Geoff Mulgan

With a fractured sense of self, we come to depend on what people feed back to us - often mediated through social networks - not what we are. We have complex identities but may become less able to act as a subject - confident in what we really are. ”

People don't want charities to usurp the state as the core provider of social services. ”

The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices. ”

On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about regulating business, or requiring it to do anything, even when there was a very clear social or environmental case for doing so. ”

Governments should want and even crave the best possible scientific advice. With reliable knowledge come better decisions, fewer mistakes and more results achieved for each pound spent. ”

Adelaide is becoming a hub for higher education. ”

Huge sums are invested globally in medical research and development - and with good reason. ”

Science is, rightly, searching for drugs to arrest ageing or to slow the advance of dementia. But the evidence suggests that many of the most powerful factors determining how you age come from what you do, and what you do with others: whether you work, whether you play music, whether you have regular visitors. ”

As the Internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways. ”

The once-science-fiction notion of hyper-connectivity - where we are all constantly connected to social networks and other bubbling streams of digital data - has rapidly become a widespread reality. ”