A university is following in the footsteps of Birmingham’s famed Lunar Society by bringing the region’s brightest minds together to address issues affecting society.
The University of Birmingham has launched a new Institute of Advanced Studies to debate issues including economic challenges facing the West Midlands.
The institute has been inspired by the Lunar Society, which saw leading industrialists, academics and philosophers working to change science and society for the better 250 years ago.
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Dubbed the “thinktank of the Industrial Revolution”, key members included Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood and Erasmus Darwin.
The society met in grand homes across the Midlands on the full moon, including Boulton’s home, Soho House in Handsworth, Erasmus Darwin’s home in Lichfield and Great Barr Hall.
The new institute, which was launched on April 10, will combine academic expertise from across the university and around the globe, as well as business figures, non-governmental organisations and policy makers. Professor Malcolm Press, director of the institute, said: “What is distinctive and exciting about our Institute of Advanced Studies is the breadth.
We are not just centred around social sciences and humanities, but bring together science, engineering and medicine as well, covering the full range of activities at the university.
“By bringing this broad range of experts together to research a particular theme, the university has the potential to transform traditional approaches to addressing major global issues.”
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The institute’s first theme will be “regeneration economics”, which will bring together businesses and academics in Birmingham and Chicago to look at how to address economic challenges facing areas including Birmingham and the American Midwest.
The study will be the latest collaboration between the university and the Windy City, which has been twinned with Birmingham for the past 20 years. Birmingham has been pursuing a number of partnerships with universities, cultural organisations and civic institutions across the Midwest.
The university has been steadily building its reputation in the USA, with staff research links and student exchanges with the University of Illinois, to partnerships with the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Professor John Bryson, who will lead the regeneration economics project, said: “The existing approaches to understanding regional problems are no longer useful for understanding cities that are experiencing an on-going process of economic regeneration.
“People may be unhappy with our research and critical of our new approach – but by doing that we are going to move forward the debate and our understanding. The Institute of Advanced Studies provides a great opportunity for this region to develop a new way of thinking and face up to the challenges.”
The second theme, “saving humans”, will see researchers from across the university and beyond investigate how a risk to human life is constructed and measured and what can be learned from the experience of survivors.
Heather Widdows, professor of global ethics at the university, said: “We will be exploring a range of threats to human life from health and environmental threats to security and conflict.”