Engage has a commitment to improving the sustainability and liveability of city centre urban life. To this end every year we hold a prestigious seminar series bringing top international speakers to Liverpool. Scroll down to find each of the seminars we have run in the past. In 2021 emerging from the Coronavirus pandemic we ran a series on travel and tourism with speakers from Porto and Copenhagen. In 2022 the theme was Making Liverpool Better, Together exploring citizen empowerment with Dr Camila Vergara from Chile and Jon Alexander founder of New Citizenship Project. 2023 saw us pause our programme in order to focus on necessary follow-ups to the previous 2 seminar series. 2024 will see us design a seminar series on sustainability and the impact of the climate crisis on Liverpool.

The three seminars normally take place a fortnight apart during the autumn on the same weekday evening using venues in the city centre to which residents don't normally have access. We try to present international, national and local perspectives. This has proved extremely valuable in widening debate and bringing a deeper engagement from participants in the different topics we have studied.

In 2024 we are focusing on the impact of climate change on our city and exploring how to become more sustainable.

In 2022 we invited residents to reflect together on how we help to create the kind of city in which we'd all like to live by exploring our responsibilities as citizens.

In 2021 our theme was Destination Liverpool: Tourists versus Residents? We were exploring how everyone in our city can take responsibility for the experience visitors have 'in our Liverpool home'.

In 2020 we arranged a digital seminar series between Liverpool and Leeds called The Delightful City.

In 2019 we held the series in different locations visiting important issues for residents like cycling (speaker from Copenhagen), homelessness (speaker from Finland) and regional devolution and all through the prism of the newly established Liverpool City Region.

In 2018 we held the 3 seminars in the 3 Graces and inviting 3 European UNESCO WHS Cities of Inspiration: Strasbourg, Hamburg and Bordeaux and showed how it was completely compatible to have both high quality development and protect our distinctive heritage.

In 2017 the theme explored the UNESCO World Heritage Site status which was seriously at risk of being deleted by the World Heritage Committee and we brought 3 major UNESCO speakers to the city to hear their perspective about Liverpool's inscription since 2004.

In 2016 the series was called Reclaiming the City - from consumer and stranger to citizen and neighbour. It dealt with the experience of people who live in the city centre and want more say over their future.

In 2015 the theme was the design, build and maintenance of apartment blocks, with architects from Rotterdam, Paris and Vienna.

In 2014 it was around transport and movement in the city centre connecting to Copenhagen particularly.

In 2013 it took the theme of Liverpool Waters, Peel's controversial plans for developing Central Docks with participation from Hafen City University in Hamburg

In 2012 it put people at the heart of urban policy.