Lifelong learning for everyone – public events

Waipapa Taumata Rau hosts educational events that are open to the general public. Anyone can attend, regardless of whether or not they study at the University.

The University’s educational events comprise both regular programmes, such as inaugural lectures and dialogue series held throughout the year, and one-off activations, festivals, panels and guest lectures.

Regular lecture and dialogue programmes

Inaugural lecture series

Inaugural lectures are open to the public and are held throughout the year. Newly appointed professors present their research and its impact to the community, in person on campus. In 2025 the Faculty of Science alone hosted 15 free public inaugural lectures, including:

  • Professor Craig Millar: Evolution and ancient DNA: people and ideas
  • Professor Phil Shane: From volcanic hazards to the global meta-crisis
  • Professor Matt Templeton: Plants get sick too: how pathogens navigate plant defences
  • Professor Claire Postlethwaite: Winnerless competition: dynamics of rock-paper-scissors and other games

Other inaugural lectures during 2025 included Professor Sir Collin Tukuitonga (on Pacific health) and Professor Barry Milne of the COMPASS Research Centre.

Auckland Law School public lecture programme

Auckland Law School runs a regular programme of free public lectures and panels on justice, rights and the law. The 2025 programme included:

  • The Access to Justice series
  • Self-determination and decolonisation [May 2025]
  • Digital Bridges: can we transform access to justice in the digital age? [August 2025]
  • Responsible AI [September 2025]
  • 40 years since Finnigan: public interest litigation then and now [October 2025]

Raising the Bar

On Tuesday 26 August 2025, 19 University researchers gave free 30-minute public talks at 10 bars across central Auckland (including Wynyard Quarter, Victoria Park and City Works Depot). Sessions were at 6pm and 8pm and the talks included:

  • Professor Merryn Tawhai: Reimagining healthcare with human digital twins
  • Associate Professor Christina Stringer: Closer than you think: migrant exploitation and modern slavery in Aotearoa
  • Dr Claire Meehan: Not just jokes: how misogyny online is shaping teen culture
  • Associate Professor Andrew Erueti: The limits of liberal equality and the future of Māori self-determination
  • Professor Lee Beattie: Beyond buildings: urban design's power to create and connect communities
  • Dr Tom Allen: A carbon fibre yarn: weaving fossil fuel roots into a sustainable future

At its heart, Raising the Bar is about making research real and relevant.

Economic and policy seminars

The Economic Policy Centre and the Centre of Digital Enterprise hold regular free public seminars. In 2025, these included the IMF's Global Financial Stability Outlook (February); Urban Policy Reform in New Zealand (April) and AI: risk or opportunity? (November).

One-off public events

Alongside its regular programmes, the University hosts one-off free events that bring the public together with researchers, artists and guest speakers.

Sustainability talks, panels and festivals

Ngā Ara Whetū, the University's Centre for Climate, Biodiversity and Society, held free public events in 2025 including:

  • Plastic pollution explained: problems and solutions, a public talk [March 2025]
  • A coming water crisis: science, politics and solutions, a public panel [May 2025]
  • The Eco Film Festival 2025, free screenings on climate and the environment [June 2025]
  • Into the Great Ocean, a public panel discussion at the University's Gus Fisher Gallery [August 2025]
  • An Uncommon Land: from a history of enclosure towards regeneration, a public talk [August 2025]

Guest lectures and panels

A public lecture by [disability rights advocate] David Lepofsky, hosted by Auckland Law School [January 2025]
Climate justice at the ICJ? Reflections from frontline advocates, a public panel [May 2025]
AI and taxation: navigating the future of tax practice, hosted by the New Zealand Centre for Taxation [October 2025]

Pacific health seminars

Te Poutoko Ora a Kiwa held free public online seminars for Pacific communities, including Research for Niue, by Niue [February 2025] and HIV in the Pacific [March 2025].