CMCI’s Dr Richard Howells has accepted an invitation to be a judge at the national finals of the Institute of Ideas Debating Matters competition at the British Library in London. The competition was open to sixth form students from across the UK: 72 qualifying rounds were followed by regional finals with just 12 teams eventually making it though to the national finals on the weekend of June 28th. As part of the format, debaters are directly quizzed by the judges, who are instructed to put the debaters under “some serious intellectual pressure, treat them as adults and not to hold back” in their criticism of their ideas. Further information is at http://www.debatingmatters.com/people/richard_howells/