Sunderland chosen to host BBC Reith Lecture alongside London, Berlin and Atlanta

The lecture, titled The Future of Solidarity, will be given by academic and author Professor Ben Ansell at The Fire Station, High Street West on Tuesday, November 14 at 7pm.

It is the third of four lectures being recorded in front of live audiences this autumn, with the others in London, Berlin and Atlanta.

They will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 later this year and available on BBC Sounds. The Sunderland lecture will be chaired by journalist and broadcaster Anita Anand.

The Future of Solidarity is a highly topical theme which “explores whether we can develop a shared sense of belonging in today's polarised societies”

The annual Reith Lectures are named after BBC founding father John Reith, who famously declared the BBC’s purpose as being to “inform, educate, entertain”.

The first lecture was delivered in 1948 by the philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell. Other lecturers include Robert Oppenheimer, Stephen Hawking, Grayson Perry, Arnold Toynbee and Hilary Mantel.

This year’s speaker is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, Oxford. He attained his finished his PhD in government at Harvard and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Professor Ansell told the BBC: “I am deeply honoured to have been chosen as this year’s Reith lecturer.

"We live in a time of great political turmoil and stand at the cusp of profound technological and ecological changes.

“Now is a crucial moment to think about whether our political institutions are fit to face these challenges and what we can do as a community to ensure our democratic future.

“My lectures will draw on big political ideas and cutting-edge research in the social sciences to suggest how we can collectively address these existential questions.”

Mohit Bakaya, controller of BBC Radio 4, said: “The Reith Lectures have always sought to showcase the most interesting thinking around. Ben Ansell is an exciting emerging voice in the world of political science, with a distinctive take on what the challenges we face are and what we might do about them.”

Audiences can now apply for free tickets for Professor Ansell’s Fire Station lecture, which is followed by a question-and-answer session, via the BBC website.