Over 300 students, policy makers, councillors, researchers from universities and think-tanks, and members of the general public attended the Rethinking Economics Greenwich Conference 2023, which took place on 25th February. The full-day event was organised by the University of Greenwich's undergraduate and postgraduate economics students, Matthew Davis, Pranav Bhardi, Ashfi Hossain and Jasmin Lukasz, and mentored by PhD students Thomas Rabensteiner and Ines Heck, with support from PEGFA (Institute of Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability).
Rethinking Economics Greenwich (REG) was founded in 2015, re-named in September 2018 and is part of the international network of Rethinking Economics. This was the third student-organised conference at the University of Greenwich, following successful conferences in June 2015 and March 2019. Unfortunately, the 2020 conference had to be cancelled due to COVID-19 lockdowns.
The conference featured eight sessions, with 28 speakers and a range of timely topics. After opening remarks by our Vice-Chancellor Professor Jane Harrington, the opening plenary included passionate speeches by Professor Özlem Onaran, Co-director of PEGFA and Associate Head of the School of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Yuan Yang from the Financial Times, Ann Pettifor, Director of PRIME and author of "The Case for the Green New Deal", and author Eric Lonergan (Eisler Capital, former M&G Investment, in personal capacity).
Additional sessions discussed greening the curriculum, decolonizing the curriculum, inequalities, diversity, inclusion, feminist economics, and economics in the media. The speakers came from a variety of institutions such as the London School of Economics, University College London (UCL), King’s College London (KCL), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London), City University of London, UWE Bristol, University of Hertfordshire and Women’s Budget Group. In addition to Professor Onaran, PEGFA researchers Dr Alberto Botta (Programmer leader MSc Economics), Dr Maria Nikolaidi, Dr Cem Oyvat and Dr Alex Guschanski spoke on panels throughout the day.
The closing session was chaired by BSc Economics/BA Business Economics Programme Leader Dr Jeff Powell and included inspirational talks by Professor Engelbert Stockhammer (KCL), Dr Carolina Alves (UCL), and Jamie Barker from Economy Studies, a think-tank focused on teaching economics.
See the full programme here.
The conference was well-attended, with 300 registered attendees, including students from across the UK, policy advisors, economists, researchers, NGOs, media, academics, UoG alumni, and the general public. The event was a great success, and REG is looking forward to continuing its work at the University of Greenwich. Read MSc Economics student Matthew Davis’s blog post on his journey at the University of Greenwich to learn more about Rethinking Economics Greenwich.
