Historic Gresham College in London turning to TikTok to tempt learners to lectures

A 400-year-old London education institution is embracing social media to persuade people more used to watching TikTok videos to switch to long form academic lectures.

Gresham College, the first ever institute of higher education in London, was set up in 1597 and has been providing Londoners with free lectures in arts and science subjects ever since.

Online views of the lectures – which are delivered in a medieval hall in Holborn -  have increased by more than one million in the past year, and the number of students registering to watch has increased by 93 per cent.

The college believes this means people are craving longer, more in-depth content. It is now stepping up its coverage on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter with bespoke videos and taster snippets designed to tempt people to watch the hour-long presentations on subjects as diverse as ‘sustainable energy in refugee camps’, ‘sex and the internet’ and ‘dragons: a history.’

Martin Elliot, Provost of Gresham College, said: “The content has worked for 400 years. It’s a strong core content, we shouldn’t change that – it’s not likely to be of less interest. It’s just the signposting.”

He added: “These are long-form lectures up to an hour long, they are not Ted-Talk style, they are high level content which is the equivalent of a long read or a London Review of Books piece, presented well by an expert.”

He said people have a thirst for more, adding: “You just have to look at the growth of podcasts. They are usually long-form and look more in-depth at a particular topic.

“I think there is a definite market for this…You just have to be on a train and see how people use their phones to see how content is altering. It would be naïve of us to think we don’t have to adapt to that…because we have always had a full hall and there is a big audience for it we have never felt that need, but times are changing.”

He added: “We are not frightened of it but we don’t want to lose the idea that we are offering top quality content and long form with high quality speakers.”

Gresham College was founded after the death of Tudor merchant Thomas Gresham, who is known as the father of English banking and who also set up the Royal Exchange.

His vision was to bring education to Londoners in English rather than Latin, which was the language of most European universities at the time.

Professor Elliott said it is important the lectures remain free, adding: “There isn’t a single person working in Gresham college who isn’t horrified by the current levels of inequality, and we feel we certainly have something to contribute in making knowledge freely available to anyone.

“In every part of public provision you can see the erosion of the free in favour of the paid for. The moral argument is one for others  - all I can say is we as a group of people are committed to continuing to deliver our product for free.”

He added: “It is important that we offer age-agnostic, high quality, freeeducation. We are not pitching it at either 12-year-olds or 80-year-olds, they are all equally important.”

He said the lectures are aimed at people who are “reasonably intelligent, curious and wanting to know more.”