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About the LSE Festival

The LSE Festival is an intellectually stimulating series of events, which engages a wide public audience with LSE research and expertise. It brings together global leaders, innovators and change makers to investigate how we can learn lessons from the past, tackle the challenges of today and shape the future. The Festival draws on key thinkers as well as world-class LSE academics. All events are free to attend and open to all.

This year's Festival will take place from Monday 10 to Saturday 15 June 2024 on the theme of "Power and Politics". Where does the power lie to face key global challenges? Have we lost faith in politics and democracy more broadly? How could the outcomes of key elections change the course of our future? 

Festival events are imaginative, innovative, energetic, and use a variety of formats designed to stimulate thought and debate and engage a wide public audience in the research and character of LSE. 

We have had the pleasure of welcoming many high profile speakers, including Amartya Sen, Elif ShafakMartin LewisJuan Manuel Santos, Sadiq Khan, Adam Curtis, Ann Pettifor, Amica Dall, Margaret Busby, Daniel Susskind, Danny Dorling, Louise Doughty, Nicholas Timmins, Polly Toynbee, Lord WillettsDanny Quah, Bridget Kendall and Diane Abbott

Over the last six years: 

  • We welcomed almsot 20,000 visitors to the LSE campus and over 15,000 live online viewers
  • Our podcasts were downloaded over 2.5 million times
  • Our event videos were watched 250,000 times 

If you would like to get involved, please get in touch with us at comms.events@lse.ac.uk

LSE Festival Steering Group

Professor Neil Lee (Co-Chair)
Louise Jones (Co-Chair)
Dr Mukulika Banerjee
Professor Catherine Boone
Professor Robert Falkner
Dr Florian Foos
Professor Bingchun Meng
Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey
Ben Rogers
Dr Jillian Terry
With representatives from the Communications Division, PAGE, LSE Library and Widening Participation