Apply for Invisible College 2025
Our residential seminar for 18–22 year olds was such a success that we are running it again
Don’t miss out on Issue 18 of Works in Progress, which was released two weeks ago. We have articles on prehistoric psychopaths, how pineapples got cheap, and more.
This August, Works in Progress is hosting another ‘Invisible College’: a week-long residential seminar in Cambridge for people aged 18–22.
Last year, we received over 400 applications, from which we accepted 30 students for the programme. Stripe Press’s Tammy Winter said the attendees were some of the sharpest students she had ever met. Attendees said ‘what an amazing week this was’, that they ‘met so many amazing peers’, said it ‘added considerable human capital’, and that they ‘cannot emphasize enough the power of being around supportive, high-agency people’.
During this week, we aim to give attendees a thorough grounding in three of the topics most important to us: how the world got rich; what is going wrong with science today; and the political economy of housing, urbanism, and cities.
This will involve lectures, discussions, and other classes led by the people that we think are making the biggest impacts on these subjects today, including Works in Progress authors such as Saloni Dattani, Stuart Ritchie, Samuel Hughes, and Anton Howes.
The programme’s name comes from the supposed group of seventeenth century thinkers known as the Invisible College, led by the Irish chemist Robert Boyle and the English economist Sir William Petty.
Attendance is open to anyone around the world who will be aged 18–22 in August 2025. You don’t have to be at university to apply, but you must be within the age range. The main requirement is that you are thirsty for knowledge, curious about new ideas, and excited about shaping the world of the future. Please forward this invitation on to anyone you think might fit the bill.
The exact dates are 4th to 9th August: students will arrive on the Monday afternoon and leave on the Saturday morning. It is free to attend, and we will provide accommodation and meals for the week. Sadly, we cannot cover travel expenses.
To apply, simply fill out this application form. Please submit your application as soon as you can, as we will assess applications on a rolling basis, and by Monday 28 April at the latest. If you have any other questions, feel free to email me (Ben Southwood) at bswud@stripe.com.
We look forward to hearing from you!