As our 2020 Fulbright Legacy speaker, Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, joined UK university leaders to discuss the role universities will and should play in shaping the future.

This virtual event, 'Fulbright Connects - A Future in Question: Higher Education and the Public Good', featured President Napolitano, our 2020 Fulbright Legacy Lecturer – a distinction given each year to a global leader and usually accompanied by a lecture series in the UK. 

Due to COVID-19, this year’s event took place as an online conversation focusing on the world's immediate future and the role universities will and should play in shaping it. The discussion included the leaders of King’s College London, the University of Edinburgh and Merton College, Oxford.

• Moderator: Mukul Devichand, Executive Editor, BBC; Fulbright alumnus
• Honoree: Janet Napolitano, President, University of California
• Panelists: Ed Byrne, President and Principal, King’s College London; Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice Chancellor, University of Edinburgh; Irene Tracey, Warden, Merton College, Oxford.

The panel had a wide-ranging discussion - bringing in questions from the virtual audience and covering topics from inequality and student debt to international collaboration and alternative models of university education. They also reflected on the results of the IPSOS Mori global survey on public attitudes towards higher education, conducted ahead of the event.

Since 2011, the US-UK Fulbright Commission has worked with Pembroke College, Oxford, the University of Edinburgh and King's College London to curate the Fulbright Legacy Lecture Series, with support from the Lois Roth Endowment and the Fulbright Association. The annual lecture series features a prominent speaker in international relations, presenting on contemporary issues and themes in international life.