Warwick Economics Summit

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Warwick Economics Summit (commonly abbreviated to WES) is an annual, international student-run conference and forum for academic discussion, centred around economic and socio-political debate. It functions as an academic student society within the Students' Union. of the University of Warwick in Coventry, United Kingdom.

Run annually and inaugurated in 2001, the weekend-long conference is planned and executed by an elected 'executive team' of students from the University of Warwick. This team is assisted by a network of 'ambassadors' and 'representatives' from international universities , who apply to organise an attending delegation of students from their own universities; previously, ambassadors have come from institutions like Sciences Po Paris in France and Columbia University in the United States.

Speakers are invited by the executive team to address the conference audience in either keynote or panel discussion-style addresses. Past speakers have included Ursula von der Leyen , President of the European Commission in 2021, and former state leaders, central bank governors, and past Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winners.

Main Summit

The annual three-day WES conference (or Summit) has historically been held in-person every February at the University of Warwick in Coventry, United Kingdom. In recent years, the event has taken place in the Oculus building.

The conference attendance is composed of students from the University of Warwick and other British institutions and, since 2008, the audience has also included international university students who travel from overseas to attend the conference. Some members of the press, representatives from Warwick Economics Summit's partner and sponsor organisations, and members of the Economics Department at the University of Warwick also form part of the attendance.

Moreover, there is a Warwick Economics Summit Bursary offered by the executive team, covering the cost of Summit attendance for successful applicants; students outside of the University of Warwick can apply, and are selected based on academic merit and demonstrable financial need.

The conference agenda itself includes talks given by individual speakers and panellists - who are invited by the Talks division of the executive team. The agenda has also previously included careers fairs - sponsored by the conference's partner firms from sectors such as banking, consulting and data analysis - and networking sessions - where interaction between student participants is facilitated by the members of the Socials and External Relations and Hospitality divisions of the executive team.

The latest edition of the Summit took place in February 2021. This was the 20th anniversary edition of the event, and was the first completely virtual edition of the conference - held on the virtual Accelevents and Zoom platforms - in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. In this 2021 event, the largest attendance since the conference's inception in 2001 was recorded, with 1800 live remote student participants (called delegates). In addition, the largest number of sponsor and partner organisations was recorded at 20, and included Bloomberg and the OECD

The next, 21st edition of the Summit is scheduled to take place between 4-6th February, 2022, and will be the first 'hybrid' edition of the event (taking place both in-person and online).

Other Initiatives

WES Presents

WES Presents is a series of one-off, off-season events organised by the Warwick Economics Summit executive team. These events take place in the 'lead up' to the annual Summit, typically between the months of October and February, and take the form of interviews with - or keynote speeches delivered by - academics and figures from the fields of economics, political economy, geoeconomics, and related areas.

Most WES Presents offerings are free of charge to attend, and held as virtual events on Zoom. Audience members choose to attend remotely, or as part of a physical audience in a designated viewing space (typically a University of Warwick lecture hall).

Politicians - like Kevin Rudd , former Prime Minister of Australia - and Nobel Prize laureates like Professor Myron Scholes - have spoken at previous WES Presents events in 2020 and 2018, respectively.

WES Blog

The WES Blog is a digital journalism initiative affiliated with the Warwick Economics Summit.

The Blog was founded in 2017 as a journalistic accompaniment to the annual three-day conference, by the Press and Communications division of the student executive team, who continue to run the Blog today.

Hosted on the Warwick Economics Summit's website, the WES Blog publishes semi-regular articles that cover current economic, political and social issues, and Summit or off-season event companion pieces. These companion pieces supplement the topics discussed in WES Presents interviews, Summit speeches, careers fairs, and other WES offerings. In addition, response pieces and other pieces of collaborative journalism are published less frequently.

In 2021, four disparate content sections were introduced to the Blog: The Summit, Deep Dive, Global View, and We Respond. The Blog has also featured publications in cooperation with, and guest-written by, the international network of WES student Ambassadors, Representatives and Delegates since 2020. These guest-written articles contribute to the Deep Dive and Global View sections of the Blog.

WESPOD

WESPOD is a podcast featuring talks, debates and discussion about economic and related affairs. The podcast is organised by the Marketing division of the executive team, and was introduced in advance of the upcoming 2022 edition of the Summit with the slogan Challenging Perspectives.

WESPOD features original content and topics and material sourced from or recorded at previous editions of the Summit. Generally, the podcast episodes are released on a weekly basis on Mondays, and made available on Facebook, Spotify, Google Podcasts and Pocket Casts

WES Perspectives

Introduced in advance of the upcoming 2022 edition of the WES conference, WES Perspectives is an off-season series of live, virtual interviews released on a semi-regular basis through the Warwick Economics Summit Facebook page. These interviews are conducted by members of the Talks division of the executive team, with previous guests including digital activists and academics, speaking on topics broadly relevant to the areas of economics and politics.

History

Founding and Mission

Warwick Economics Summit was originally named the Warwick Economics Society (not to be confused with the present day Economics Society, which is another unrelated student society within Students' Union of the University of Warwick), and was founded in 2001 by two undergraduate students studying Economics at the University of Warwick: Henrik Johnsson and Ross Davidson.

Since its inception, WES's slogan (Join the Debate) has featured heavily on its website and promotional materials. WES materials also feature the society's logo, in which 5 semi-circular rings emanate from a smaller, circular ring; each ring is composed of white circles which grow in size as they radiate further from the circular ring. These circles represent people seated in a lecture theatre, engaging in discussion. The official organisational colours are dark blue and white.

Previous Editions

Below is an abbreviated list of previous WES conferences, and a timeline of developments in the history of the student society and its Summit:

2001-02

• Warwick Economics Summit is established in 2001, and the first conference is held in January 2002; it is the first inter-university undergraduate economics event in the UK, and has 170 student attendees (40 of whom are from outside the University of Warwick)

2002-03

• Speakers from the IMF (Dr. Augusto Lopez-Claros, former IMF economist) and the World Bank (Johannes F. Linn, former World Bank Vice President) form part of the Summit line-up for the first time in 2003

2004-05

• The Summit includes a keynote talk by a Nobel Prize laureate (Professor John Nash, winner of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to game theory) for the first time in 2005

2007-08

• The Summit hosts student delegates from outside of the UK for the first time, with delegates attending from Vienna and Milan, and the total Summit attendance numbering 500

2008-09

• The Summit line-up includes a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (Kate Barker) for the first time, and the Governor of the Austrian Central Bank (Professor Ewald Nowotny)

2009-10

• The WES calendar includes an additional event (besides the Summit) for the first time, introducing a promotional off-season talk with Marek Belka, head of the National Bank of Poland

2010-11

• The WES conference is live-streamed online for the first time, and non-delegates and remote audience members are able to watch conference speeches and ask questions
• A Press and Communications division of the executive team begins to take form with the launch of a blog covering the events of the 2011 Summit, in collaboration with the magazine Europe & Me

2011-12

• WES launches two new schemes in advance of the 2012 Summit: the Future Leaders Research Competition (in cooperation with both Reinvention and the Journal of Undergraduate Research), and the Warwick Economics Summit Bursary. The inaugural winners of the competition and scheme attend the 2021 Summit, travelling from the University of Cambridge, Harvard University and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

2014-15

• WES launches a new Summit offering: Meet the Speaker sessions, in which delegates can apply to participate in small group discussions with speakers from the Summit line-up

2016-17

• All WES conference talks are live-streamed for the first time on Bloomberg Terminals
• The Summit is held for the first time in the Oculus building at the University of Warwick, after the building's official opening for the use of university students and societies in March 2016

2017-18

• In 2018, WES hosted an incumbent head of state - Joseph Muscat, at the time Prime Minister of Malta - and a Nobel Peace Prize winner - Tawakkol Karman, awarded for her work during the 2011 Yemeni uprisings - for the first time

2020-21

• The first fully digital WES conference is held using Accelevents and Zoom, as a result of the distancing and health measures in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• WES records its largest Summit attendance, with 1800 delegates of 63 nationalities attending virtually
• The first incumbent member of a royal family speaks at the 2021 conference, with Queen Rania of Jordan delivering a pre-recoded address via Accelevents

2021-22

• The WES organising committee inaugurates the new initiatives WES Perspectives and WESPOD; the former is a video series featuring interviews and discussions with academics and speakers, and the latter is a weekly podcast featuring sound bites, summaries, and discussions from the Summit and its events

References

This article "Warwick Economics Summit" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Warwick Economics Summit. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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