Published on June 1, 2025 2:29 PM GMT
Hi all — I’m helping organize a retreat that I think will be exciting for rational-ish people, focused on economics, systems thinking, and creative research. It’ll be a mix of unconference-y discussion, half-baked ideas, and people who like thinking in public. It's coming up soon (June 13th-16th), but we have a few more spots available. More details below!
Second Order
Dates: 13th to 16th June 2025
Location: Abbey House, Audley End Estate, ~30min from Cambridge, UK
✨ Apply here! Applications are due June 6th, EOD AoE, and are rolling ✨
What is Second Order?
A three‑day residential research‑inspiration unconference for ~30 early‑career economists and kindred thinkers. Each morning we crowdsource the schedule: Lightning Paper Pitches on elegant models, Policy Autopsies of schemes that flopped in practice, Research‑Idea Hackathons, walk‑and‑talk collaborator hunts—plus anything you pitch on the day. No keynote monologues; just whiteboards, data sets, and big windows for thinking aloud.
Expect a weekend that compresses months of hallway conversations into three days of creative momentum: swap half‑baked models over breakfast, test‑drive sketches on willing co‑conspirators, and leave with a notebook brimming with fresh questions, angles, and potential collaborations.
Late‑night debates, and acres of fields come standard—the rest is up to us. If that sounds like productive fun, express interest.
Who should apply?
We’re primarily looking for curious people doing some form of research work on economics or a related area (e.g., policy). Examples include PhD students, undergraduates working on research projects, or anyone working on projects that require understanding and applying current work in economics. When in doubt, you should apply! We’re seeking to have a diverse group with a variety of backgrounds.
Beyond this, our only requirement is that you must be 18+ on June 14th, 2025.
A few other things we value are demonstrated excellence in other areas (even if not directly related to Second Order), super reasoning / critical thinking ability, and desire to understand the world as an entire system rather than just one particular part.
Logistics
Price: We expect this retreat will cost between £250 and £400 per person.
- £200 - £250 per person for venue costs£40 - £100 per person for food costs£10 - £50 per person for travel costs
Our expected cost is ~£350, but it can be pushed lower if there’s interest in making the retreat more frugal. We’ll finalise the cost by the time of the acceptance email.
If cost is a barrier for you, please apply anyway and make a note of it in the additional comments section of the form. We are applying to several sources of funding to hopefully be able to subsidise places for people who need them.
Venue: We’re staying at Abbey House, Audley End Estate, about a 30-minute drive from Cambridge. Check-in will be Friday, June 13th, at 4 PM. We will leave the venue on Monday, June 16th, at 11:30.
Travel: We will be arranging a group to travel from Cambridge on Friday. Otherwise, as mentioned above, the venue is ~30 min from Cambridge and ~2 hr from London.
Who are we?
Duncan McClements: I'm an economics student at Cambridge, and an editor at Inference Magazine. I've worked on various research on housing, AI growth and energy policy. I designed Bluedot Impact's Economics of TAI course, and run the Odyssey fellowship. I blog at Model Thinking.
Oliver Hayman: I recently graduated from a math degree at Oxford, and currently work as a quantitative researcher for the trading firm DRW. While a student, I worked on various pieces of research in discrete math, computational linguistics, and reinforcement learning. I also organized the AI safety society and admissions for the camp SPARC.
Contact
Please email u>second.order.retreat@gmail.com</u if you have any questions or concerns.
✨ Apply here! Applications are due June 5th, EOD AoE. ✨
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