Explore Challenges
- Natural disasters: how can we improve? [25 May 2010]
- Not In My Back Yard
- Digital Divide in the UK?
- Importing goods, exporting drought?
- The challenges and opportunities of an ageing society
- Engineering our climate
- The future shape of Capitalism
- Migration: skills and the job market
- Razing the Rainforest
- London under water
- Concreting the countryside
- Future of low carbon energy
- Africa in the 21st Century
About the Series
Royal Geographical Society - 21st Century Challenges
Geography is at the heart of a number of key challenges affecting places, societies, environments and
livelihoods locally and globally in the 21st Century. These issues range from climate change to migration, from
energy resources to environmental hazards, from food production to water resources, and from the future of
the countryside to the impact of globalisation on developing countries.
As individuals, understanding such issues is a pre-requisite to informed and appropriate decision-making. There is an increasing appetite from the wider public to know about such issues. This point is well made by the report published by Research Councils UK in March 2008 on Public Attitudes to Science. This was based on an independent survey of 2000 adults in the UK and indicates that there is an increasing demand for more public consultation on science and social science issues and a significant demand for more information from researchers.
The series will provide independent, unbiased, reliable, up to date information and guidance on issues relevant to people's lives.
The aim of the 21st Century Challenges series (part of Royal Geographical Society) is to improve public understanding of, and engagement with, some of the key issues likely to affect our lives and society in the coming years and thereby aid people in making their own informed decisions and judgements on these issues.
The series encourages and supports the wider public in understanding and engaging with key regional, national and international challenges of the 21st Century, and to enable informed decision-making in our individual roles as consumers, parents, voters, and employees and collectively as society.
The 21st Century Challenges series is part of the Royal Geographical Society and is currently funded by The Schroder Foundation. If you are interested in supporting the future development of this programme please contact
Watch other thought-provoking talks in the series