The We Society

The We Society

Beyond the politics, beyond our geography are the intangible connections that hold us together – The We Society. The We Society podcast is here to tell you about the thousands of ways the Social Sciences can help us understand and enhance this complicated and fascinating human network. What can we do to fix the NHS? How can we better manage climate change? How do we end the cost of living crisis? Brought to you by the Academy of Social Sciences in association with the Nuffield Foundation and Leverhulme Trust, this podcast tackles the big questions through a social science lens and brings you some of the best ideas to shape the way we live. Join acclaimed journalist and Academy president Will Hutton, as he invites guests from the world of social science to explore the stories behind the news and hear their solutions to society’s most pressing problems. Don’t want to miss an episode? Follow the show on your favourite podcast platform and you can email us on wesociety@acss.org.uk and tell us who we should be speaking to. The We Society podcast is brought to you by the Academy of Social Sciences in association with the Nuffield Foundation and the Leverhulme Trust.

Episodes

November 11, 2025 32 mins
Almost a third of five-year-olds in Britain enter primary school without the essential language, communication, and literacy skills they need to thrive. Eleanor Ireland, our guest today, looks at the critical importance of early childhood development and the widening disadvantage gap as inequality deepens in Britain.

Eleanor is one of the Programme Heads for Education at the Nuffield Foundation, which tackles the UK’s...
Mark as Played
Professor Tim Grant is one of the world's most experienced forensic linguistic practitioners who specialises in the analysis of abusive and threatening communications. 

He is an academic practitioner in the field of forensic linguistics - teaching and leading research as a professor at Aston University. As the former director of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University he spearheaded the Instit...
Mark as Played

Our guest today, Alex Beer, joins us at a critical time as the UK Government prepares to publish its child poverty strategy this autumn.

According to official numbers, there are 4.5 million children living in poverty in the UK and 1.1m children are in families that have used a food bank in the past year. 

The Nuffield Foundation launched a major new Strategic Review earlier this summer committing £30 mi...
Mark as Played
Professor Sander van der Linden explores the impact of misinformation and how to prevent its spread within the general public. His work as Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab focuses on the origins of "fake news" and its role in societal divisions. 

In this conversation with Will Hutton, he discusses his research into proactive strategi...
Mark as Played
Simon Calder is the man with the answers when it comes to any travel related questions. Having started as a travel journalist at the Independent newspaper in 1994, Simon has decades of knowledge and insight when it comes to the travel industry. He joins our host Will Hutton to impart some of his expertise and they tackle topics from the pros and cons of budget airlines to his love of train travel. There might even be a couple ...
Mark as Played
How can cities be better designed for the older generation and girls? These are the tough questions tackled in this episode of The We Society with Professor Tine Buffel and Dr. Julia King, prominent academics in urban sociology and architecture.

In the conversation, Professor Tine Buffel highlights the barriers older individuals face in urban spaces. Dr. Julia King addresses the decline of youth spaces and safety conc...
Mark as Played
Professor Lucy Easthope is a leading authority on recovering from disaster and she joins our host Will Hutton in the first episode of Season 9 of the We Society.

They discusses the long-term implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and other disasters on societal resilience. Drawing from her experiences and insights in emergency planning, she highlights the importance of community responses and the emotional significance...
Mark as Played
September 23, 2025 1 min
Join host Will Hutton for Season 9 of the We Society from next week to hear some of the best ideas to shape the way we live.

Launching October 1 with an interview with Lucy Easthope, an international adviser on disaster recovery.

In this podcast series, you will hear interviews from social scientists, business leaders and public figures to hear their solutions to society's most pressing issues.   

P...
Mark as Played
In the final episode of Season 8 of the We Society, our host Will Hutton is joined by economist and former Labour politician Ed Balls, Dr. Anna Stansbury, a researcher in labour and macroeconomics from MIT, and Dan Turner, Chief Research Officer for the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown focused on national and regional inequalities. 

All three have recently collaborated on research to do with regional inequality in the...
Mark as Played
In the UK alone, around one in four adults are experiencing chronic pain. And nearly a quarter of the population live with some form of disability. Yet despite these numbers, pain and disability are still too often talked about in hushed tones, misunderstood, or entirely overlooked in public life.

How do we talk about pain that doesn’t go away? How do people live in bodies that society isn’t built for? And how can we ...
Mark as Played
Borders contain nations, act as fault lines, but are also meeting points, where different cultures, people, and ideologies come into contact.

Nowhere has this been more visible, more painful, and more politically charged than the island of Ireland.  

In this episode, Will Hutton is joined by Professor Katy Hayward. She’s one of the UK’s leading voices on Brexit, the Irish border, and cross border tension and ...
Mark as Played
We speak with Lisa Harker, the Director of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, who gives us an insight into the alarming rise in the use of Deprivation of Liberty Orders on children. 

She explains how vulnerable children, many born into poverty and facing complex needs, are increasingly subjected to severe restrictions on their freedom through these court orders.  According to the latest statistics from the Minis...
Mark as Played
What is the link between social science and entrepreneurship? To give us the answer, Will Hutton speaks to Professor Eleanor Shaw OBE, an academic specialising in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Strathclyde to delve into the social science dimension of entrepreneurship. 

Eleanor believes that entrepreneurial spirit stems from recognising and addressing unfulfilled societal needs. In the conversati...
Mark as Played
Professor Andy Tatem talks to us about WorldPop, the research programme he heads that is based in the School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton. The team at WorldPop uses satellite imagery and mobile phone data to map population distributions in areas of the Global South and this data is used by governments for resource allocation and policy-making. 

In this episode, Andy shares case stu...
Mark as Played
We probe the UK prison system with Professor Alison Liebling, a Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the Institute of Criminology’s Prisons Research Centre.

In this episode, she discusses the complexities surrounding prison officers, their often-underappreciated skills, and the critical role they play in maintaining order and humanity on the wings.   
Mark as Played
Gavin Kelly is the Chief Executive of the Nuffield Foundation and has spent the past 30 years of his career putting Britain’s economic inactivity problem  under a microscope. 

For Gavin, one of the main problems is the nearly 1 million young people who are not in education, employment or training. They are the ones being left behind and their numbers are rising. But what can be done to solve this? 

The Nuffie...
Mark as Played
As US President Donald Trump threatens trade tariffs, the We Society invited the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to share her thoughts during this period of uncertainty.

The first woman and the first African to serve as Director General of the WTO, Dr Okonjo-Iweala also gives her perspectives on women in leadership positions and her history of fighting corruption in Niger...
Mark as Played
Professor Lee Elliot Major, who is Britain's first professor of Social Mobility based at the University of Exeter, is our guest in this penultimate episode of Season 7.

In his latest book, Equity in Education, he argues for a new approach and language to improve upward mobility. In his book, children are not disadvantaged instead they are under resourced.  Does language matter?

Season 7 of the We Society Podc...
Mark as Played
Around one in four women have experienced domestic abuse, according to the Crime Survey of England and Wales. 

But abuse is not usually a one off event, it’s part of a protracted pattern, and by studying the timeline, perhaps this shocking statistic and may change.

Prof Jane Monckton-Smith has dedicated the majority of her career to studying this pattern and is Professor Of Public Protection at the University...
Mark as Played
'Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest' was the rallying cry of Robert Owen, a Welsh textile manufacturer turned labour reformer in the early 19th century.  

For those toiling in factories, Owen’s slogan was a socialist dream that only became commonplace in the early 20th century. 

But, the 9 to 5 is still standard while technology has moved on - we have Artificial intelligence, automati...
Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

    Ruthie's Table 4

    For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

    The Joe Rogan Experience

    The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

    The Breakfast Club

    The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

    Stuff You Should Know

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.