The meaning of the 21st Century

An interesting Legacy

Over a decade ago, James Martin, the highest-selling author of books on computing and related technology gave £60 millions to the University of Oxford to set up a School for the 21st Century.

James Martin had written over 104 textbooks than any other person – 104, many of which have been seminal in their field. The revenue from his books and associated lectures and videos provided the funds for establishing the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University.

In 2007, he wrote "The Meaning of the 21st Century" which aims to address the technological, political, ethical, economic, social, and environmental issues of our times.

Now the Martin School is a quite a unique project that brings together researchers, policymakers, practitioners and business leaders from all fields to tackle the challenges and develop the opportunities of the 21st Century.

As of today, the research progams span a wide array of topics, including

Ageing Populations, Armed Conflict, Biodiversity, Carbon Investment, Cities

Climate Change, Complexity, Computational Cosmology, Computing, Cyber Security

Economic Development, New Economic Thinking, Emerging Infections, Food

Future Technology, Geoengineering, Global Commons, Global Health, Human Rights

Humanity's Future, Migration, Mind & Machine, Nanomedicine

Nuclear Materials, Plants, Quantum Technology, Resource Stewardship

Science & Society, Solar Energy, Stem Cells, Technology & Employment

Tidal Power, Tropical Forests

My PhD advisor heads one of the centres with the project to develop new analytic tools to forecast in the face of unanticipated change. This has applications in economics, climate change, poverty allieviation, and many other fiels.