Could the spirit of enquiry and the community of learning which make up the idea of the university find a more hospitable home outside our current institutions?

You are invited to participate in a weekend of conversations, sparked by this question.

We want to reflect on where the university came from, and where it might be going. The current situation of UK higher education provides the immediate context to our conversations — from the Browne Review, to the student movement that emerged in 2010, and the current wave of experiments in reimagining the university. But we want to place this within the long history of the invention and reinvention of spaces dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge.

Over the course of the weekend, we hope to:

• learn about current experiments and projects seeking to reinvent or reimagine the university;
• hear the histories of how our institutions came about, as well as those of earlier experiments in creating alternative universities;
• explore the suggestion that new sociable spaces of collaboration — from hacker and maker spaces, to social centres, to coworking spaces and media labs — might offer an alternative home for the spirit of the university;
• consider how new pockets and pathways for the cultivation of knowledge might become economically viable, and how they can be made accessible to those who might not access existing institutions;
• make room for each other’s personal stories, how we have been affected by our experiences inside and outside of the university, and how this shapes our thoughts and feelings about its future.

This is the first public event hosted by The University Project. We are working with the new Hub Westminster collaboration space to host conversations and experiments in the future of the university.

This is a free event, open to anyone, and we encourage you to sign up on our wiki — and to offer to host or contribute to a session covering your particular interests.

The event runs from 7pm on Friday, all day Saturday (starting 10am), and finishes at 6pm on Sunday. You are welcome to join us for all or part of it.

If you need crash space, or you can offer someone a sofa for the night, we've set up an Accommodation page on the wiki.

(For more background on The University Project, see Dougald Hine's TEDx London talk and 'The University Project: Five Reasons'.)