The Academy of Ideas Academy has been running since 2011. Bringing together a wide range of people of all ages and educational backgrounds, The Academy is a modest attempt to demonstrate the value of scholarship in itself in today’s climate of instrumental approaches to knowledge, the use of universities as social-engineering battering rams, incessant demands to show value for money, etc. There is an associated scholarship programme through which we subsidise up to 50 full-time students to attend (they receive an extra preliminary day of lectures on the day before the main event begins).

The Academy is a residential long weekend running Saturday to Monday in the third week of July at Wyboston Lakes Conference Centre, Bedfordshire. Something of an intellectual summer holiday away from it all. Attendees can read as much or as little as they like from reading lists given out in advance and the format of the weekend is three to four lectures a day with strands covering political philosophy, the classics, history and literature. The only qualification required is a desire to learn, discuss and engage with big ideas.