city. Anthony Painter, Director of RSA Action Research Centre, also joined the team in the Chicago on his way to an invite-only Stanford University & Basic Income Lab event on how UBI can be applied to, and solve, city-level challenges.

Also in the US, Head of RSA Scotland, Jamie Cooke was part of a delegation representing the City of Glasgow visiting Pittsburgh. Both Glasgow and Pittsburgh are part of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities Network, and are exploring shared futures for the two cities. Jamie met with Mayor Bill Peduto, various civic organisations and Carnegie Mellon University to discuss Universal Basic Income, Inclusive Growth and Health, as well as gave an interview for national radio on the American economy.

Coming up next month

Sevra Davis has been developing the RSA’s relationship with the British Council’s Architecture, Design and Fashion team over the past few months and has been invited to speak at Saudi Design Week in Riyadh from October 4th – 8th. Sevra Davis will deliver a talk as part of the Design Week on Design’s role in social change. Sevra also hopes to meet with key stakeholders from the British Council ‘in country’ and design educators on the opportunities for introducing the RSA Student Design Awards into higher education curricula. Sevra has previously worked with the British Council’s Creative Economy team on the role of design in the creative economy.

Tony Greenham will also visit Tokyo, Japan where he will engage with Japanese businesses about trends in the future of work and artificial intelligence, as part of collecting global intelligence for the Future of Work Centre and our research on Automation and Artificial Intelligence. Tony will also interview leading tech businesses on these trends, including the CEO of Yahoo! Japan

The RSA will also hold an event for 200+ businesses in collaboration with the British Chamber of Commerce Japan, then an intimate roundtable for businesses with the British Embassy and finally contribute to a RSA Japan Fellows’ event.

Anthony Painter, Director of RSA Action Research Centre has been invited as the main guest at the G50’s annual meeting in Berlin to share his thought leadership on Universal Basic Income. G50 is a select group of Latin America’s most influential and forward-thinking business leaders. For over two decades, they have met at different locations all over the world to explore a wide range for topics – from Geopolitics and Bitcoins to the Psychology of Happiness and Behavioural Economics. Previous speakers included President Bill Clinton and Ariana Huffington.

Lastly, RSA US Director, Alexa Clay, will be spending the first week of October at the RSA House to meet with colleagues and discuss the US Strategy and ongoing US Fellowship activities.