_This lecture has been cancelled. This is due to circumstances beyond our control, and we regret any disappointment or inconvenience this causes. For those of you who are interested in finding out more about the subject of the event, we recommend looking at the page for the Work Foundation’s knowledge economy work programme. There you’ll find links and contacts for their work in figuring out how information will drive the future economy. _

In a recent speech to the House of Lords, Baroness Greenfield pointed out that the next generation, who are currently in education or about to enter the workforce, have lived much of their lives getting information off of a screen, either on television or online. How might that affect their developing brains – does that mean that they process information differently than previous generations? If so, what implications will this have for the way science is taught, disseminated and organised? Join our panel of speakers as they discuss how cognition will affect the knowledge economy.

*Ian Brinkley *
Ian Brinkley is Director of the Knowledge Economy programme having joined the Work Foundation in June 2006.

Ian previously worked at the Trades Union Congress between 1980 and 2006. He was Head of the Economic and Social Affairs Department at the TUC from 2004 to 2006 and TUC Chief Economist from 1996 to 2006.

Prior to 1980 he worked as a researcher at the University of Kent and the Centre for Environmental Studies.

He has been a member of the Low Pay Commission, the body that sets the UK’s National Minimum Wage (NMW) from 2004 to date.

He has worked in a wide range of economic and industrial policy and research areas, including economic policy, public spending and public service reform, labour markets, energy and the environment and manufacturing policy and produced numerous submissions to government and analytical papers.

*Dr Michelle Mahdon *
Dr Michelle Mahdon is a lead researcher with the Work Foundation, an organisation which strives to promote and improve the quality of working life alongside strong economic performance. Michelle is a chartered psychologist with expertise in research. She has over eight years experience with both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Some of her recent work includes examining the role of intangible assets in the knowledge economy, designing research to help define the term ‘knowledge worker’, identifying trends in causes of absence across the public and private sector and exploring the links between wellness, absence and performance.

*Dr Martin Westwell *
Son of an electrician in the North of England, Martin Westwell studied for his degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University and stayed on to complete his PhD in biological chemistry, doing research on how medicines work in the body. Martin then moved to Oxford University where he was a research fellow in biological and medical sciences, lecturing, tutoring and examining in the chemistry and biochemistry courses. At Oxford, Martin became fascinated by neuroscience and went to run the research program at Synaptica, a biotech drug-discovery spin-out company from the University looking for drugs to treat neurogenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Martin has worked with a number of organisations on education and science-and-society projects and has won a number of awards for his science communication activities including receiving The Times/Novartis Scientists for the New Century award in 1999. He returned to Oxford in 2005 to take up his current position as Deputy Director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind, part of the James Martin 21st Century School at Oxford University. The institute works towards its goal of determining how we might harness new technologies to maximise the potential of each individual and safeguard their individuality.