CONTACT

Helen is the Project leader for the Global Uncertainties Schools Network, the resources and communications manager for Debating Matters and the competition’s alumni coordinator. Helen is also a committee member of the Battle of Ideas, a weekend festival of debate organised by the Institute of Ideas. Helen completed a Masters course in Intellectual and Cultural History at the University of London in September 2005.

David Bowden competed in the Institute of Ideas & Pfizer Debating Matters Competition in 2004 and has continued to support the competition as an alumnus ever since. He has a BA in English and a MA in Creative Writing from the University of Exeter, and is chief poetry writer for Culture Wars.

In 2009 David took a sabbatical from the IoI to intern as an assistant press officer for Libertas, in their bid to become the first truly pan-European political party elected in the 2009 European Parliament elections.

He has written articles which have appeared in The Big Issue, Europe’s World and spiked and has worked as a researcher for publications including The Times Educational Supplement and EUobserver, as well as the BBC Four documentary Consenting Adults.

Dolan Cummings is the Resources Editor for the Global Uncertainties Schools Networks and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Ideas, having been research and editorial director from 2001 to 2010. He continues to edit the IoI's online review, Culture Wars, where he also writes about books, films and theatre. He developed the Round Table Rumbles theatre debates at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2001-2004 and at the National Theatre in London in 2005, and he continues to organise regular arts discussions through the Culture Wars Forum.

He is also editor of a collection of essays, Debating Humanism, by contributors to the first annual Battle of Ideas festival in London. He has produced several strands and individual debates at the Battle of Ideas over the years, on themes as various as religion and secularism, liberty, culture, community, music, law and America, and he both speaks and chairs at similar events across the UK and beyond. He appears regularly on radio and television as a commentator on the above issues, and is one of the co-founders of the Manifesto Club, a campaign group for freedom in everyday life.

Liam Hetherington is a volunteer with Debating Matters and has recently returned from Australia, where he worked for 5 years in a variety of operational and policy development roles in the NSW Housing Department. Prior to migrating to Australia, Liam worked with a number of London Boroughs managing policy projects in Education and Social Services departments.

Liam is currently pursuing a new career as a teacher.