Institute of Ideas Publications
- Publications
- Culture Wars
- Battles in Print
- Debating Matters Topic Guides
- Policy Watch
- Occasional Papers
- Conversations in Print
- Debating Matters Series
From the Institute of Ideas in association with 
In this provocative essay David Perks, head of physics at a London state secondary school, argues that attempts to make school science more popular by making it more ‘relevant’ are giving today’s students a watered-down science education that will not produce the scientists we need.
From IMPRINT ACADEMIC
A collection of essays by contributors to the Battle of Ideas 2005. For more information, go to the book's dedicated page.
Culture Wars
The IoI publishes and maintains a cultural reviews website, Culture Wars. The site carries reviews of theatre, film, fiction and non-fiction books, exhibitions, lectures and debates, as well as features, interviews and essays on all aspects of contemporary culture. The site is edited by Dolan Cummings. The contributors are a combination of writers with an expertise in particular forms, whether theatre, literature or art, and more general commentators, often involved in other aspects of the Institute of Ideas’ work. Most of the writing on Culture Wars combines critical reflection on particular work with a thematic approach, looking at how contemporary ideas are expressed through culture.
Battles in Print
The IoI publishes a collection of essays to accompany its two-day interdisciplinary festival at the end of October, the Battle of Ideas. The ‘Battles in Print 2006’ were written by leading academics, journalists and practitioners in various professions from medicine to education, in an effort to present new ways into contemporary debates and to provide a year-long resource and material for reflection away from the festival itself.
The essays are specially commissioned by the Battle of Ideas editorial team. A bound selection of these essays is on sale from the IoI, and all the essays are available in electronic form from the Battle of Ideas site.
In addition to the specially commissioned Battles in Print, the Battle of Ideas site, maintained by the IoI, hosts a further resource in the form of its ‘Recommended Readings’, providing links to a multitude of invaluable sources on Battle of Ideas topics. The links to books, reviews, articles and essays aim to give background to and frame the debates at the festival.
Debating Matters Topic Guides
The IoI’s acclaimed sixth-form debating competition produces a Topic Guide for each and every debate. The guides contain a specially written introduction to the controversy at hand, followed by an extensive bibliography providing links to a variety of resources. Aside from simply framing the debate, the guides aim to provide a serious and challenging overview of the moral, legal, and technical complexities of the issues.
The Topic Guides cover questions such as ‘Free speech should stop where offence begins’, ‘The UK is right to resist the commercial planting of GM crops’, ‘The dangers of nanotechnology are being exaggerated’, ‘Protecting the public from terrorism should come before civil liberties’, and ‘Western museums should agree to requests to repatriate cultural artefacts.’ The topics are arranged according to three themes: Science and Society; Politics and Policy; and Arts and Culture.
Policy Watch
...is an Institute of Ideas initiative to promote discussion of policy issues. Responses to consultations from a range of government and non-government bodies will be commissioned from individuals and published on our website. In the future, policy briefings and seminars will also be hosted by the IoI.
If you would like to find out more about this initiative please email Tony Gilland
The fifteenth Policy Watch document is a response to the Department for Communities and Local Government consultation on overcrowding.
Tackling Overcrowding in England response
by David Clements
''Decent homes' are apparently analogous with 'decent neighbourhoods'. This represents a not so subtle shift from the onus on government to ensure that housing is fit for habitation and in sufficient supply, to an emphasis on the kinds of 'decent' behaviour that will enhance the experience of living in an area (and even in a home) of indeterminate physical quality.'
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The fourteenth Policy Watch document is a response to the Department for Education and Skils consultation on sustainable schools.
Sustainable schools response
by Austin Williams
'In the consultation, the principle of sustainability is sacrosanct, but this response takes such governmental didacticism to task and suggests that the implications of the review will have negative consequences for educational standards, and for education per se.'
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The thirteenth Policy Watch document is a response to the Home Office/Scottish Executive consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material.
Possession of extreme pornographic material
by Michael Reardon
'Your paper makes the assumption that "there is considerable public concern about the availability of extreme pornographic material featuring adults". This is unproved and this consultation paper is the government’s response to lobbying from a small group of campaigners. In cases where criminal acts are undertaken the matter should be dealt with by the authorities appropriate to where the offence took place.'
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The twelfth Policy Watch document is a response to the DfES ‘Youth Matters’ consultation.
Why Does Youth Matter?
by Patrick Turner
'Whilst increasing available resources for work with young people, the level of prescription, regulation and re-structuring involved in recent investment has also corroded youth work’s essentially informal nature. Whether it can persist into the future as a grassroots practice dedicated to community development, the building of trust and collective self-determination is therefore an open question.'
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The eleventh Policy Watch document is a response to the DfES's 'Skills: Getting On In Business, Getting On At Work’white paper.
Response to 'Skills: Getting On In Business, Getting On At Work'
by Dennis Hayes, Alec Turner and Toby Marshall
'Recently the simplistic assumption that investment in skills will automatically raise rates of productivity has been questioned. Indeed the White Paper itself notes that rates of productivity are determined by a number of inputs. However, it fails to examine critically and weight the relationship between productivity, skills and other factors, such as fixed capital expenditure. Consequently, it does not justify the strategy proposed.'
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The tenth Policy Watch document is a response to the DCMS's 'A Strong BBC' consultation on BBC charter renewal.
Response to 'A Strong BBC'
by Graham Barnfield
'The BBC should get out of the social engineering business. On questions such as citizenship or ‘healthier lifestyles’, a unitary outlook on these matters is taken for granted. A truly independent BBC would question the assumptions behind these themes, rather than take them for granted and compliment itself for integrating them into the schedules.'
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The ninth Policy Watch document is a response to the Department of Health's 'Healthy Start' consultation on draft regulations.
Response to 'Healthy Start'
by Brid Hehir
'Consciously using health professionals 'as agents of persuasion' to help regulate people's behaviour is a worrying development. Families have to be allowed to determine how they choose to live their lives, to make real decisions and choices, to have those decisions and choices respected even if some of them are considered 'wrong' in the eyes of the government.'
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The eighth Policy Watch document is a response to the Department for Constitutional Affairs consultation paper 'Broadcasting courts'.
Response to 'Broadcasting courts'
by Tessa Mayes
'A democratic imperative to make open justice as public as it can be and the existence of modern broadcast technology that can allow this marks a new frontier in open justice. If broadcasting is banned – or, partially banned from certain trials such as jury and criminal trials – those in authority are denying the public their full potential in a modern democracy to judge the justice system for themselves.'
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The seventh Policy Watch document is a response to the First Report of the Pensions Commission, 'Pensions: Challenges and Choices'.
Response to 'Pensions: Challenges and Choices'
by Phil Mullan
'There is nothing intrinsically problematic about population ageing either for individuals or for society. On the contrary we should be celebrating our longer, healthier and more prosperous lives. However, there is far too much alarmism and scare mongering about ageing. Anxieties about ageing can lead to genuine problems. Fanning false fears tends to be bad for policy making.'
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The sixth Policy Watch document is a response to the Home Affairs Committee Inquiry into Terrorism and Community Relations.
Response to the Terrorism and Community Relations Inquiry
by Bill Durodié
'The public needs to be included and engaged. But they need to be included and engaged well before the emergence of any particular crisis, and they need to be included and engaged in matters pertaining to far broader social issues than merely fears about terrorism, or indeed any fears.'
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The fifth Policy Watch document is a response to 'Taking it on', Defra's consultation paper on sustainable development.
Response to 'Taking it on'
by Joe Kaplinsky
'Sustainable development has become an unthinking orthodoxy. When everyone from the most ruthless corporate CEO to the most radical NGO will assent to a label then it can have no value in differentiating one position from another. Furthermore, the consensus on sustainable development conceals a number of negative and incorrect assumptions about the way people relate to each other and to the environment, which urgently need to be debated.'
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The fourth Policy Watch document is a response to 'Strength in Diversity', the Home Office consultation on its community cohesion and race equality strategy.
Response to 'Strength in Diversity'
by Munira Mirza
'As someone who is currently conducting academic research into multiculturalism and who also grew up in Oldham, I have been concerned for some time about the changing nature of race relations in the UK. My main concerns focus on how policies designed to eliminate "institutional racism" appear to have had the paradoxical effect of what I call "racialising social experience", and over-sensitising people to the threat of "unwitting prejudice"'
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The third Policy Watch document is a response to the Hansard Society's Call for Evidence on 'Parliament in the Public Eye'.
Response to 'Parliament in the Public Eye'
by Martyn Perks
'The use of IT is one way politicians are trying to re-establish Parliament’s legitimacy by making new connections with the population. The more connections they make, however, the more they expose their lack of ideas. The lack of political engagement is a political problem that will only be solved by political change - not by IT.'
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The second Policy Watch document is a response to 'Safeguarding Children', the DfES Consultation on Draft Revision of child protection guidance for the Education Service.
Response to 'Safeguarding Children'
by Kate Moorcock and Joanna Williams
'Our main concerns centre on how the proposed guidance will further weaken the already strained relationships of trust between teachers and children, teachers and parents, children and parents, and between children themselves.'
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The first Policy Watch response is to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s e-consultation on its forthcoming inquiry into the need to review and revise the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (the Human Reproductive Technologies Inquiry).
Response to the Human Reproductive Technologies Inquiry
by Tony Gilland
'My starting point is that current regulatory controls are too restrictive and that regulators, as well as ethics committees more generally, pander to a censorious climate. Specifically the restrictive approach of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in recent years (from its ruling on the Whitaker case to its recommendations on sex selection) should be subject to discussion.'
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Occasional Papers
Who's antisocial? New Labour and the politics of antisocial behaviour
by Craig O'Malley and Stuart Waiton
From the introduction by Dolan Cummings: 'The significance attributed to this issue by politicians is testament less to political cunning than to a lack of political imagination. There is an implicit recognition that the issue has emerged in the context of declining communities and social atomisation. Whether this had led to a significant increase in nuisance behaviour or has simply left people feeling more vulnerable and less able to check such behaviour is a moot point. What is striking is that the political elite has no idea how to go about counteracting atomisation and cohering society, beyond simply targetting its most obvious manifestations.'
Human Remains: Objects to study or ancestors to bury?
by Tiffany Jenkins
'This paper explores the arguments made over the bones in a cultural and political context. It is concerned with, but goes beyond, the issue of scientific investigation on the remains. I take apart the ideas and assumptions that underpin the discussion and arguments for return, showing why I feel they are flawed. I argue that the case made for returning the remains has damaging implications even beyond the loss to our knowledge of human history'
A taster of the argument can be found on spiked
Conversations in Print
The Conversations in Print series comprises three very different books. The IoI commissioned individuals with a range of different experience and backgrounds to write 5,000-word essays on key themes in the arts and sciences.
Each essay has been published together with responses written by key individuals from the specialist arena and other contributors who will respond as 'outside' commentators.
Conversations in Print provide a written record of the IoI's expansion of public debate and ensure that ideas are interrogated, scrutinised and debated without concern for contemporary orthodoxies that so often narrow discussion rather than opening it up.
Debating Matters
The Debating Matters series, published by Hodder and Stoughton, reflects our commitment to opening up discussions on issues which are often talked about in the public realm, but rarely interrogated outside of academia, government committee or specialist milieu. Each of the 12 books comprises a set of essays written by a range of contributors.
The aim is to avoid approaching questions in too black and white a way. Instead, in each book essayists give voice to the various sides of the debate on contentious contemporary issues, in a readable style. Sometimes approaches overlap, but from different perspectives, and some contributors do not take a 'for or against' stance, but simply present the evidence dispassionately.
