Our 2026 Lecture Series brings together authors, historians, scientists, industry executives and senior leaders from the University. Lectures are designed to spark curiosity and introduce fresh perspectives.
Lecture Series schedule
| Date, time | Speaker | Lecture title |
| Monday 13 July, 11.00am | Dr Mark Purcell | Cambridge University Library: History and Treasures |
| Monday 13 July, 3.30pm | Dr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills | From Victorian Newspapers to the Classrooms of 2026: What do Poems do and Why do They Matter? |
| Tuesday 14 July, 11.00am | Professor Giles Yeo | Is Obesity a Choice? |
| Tuesday 14 July, 3.30pm | Samuel McKee | Frontiers in Space Medicine: How Biology and Technology are Shaping the Next Astronauts |
| Tuesday 14 July, 7.30pm | Dr Sarah Pearson | Power and Patronage at the Renaissance Court of Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino |
| Wednesday 15 July, 11.00am | Andrew Hatcher | The Intelligence Paradox: Is AI Expanding or Eroding Human Thought? |
| Wednesday 15 July, 3.30pm | Dr Zeynep Clulow | Perceptions, Images and Climate Technologies |
| Thursday 16 July, 11.00am | Cath Howe | Writing for Children – the fascination and the Wonder |
| Thursday 16 July, 3.30pm | Dr Andrew Catherall-Ostler | The Biology of Mind-Reading |
| Friday 17 July, 11.00am | Professor Stephen Church | King John: the Making of a Tyrant |
| Date, time | Speaker | Lecture title |
| Monday 20 July, 11.00am | Dr James Grime | Bits and Pieces: Secrets of a Digital World |
| Monday 20 July, 3.30pm | Dr Aline Guillermet | Gerhard Richter and the Technological Condition of Painting |
| Tuesday 21 July, 11.00am | Dr John Lawson | The Dark Triad: Charting the 'Dark Side' of Human Personality |
| Tuesday 21 July, 3.30pm | Midge Gillies | Atlantic Furies: The Women Who Risked Everything to be the First to Fly |
| Tuesday 21 July, 7.30pm | Dr Graham McCann | Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Paine and Selective Appropriation |
| Wednesday 22 July, 11.00am | Camice Revier | The Science of Sleep for Learning, Memory, Well-Being and Longevity |
| Wednesday 22 July, 7.30pm | Professor Ed Turner | Conserving the 'Little Things that Run the World' |
| Thursday 23 July, 11.00am | Dessislava Fessenko | AI in Biomedical Research: Application, Opportunities and Limitations |
| Thursday 23 July, 3.30am | Dr Caitlin Green | Global Britain: a Brief Chronology of an Awareness of Britain's Existence |
| Friday 24 July, 11.00am | Sir Tony Brenton | Things Fall Apart; the Fragmentation of the International System |
| Date, time | Speaker | Lecture title |
| Monday 27 July, 11.00am | Professor Bhaskar Vira | Embers of Hope: Making a Documentary on India’s Environmental Challenges |
| Monday 27 July, 3.30pm | Dr John Lennard | Enter Pursuing a Bear: the Very Surprising Act 3 of The Winter's Tale |
| Tuesday 28 July, 11.00am | Rosie Zanders | Cambridge per diem: a Daily Chronicle of Cambridge Connections |
| Tuesday 28 July, 3.30pm | Toby Fenwick | Is the Postwar International Legal System Dead? |
| Tuesday 28 July, 7.30pm | Dr Seán Lang | The Might-Have-Beens of History - Counterfactuals and the Past That Never Was |
| Wednesday 29 July, 11.00am | Jo Rhymer | Still Modern: Claude Monet’s Experimental Vision |
| Wednesday 29 July, 3.30pm | Dr Nigel Kettley | Education and Social Justice: Understanding and Tackling Inequalities in Educational Outcomes |
| Thursday 30 July, 11.00am | Dr Matthew Bothwell | Searching for Life in the Universe |
| Thursday 30 July, 3.30pm | Professor Brendan Simms | The Return of the Great Powers |
| Friday 31 July, 11.00am | Dr Jenny Bavidge | Storied City: Cambridge in Literature from Past to Present |
| Date, time | Speaker | Lecture title |
| Monday 3 August, 11.00am | Professor Dame Athene Donald | Women at Cambridge |
| Monday 3 August, 3.30pm | Dr Alex Carter | Does Philosophy Make Progress? |
| Tuesday 4 August, 11.00am | Professor Eugene Murphy | Southern Ocean Ecosystems in a Changing World: Why they Matter to us all |
| Tuesday 4 August, 3.30pm | Dr Aleksandra Koutny-Jones | Exhibiting Women Artists |
| Tuesday 4 August, 7.30pm | Dr Gareth Williams | Missing the Picture: Gaps and Misinterpretation in the Bayeux Tapestry |
| Wednesday 5 August, 11.00am | Dr Nathaniel Zetter | How Literary Form Came to Matter |
| Wednesday 5 August, 7.30pm | Midge Gillies and Clare Mulley | Writing Women’s Lives: Author Clare Mulley in Conversation with Dr Midge Gillies |
| Thursday 6 August, 11.00am | Professor Stephen Cave | AI and the Meaning of Life |
| Friday 7 August, 11.00am | Lucy Lewis | Ceremonial Cambridge |