Events

2026 Priscilla Kincaid-Smith Oration on Health

Social networks and community wellbeing and resilience

Delivered by Professor Pip Pattison AO, Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney

Please join us to hear Professor Pattison’s insights on social networks and community wellbeing and resilience.

Social connectivity isn’t just nice to have. It’s fundamental to how communities survive, adapt and flourish. Pip will take us through the latest science on social connectedness and community resilience, revealing how networks can shape our collective wellbeing and resilience.

The oration will be followed by a conversation and audience Q&A with Pip, hosted by Professor Lisa Gibbs, considering implications for today’s changing world and student communities in higher education settings.

Oration synopsis: Social networks and community wellbeing

Professor Pattison AO will review what we know about social relationships and social connectedness in a community and the wellbeing and resilience of the community and its members and outline recent advances that have been made in conceptualising and modelling the complex nature of these relationships.

With reference to an important case study, led by University of Melbourne and other colleagues, of community recovery following the tragic Victorian Black Saturday bushfires of 2009, Pip will highlight some of the new lines of inquiry that these advances provoke and conclude with some broader suggestions for how to continue to advance and make use of our evolving understanding of the social foundations of wellbeing and resilience.

Please note 6.30pm lecture start time.

Legal Education for the Twenty-First Century

A quarter into the twenty-first century, legal education faces a series of questions and challenges. They arise from − inter alia − political developments, technological advances, and an increasing perception of uncertainty about the future. The lecture will address three of the most significant challenges and reflect on how best to meet them.

Firstly, it will consider the extent to which universities should try to instill key democratic values in students, so as to prepare them for bearing professional responsibility towards the legal systems and the societies they serve, and to increase resilience. Secondly, it will ask how legal education ought to respond to the ubiquity and fast-paced evolution of AI. Thirdly, it will show that domestic law is best taught and understood in a wider context.

Comparative awareness, coupled with an ingrained ethos and a sense of purpose and direction, enables aspiring jurists to take charge of future law design and ultimately to steer their legal system’s destiny.