This programme is designed for mid‑to‑senior leaders seeking deeper insight, sharper thinking, and stronger organisational impact.
It will provide you with the tools to anticipate global shifts and lead your organisation with clarity and authority.
Programme Agenda
Thursday 16th July
18:30 Welcome Reception
19:30: Formal Dinner with Keynote Speaker – to be announced. Opening remarks from Professor of Politics, David Doyle, Programme Director.
Friday 17th July
07:45 Breakfast
08:40 Introduction Session
09:00 Seminar 1 Political Risk: China. Todd Hall, Professor of International Relations. Director, University of Oxford China Centre.
Session Overview
China is a space of both significant economic opportunity and risk. Whether viewed internationally and domestically, economics and politics are closely interlinked. How are we to understand these linkages and the ways in which actors within the Chinese system navigate them? What does this mean for the balance of opportunities and risks going forward? In this progression session, Professor Todd Hall offers an introduction to the Chinese system and the ways in which it is likely to respond to the evolving international environment.
10:30 Seminar 1 Reflection Session
11:00 Break
11:20 Seminar 2 Political Risk in the Middle East – speaker to be announced.
Session Overview
Understanding the Middle East and North Africa is essential to contemporary geopolitics, as the region remains central to global energy security and trade. Conflict and intensifying great power competition are rapidly reshaping regional alliances and security architectures, with direct consequences for global markets, supply chains, and political risk. Professor Neil Ketchley, Professor of Politics and member of the Middle East Centre.
12:50 Seminar 2 Reflection Session
13:20 Lunch
14:20 Seminar 3: AI and Cyber Risk in a Fragmenting World. Lucas Kello is Associate Professor of International Relations and Director of the Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research.
Session Overview
This session frames the expansion of cyberspace and the rise of AI as a technological revolution in strategic affairs. Drawing on lessons from past technological upheavals, it examines how AI disruption and intensifying geopolitical rivalry are reshaping patterns of cyber risk and interstate competition. It identifies plausible near-term flashpoints through which these dynamics may unfold and analyses what these developments mean for organisational resilience strategy in government and industry.
15:50 Seminar 3 Reflection Session
16:20 Break
16:40 Academic panel on the uncertainty of US politics – led by Professor Desmond King, Andrew Mellon Professor of American Government, DPIR, Professorial Fellow, Nuffield College.
Session Overview
This session will encourage participants to understand the (domestic and international) political and strategic factors driving a range of policies under the Trump administration. The way in which deep ideological, legal-institutional, and electoral calculations coalesce in the bases of President Trump’s support and vitiate the Republican Party is outlined.
Participants will discuss the extent to which these patterns are part of a trajectory toward concentrated executive power – likely to continue under a president of either party – or veer from a more familiar equilibrium.
The US is one of the most important if not the most important modern state for the global financial system, for global political balances of power and conflicts, and under its current administration committed to re-writing rules of the global order, dis-engaging from international organisations and rule-setting bodies, and articulate a foreign policy rooted in national interest not globalism.
The significance of the dollar and the key policy-making role of the US Federal Reserve continues – for now. How these central roles will endure or modify is a pressing agenda item. The US, during the Trump administration, is forging a distinct and challenging agenda in the current geopolitical environment.
18:10 Break
19:00 Dinner
20:15 Historic Walking Tour of Oxford
Saturday 18th July
07:45 Breakfast
08:45 Checkout
09:00 Implementation Workshop – Neil Unsworth, OBE, Head of Resilience for the University of Oxford and Practitioner Associate in the Department of Politics and International Relations.
Session Overview
The aim of the session is to take programme participants beyond theory and into the realm of practical, usable concepts and tools which can be employed in real-world scenarios. This will include ways in which to identify, analyse and act upon geo-political risks in order to achieve the desired outcomes for your business or department.
10:30 Break
10:45 Industry Perspectives panel discussion – speakers to be announced.
12:00 Lunch
13:30 Departures
*A preliminary agenda is outlined below and may be refined closer to the programme.
All perspectives are valued | Professor David Doyle, Head of Department
Professor Desmond King, Andrew Mellon Professor of American Government. | Desmond says there is real value in what delegates can take back to their organisations:
Professor Desmond King, Andrew Mellon Professor of American Government. | Desmond says this is an immersive two-way learning experience:
Professor Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics. | Jane explains the importance of British politics in the global geopolitical landscape:
Professor Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics. | Jane explains her session on understanding what’s happening since the General Election in 2024:
Professor Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics. | Jane says it’s important that delegates understand the latest evidence, not only the politician’s viewpoints: