 Yn y gallai gweithio yng nghymru. Gweithiwch'n dechrau ymlaen i gael ffwrdd y leethau yn y wneud y 50th anfertyn y Lleitw Cers. A'r anfertyn y year yw'r yma'r ysgrifennu? Yn I'r Dyma Johnson, y dyfodol yma ar y universityg yma. Dwi'n ddifos i'r bwysig i'r anfertyn yw'r universityg yma yn y 50th anfertyn yw'r cyflwlad. Yn y wneud yma, yw'r Ynw'r Ceg. I'm delighted to say we've built an exciting programme of events and activities from January to December across our four nations and globally. Each one shining a light on the academics and the OU family who have shaped our much-loved institution. At this point, I will digress slightly, though, only to welcome the newest addition to our family, our newly appointed Pro-Chancellor, Malcolm Sweeting. Welcome to the OU, Malcolm. Each year, the Vice-Chancellor invites newly appointed and promoted professors to give an inaugural lecture. Over the course of our year, our inaugural lecture series provides an opportunity to celebrate their academic excellence, with each lecture representing a significant milestone in their academic career. This year, the inaugural lecture series is bigger than ever with 12 lectures, and true to form has a few surprises thrown in too. One of those is our opening inaugural lecture with a twist. In that, it isn't an inaugural lecture at all. This afternoon, Professor Devendra Kodvani, our Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law, will open the year-long series of lectures with his take on the journey that is lifelong learning, the OU's role and the role of higher education institutions more widely. But before he does so, I'd like to introduce you to our speakers and the chronology of this afternoon. We will hear first from our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mary Kellett, followed by Professor Kevin Hedrington, providing Chancellor Research, Enterprise and Scholarship. And finally, Professor Kodvani, who will then deliver his opening lecture, followed by a Q&A session. If cake is an incentive, then I should say now cake will be available at the end so we can celebrate together. There's quite a few laughing because my middle name by the end of the year will be cake. For anyone in the audience using Twitter, please feel free to tweet like crazy using the hashtags displayed and tagging at Open University. Help us in letting the world know and join us this afternoon. For members of our audience joining us via livestream, please use the email address provided and keep your comments and questions brief so that we can address them, especially during the Q&A. Before we start, some health and safety details. We aren't expecting a fire drill, so if something does go off, then please do you go to the fire exits and follow the person who knows where they're going. And now, please join me in welcoming our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mary Kellett. Hello everyone, and a really warm welcome to you all, whether you're here in the audience or joining us remotely. This afternoon's a very special event. We finally made it. We're here. We're celebrating our 50th anniversary year. Apart from all the cake that Juma mentioned, I don't want us to forget why we're here. We are a university. We're a very special university, and we have some of the most amazing academics here. Amazing professors, and we do excellent teaching and research. So, for me, it's a great honour and privilege to be able to kick this in order to lecture off by reminding us all of just how good we are. 50 years ago, a radical idea was born. The Open University. A university ahead of its time. A university open to people, places, methods and ideas. An inative, inclusive university, proud of its heritage and the impact it's made in transforming lives. The year was 1969, and our aim was simple, to open up education for all. Two million students later, we continue to break down the barriers to higher education and advanced knowledge in society. Here in the UK and across the world, through our teaching and research, underpinned by innovative technology. We pride ourselves on conducting research that is as pioneering as the OU itself. Turning ideas into solutions that benefit people, business and society. Our inaugural lecture lineup for this year is a great illustration of the breadth and depth of this work. It won't surprise you to know that we at the OU have been engaged in educational research since our inception, progressing from late-night BBC programmes to online teaching and virtual laboratories. Our long-standing collaboration with the BBC is a source of great pride and provides the focus of Professor Mark Brandon's inaugural lecture on polar oceans and global climates in June in the run-up to World Environmental Day. We also have a long history of involvement in major solar system exploration and converting that technology into terrestrial applications. For instance, developing instruments which aid in monitoring for disease and environmental conditions on Earth. Later this year, we will hear from Professors Rothery and Haswell on some new space missions, the latest findings about Mercury and the discovery of new exoplanets. In the meantime, let's come back down to Earth and to our main event this afternoon. Professor Devendra Kodwani will launch this very special inaugural lecture series with a reflection on the need for lifelong learning, the future of universities and how they can meet the global challenge of providing learning opportunities to all segments of society. It could be no more relevant or important to kick this off. But just hold back on your excitement for a few moments yet before you meet Dev, who is going to give the lecture because I would like to invite our Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kevin Heatherington, who is Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Scholarship to introduce our speaker today, Kevin. Thank you Mary. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Professor Devendra Kodwani, more fondly known as Dev, who joined the Open University in 2004 in the Department of Accounting and Finance of the Faculty of Business and Law. Before that he worked in India at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahamabad, Gujarat University and the Telani Institute of Management Studies in Gujarat. Currently he is Professor of Finance Management and Corporate Governance, an executive dean of the Faculty of Business and Law and head of the Open University Business School. He's a busy man. His teaching portfolio includes undergraduate and postgraduate accounting and finance courses. As master's program director from 2010 to 13, Dev led the redevelopment of the Open University's triple accredited MBA program and developed two specialist masters, an MSc in finance and an MSc in human resource management. Following on from that, as Associate Dean Curriculum Learning and Teaching, he shaped learning design and learning and teaching strategy for all qualifications offered within the Faculty of Business and Law. Recently he also led on the development of management and finance programs on FutureLearn, a massive online open course platform or MOOC platform. He also developed a MOOC on bookkeeping for personal and business accounting, something I'm sure many of us would find very useful to look at. His current research focuses on the evolution of regulatory institutions in India, corporate governance and ethics. He has been examining the reforms in the electricity, water and telecommunications industry in the UK and India and is currently engaged in research on corporate governance, institutional endowments and regulatory capabilities in India. His lecture today, back from the future, forward from the past, the journey that is lifelong learning, will draw on his experience of working at the Open University and his lifelong learning that continues even now as he's doing an MA in educational leadership at the Open University. Now, Dev tells me he's the first of six siblings and would have perhaps ended up as a monk had he not got married and chosen a different career path. Monkhood's loss is our gain and we are delighted that he has chosen another noble cause, that of teaching here at the Open University. So it gives me great pleasure to introduce Professor Devendra Codwani. Thank you, Kevin, for this very generous introduction. So, good afternoon to all and those who are watching in different time zones perhaps in Asia. Good evening. I want to start on a personal note. In March 2018, a series of events that took place in my professional life that continues with this event today. I feel a bit like this athlete. Curt C, our Super Vice Chancellor, Professor Mary Kellett, who, as my line manager, has raised the bar a few inches for me to jump every few months. A few weeks before Christmas, when these lectures were being planned, Mary nominated me to deliver this lecture to kick off. The inaugural series in the celebratory year for the Open University. Our committee deciding the speakers and topics no less, nudge by dynamic development director of Open University, Juma Johnson, asked me to reflect on the lifelong learning and future of university education. Thank you, Mary. And colleagues for giving me this honour and privilege, not only for delivering this lecture, but also to launch a series of inaugural lectures that will be delivered by 12 distinguished professors of this university on many important topics. I urge you to look out for those dates and attend those too. I would like to thank our new pro chancellor, Malcolm Sweeting, who has taken time out of his busy schedule to attend this lecture. You have taken over as chair of the OU council only this month, but have already spent good amount of your precious time with us during this month. This demonstrates your huge commitment to OU Malcolm. I also thank other members of the council who have come here to attend the lecture, as well as special thanks to Professor Alan Tate, who is emeritus professor of Open University and ex-pro vice chancellor of academic at OU for taking time out this afternoon. I want to thank my wife Anju and two sons for being here today. Your love, support and encouragement give me energy and purpose. Big thank you to all of you here in the theatre and all those who are watching this online. Many of them are my earlier students. For giving up your time to attend this lecture, a small point of clarification, throughout the lecture, I'll be also using word learner rather than student word and will be using lifelong learning and lifelong education interchangeably, although I am aware of the subtle differences between learning and education that are discussed in policy and academic discourse. My view is in future such differences will become increasingly redundant and I hope you will get a glimpse of that possibility as I proceed with the lecture. When the announcement for this lecture reached colleagues, one of my fellow executive deans said that the title is very interesting. Yes, the title has a bit of play with notion of time as I believe. The time is what defines 50th anniversary. We in the university are seized of this opportunity to charter future course of direction. As a person of Indian origin, I can tell you, we have an interesting relation with the notion of time. If you have had the joy of travelling on Indian roads, you would find that everyone is in hurry to reach somewhere, but hardly any meeting starts on time. Also, if you ever wanted a lesson in disobedience, you must drive through some of the towns in the subcontinent. I think it is a hangover from the disobedience lessons that Mahatma Gandhi gave us to fight for independence from the British rule. I don't know how he would feel to see his lesson being used to violate traffic rules though. There is another feature of this relationship with time. For many Indians, time does not move linearly. It is a circular. If you do bad things in this life, you will be born in different species to pay for it. Einstein showed that gravity bends time, but ancient Indian tradition goes beyond to suggest that creation and destruction of the universe are cyclical. On more serious note, in Indian language, Sanskrit word used for the world is called jagat. Literally, it means that which changes our moves. We know change our move implies existence of time. Unless, of course, in quantum physics, where a particle can be in two places simultaneously. There is an interesting story of how this word jagat has entered English language with a different meaning. On the east coast of India, there is a famous temple of Jagannath in the city of Puri. Jagannath simply means Lord of World. Every year, a massive procession of deity's idols is taken out on a large chariot. Hundreds of thousands of devotees join and symbolically push the chariot. Someone narrating this memoth spectre of Jagannath procession described it in English few hundred years ago when it became the word jagannath in English. However, these days, if you Google the word jagannath, you're likely to find images like these. Let me quickly move on to my lecture. The structure of my lecture is around three questions. The first question I consider is, what do expected patterns in demographic change of world population mean for lifelong learning? I'll talk about this under the heading, the global bulge. Second question I address is, what do emerging possibilities in genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnologies, the so-called green technologies, mean for learning and work? This is how I look back from future. I'll then briefly talk about the persistent inequalities in adult education as it is relevant to how we imagine future role of lifelong learning and universities. The third question I will address is why, despite some of the trends which are now visible, as we would see shortly, there is not enough mainstream policy and public debate about role of universities in future society. The answer I venture to present is, excessive focus on short term and local issues at the cost of long term and global considerations. I'll also reflect on the nature of learning and argue that diversity of culture and diversity in how we learn are important, which need to inform the choice of what universities offer for learning who they offer and how they teach. I will not go dwell on the mode of delivery a lot but I believe the take up of online flexible learning is inevitable and is unlikely to be a matter of choice in the long run. Harold Wilson and Michael Young both use the term bulge in public discourse to raise issue of shortage of places in the universities to meet demand from the baby boomer generation who were graduating from schools to enter universities in 1960s in the UK. This is how Harold Wilson soon to become prime minister in 1964 said in a speech at Glasgow about the problem of under capacity in the universities. We of course overlaught to Harold Wilson who in his 1963 same speech outlined concept of open university. When he became prime minister of the UK in 1964 he appointed the minister of arts, Jenny Lee to lead setting up of the university, open university. The rest is history as they say. We are now celebrating 50 years of this wonderful institution which I will call Wilson Young's Cathedral of Open Education. I'll explain it at the end of talk why I do so. Michael Young who was a fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge thought being a relatively new college the college might be more experimental and do something about the problem. However when he got no response from his colleagues enterprising an innovative institution builder as he was he wrote an article about the bulge in magazine where in October 1962 he proposed steps that could be taken to create opportunities for more people to get higher education. Among the proposals he argued for double shift system at the existing universities and also to use accommodation and facilities during vacations. More significantly for our history as institution he also proposed founding of an open university that would teach by correspondence, television and radio are combination of all these. He actually used the words open university which eventually became name of this university. Thus was an idea of open education germinated in the UK which would later spread to other parts of the world. Since nothing much was happening after he published the article Young and few others set up the National Extension College in autumn of 1963 and began experimenting and teaching using new methods to external students. Actually the idea of distance education was to even then Michael Young had seen its effective use in Soviet Russia where distance education students were given by law study leave before the examination. I see here some students representatives here if you listen to Young's speech in 1973 it was an interview here in open forum he actually extols to argue for getting some leave for studies to employers and the government he encouraged the students to argue for that. At the same time Michael Young also became aware of use of educational television in the US. So he was essentially trying to combine a model of distance education and possibilities of using media to create an open university. Young helped set up a college of air in Mauritius and wanted to spread the movement in Africa. As it happened subsequently this university, our university has taken the revolution in education forward by helping setting up of open universities in Pakistan, India, Arab open university in Middle East and has inspired open education in many other parts of the world including in Africa. It is fitting to recall with pride that OU has had a number of fantastic academics professional staff and leaders who value the social justice as common good and extended the reach of education beyond the shores of the UK. I want to make special mention of hundreds of thousands of students who have posed confidence in the open university and the association of the students at the open university who have played a significant part in the development of OU. The open university has seen as a solution to the problem of access and opportunity for those who could not get higher education and wanted to get it. However, in 2019 we faced another bulge problem which is different in nature and also much bigger in scale and goes beyond the national boundaries. Let me start by a quick look at the demographic changes that will emerge from the rapid rise in the population on our planet. It took 18 centuries for the global population to grow from 250 million to 1 billion and just two centuries to grow by 7 times to 7 billion but it will take less than another 100 years for the planet's population of humans to rise to 11 billion. To provide relevant and good learning opportunity at this scale is a challenge in itself. The nature of such provision however will need to be carefully considered for different regions of the world. I will say a bit more on this later. As you see currently there are less than 1 billion people of age above 60 in 2019. This number will rise to 1.37 billion by 2025 to 2.2 billion by 2050 and will go over 3 billion people by end of the century. Some of the potential impact of this aging profile is showing up in the stress on financial resources required for care, subsistence and health care required for increasing number of people living longer. However, policy measures to meet these needs will have to consider the differences in the way this bulge is going to be seen in different parts of the world. Consider this breakdown of same information as previous but split by different regions of the world. What you see here is hundreds of millions on the X axis and on Y axis you have got the millions on the Y axis and then age on the Y axis. That is people here are in age group 60 and above and on the bottom you have these hundreds of millions in different regions. So most of the population above 60 is in America and Europe, China and India at the moment. Note also the large number of young people in India and Africa will be causing a different bulge in future as we can see on the next slide. So by 2050 global regional population distribution will look like this. The challenge will not be only creating learning opportunity for young but also for growing number of people in advanced age groups. I will make case for why we will need to provide learning opportunities for all age groups shortly but here is a caution for Africa, India and some other large countries like Pakistan where the demographic profile is dominated by people under 30. These generations deserve and will look for high quality learning opportunities both at sub university level and university level. Lest there is a real risk of them finding themselves vulnerable to the shock that green technologies are due to deliver in near future. By 2100 the bulge looks very different with a very large proportion of under 60 years of age in Africa but much more distributed population across age groups in the rest of the world. There will be a hundred millions or more living over 90 or 100 years of age, hundreds of millions. The global age profile means lifelong education will not be restricted to particular age group but also will be needed for all age groups. A sociological implication from such pattern that is emerging is that we will become a four generation society from current three generation society. The social policies will need to consider not just child parent and grandparent but also add to this equation great grandparent. Let me now address a second question. What do emerging possibilities in genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnologies mean for learning and work? These technologies are manifestation of continuing human genius by which we have discovered many laws of nature identified forces in nature. We have applied this knowledge to invent technological solutions but what do these mean for learning is my concern. One easy claim to make is that children born in recent years and those to be born in coming decade or so may be required to do jobs that probably don't even exist. How do we plan curriculum for them? Thus far in the history of human race we have pushed the boundaries in nature that were external to us. Agriculture and industrial revolutions driven by use of energy intensive technologies, chemical and other material sciences allowed rapid growth in our ability to produce and fuel our desires to consume. As a result we have pushed the planetary boundaries around sustainability which now manifest in depleting ozone layer, rising temperatures and other science of environmental damage. However with green technologies we enter human body and mind. Application of this knowledge presents a realistic chance of interfering with our very being. To consider first at simplistic level our need to learn simple calculations and do those mentally might become increasingly redundant. The cognitive processes that allow us to memorise 6, 7 or 10 digit phone numbers are even now challenged by the mobile phones. Raise your hands how many of you would struggle to remember your family members phone number. That's nearly 70-80%. The matter may seem trivial but at cognitive level it may be significant in 50 human generations time or maybe much before that. Similarly genetic intervention to enhance certain human and biological tendencies and to suppress others will potentially allow us to redefine our personalities. In such scenario what and how we learn is pertinent question that universities will need to address. Collection and control of data about our choices, preferences, behaviours is not new. The producers and advertisers have for long use such information to design their marketing campaigns to lure us into consuming their goods and services. However collection of frequent detailed data for millions of people ever increasing power of computers and algorithms enabled machine learning are very powerful instruments in the hands of corporations and the state. These instruments quite often without knowledge of most of us allow them to detect our biases, follies, prejudices, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. At fundamental level I believe human agency is challenged by such developments. Dwelling on this challenge is beyond the scope of this lecture hence I will just discuss few implications as they relate to work, well-being and quality of living. It is very clear that we will be working longer years later into life to pay for our living cost, healthcare and other basic needs. Longer working life will require continuous learning to compete in the labour market and competition may not be with only other people. In 2011 there were 11 industrial robots employed for every 1,000 people employed in manufacturing in the developing world. This number for developing countries was only 0.4. These figures rose significantly by 2015 to 14.6 robots for every 1,000 employees employed in manufacturing in the developing world and number for the developing countries was 2. In 2015 total 1.6 million robots were employed in industries worldwide. The image that you see on the right side is it right for you? Top right side of the screen is not a crane but a robot bricklayer called Hadrian X made by Fast Brick Robotics an Australian startup company. This robot can lay 1,000 bricks in one hour 1,000 bricks in one hour compared to 50 to 100 a very experienced human bricklayer can do. In November 2018 the company demonstrated industry standard acceptable construction of 180 square meter house by its flagship Hadrian X robot in three days. The robot is mounted on a truck and can go different places. It is only matter of time before this robot will have a sister robot with 3D printer attached whom a print bricks and other hardware that goes into house construction. We know in most economies construction industry growth is a key variable to project employment trends. What will this technology do to these projections in future I'll leave to your imagination and move on to artificial intelligence. Here is another illustration which is not from future but happening now. Humans and machines now compete in local transport business. Last year our city of Milton Keynes in the first city in world where grocery deliveries by a robot on wheels were started. We have also got deliveries by drones. Riders is a name given to people who deliver food and other things at home. If you see this if you see in this race humans are bound to lose. Here is why. I think there are three aspects to this business of delivery. First is information processing about address, navigation and transactional data. Naturally computing power and algorithms in this case are going to be more efficient. Then there is physical power and manual lifting etc. Where humans perhaps may have age at the moment but how long. And finally customer experience about accuracy, timeliness of delivery quality of product which are nearly independent of human or machine as a deliverer. Perhaps machines have an advantage as they are better off all weather and there will be no need to pay tip. It is clear though that in this supply chain information technology is at heart of the operation. No wonder we see increasing amount of capital and intellectual investment in artificial intelligence. Here are a few trends that have implications about future of work and before that a quick reflection on what jobs like Rider mean is worth reflecting. Now this is don't worry about reading this information is from an actual company website of a company that aggregates and distributes orders for restaurants in London. The Rider is the new name for delivery person or is it a new for courier. Anyway, no Rider does not get salary or wages but gets fees. Riders are thus not employees but self-employed contractors with no guarantee of work even if they sign up to become contractors. They had to make upfront investment in a mobile phone vehicle insurance of vehicle and the kit. I suspect such human service perhaps would cost less than investment in robots or drones as there is hardly any upfront investment in this for the platform business or the supplier of actual goods. But for reasons mentioned above I feel machines will outcompete humans in such low skills jobs. I want to reflect on what's going on in the artificial intelligence technology knowledge creation. So there's a group of technologies which are called AI technology patent group, the patents that are being given for these technologies which include biological knowledge base and mathematical models and other AI technology for which patents are being given. 13,567 patents related to AI technology were obtained globally between 2000 and 2016. This group of patents includes biological, knowledge, mathematical and other. The US patent office issued four patents annually related to mathematical AI algorithms between 2000 and 2004 which rose to 194 in 2015-16. Similar trend is seen in China Japan and Europe. IBM the US computer giant alone obtained 1057 patents in artificial intelligence related technologies compare that to number of similar patents obtained by all universities in the world during the same period which was 1177 patents of which 725 came from Chinese universities. I am confident that this concentration of intellectual properties will eventually spread more widely beyond the big technology corporations and universities as the cost of computing goes down and access to internet increases. You had to only look up for information on mind-boggling scale of explosion in number of youngsters working on startup ideas all around the world. There is a shift in the patents from biological knowledge based patents to mathematical models based algorithms and other AI technologies. What does it mean for shifts in the skills that will be required? It is very difficult therefore to predict which type of skills and jobs are protected from application of these technologies. Most repetitive mental and physical tasks will be taken over by some combination of these technologies. However, jobs where emotional intelligence team working collaborative approaches are essential will require a skills that we learn. This slide shows predicted shifts in the skills by 2030 in the US and Europe. As is seen, the percentage of shift in the workforce needed for physical and workforce with the physical or basic cognitive skills is likely to go down, which is the orange there you see on the top of the slide. We will be able to leverage likely to go down as well as social skills and emotional skills is likely to go up. Higher cognitive skills will not only be relevant for the jobs but later in life the greatest challenge will be to stay meaningfully occupied. We know from neuroscience that there are mental health benefits from engaging in intellectually interesting and challenging activities. So you can hope I'll be studying more than a educational leadership. Maybe something in the stem. We'll be able to leverage green technologies to the benefit of mankind and improving quality of life in many ways. To grasp the full implication of green technologies and demographic bulge that we discussed the universities need to commit significant intellectual power and other resources to the educational gerontology, that is the scientific study of aging process and related challenges. Let me briefly mention the problem of inequalities in opportunities for access and participation in learning among different groups of community before I address the third question. This survey by department of education in England shows that as age increases beyond 60 the number of adults engaging in learning activity is going down. Following few slides further show that people who will actually benefit from participating in learning are less likely to do so. So what you have here is people with different income groups and whether they are engaging in the learning activities or not. Individuals with a net annual household income of less than 15,000 are less likely to have done any type of learning in the past 12 months as this survey showed. Those in the full time and part time employment are more likely to participate in learning than those who are unemployed or economically inactive. Those with higher qualification attainment are more likely to participate in any learning than those who are not qualified or have got lower GCSE level qualifications. This is worrying. What you see on this slide is people with parental background of qualification. So people with parents with lower qualification and people with parents with higher qualification is what this slide is showing. So it shows that adults with poorly qualified parents are less likely to participate in learning. Similar disparity in effects of different parental qualifications on literacy of young and adults is found in most OECD countries. Combined with the finding that those not in employment are also less likely to participate in learning potentially this perpetuates the inequality in society. So far what I have argued is the need to consider the long-term implication of current and future scenarios in demographic changes, likely impact of green technologies and persistent inequalities of various kinds in the society. The third question that arises for me at least is this. Why do we not consider these long-term implications in the mainstream public policy and political forum? French economist and liberator in Westiart was a brilliant and insightful thinker who explained some fundamental concepts about markets and economics and human decision making. His argument that considering only short-term and visible benefits of an action can have serious negative long-term effects is quite pertinent here. If one were to assess the impact of many economic and political choices in past few centuries but particularly after the industrial revolution there is some profound insight into this short-term or immediate gratification argument. Let me illustrate this with some other consumption choices we make. So the story goes like this in Westiart's story that boy breaks window of his father's shop and father is crossed because it will now cost him to fix the window but some spectators argue that if shop window was not broken then what will happen to glacier? So that's the benefit. You have a broken window and a transaction between glacier and shopkeepers. That's the first effect. What is missed here is that what would shopkeeper do if that money was spent on mending window but on something else, let's say buying shoe which you had to regard a number of other transactions. So that's the difference what Westiart is trying to say. There's another example about consumption that I want to mention here. There's a particular beverage company with footprint in almost every corner of the world where their bottles, cans and jars are famous and you can find them everywhere. The beverage is hardly beverage has hardly any nutrition value but its adverse health effects are known. This is quite extraordinary product which is made from water but it's somehow sold at a lower price than the price of water which is itself economic logic defining thing but what I want to draw attention to is a couple of unseen consequences that we do not immediately see. First is that given the chemistry of its production we know that it is more difficult to digest than let's say plain water. Human digestion system has evolved over thousands of years and we choose to give it all such stuff. It's like fitting a Rolls-Royce engine in your car and giving it kerosene as a fuel rather than high quality aviation great fuel. Other consequence of this product is environmental cost in terms of clean water used and pollution released in the supply chain. However, visible impact in terms of profits, jobs and other things crowds out less visible long term adverse impact. So why does short term and local impact get privileged consideration in evaluation of choices? Let me first explain briefly I talked about that example. So why does this happen? We are now beginning to understand why we make such choices as individuals. The research in cognitive sciences suggests that when emotions take driving seat in decision making and deliberation careful evaluation of options is compromised. The research also suggests that our inability to control instant gratification leads to long term poor performance later in life. There is established research around this area in social psychology and psychology. The dominance of short term consideration blinds us to the long term consequences. In the economics and business decisions focus on quarterly and ever decreasing time response to major performance has led to strategic errors of judgment. At collective level evidence of the tension between short term and long term local and global seems to manifest itself in decisions such as Brexit referendum choice in many countries around leaders who are obsessed with narrow short term agenda. Politics of exclusion over inclusion gets vote. Politics of here and now Trump's politics of future informed present. The reality however shows that many of the challenges that human race faces including existential threats like climate change are not local challenges neither are they short term in their consequences. No country is in Ireland in itself. Even if like the UK it is geographically made up of islands. The interdependence among the nations means future of the planet is a shared reality which requires deliberations and choices informed by a global and long term view. For this to become collective choice citizens need to be empowered and educated throughout their life. Life stages. That is why life long education is must but this does not happen. I conjecture why next. There is acknowledgement going back to at least 22 years ago in this UNESCO report by Jack Delors and others that we need a holistic view of education which is more than an instrument of economic prosperity. However the educational policies have usually been guided by economic consideration with focus on developing human capital as neoclassical economists would argue. Of late this has become more apparent in most countries and international bodies like OECD. The state and economic system sees education as a way of improving productivity and enhancing employability. One may pose a philosophical question about this relationship between society the state and markets. Carl Polany and for example argued that capitalism eventually leads to market society. He says that it's difficult going to be difficult to distinguish between market and society. That was his logical conclusion. Jurgen Habermas, Amartya Sen and other philosophers argue for freedom and human capabilities to participate in public sphere more effectively. The four pillars of learning identified by this Yak Delos report were these. These include learning to be which refers to a whole person. Roberto Carniro argues that education must lead to self-fulfilment and to meaning. He further argues that learning to live longer live together builds cohesion and makes communities viable and enables development. I don't want to much on other things to know and to do our self-explanatory constructs of learning. Learning to live with multiple identities that we all now have in this complex interconnected world cultivate core citizenship values and regard for general advancement of human beings and sustainability are precondition for culture of peace and understanding. I am of the view that if all these pillars of learning are to be realized we have no choice but to consider lifelong learning as a key policy goal. One way to approach and concretize this as a policy goal may be to consider adult education as a common good. There is such a construct in academic space but it needs to come out in mainstream discussion in society and polity. International Labour Organization published a report on future of work last week after I had finished working on this lecture. However, the proposal in the report is too pertinent to today's lecture to miss. The report proposes that social contract between workers and employers and government needs to be strengthened by what it calls human centered agenda for future of work. The report calls for an increasing investment in human capabilities beyond economic perspective and requires I quote a universal entitlement of lifelong learning that enables people to acquire skills and to re-skill and up-skill content. There is already widespread recognition of need for learning which goes beyond formal education. In his recent book about future prospects for the humanity we had this fantastic endorsement from Martin Rees as a physicist who considers formal education rigid and unresponsive and calls for realizing the potentials of that institutions like open universities have. So what does it mean for us? Universities will need to review the approach to learning provision and acquisition. Learning places and times may have to move where and when is suitable for the learner. We will need to move from a notion of dedicated few years of time devoted to education to a lifetime commitment to education with flexibility to choose different types of learning at different stages of life. This means a fragmented view of learning will need to make way for a holistic perspective of education and learning. Great efforts are needed from the state and learning providers to address the issue of inequality and inclusion in learning. This requires concerted efforts in which the society, the state and the economic systems will need to partner and respond to the context both political and cultural to support lifelong learning. I want to make one more point on this regard. There are many theories of learning. Brief review of literature led me to consider this theory proposed by Ilaris who is professor of lifelong learning at Danish School of Economics. Developing his theory based on earlier insights from Carl Rogers and Jean Piaget and his own research Ilaris argues that learning involves two kinds of processes identified by double arrows in this triangle of learning. The vertical arrow represents internal acquisition process which includes content and incentive. The content here is very broadly defined as human capacity such as skills, knowledge, attitude, understanding, beliefs, behavior and competences etc. The incentive is mobilization of mental energy to drive the process that is the motivations, emotions and relations involved. The vertical arrow represents interaction between the learner and the environment which initiates and supplies learning input. The way this model of learning is structured it underscores the importance of prior knowledge learning and cultural context of the learner. There is a body of academic literature in psychology which points to the culture dependence of knowledge creation. It is recognized now that people in different cultures may perceive and process information differently. A study of this link between culture and cognition, for example, showed difference in the reasoning style of Chinese bilingual students and European American students. For example, some objects may be categorized on the basis of shared attributes in one culture and may be categorized on relational properties of the objects in another culture. Consider these three objects. In a recent study researchers asked American European students and Chinese students to categorize three words, monkey, panda and banana. Let's play this here. Please raise your hand if you will categorize these objects as this. Looks like 30%. How many of you would like to categorize like this? Interesting. Still not full house. How many of you might categorize like this? Not many. What's going on here? Respondents from America and Europe are more likely to categorize monkey and panda as their animals. While eastern culture students are more likely to put monkey and banana in the same group. The point I want to make is that we in universities will need to understand assumptions about learning models we use. There is need to consider cross-cultural context of what is offered to learners as a prior learning cultural context or important determinants of realized learning outcomes. In the discipline closer to mine in business and management, we have known this for a while that cross-cultural context of practice matters in management. And hence any theorizing we do about management needs to factor that in. Although in practical teaching context I am disappointed to see American case studies and concepts tested and refined in Anglo-Saxon societies routinely used in business schools classrooms in Asia without much critical discussion on the assumptions about the context of their origin. In case of lifelong learning decisions will also need to factor in the stage of life of the learner. Even if all the learners are in the same sexual context. The learner acquires knowledge and experience as she grows older that intellectual and emotional baggage will play important role in the interaction between the learner and the content and may also affect the incentive of the learner. Finally as I move to finish the lecture I want to recall 23rd April 1969 when Her Majesty the Queen approved the creation of the Royal Charter of the Open University. On 23rd July 1969 the first meeting of the congregation of the university was held at the Royal Society. The Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Jenny Lee were present at that event where the Charter was officially presented by Privy Council and Geoffrey Crowther was installed as the first Chancellor. This is a picture of that occasion. When our first Chancellor gave us this wonderful mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas it was relevant then it is relevant now after 50 years. I am reading a book titled Turing's Cathedral which is a history of computing by George Dyson who is a historian of technology also son of famous scientist Freeman Dyson who chose the Turing's Cathedral title for his book. It was a seminal contribution of Alan Turing who we know worked in Milton Keynes in Bletch League during war years about possibility of thinking machines that led to development of computers and hence he calls that movement to build powerful computer as Turing's Cathedral. I am tempted to borrow the metaphor of Cathedral. 50 years ago started building of an institution what I call Harold Young Cathedral of Open Education which unleashed a revolution that has touched and transformed millions of lives in the UK and far flung parts of the globe. Over these five decades several thousand employees comprising full time academics, tutors professional staff chancellers, pro chancellers voice chancellers the council members, philanthropists and our advisors and above all OU students have contributed their labour and skill to build this cathedral brick by brick and continue to do so. For us now at the Open University those of you who are connected with the education in any form those who can enable and support learning for all the imperatives that I have presented in this lecture this is the time we recommit to the mission for another 50 years let us break the barriers of time and space and take this revolution forward make lifelong learning a global force for positive change let us make the difference that will make the difference. Thank you. Thank you Dev, I'm sure you'll agree with me that was extremely thought provoking and I'm going to give you a chance to not let Dev off the hook just yet because there's a Q&A session for 10 minutes and after it we'll close and head to a celebration so whilst we make our way to the chairs and get settled I would request that you have a think about what you'd like to ask including our guests online and when you do ask your question please wait for the roving mic to get to you and when it does just let us know who you are and which institution you're from and have a good idea of who we're talking to. Thank you very much. Right, so very happy to take the first question from the room who would like to go first? Gentleman in the blue. Thank you, thank you for a very insightful lecture my name is Dominic Newbold and I came to the Open University in 1978 and left it seems only a few moments ago in 2011 I think. My question is at the beginning you said that the Open University was a university ahead of its time do you think the OU is still ahead of its time? and if so, which single criterion signifies its being ahead? I think it's a very good question Dominic I think what still puts university ahead of its time is its mission I think we are still one of the few if there are many other universities who consider education not to be as a privilege but as something that individuals in society and communities need irrespective of where they are in whichever station they are in their life so the fact that colleagues in the university and students have demonstrated that we can reach out to you have to just look at the history of open industry associations achievements I was there I think on Friday evening we had lunch with the OU Students Association and they showed their history how many barriers, social barriers they have broken down to take education whether it's a disability, social and other barriers OU as an institution has broken barriers internationally I was in Pakistan in November OU's help set up the University of Pakistan Allama Iqbal Open University there they have 1.2 million students 80,000 tutors now 1.2 million is actually nearly half of their total tertiary education enrollment ratio in Pakistan and they have 190 universities so kind of things that OU mission drives us to do I think still makes us ahead of time and the call that we just heard from this ILO report that I quoted if you read that report it's just trying to reinvent places like OU more of those so I think it is our mission that takes us ahead of everybody else Thank you Dev Another question from the room Gentleman just behind the cameras Thank you and just as we get the mic across the next question I'll take will be if we've got one from online Hi Dev thank you so much for that fascinating lecture it's Terry O'Sullivan from Business and Law I was fascinated in particular to hear in the introduction that you almost became a monk and I was wondering to what extent do you think that the university in the 20th century still provides what we might call a space for contemplation not just the kind of engagement with the world that we kind of take for granted engagement with the economy for example you mentioned but also for academics themselves to kind of live a life of contemplation and perhaps critique apart from that world I think there are very few places to be left in society at the moment I still feel universities are one place where scope for reflecting on long term and contemplating in generally is much more I think we need to have space there are some worrying signs for me like the disconnect between the perceived importance of humanities and what economic considerations drivers to in terms of choosing kind of carriers and the subjects that get studied but I still feel it is a 21st century I think you meant not 21st century, 21st university still should have a space if we are to tackle some of these big challenges you know this constant pressure on academics to be focused on here and now I mean I was looking at a study of how research in history has evolved history in the subject and there was very interesting finding from a kind of a meta-analysis of duration of time span over which history theses are being written so actually there are very few history theses which go over time span of 50 years or 100 years which is strange because in history you would expect them to take a much longer shot of phenomena and even there if you look at the titles of history theses they are talking of 5 years phenomena and then study that thing 5 years, I mean we know some of the social and cultural forces work on a much much larger time scale so you can't really analyze the 5 years kind of slice of history of some place or topic so answer for me is still it is in the universities where we can find and must protect some of those spaces for contemplation I will go beyond that through this lifelong learning kind of opportunities because the short talks don't allow you to elaborate some of the things like stages of life that we will be going through living 90 years you are going through 3-4 different stages of life and all of them had different challenges but at the same time opportunities so because universities are not coming in space you have this civil society responses for example there is a university of third age in UK which is a global phenomenon but in the UK they got 462,000 participants in university of third age programs now what do these participants do who are between age group 55 and 75 because people beyond 85 have now set up a university of fourth age there is one university of fourth age so they are trying to answer those some back fill some of those gaps that you are arguing about contemplation and I think universities are in much better place to do those activities I would go back to Michael Young's argument he is not our library MK council doing something with OU for that group of people that is meaningful pays back to society in different ways through the educational resources hello, thank you I've got a question there's a mouse coming, thank you and then after that we'll take a question back in the room before we bring the Q&A session to a close, thank you there's a question that's come in on live stream from Dr Richard Blondel he actually is here at the OU Professor of Enterprise and Organization in the Faculty of Business and Law he thanks you for your interesting talk and he asks what are the implications for the governance of universities if they are to address the complex challenges that you have outlined and to deliver these long-term public goods for example do we need to actively defend them against commercialization and privatization I think Richard thank you for the question you have conflated two issues here in my view one is what does universities governance do I mean we got council members here today and we see members I think commitment to lifelong learning has to be thought through first of all holistically how does OU play role in that the commercialization in itself I see this is different challenge because by its very nature commercial and private entrepreneurs be they companies or individuals will come into space where there are low hanging fruits in training and education which is of vocational type so they are unlikely to go in there a question is how do universities if we are to ask that question to us in the university here address this need to serve the mainstream curriculum to what is mainstream audience today the students who want qualifications and so on and the rest of lifelong learning needs I think whether we do whatever we do is going to cost us money all the universities face the same problem so question is who pays for this so we have three options either the user pays for it or a state pays for it or there is some combination of the two that makes it happen question is therefore what should if universities think and who thinks this is we used to have one fourth of our students were I wouldn't call them leisure learning that was loosely used for them before 2012 I think they were actually lifelong learners we used to have one in four that kind of audience we lost that when we took that strategic direction to qualification route in 2012 so they are genuinely relevant learners that we need to serve perhaps governance can explore that how to create public debate public space discussion so that we don't have to be seen as lobbying because this is our client here that's what I don't think governance should be doing we should be creating a genuine conversation encouraging that through students association through whatever networks we have that this is a real issue and we need to create space for this learning which is taken care of whatever way actually again if I go back to one of the proposals out there in literature was to give people lifelong learning entitlements for future so you don't have to go through 20 years of education in first part of your life you decide when you want to take what you want now that's quite an interesting model and then how do you support that lifelong learning entitlement model is something that at policy level and public level one has to explore and debate and raise awareness about those alternatives I think this binary alternatives of private versus state are not going to help we need to broaden and deepen the conversation around that option Thank you Richard One last question from the room or a thought or a comment in which case I shall walk across to thank Dev for his excellent lecture and to thank all of you as well I have just a couple of things to bring to life for you about the 12 academics who will be presenting in the inaugural lecture series the first one of which will be on 19 February when professor of educational technology Martin Weller will talk on aspects of open the evolution of the meaning of open education Of course fittingly it aligns with our 50th anniversary details can be found on the open university research website or on 50.open.ac.uk if you'd like to sign up for it there will of course be an opportunity to give us some feedback we thrive on feedback the only way we can make ourselves better is if you tell us how so when those forms come around please do if you're online please do let us know via your comments what we could do better for next time so really that brings me to the close of today's launch to thank dev formally to thank his family and everyone here we will now move on to our drinks and cake thank you very much