Resonate Late: Our Society - The Future of Wellbeing in a Changing World

On Wednesday 15th November, we held our final event of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2023.

For this event, we decided to use the virtual venue of Zoom, a space many of us haven’t entered since the days of lockdown events. We were pleased to welcome so many of you to discuss a variety of topics relevant to wellbeing and our changing society.

First up, Dr Mark Fabian introduced us to the Wellbeing State. Some of you may be familiar with the ‘Welfare State’, developed after World War II to target the five evils of idleness, ignorance, squalor, want and disease. Mark discussed the new ‘evils’ we face in society today and opened the floor to some interesting questions.

This was followed by ‘How Rational are Humans? Behavioural Economics’, delivered by Dr Love Idahosa. By the end of the talk, we understood how our decisions and behaviours can be impacted by subtle changes in wording and visual cues.

Our final talk was by Dr Simon Jenkins, who explored a handful of ethical questions relating to the use of robots. Our audience were placed in the position of medical ethicists and asked to share how they would assess each scenario. This engaging conversation was a fabulous way to round up the night and the whole of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2023!

This event was part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2023 and was made possible thanks to funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)