What is Social Science Innovation?

Innovation is often understood in terms of inventions and technology, and so primarily an activity that takes place within STEM. But innovation is broader than that and something that Social Scientists are doing across the University. This can come in the form of innovation in public policymaking, organisational and institutional innovation, and social entrepreneurship; it goes beyond the context of income generation arising from new inventions and technologies.

Treaty-Making in Business & Human Rights: Models for a Binding Instrument

In 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council created an open-ended intergovernmental working group (IGWG) with a mandate ‘to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises’. This movement reignited debates not only on whether a binding instrument was desirable or not, but also on what shape should a ‘BHR Treaty’ take.

The European Fiscal-Military System 1530-1870: Second Project Research Workshop

As the 'FMSystem' project reaches its midway point, and in consultation with its International Advisory Board, this second workshop will present the team’s work in progress and explore some initial findings.

Programme

09:30-09:45 Tentative Conclusions and Open Questions

09:45-11:15 'Conversations’ on

1) chronology
2) urban hubs and their relationships to the fiscal-military system, and
3) comparing urban ‘fiscal-military hubs’ functioning as centres of expertise, resource accumulation and production.

Oxford Minds - Oxford Social Science Discussion Panel: Belonging: what shapes societal inclusion and exclusion?

The series

This term’s series explores social science’s big concepts. It examines the contested meaning and diverse application of some of the theoretical ideas that unify and challenge social scientists. It brings together the bright minds of Oxford, and high profile external speakers, to consider the range of ways in which we can think about ‘power’, ‘space’, ‘identity’, and ‘belonging’.

Balliol and the Proceeds of Slavery

In September 2019, Balliol College began to investigate its connections with the proceeds of
slavery as part of a broader project examining the College’s multifaceted relationship to
Empire. Though better known for its role as an educator of colonial administrators in the late
nineteenth century, this project has established that the college has ties with earlier periods of
British colonialism and received benefactions from a number of individuals who derived a
significant proportion of their wealth from slavery.

Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Annual Lecture - Iran and the Arab Uprisings: Opportunity Grasped or Squandered?

The Arab uprisings of a decade ago threatened to redraw the political map of the Middle East and North Africa region, and set in motion forces that as first sight appeared to be out of the control of ruling regimes, dominant regional powers, and external interested parties. Within the region, the one country whose policies and behaviour was profoundly influenced by the early-2010s uprisings was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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