Panmure House Annual Review 2024

The Adam Smith Restoration Library is unveiled in January 2024 at an event attended by Heriot-Watt University leadership, including Principal and Vice Chancellor Professor Richard A. Williams, Provost and Vice Principal Dubai Professor Dame Heather McGregor,  and Dean of Edinburgh Business School and the School of Social Sciences Professor Angus Laing.

Dr Raja Al Gurg, Chairperson of the Dubai-based business conglomerate Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group and Honorary Pro-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University in Dubai is presented a plaque in honour of initiating the project with her donation of £50,000 towards collecting the initial 84 replica copies from the more than 3,000 titles that Adam Smith owned.

Panmure House has the honour of hosting Professor Dame Heather McGregor, friends and family for her investiture lunch. She is among the first to be made a Dame in the 2023 King’s New Years Honours List by Anne, the Princess Royal, for her services to education, business and heritage in Scotland, of which her commitment to Panmure House was particularly relevant. An intimate celebration of her accomplishments is held in the Reading Room after the investiture ceremony at Holyrood Palace.

Juniper Green Primary School P5 and St John’s Primary School P7 classes learn about trade and debate as a part of our Smith Schools Series workshops.

February sees Professor Håvard Halland join the Panmure House Team as Professor of Sustainable Finance, focusing mainly on emerging and developing economies. He was formerly a senior economist at the World Bank, where he advised governments on the establishments and operation of sovereign wealth funds. He undertook roles at the OECD, and a was a visiting scholar at Stanford University. His research and publications lie at the intersection of public and private finance, economics, energy, climate or environmental issues, geopolitics, and fiscal policy.

Submissions open for the 2024 annual Panmure House Prize, supported by FCLT Global and Baillie Gifford. The Prize is open to all researchers affiliated with an institution from any field and focusing on long-term innovation.

The first Adam Smith Lecture of 2024 hosts Professor Branko Milanovic at Panmure House on Thursday 29 February for an enlightening evening about unlocking the dynamics of individual motivations and the complex interplay with government policies. Branko Milanovic is a Research Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), Senior Scholar at the Stone Center and Visiting Professor at the Institute for International Inequalities at the London School of Economics. An intriguing Q&A session follows the lecture, and the session is available to watch on YouTube.

In March John Campbell OBE, author of ‘Haldane: The Forgotten Statesman Who Shaped Britain’ is the fifth speaker in our Lights of Caledonia lecture series. The lecture and Q&A session illuminates the legacy of Haldane and his influence in many modern institutions including MI5, MI6, the RAF, the LSE, Imperial College, the "redbrick" universities, and the Medical Research Council. The full lecture is available to watch on our YouTube channel.

In April, Panmure House hosts The Edinburgh Science Festival in collaboration with The National Robotarium for Two Truths and a Robot Lie, an interactive escape room style session led by robots.

Edinburgh Business School brings James Whittaker to Panmure for a conversation about Artificial Intelligence and the Wealth of Nations. Whittaker was the first computer science graduate to be hired by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and later worked for IBM, Ericsson, SAP, Cisco and Microsoft. Whittaker makes the case in a fireside chat with Professor Adam Dixon, that the AI revolution is not just a technological development, it may also be a political revolution.

Our first Doors Open Days of 2024 welcomes guests over the weekend of 12 and 13 April to celebrate our recently unveiled Smith Restoration Library, welcoming over 250 visitors who explore the House and some of the most topical volumes of the library collection on display, including Hugh Arnot’s 1788 History of Edinburgh and Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary of the English Language.

At the beginning of May, the spotlight shines on the Panmure House Prize Winner of 2023 - Dr Joseph Henrich - as he delivers two illuminating lectures to an invited audience and a global viewership via livestream at Panmure House and then to PhD students at the Riccarton Heriot-Watt campus. Drawing upon his noted works The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous and The Secret of Our Success, Dr Henrich delves into the intricate interplay of evolutionary theory, human psychology, cultural evolution, and genetic evolution.

We welcome MBA students from Dubai and Malaysia during their study visit to Edinburgh, hosted by Professor Dame Heather McGregor, Provost and Vice-Principal of Heriot-Watt University Dubai. The students gain valuable insight into the House, its history and ongoing contribution to Heriot-Watt University and the world.

Associate Professor Robbie Mochrie, a distinguished scholar at Heriot-Watt University, discusses his new book How to Think like an Economist and shares insights from his extensive research. Dr Mochrie's work focuses on how individuals engage with and influence their economic environments. In conversation with Professor Adam Dixon, they explore the influential contributions of various economists and the contemporary relevance of their ideas. The lecture is available to watch on our YouTube Channel.

In June, the Adam Smith Lecture features Professor Colin Mayer, who discusses his latest book, Capitalism and Crises: How to Fix Them. Professor Mayer highlights the multiple crises the world is facing—climate change, droughts, floods, energy shortages, food insecurity, and pandemics. He argues that while these crises are often attributed to the capitalist system, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of capitalism, especially the role of businesses within it. This misconception has enabled businesses to both cause and potentially address these crises. Professor Mayer offered a comprehensive analysis of capitalism's potential solutions to invited guests at Heriot-Watt University and at Panmure House. His lecture is available to watch on our YouTube channel.

Panmure House collaborates with Code Division on a data analysis project regarding Adam Smith and how he is viewed by politicians in America. The Code Division team analyses congressional records since 1995 using the programming language Python and turns the data into visual assets using Python’s natural language processing libraries. The project is then presented in the World Refugee Day Showcase event in Glasgow.

This August we are again extremely proud of another successful year for our Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme.

Our biggest year yet sees six shows including two by new Panmure House performer, BBC radio 4 regular Simon Evans. Simon discusses Adam Smith and David Hume in his first show, and a second exploring Philosophical thought from Smith’s time to present day. Alongside Simon we welcome Jesper Koll and his lecture on Japan - Capitalism That Works. His show is available to watch on our YouTube Channel.

We also welcome back veteran Panmure House performances, The Butcher, The Brewer, The Baker and Merryn Somerset Webb for an extended run of four dates, with invited guests including John Stepek, Richard Wilson, and James Ferguson, and Dominic Frisby and his show Shaping The Earth: A Light-Hearted History of Mining.

Finally, our children's show Smithy’s Scavenger Hunt welcomes young people and their families to solve some clues, win medals and meet a special guest.

A perfect encapsulation of how we engage with one another through how we each consume arts and culture and what that reflects about our characters. Panmure House welcomes almost 2,500 guests over twenty-two days, an increase of almost a third on visitors in 2023, and planning for 2025 is already underway.

The start of September brings the inaugural shortlist announcement for the 2024 Panmure House Prize. The Prize is an annual award of US$75,000 for research that explores the relationship between long-term thinking and radical innovation. The Prize is awarded to emerging leaders in academia and enables research that embodies Adam Smith's own approach to rigorous empiricism and inter-disciplinary thinking.

This year's shortlist comprises Professor Kirk Doran from the University of Notre Dame, Professor Michela Giorcelli from University of California, Los Angeles, Dr Moran Lazar based at Tel Aviv University and Dr Ivanka Visnjic from Esade Business School.

We are delighted to welcome over 600 visitors to explore our historic House as part of the National Doors Open Days. A selection of handpicked books are put on display to compliment this years festival’s theme of Heritage of Routes, Networks and Connections.

Edinburgh Business School proudly launches the Panmure House Fellowship in September, a pioneering initiative designed to support Heriot-Watt University scholars whose research addresses critical global challenges. The Fellowship embodies the spirit of Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and impactful research to transform society. The goals of the fellowship are to drive societal change, foster collaboration, nurture researchers and to honour the legacy of Panmure House.

The first cohort of Fellows represents a diverse range of disciplines and expertise:

Professor Beth Watts-Cobbe: (Institute for Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research) Addressing homelessness and destitution among migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds.

Professor Eoin McLaughlin: (Accountancy, Economics & Finance) Advancing the concept of "inclusive wealth" and extending the principles of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations for contemporary application.

Dr Melis Ceylan: (Marketing & Operations) Investigating consumer behaviour and ethical marketing practices to promote sustainable business and consumer well-being.

Professor Carmen Boado-Penas: (Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics) Influencing policy and promoting a balanced approach to pension systems for a secure future.

Panmure House hosts a timely and thought-provoking discussion on the resurgence of state capitalism in early October, featuring Professor Adam Dixon, Adam Smith Chair in Sustainable Capitalism, and Dr Ilias Alami, Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of Development, Cambridge University co-authors of their new book The Spectre of State Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2024).

The event connects leading experts, Dr Victoria Barbary from the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Jeremy Grant, former journalist at the Financial Times, and Stephen Boyd from IPPR Scotland, to explore the implications of the state's growing influence in the global economy, the increasing assertiveness of government intervention, encompassing techno-industrial policies, economic nationalism, and trade and investment restrictions.

October additionally sees the announcement of the 2024 Panmure House Prize Winner - Professor Kirk Doran from the University of Notre Dame. Professor Doran's research focuses on understanding the social structures and incentives that foster collaborative teams, leading to long-term innovation and economic growth. He will use the Prize to further this vital research. We look forward to welcoming Professor Doran to Panmure House in 2025 for a celebration of his achievement, which will include a podcast, student workshop, and a public lecture.

In partnership with the Irish Consulate and Consul General Jerry O'Donovan, Edinburgh Business School and Professor Eoin McLaughlin host an insightful event exploring the historical policies that shaped Ireland's economic transformation in October.

The event showcased the work of Trinity Business School's Professor Frank Barry, who examined the impact of industrial policy and foreign investment on Ireland's journey to becoming a globalised economy. Professor Barry engaged in a fireside chat with Professor Graeme Roy from the University of Glasgow Adam Smith Business School and answered questions from the audience.

St Peter's Primary school classes visit Panmure House to learn about the Scottish Enlightenment, how trade works and how to run their own debate as part of our Smith Schools Series workshops.

Panmure House continues its Executive Fellowship programme in 2024, strengthening engagement with business and finance leaders to advance sustainable capitalism and address global challenges. This year, three exceptional individuals are welcomed as Executive Fellows: Laela Pakpour Tabrizi, Noman Tahir, and Ashley M. Hunter.

These fellows contribute their expertise and networks to critical discussions on topics such as corporate purpose, responsible investment, and building trust in democratic systems.

We host Zero Waste Scotland’s CEO to film the launch of their new corporate plan. They draw inspiration from Adam Smith to set out their ambitions for the future of their #RewireTheEconomy to circularity mission.

Heads of Mission from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) convene at Panmure House to meet the Minister for Further Education, MSP Graeme Dey to explore how the Scottish Government can strengthen ties with Southeast Asian nations to support and encourage overseas students in Scotland.

Guests also enjoy a tour of the House and learn about Heriot-Watt University from Vice Principal Steve McLaughlin who showcases our university’s commitment to fostering global education and innovation.

This meeting underscores the vital role of international collaboration in shaping a dynamic, inclusive future for students and institutions worldwide.

Preparations for 2025 are in full swing, and we look forward to sharing these with you in the new year. In the meantime, the Panmure House Team wishes you a lovely holiday season and a merry Christmas.