The very survival of liberal democracies and how global business responds to the challenges of climate change will be hotly debated in Adam Smith’s former house in Edinburgh next Monday and Tuesday.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown, the historian Niall Ferguson, the economist John Kay, and Weijian Shan, chairman and CEO of the Hong Kong–based private equity firm PAG Group are among the speakers at an international conference paying tribute to Smith, the founder of modern economics and author of The Wealth of Nations.
The New Enlightenment conference is the result of a transatlantic partnership between Edinburgh Business School , Haas School at the University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley Research Group (BRG) and Munich-based FWU.
David Teece, professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, chairman of Berkeley Research Group, is the initiator and organiser of the conference.
He said: “The conference aims to address the many perplexing management, policy and global governance issues that go to the heart of sustaining the prosperity, vitality and perhaps even the very viability of liberal democracies in the coming decades.
“We hope to begin important conversations that will shape critical policy and management decisions long into the future.”
Smith’s final home, Panmure House, has been rescued and restored by the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University.
Panmure will now be reliving its heyday as a seat of the Scottish Enlightenment, having formally reopened in November 2018 as a modern hub of economic debate and scholarship.
“This is a very special venue for an uncommonly talented and committed group of global citizens and thought leaders,” said Teece, Panmure House’s inaugural Adam Smith scholar-in-residence.
Professor Heather McGregor, executive dean of Edinburgh Business School, said, “We have designed Panmure House to bring the world to Scotland, just as Adam Smith took Scotland to the world.
"This exceptional gathering will ensure that the ideas debated at Panmure go on to make a practical impact in the world beyond Edinburgh, exactly as they did in Smith’s time.”
