Adam Smith Institute

OUR NEXT SIXTH-FORM CONFERENCE WILL BE ON WEDNESDAY 22 OCTOBER. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD AN APPLICATION FORM.

ISOS – the Independent Seminar on the Open Society – is a one-day seminar for sixth-formers, held in London in Winter and Spring each year. Named after the seminal book The Open Society and its Enemies by the philosopher Sir Karl Popper, ISOS explores the principles and practicalities of an open, free and tolerant society.

ISOS achieves this through a crammed programme of household-name speakers – including politicians from all sides of politics, national media personalities, think-tankers, economists, and business leaders – who not only talk, but are quizzed by the students.

ISOS has been an important and well-known Westminster event for 25 years, and some of the students who have attended have subsequently gone on to careers in public life, as politicians, media presenters, or think-tank leaders.

But as well as giving students a direct experience of the current political scene, ISOS is designed to mesh in with A-level and AS-level syllabuses in politics and economics. Speakers deliberately pitch their talks at a standard of difficulty and technicality that will be comprehensible, but challenging, to students at these levels.

The number of students accepted at ISOS is strictly limited to 200. Teachers are welcome to attend the seminar, and to propose students to participate. In the event of ISOS being oversubscribed – as it often is – places will be allocated by ballot. Students may also apply directly, but they should have the approval of their teachers to participate, and be prepared to tell us in a few words why they think they would benefit.