Join us for a panel discussion on the importance of language skills in the world of politics, business, academia and more

In 2026, Cambridge launches a new annual, in-conversation lecture series, ‘Languages in the World’, hosted by the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics and the Centre for Geopolitics, where alumni of the University discuss the importance of their Modern Languages degrees in their subsequent careers. It is well-known that the UK is currently experiencing a crisis in Modern Languages learning, yet research shows that ‘language proficiency is not simply a communicative skill; it is a strategic enabler’ (Ciuffetelli 2025). Our series aims to showcase the social, political, cultural, and economic importance of languages in our uncertain world for an audience of school children, current students and staff, and Cambridge alumni.

Speakers

Hannah Gelbart is an award-winning presenter and journalist at BBC News, presenting What in the World, a daily global news programme from the BBC World Service across podcast, radio, and YouTube. Her reporting and investigations focus on international current affairs, technology, and disinformation, including exploitation on TikTok, crypto scams, and online abuse. She studied MML in at Jesus College from 2010 to 2014, specialising in Spanish and Portuguese.

Julia Longbottom is the current UK Ambassador to Japan and the first woman to hold this office. After reading French and German at Jesus College (1982-1986) she worked in numerous roles at the Foreign Office, including postings to Brussels, New York, Hong Kong, The Hague and Tokyo. She is a keen linguist, and is fluent in Dutch, French, Japanese and Polish.

James Coomarasamy is the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 evening programme The World Tonight and the flagship Newshour programme on the BBC World Service. Before joining Newshour in 2010, Coomarasamy spent a year presenting Europe Today. Before becoming a presenter he had been a BBC correspondent in Warsaw, followed by Paris, then Washington, D.C. He graduated in French and Russian from Trinity Hall in 1986.

Moderators

Professor Sally Faulkner

Sally Faulkner holds the endowed chair for Spanish at the University of Cambridge, the 1933 Professorship of Spanish, is Director of Spanish and Portuguese in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, and a Professorial Fellow of Peterhouse. She previously worked at the University of Exeter for 23 years, where she was, among other roles, Head of the Department of Modern Languages. She is a film historian and her latest monograph (with Núria Triana-Toribio) is Leading Women in Spanish Cinema and Television of the Long 1970s (available Open Access).

Professor Brendan Simms

Brendan Simms is the founder and Director of the Centre for Geopolitics and Professor of the History of International Relations. He works on European geopolitics, past and present, and his principal interests are the German Question, Britain and Europe, Hitler’s global antisemitism, Humanitarian Intervention and state construction. His latest publication, The Return of the Great Powers, reflects on the past, present and future of Great Powers revealing the new rules of global leadership.

The event will be followed by a drinks reception.

Description supplied by the event organiser.