The Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture 2026

Tickets are free but booking is essential.

To help as many people as possible enjoy the event, please reserve a maximum of 2 tickets per person.

Tim Harford is an economist, award-winning journalist and broadcaster, best known as the long-running Financial Times columnist behind The Undercover Economist and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s More or Less, which explores the numbers behind the news. He is known for making complex ideas about economics, statistics and human behaviour accessible to a wide audience.

Part of the University of Birmingham's celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture.

The Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture began in 1976. Born in Birmingham in 1889, Thomas Baggs was an alumnus of the University who went on to become a teacher, journalist and a war correspondent for the Daily Mail before pursuing a successful career in advertising and publicity for the USA automobile industry.

When he died in 1973, Thomas bequeathed a substantial sum to the University to provide for an annual public lecture on the theme of ‘Happiness - what it is and how it may be achieved by individuals as well as nations.’