• Study here
    • Study here
    • Undergraduates
    • Graduates
    • Visiting students
    • Outreach with schools and colleges
  • Living here
    • Living here
    • Where you will live
    • Eating here
    • Library & resources
    • Chapel & faith
    • Do what you love
    • Help is on hand
  • Our people
  • News, events and more
    • News, events and more
    • Our vision for 2030
    • News
    • Events
    • Hertford history
    • Rare books & Archives
    • International Programmes
    • Conferences & events
    • Governance & legal
    • Vacancies
    • Visit us
    • Contact us
  • Hertford Intranet
  • International Programmes
    • International Programmes
    • Directors’ welcome
    • Our programmes
    • Our partnerships
    • Life in Oxford
    • Hertford in Asia
    • How to apply
  • Alumni
    • Alumni
    • Hertford today
    • Meet the Hertfordians
    • Publications
    • Alumni societies
    • Alumni FAQs
    • Update your details
    • Meet the Development team
  • Support us
    • Support us
    • Give to Hertford
    • Fundraising priorities
    • Leave a legacy
    • For donors
  • Contact us
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  • Hertford Intranet
  • International Programmes
    • International Programmes
    • Directors’ welcome
    • Our programmes
    • Our partnerships
    • Life in Oxford
    • Hertford in Asia
    • How to apply
  • Alumni
    • Alumni
    • Hertford today
    • Meet the Hertfordians
    • Publications
    • Alumni societies
    • Alumni FAQs
    • Update your details
    • Meet the Development team
  • Support us
    • Support us
    • Give to Hertford
    • Fundraising priorities
    • Leave a legacy
    • For donors
  • Contact us
  • Study here
  • Living here
  • Our people
  • News, events and more

Study here  ›

  • Undergraduates
  • Graduates
  • Visiting students
  • Outreach with schools and colleges

Living here  ›

  • Where you will live
  • Eating here
  • Library & resources
  • Chapel & faith
  • Do what you love
  • Help is on hand

News, events and more  ›

  • Our vision for 2030
  • News
  • Events
  • Hertford history
  • Rare books & Archives
  • International Programmes
  • Conferences & events
  • Governance & legal
  • Vacancies
  • Visit us
  • Contact us

Oxford Ministry for the Future

Home / News, events and more / Our vision for 2030 / Oxford Ministry for the Future

The Oxford Ministry for the Future (OMF) is an interdisciplinary network of academics, artists and authors from Oxford and beyond who are working on world challenges. It was set up by Hertford Fellow Anette Mikes and former College Principal Tom Fletcher with the blessing and participation of Kim Stanley Robinson, whose eponymous book gives OMF its name and mission: to be an interdisciplinary network and movement that amplifies the voices of humanities in the discussion of our grand challenges.

We organise high-profile public events, fronted by notable authors and artists, to open rich conversations and inspire moral imagination in the context of climate change, the biodiversity crisis, growing inequalities and other political-economy challenges of our time.

Over the last year, speakers have included Richard Powers (Pulitzer Prize for The Overstory), Laline Paull (of The Bees, The Ice and POD), Jonathan Ledgard (of Giraffe, Submersion), Elif Shafak (of There Are Rivers in the Sky) and Kim Stanley Robinson (of The Ministry for the Future).

OMF has recently started a multiyear collaboration with the Schwartzman Centre for the Humanities. We are in the process of preparing a two-day event series as part of the Schwartzman Centre’s Opening Season ‘Utopia Now’, scheduled for 23–24 November 2026.

A History of Utopia with Kim Stanley Robinson and Brian Eno | Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities

Forthcoming events

The Arctic at the Crossroads, 5 November 2025

You are cordially invited to attend OMF’s next public discussion The Arctic at the Crossroads with Bathsheba Demuth, Laline Paull and Joanna Kavenna, plus a panel of academics, for an afternoon of fascinating multidisciplinary conversations about climate, history, ecology and geopolitics.

Find out more and book your place here.

Past events

Conversation with Elif Shafak and Jonny Thomson on Nature and Humans: Connectedness, conflicts and rights

Like most things in nature, ‘the river is a giver, the river is a taker’. And we are many things to it: exploiters, beneficiaries, dependants, polluters, destroyers, healers, stewards and guardians. The most recent OMF event, at the Weston Library on 2 June 2025, focused on water. We heard stories about our fraught relationship with rivers from author Elif Shafak, water scientist Robert Hope, London barrister and founder of Lawyers for Nature Paul Powlesland, river historian Katherine Ibbet, political economist Rebecca Henderson, and ecologist Sandra Diaz (Tyler Prize, 2025).

Art, Nature and Science: Imagining other worlds

On 28 April 2025, OMF hosted global cultural icon Brian Eno and environmental novelists and storytellers Kim Stanley Robinson, Laline Paull and JM Ledgard at the Sheldonian Theatre. We were treated to the premiere of ‘Life Wants to Live’: a braided reading underscored by original music composed by Brian Eno for this occasion. The performance stimulated interdisciplinary academic discussions about the biodiversity crisis and its solutions, with anthropologist Nayanika Mathur (of Crooked Cats), ecological economist Dr Nicola Ranger and political scientist Thomas Hale (of Long Problems).

In Conversation with Richard Powers

Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. He won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction for his novel The Echo Maker and the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory, and he has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship.

The inaugural OMF event took place at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on 13 June 2024.

A panel discussion with Kim Stanley-Robinson, which took place in the Weston Library on 14 June 2022, planted the seed for an Oxford Ministry for the Future.

News, events and more

  • Our vision for 2030
    • Sustainability
    • Oxford Ministry for the Future
  • News
    • Looking back on 2020 at Hertford
  • Events
  • Hertford history
    • Historic Hertfordians
  • Rare books & Archives
    • Rare books
      • Treasures of our collection
      • Rare books conservation
    • Archives
      • Accessing the collections
      • Collecting & donations
  • International Programmes
    • Directors’ welcome
      • Meet the International Programmes team
    • Our programmes
      • Six-Month Programme: October 2025 to March 2026
      • Open Enrolment Programmes
      • Academic English and British Culture
      • Academic Subject Programmes
    • Our partnerships
    • Life in Oxford
      • Living in Oxford
      • Food and drink
      • Residential Advisors
      • Social activities
    • Hertford in Asia
      • Hertford in Japan
      • Hertford in Greater China
    • How to apply
  • Conferences & events
    • Venue hire
    • Graduation
    • Chapel weddings
  • Governance & legal
    • Annual Gender Pay Gap Report
    • Procurement & sustainability
  • Vacancies
  • Visit us
  • Contact us

Study here

  • Undergraduates
  • Graduates
  • Visiting students
  • Outreach with schools and colleges

Living here

  • Where you will live
  • Eating here
  • Library & resources
  • Chapel & faith
  • Do what you love
  • Help is on hand

Our people

  • Our people

News, events and more

  • Our vision for 2030
  • News
  • Events
  • Hertford history
  • Rare books & Archives
  • International Programmes
  • Conferences & events
  • Governance & legal
  • Vacancies
  • Visit us
  • Contact us

Follow us

Hertford College
Catte Street
Oxford
OX1 3BW


Tel: +44 (0)1865 279400

© 2025 Hertford College Registered Charity No. 1137527

  • Contact us
  • Privacy
  • Legal

Site by Franks and Franks