We envision a public sphere in which the great questions of polycrisis and of the technological future are argued openly, intelligently and in good faith — and a re-imagined relationship between that public sphere and government: an informed, politically-attentive public understands policy imperatives; coalitions of action coordinate to promote economically-literate policy reform through consensus and direct representation rather than by picking sides in partisan contest.
The Aurelius Initiative builds and aligns the institutions of that public sphere — a think-and-act tank (Futuresphere), a current-affairs and multimedia channel, an online university and an on-going programme of colloquia — to raise the level of public debate, and to convene the coalitions of action through which an attentive public, business, civil society and expert institutions can move government.
The operating clusters of The Aurelius Initiative
Futuresphere is the formative element of a broader initiative; the other arms of the initiative represent features of the the act part of Futuresphere’s mandate. The wider initiative — The Aurelius Initiative (also Project Aurelius). While these other elements will be legally and functionally separate, Futuresphere will collaborate with them to achieve the broader objectives of the initiatives. Futuresphere will drive the research and topic agenda. In reality, each of these arms of the Initiative will represent a related cluster of company vehicles with constitutions (form and articles of association) matched to their operating contexts and imperatives. Our present expectation is the Initiative will contain 15 incorporate entities, four of which will be UK-registered charities. That number may increase to satisfying insurance requirements through a captive insurance vehicle.
A think-and-act tank
The remit of Futuresphere — on display on this site — is to research the impact of emerging science and downstream technologies from a perspective of a renewed liberal /critical / pragmatic political economy to understand the social and public policy implications of technologies, or what Alvin Toffler called The Third Wave. Toffler equated the significance of the period through which we are presently living to the Neolithic (or first agricultural) Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. The polycrisis we are now experiencing is symptomatic of periods of significant change; as the imprisoned Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci wrote in His famous Notebooks, “
❝ The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters, ❞
or what Toffler described as the super-struggle for tomorrow.
Using a multi-disciplinary approach and mixed research methods traversing the qualitative, the quantitive and the stochastic, Futuresphere examines the cause and multiple interacting and compounding effects of monsters.
The purpose of XPLN will be to raise the quality and broaden the scope of debate in the public sphere of topical social, political, economic and environmental issues — to strip away the assumptions of the causes and effects of polycrisis and to examine more deeply the challenges we face.
Despite Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code, XPLN Media will not attempt political neutrality; it will adopt an unashamedly open-society liberal positioning that favours market solutions and seeks to ensure the state does not over-reach, and that it does the jobs it should be doing well.
How we will satisfy the Ofcom requirement is by reviewing, in each topic discussed, the range of opinions held across the political spectrum, with people that hold a range of views debating the relative merits of those views on moderated panels. These panel debates will be scheduled as peak viewing times.
The remainder of the 24-hour programming cycle will be filled with extended interviews, topic-relevant documentaries and curated mix of arts and culture programming including historical and topic-relevant feature films.
A 24-hour current affairs TV channel
A note on governance and The Aurelius Initiative
The founders and directors of Futuresphere will also act as directors in the commercial and operating vehicles in the clusters of The Aurelius Initiative (which is not an incorporated entity). All vehicles will include independent directors. Directors of these companies will not serve as trustees in charities established under the Initiative.
To find out more about The Aurelius Initiative, contact the Directors of Futuresphere or visit out dedicated website using the link below. Access to the full project details requires a password which is only available from the Directors of Futuresphere.
An online university
The third operating arm of the Initiative will be an online university focused on a novel pedagogy and a redefined curriculum in the social and political economy of public policy.
Public policy is not taught well, really, anywhere. ProSPEC aims to change that by offering world-class tuition globally to students at a highly-competitive price point.
Futuresphere will collaborate with both ProSPEC and XPLN Media to produce educational collateral of the highest standard both academically and practically. But ProSPEc will focus on public policy praxis — on combining academic knowledge and practical skills and experience to contribute to human flourishing. Our programme will be practical and materially influenced by pragmatism but it will also be normative: public policy not as it is usually practised — typically with poor results — but as it can and should be practised.
Simply put, to achieve better policy outcomes, we need to teach people better how to make better policies.
Topic-specific policy colloquia
This will be the principal charity of The Aurelius Initiative. Among other activities, ML will apply funds to the acquisition and development of a rural estate to create a colloquium facility at which Futuresphere will convene topic-specific policy colloquia for a range of invited participants to formulate coordinated approaches to promoting policy reform.
The colloquium facility will be a multi-purpose centre featuring a multi-purpose theatre, additional rehearsal and performance spaces, a round-table debating chamber, exhibition and entertaining spaces, library space and research facilities, outdoor performance spaces.
The state will also develop an accommodation facility to offer relaxing personal, social and refectory and relaxation spaces for colloquium participants and other users, including commercial users (to cover costs).