In Great Britain and Ireland, the RSA offers regional activities to encourage Fellows to address local topics of interest and to connect with other Fellows in their locality. The British Regions are: London, Central, North, Scotland, South East, South West, Wales and, Ireland. The RSA has a presence around the world under its RSA Global scheme with a notable presence in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Events The RSA's public events programme is a key part of its charitable mission to make world-changing ideas and debate freely available to all. Over 100 keynote lectures, panel discussions, debates, and documentary screenings are held each year, many of which are live-streamed over the web. Events are free and open to the public, and mp3 audio files and videos are made available on the RSA's website and
YouTube page. Speakers on the RSA's stage have included
Ken Robinson,
Al Gore, Sir
David Attenborough,
Alain de Botton,
Michael Sandel,
Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
Martha Nussbaum,
Desmond Tutu,
Steven Pinker,
Susan Cain,
Dan Pink,
Dan Ariely,
Brene Brown,
Slavoj Zizek,
David Cameron,
Yuval Noah Harari and
Dambisa Moyo. The choice of speaker for the recent annual Presidential lecture has been a matter of interest in the press. Danish professor
Björn Lomborg, was chosen; his book,
Cool It, suggests that the imminent demise of polar bears is a myth. On 14 January 2010, the RSA in partnership with
Arts Council England hosted a one-day conference in London called "State of the Arts". A number of speakers from various disciplines from art to government gathered to talk about the state of the arts industry in the United Kingdom. Notable speakers included
Jeremy Hunt MP,
Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and his counterpart,
Ben Bradshaw MP, who was then the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
RSA Animate (animation series) Excerpts from the events programme form the basis for the 10-minute
whiteboard animations as shown on the
theRSAorg YouTube channel. The series is produced and audio-edited at the RSA, and the animations are created by RSA Fellow
Andrew Park at Cognitive. The first 14 of these had gained 46 million views as of 2011, making it the no.1 nonprofit YouTube channel worldwide. The first animation in the RSA Animate series was based on
Renata Salecl's speech delivered for RSA on her book about choice. The RSA and Andrew Park have been collaborating since 2008.
Projects The society offered the first national public examinations in 1882 that led to the formation of the RSA Examinations Board now included in the
Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations Board. In 1876, a predecessor of the
Royal College of Music, the
National Training School for Music, was founded by the RSA. The RSA devised a scheme for commemorating the links between famous people and buildings, by placing plaques on the walls – these continue today as "
blue plaques" which have been administered by a range of government bodies. The first of these plaques was, in fact, of red terracotta erected outside a former residence of
Lord Byron (since demolished). The society erected 36 plaques until, in 1901, responsibility for them was transferred to the
London County Council (which changed the colour of the plaques to the current blue) and, later, the
Greater London Council (the G.L.C.) and, most recently, English Heritage. Similar schemes are now operated in all the
constituent countries of the United Kingdom. In 1929, the society purchased the entire village of
West Wycombe. After extensive repairs, the village was legally conveyed by deed to the
National Trust. During the 1980s, the RSA worked with the
Comino Foundation and established a Comino Fellowship Committee 'to change the cultural attitude to industry from one of lack of interest or dislike to one of concern and esteem'. This eventually led to a joint government/industry initiative to promote 1986 as "Industry Year", with the RSA and the Comino Foundation providing core funding of £250,000 – which persuaded the
Confederation of British Industry to raise £1 million and government departments to provide £3 million. In July 2008, the RSA became a sponsor of an
academy in
Tipton, The
RSA Academy, which opened in September 2008. A New building for the school was completed in September 2010. In 2021 it was announced that the school would no longer be associated with the RSA. Projects include Arts and Ecology, Citizen Power, Connected Communities, Design and Society, Education, Public Services, Social Brain, and Technology in a Cold Climate. There are six schools in the RSA Family of Academies, all in the West Midlands, including
Whitley Academy. The former RSA Academy in Tipton was also a member, until its disassociation in 2021. Past projects include delivering fresh drinking water to the developing world, rethinking intellectual property from first principles to produce a Charter (published as the
Adelphi Charter), investigating schemes to manage international migration and exploring the feasibility of a UK-wide
personal carbon trading system. It still promotes the practice of inclusive design, and is working with artists to communicate ideas about environmental sustainability (for example, through one of the RSA's past projects,
WEEE Man, and currently through the Arts and Ecology project). The RSA has been home to
TEDxLambeth, a TEDx conference based in Lambeth, since October 2019. Newer projects include the 2025
Southern Creative Catalyst. With the goal of strengthening the influence of creative industries across the Central South of England. Led by RSA fellows working to better support creative businesses and develop and test theories of
place-based growth. In order for the economy and network of Central South to interact more effectively. The project is partnering with multiple universities and organizations in the area. ==RSA House==