Past Vinson Centre Conferences
Vinson Centre Conference: Classical Liberalism 2025
‘The Diversity of Classical Liberalism’ 7th July 2025
Session 1 – On Classical Liberal Traditions
Session 2 – On Classical Liberalism and Change
Session 3 – On International Relations and Conflict
Session 4 – Classical Liberalism: a dialogue between Public Choice School and the Austrian School
2024
Hosted on the 50th anniversary of Friedrich Hayek’s Nobel Prize, the theme for the 2024 Vinson Centre Annual Conference was to discuss Hayek’s relevance to understand the world today. This was hosted in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society, King’s College London, and organised by Juan Castaneda, (Vinson Centre, University of Buckingham) & Mark Pennington (King’s College London).
Below are the topics discussed during the conference and the Chairpersons and Speakers.
Opening lecture
On Hayek’s life and main contributions to economics and political philosophy by Jeremy Shearmur (Australian National University).
Session 1 – Paternalism and The Regulatory State Chairperson
Chairperson: Len Shackleton (University of Buckingham)
Speakers: Mark Pennington (King’s College London) – Hayek and Foucault on Government at a Distance. & Cento Veljanovski (Institute of Economic Affairs) – Hayek on regulation. On the size of the regulatory state.
Session 2 – Knowledge, Information and Patents
Chairperson: Victoria Hewson (Department of Business and Trade)
Speakers: Pavel Kuchař (King’s College London) – On the meaning of competition in Hayek as related to the emergence of market supporting institutional infrastructures and the discovery of relevant elements of knowledge commons. & Martin Ricketts (University of Buckingham) and Terence Kealey (Cato Institute) – On tacit knowledge and innovation policy.
Session 3 – Hayek Beyond Academia
Chairperson: Paola Romero (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Speakers: Gabriel Calzada (Hesperides University, President Mont Pelerin Society) – On Hayek’s original MPS project and the different schools within the MPS. & Pedro Schwartz (Former President of the Mont Pelerin Society and Universidad Camilo Jose Cela) and Kristian Niemietz (Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs) – On the meaning of ‘The Road to Serfdom’ today.
Session 4 – Monetary Disorder
Chairperson: Juan Castaneda (Vinson Centre, University of Buckingham)
Speaker: Kevin Dowd (Durham University) – On Hayek’s ‘Denationalisation of money’ and currency competition.
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2023
We had the Vinson Centre’s annual conference in the Classical Political Economy tradition on 19 July 2023 at the University of Buckingham (Vinson Building). The speakers and Chairs included Mark Pennington (King’s College London), Daniel Klein (Mercatus Centre, George Mason University), Martin Ricketts (University of Buckingham), Pedro Schwartz (Universidad Camilo Jose Cela), Christian Bjørnskov (Aarhus University), Aris Trantidis (Lincoln University), Juan Castaneda (Vinson Centre) and James Forder (Institute of Economic Affairs). In case you missed our annual conference, you will be able to access the videos with the presentations very soon on our YouTube channel.