Global social challenges
There are multiple interlocking crises currently gripping the planet. Significant threats and dangers lie ahead of us, but so do opportunities, as new ways of being, thinking, and doing emerge.
This stream of Transforming Society is a space for exploring the complexities of the global social challenges across disciplines and fields. It seeks to build and share the knowledge needed to shape a fairer world, across and for the global south and north, hoping to foster dialogue between academics, practitioners, policy makers and the wider public.
In this episode, George Miller talks to journalist and media commentator Jon Allsop about the challenges confronting journalism today and how he went about exploring them in his new book, What is Journalism For?…Read more
In early 2025, Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system was exposed as 'medelacide', the deliberate targeting of medical infrastructure.…Read more
Martin Parker, editor of 'Life After COVID-19', hoped the pandemic might spark lasting change, but entrenched power and economic interests drove a return to business as usual, revealing that real progress demands active, sustained effort. …Read more
In this episode of our Transforming Business podcast series with Martin Parker, Carl Rhodes explains the dangerous and deceptive myths which portray billionaires as a ‘force for good’.…Read more
Everybody wants to change the world, but can we actually make a difference? In the first episode of our Transforming Business podcast series with Martin Parker, Jane Holgate and John Page, authors of 'Changemakers: Radical Strategies for Social Movement Organising', discuss the power of activism and challenge the belief that change is impossible.…Read more
Peter Beresford, author of 'The Antidote', suggests that the recent attacks on EDI is a strategy to divide and control, but unity is the key to resistance.…Read more
In this episode of the Transforming Society Podcast Malcolm Carey and Gurnam Singh, guest editors of the Critical and Radical Social Work special issue on social work and social control, speak with Richard Kemp about the social work paradox of care and control.…Read more
Scott Timcke, author of 'Algorithms and the End of Politics', explores how agentic AI, with its autonomous decision-making, threatens democratic principles by undermining transparency, accountability and human control.…Read more
In 'Organising for Change', Silke Roth and Clare Saunders show how social change organisations resist far-right influence through adaptation, local mobilisation, and hybrid activism.…Read more
Peter Beresford explores how neoliberal politics fuel division by scapegoating marginalised groups while benefiting the wealthy, urging a new inclusive approach to social justice.…Read more