Every year Royal Holloway holds a number of public events, lectures and seminars; you can watch recordings of some of our past lectures here.

Art Collection Talks

For a range of talks and lectures delivered as part of the Art Collections public programme visit our digital museum pages.

Public Lectures

Making sense of tragedy

For What Matters Lecture
Professor Nick Hardwick CBE, Emeritus Professor of Criminal Justice

2025 is the twentieth anniversary of the '7/7' London suicide bombings which killed 52 innocent people and the fatal shooting two weeks later of Jean Charles de Menezes by the Metropolitan Police, in the mistaken belief that he was a terrorist. There have already been two recent TV documentaries to mark the anniversary and more are scheduled.

Professor Nick Hardwick, who was responsible for the Independent Police Complaints Commission's investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles, will use his personal experience of this example and his work in other controversial parts of the criminal justice system to reflect on how we respond to some of the most painful and controversial tragedies when the state seems to have failed in its obligations to keep us safe.

Disability matters: why inclusion is everyone’s business

Inaugural Lecture
Professor Anica Zeyen, School of Business and Management

Professor Anica Zeyen's inaugural lecture blends her lived experience as a blind academic and her research on disability inclusion. She will explore the systemic discrimination faced by disabled individuals in various sectors and emphasise the importance of disability pride, making a compelling case that disability is everyone's business.

Black votes matter

For What Matters Lecture
The Rt Hon The Lord Woolley of Woodford

Operation Black Vote was founded in 1996 to leverage the power of the ‘Black vote’ in order to tackle racism and increase the number of Black and minority ethnic people in elected and prominent public roles. This was at a time when there were only seven MPs from ethnic minorities and British politics was seemingly deaf to the concerns of minority communities.

Now, almost 30 years on, the success of OBV, and partner organisations, can be seen across the political system. The percentage of ethnic minority MPs in the House of Commons more closely matches the population, and the UK has seen people from ethnic minorities occupy all four of the Great Offices of State.

In this For What Matters Lecture, Lord Woolley shares his thoughts on where he, and OBV, have progressed to now and what challenges our society faces in political engagement. He speaks about the importance of political education for young people and what educators might learn from the success of Operation Black Vote in mobilising groups with low levels of political involvement.

From Euroscepticism to risky cyber security behaviours

Inaugural Lecture
Professor Marco Cinnirella, Department of Psychology

Marco describes his journey from a research-focused social psychologist exploring issues around national identity, prejudice and discrimination to a professional practice career path that reflects the application of social psychology to facilitate behaviour change in health and business settings. The stages of his career are outlined along with anecdotes about how his career was punctuated with death threats, conspiracy theories about him, and opportunities to engage with government and the UN. 

Magna Carta: Icon and Myth

Magna Carta Lecture 2024
Professor Nigel Saul, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History

Ranging widely over the centuries, the lecture will trace how the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century emphasis on the Charter as the foundation of the rule of law gave way in the twentieth to an emphasis instead on human rights: a consequence both of the internationalisation of the Charter and the increasing brutality of twentieth-century warfare. The lecture will be of interest to those with an interest in history, politics and law. 

Magna Carta Lecture 2023

‘And Then What? Inside Stories of 21st-Century Diplomacy’
Baroness Diana Warwick in conversation with Baroness Catherine Ashton

In the 2023 Magna Carta lecture, Catherine Ashton, former EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Honorary Fellow of Royal Holloway spoke to fellow Bedford College alumna Diana Warwick about her experiences as a foreign representative, representing the many nations of the EU, discussing how “quiet diplomacy” was her essential tool in dealing with the most challenging of negotiations.

Please note: only the audio of this lecture was recorded. 

Jean Monnet Lecture 2023

‘Brexit and the UK’s future relationship with the European Union’
The Rt Hon John Bercow

In the first Jean Monnet Lecture, The Rt Hon John Bercow, former Speaker of the House of Commons, considers Brexit and the UK’s past and future relationship with the European Union, giving the unique insight of someone who was at the heart of the parliamentary process.

The Jean Monnet Lectures are public events organised by Dr Giacomo Benedetto, Jean Monnet Chair at Royal Holloway, University of London, as part of a three-year project co-funded by the European Union.  

A Fool or a Prophet: Rubinstein the Warsaw Ghetto Jester

David Cesarani Holocaust Memorial Lecture 2023
Professor Amos Goldberg - Hebrew University, Jerusalem

From early 1941 until July 1942 when the big deportation to Treblinnka began, a very popular street jester called Rubinstein performed in the streets of the Warsaw ghetto. He was known and loved by all. Some described him as a fool whose reason was lost while others referred to him as the Ghetto's prophet and philosopher. Professor Goldberg analyses some of his performances and puns, emphasizing his special role as a radical social commentator of the Warsaw ghetto crumbling society.

Re-presenting the Holocaust at the Imperial War Museum

David Cesarani Holocaust Memorial Lecture 2022
James Bulgin, Head of Content for the new Holocaust Galleries, Imperial War Museums

James started work on the project in 2016. Before joining IWM James worked as a commercial theatre producer, writer and director, with work in the West End and on national tour. He is currently completing a PhD under the Crosslands Research Scholarship at Royal Holloway, on ideas of apocalypse in Holocaust and Cold War history. His academic research focuses on issues of representation in Holocaust literature and film and he has spoken at conferences in the UK, Israel and Germany.

'Prorogation?'

Magna Carta Lecture 2021
The Right Honourable The Baroness Hale of Richmond

At a time of heightened political tension surrounding the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, presided over by Baroness Hale of Richmond, ruled that the government’s prorogation of Parliament was unlawful – a decision that has been described as reaffirming parliamentary sovereignty and having major implications for our system of government. In the Magna Carta Lecture 2021, almost two years on from the event, Lady Hale reflects on the events and ruling of 2019. The Magna Carta Lecture series is made possible by the generosity of The Magna Carta Trust and Runnymede Magna Carta Legacy.

The Queen's Gambit: Meghan, The Media and the future of the Monarchy

Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy panel discussion, chaired by Anna Whitelock, Professor of the History of Monarchy

Panellists:

• Ayesha Hazarika, broadcaster, journalist and political commentator, and former political adviser to senior Labour Party politicians
• Graham Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Republic, which calls for the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of an elected head of state
• Jennie Bond, former BBC royal correspondent
• Dr Ed Owen, historian and author of ‘The Family Firm. Monarchy, Mass Media and the British Public, 1932-53’
• Ben Page, Chief Executive of Ipsos MORI

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child health

Department of Biological Sciences Jack Pridham Lecture 2020
Dr Elizabeth Whittaker, Senior Clinical Lecturer in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology at Imperial College London

Reassuringly children usually experience mild or limited symptoms when infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. However the pandemic has impacted greatly on child health in other ways, nationally and internationally, including affecting education, vaccine delivery, mental health and emotional and social wellbeing. It is crucial that as the pandemic continues these areas are addressed to prevent a long term effect on this generation.

Treasured Objects from Bedford College

The art collections hold many items relating to the history of Bedford College, one of the two institutions which now make up Royal Holloway, University of London. At this event, Dr Laura MacCulloch, the Curator at the university, looks at some of the most treasured objects from Bedford and explores the stories behind them.

Sexual relations as international relations

In her inaugural lecture, Professor Laura Sjoberg from the Department of Politics and International Relations, explores the co-constitution of the state and sex in global politics, arguing that the generation state borders and the people who inhabit them – indeed the state itself - cannot be fully understood without reference to sex acts and sexual relationships.

Building on feminist and queer theorizing and using examples from dynastic marriage treaties to contemporary refugee law, the talk shows how international relations are sexual and sexual relations are international relations.

Public events at Royal Holloway

For upcoming events visit our Events listing page.