Big Ideas

The connection between body and mind is well established. But mental health expert Daniel Fung also includes the soul in this 'ecosystem' that shapes your overall wellbeing. He envisions a future for mental health...

From innocently conning controversial radio duo Kyle and Jackie O as a kid, time in a Zambian convent as a teen, to nearly becoming an air traffic controller before finding her real passion - helping others find their...

Australia now has its first treaty with this country's first peoples. After nearly a decade of formal consultation and negotiation, the Victorian Statewide Treaty has become law, and will come into effect from early...

Humans are by nature creative, but how do we turn a spark of inspiration into something more tangible? Author Emily Maguire draws inspiration from some of the world's most creative minds — from Lin Manuel Miranda, to...

As we grow older, changes to our bodies and minds are inevitable. But what if science could help us age better? Our experts on Big Ideas uncover the latest science behind healthy brain aging. What's possible in the...

When acclaimed Australia author Christos Tsiolkas was invited to give the 2025 Ray Mathew Lecture at the National Library of Australia, he had in mind what he wanted to say, as difficult as it was. Then he got a...

From The Don to Warny, the Gabba to the G, from its legacy of British colonialism, to the Asian powerhouse nations of today — cricket is not just a sport, but also a reflection of the societies who play it. Drawing on a...

Born in apartheid South Africa, she became the country's first female high court judge. She sat on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and helped to establish sexual violence and rape as war crimes in...

Young Australians are losing faith that our politics, our civic institutions and the mainstream media are working for them. Why is this? And how can our democracy adapt to win back the trust and engagement of new...

Are our universities facing an existential crisis by trying to be too many things? Places for learning, research, the production of new knowledge, the production of job-ready graduates, and profit-making enterprises?...

We often hear about "failing schools", but what if it is us, the Australian community, who are failing them? Public school advocate Jane Caro argues that Australia's pursuit of school choice, and the tax payer funding...

Join ABC's Mon Schafter and four incredible speakers as they share honest, powerful stories about revealing their identities on their own terms. From fear to freedom, isolation to community - this is a conversation...

If you're a feminist, or pro-civil or gay rights, does that make you "woke"? And if you're not, does that mean you should be cancelled, or abused online, or lose your job? So many of our public debates nowadays are...

Friends are different from family. We choose them and they choose us. Philosophers long wondered about what makes friendship such a distinctive relationship in our lives. Is being a good friend a kind of moral virtue?...

To deal with China as a major trading partner, and also a national security threat requires understanding the history that made China what it is today. That history is shaped by resistance and different waves of...

The United States has long been famous for its world leading universities. But in the face of research funding cuts, government attacks on free speech, DEI and the right to protest, and the persecution of foreign...

The Western world is supposed to stand for values like freedom, justice and human rights, a commitment to meet wrongdoing with consequence, guided by rules and obligations. How then, do we reconcile that with Western...

Build more houses. That'll fix Australia's housing crisis won't it? If you listen to governments, you'd sure think so. Under the National Housing Accord, all governments have agreed to support a target of building 1.2...

Whitlam's dismissal and following double dissolution 50 years ago, was arguably the most tumultuous period in Australia's political and constitutional history. This political crisis raises key questions about...

In the 1930s, New Zealand-born, Cambridge educated Arthur Dale Trendall carved a niche for himself as the world's foremost expert in the study of ancient South Italian vase painting. How then, did he end up leading a...

When it was founded in 2015, openai — the company behind Chat GPT — had a mission to develop artificial intelligence tools that would benefit humanity. But somewhere along the way, that mission changed. While the use of...

ABC Radio National's CITIZEN JURY takes hard, hot-button issues affecting a community — and places citizens at the centre of finding solutions. It's citizen-driven democracy in action! Tasmanian salmon is on dinner...

In 1975, aged just 29, she wrote a bestselling book that changed Australia. Since then, she's courted controversy and acclaim, but Anne Summers has never given up the fight for gender equality. This conversation was...

When people say or do the wrong thing, we have laws and a legal system that should be able to deliver consequences and, hopefully justice. But in this digital age, the human instinct to inflict punishment in the court...

For all of human history, space has been a place of mystery, awe and fascination. But unless you're an astronaut, a billionaire, or a pop star, most of us will never have the opportunity to travel there — except in our...