Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University
Durham University research centre
The Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) is an interdisciplinary research centre of Durham University. The IAS – set up to mark Durham's 175th anniversary – is intended to attract scholars and public figures from across the world to collaborate on 'agenda-setting research'. It is housed in the Grade II* listed Bishop Cosin's Hall, an early 18th-century building on Palace Green, Durham, within the Durham UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Institute accepted its first fellows in January 2006 and was formally inaugurated into the university in October that year.
History
The institute was launched in 2006 with a debate between university chancellor Bill Bryson, historian Peter Watson and science journalist Matt Ridley. The topic for the first year was the legacy of Charles Darwin, culminating in a conference titled "What Makes a Racist?", with participants including John Hedley Brooke, Robin Dunbar, John Dupre, Anthony Monaco and Madeleine Bunting.
In 2009, the institute's work was showcased in a collection of short essays by experts from across the arts, science and humanities, Thinking About Almost Everything: New Ideas to Light up Minds. The same year, the institute hosted an exhibition of sculptures by Jane Alexander, On Being Human, at Durham Cathedral, inspired by the "Being Human" theme of the ISC in 2008/09, with an associated public debate held at Durham Town Hall. Later in that year, ISC fellow and artist-in-residence Ranjitsinh Gaekwad was commissioned to produce a sculpture, Vessels of Life, at the university's botanic garden, inspired by the ISC's 2009/10 theme of "Water".
In 2010, the institute became one of three British founder-members (with the School of Advanced Study at the University of London and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge) of the global University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study network at a meeting at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.
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