Dr Daniel Glaser, Director of Science Engagement at The Royal Institution, is a neuroscientist who has worked for many years promoting public engagement with science. He was Founding Director of Science Gallery London and was Head of Engaging Science at Wellcome Trust. He was the first ‘Scientist in Residence’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), the first scientist to judge the Booker Prize, a Winston Churchill Fellow and NESTA Cultural Leadership Awardee.
Everything in Moderation workshops
"Skilful moderation is the cornerstone of any successful event. Yet the seemingly effortless confidence of an expert chair is built on fundamental principles and specific techniques, honed through years of practice. Daniel Glaser is a true master of this ‘art which conceals art’.
His ability to convey these principles and techniques in focused, practical and stimulating workshops is remarkable. Daniel’s approach has transformed my work as an academic in the field of engagement and I recommend it highly.”
Roger Kneebone, author, Expert: Understanding the Path to Mastery,
Professor of Surgical Education and Engagement Science, Imperial College London
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With my collaborator, Laura Joy Pieters, we’ve developed a hands-on participative workshop where you will hone your skills and practise the principles of effective chairing in a lively but safe environment. You learn by doing, and by the end of the session will be instilled with the confidence to authoritatively facilitate any situation where there are speakers, an audience, and applause.
We all spend a lot of time in moderated meetings. Panel discussions, 'in conversations', post-show talks and formal lectures all depend on a mediating voice to frame the experience for an audience and support effective two-way engagement. The standard of chairing is often disappointing and poor technique often acts as a barrier. In addition the pool of chairs is frequently restricted to a privileged and conventionally narrow population, which exacerbates the underrepresentation of non-dominant groups in public discourse.
Excellent chairing, conversely, can transform an event. It empowers speakers and participants, sparks imaginative conversations, reduces the ‘barriers to entry’ for new audiences and generates effective inter-disciplinary collaborations. While conventional training focuses on the speaker, there is no formal tuition or support available to chairs. Interestingly, the skills required are mostly technical. While motivation and experience are relevant, the basic principles and their application are relatively simple and consistent across domains. By focusing training on members of under-represented groups, focus on this skill can rapidly and sustainably increase diversity in high-profile contexts.
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Chairing/Convening/Event Curation
“Daniel is one of those few chairs that make the job of moderating a panel look easy. It isn’t!
It takes real skill and understanding to navigate a path through the material that the session is covering and Daniel has a wonderful ability to bring the best out of his interviewees. I always say yes to any gig that has Daniel as MC.”
Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.
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Beginning in 2002 as the world's first scientist in residence at an arts institution (the ICA in London), he has organised and moderated hundreds of panels on every continent and in every medium. Ranging from his unscripted hosting of TEDx at the Albert Hall with a dozen talks and 5000 in the audience, to a series of intimate salons he convened as part of his Winston Churchill fellowship travelling across America, Daniel find a style and rhythm to suit all occasions.
He has organised roundtables and workshops in New Zealand, Thailand, South Africa and throughout Europe with professional and public audiences. He founded and chaired the London Café Scientifique for 10 years and has organised panels for NGOs, charities, major corporations, and international conferences.
His primary focus is always on the audience experience. As early as 2006 he developed a web-based teleconference format for remote ‘world café’ discussions with the British Council that combined audiences in a pair of international locations with a speaker in London and has pioneered the use of new technology for effective remote interaction before during and after the pandemic.
He's equally comfortable with an intimate ‘in conversation’ with an author at Cheltenham, a post show discussion at the National Theatre or a q&a after a film screening at the Edinburgh Film Festival. He has developed a model to teach chairing and moderation with a particular focus on women and people of colour to increase diversity and representation on high profile panels. As director of the programme at the Royal Institution he has hosted and engaged with the world's highest profile scientists including multiple Nobel Prize winners.
Directing/Curating/Programming
As founding director of Science Gallery London, Daniel delivered a £30m capital project involving including galleries, café, shop, theatre and restored Georgian, aimed at 15 to 25 year olds and had 300,000 visitors in its first year, 40% of whom are from BAME.
Daniel is director of the programme at the world-famous Royal Institution, responsible for the Christmas Lectures and legendary Friday Evening Discourses, both originated by Michael Farady in 1825.
He has designed and delivered programmes as diverse as a Darwin-inspired experiment for every school child in Britain, which included 35,000 kits being sent to every school in the country. And he was responsible for the science engagement activities of over 5000 Wellcome Trust scientists.
Speaking
Daniel has been an invited keynote speaker across the world drawing on his experience of 15 years neuroscience research and his engagement with machine learning and artificial intelligence dating back to the early 90s.
Daniel has inspired children young people, corporate audiences, and festivals with an enthusiastic engaging and informative approach and he's also a specialist in combining art and science and thinking about the role of science and culture more generally.
As the world's first scientists to judge the Booker Prize, he is equally at home in a cultural space and is a guest lecturer on High Performance Leadership at IMD in Lausanne. He has a particular interest in how understanding neuroscience and AI can enhance leadership, inclusion and human flourishing.
Media
Daniel has presented a BBC TV series, had a weekly column in the Observer Magazine and online at The Guardian, and presented two series of a podcast for The Guardian that had more than a quarter million downloads. He's appeared on every British radio network, NPR and radio and television stations across the world. He's been interviewed in the New York Times, Washington Post and most British newspapers and appeared in numerous podcasts.
Whether delivering pithy responses to current neuroscience stories or offering an unusual perspective on the role of science and culture and the growing interest in artificial intelligence, Daniel can always be relied on for an unusual but authoritative take on contemporary culture.
