The Floor is Yours with Leicester Exchanges

Network Intellect is proud to be involved with the launch and promotion of Leicester Exchanges, a new initiative from the University of Leicester.  The site offers a new way for online communities to join in discussions with leading academics and opinion leaders in order to make real progress on key issues that shape our society.

Leicester Exchanges has debates now running on subjects such as offenders: punish or reform, climate change, measuring national happiness or travelling to Mars.  These are proposed by academics who start the debate with short papers which are open to outside comments, with the aim to facilitate public discussion to improve the way contentious issues are tackled.  Each debate will result in a Green Paper summarising the discussions and outlining the ideas that have emerged for decision makers, academic thinkers and opinion leaders.

These online discussions will be punctuated by live debates featuring expert panels, in Leicester and in London.  The first of these tackles the debate: ‘Should we punish or reform offenders?’, and is aptly set in the historic Tower of London which was used as a prison since the 12^th century.  This initial debate includes an impressive line-up of speakers including Carol Hedderman, Professor of Criminology, University of Leicester, Heather Munro, Chief Executive of London Probation, Blair Gibbs, Head of Crime and Justice Unit, Policy Exchange and editor of Fitting the Crime: Reforming community sentences, and Mark Johnson, a consultant on the criminal justice system at national and international level, special adviser to the National Probation Service, Guardian columnist and ex-offender.