5x15 Stories and inspiration from 5x15

5x15 is delighted to announce a new series of events in collaboration with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

From spring into summer, we will host a range of expert writers, thinkers and scientists from Kew. They will reflect on what we must do to prevent biodiversity loss and protect life on Earth, and address some of the most important questions of our time.

The series kicks off in April with a panel about Foods of the Future. From the benefits of no-dig gardening and new crop techniques, to the versatility of legumes and the power of regenerative farming, this discussion will offer an exciting look at how we keep our diets diverse and sustainable in the future. Our expert panel of speakers will be in conversation with cross-bench peer and 5x15 co-founder Rosie Boycott.


Dr Caspar Chater’s research seeks to improve crop resilience and adaptation to the climate crisis. Chater’s work tackles crop water use and drought responses, focusing on legumes as well as other crops. A large part of Chatter’s research has a regional focus in Mexico and Latin America. He currently coordinates Newton Fund and Global Challenges Research Fund projects in collaboration with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the University of Sheffield. In addition to exploring crop genetic diversity, he hopes to use targeted molecular methods for pre-breeding underutilized crops and crop wild relatives. By doing so we can make full use of plant diversity to address increasing global food security and water security challenges.

Helena Dove is a Botanical Horticulturist who manages Edible Science: Kew’s Kitchen Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Trained in a historic setting, and having previously managed an Edwardian kitchen garden, she has a passion for heritage vegetables, edible flowers and unusual crops that may not immediately be thought of as food. Many of the crops she grows have a slant towards future foods and the scientific research that takes place at RBG, Kew.

Sarah Langford is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller In Your Defence: Stories of Life and Law. For ten years, she worked in criminal and family law in London and around the UK. Coming from a farming background in Hampshire, she studied English at University before training as a barrister. Sarah left the Bar on maternity leave to have her two sons. In 2017 she moved to Suffolk and, together with her husband, took on the management of his small family farm. She now lives between Southwest London and Suffolk. In her book Rooted: How Regenerative Farming Can Change the World, Sarah weaves her own story around those who taught her what it means to be a farmer.

Anna Taylor joined The Food Foundation as its first Executive Director at the beginning of June 2015 after 5 years at the Department for International Development. In 2014 she was awarded an OBE for her work to address the global burden of undernutrition. She did a MSc in Human Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1994. In May 2017 Anna became a member of the London Food Board to advise the Mayor of London and the GLA on the food matters that affect Londoners. She is a Board member for Veg Power and an advisor to the International Food Policy Research Institute. She served as Chief Independent Adviser to Henry Dimbleby for the development of the National Food Strategy published in 2021.

The second online event will take place on Wednesday 24th May, and the series will culminate with a very special live 5x15 event in the Temperate House at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on Wednesday 21st June, with Kew’s Director of Science, Prof Alexandre Antonelli, and further speakers to be announced soon…

With thanks for your support for 5x15 online!

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Blake Morrison is a poet, novelist and journalist. His non-fiction books include And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize and the Esquire/Volvo/Waterstone's Non-Fiction Book Award, As If (1997), about the murder of the toddler James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993, and a memoir of his mother, Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002). His poetry includes the collections Dark Glasses (1984), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award, and Shingle Street (2015). He is a regular literary critic for the Guardian. His new book, Two Sisters, is a heartbreaking memoir about his late sister and half-sister, along with sibling relationships in literature and those of literary figures.


5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Julie McDowall is a freelance journalist and book critic specialising in the nuclear threat. Her writing has appeared in The Times, Economist, Spectator, Guardian, TLS, Prospect and Independent, and she is also the host of the Atomic Hobo podcast in which she reveals findings in the nuclear archives and reports on her travels to nuclear bunkers and other Cold War sites. Her book Attack Warning Red! How Britain Prepared for Nuclear War, is the first book to tell the story of day-to-day life on the nuclear home front. While today we may read about the Cold War and life in Britain under the shadow of the mushroom cloud with a sense of amusement and relief, Attack Warning Red! is also a timely and powerful reminder that, so long as nuclear weapons exist, the nuclear threat will always be with us.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Tania Branigan is a Guardian foreign leader writer. Having spent seven years as the Guardian’s China correspondent, she has also written for the Washington Post and The Australian. Her first book, Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Culture Revolution, explores how the revolution has shaped China today, and uncovers forty years of silence through the rarely heard stories of individuals who lived through Mao's decade of madness.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Jeremy Denk is one of America's foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Denk returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has appeared with renowned ensembles including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. His recordings have received critical acclaim, including reaching No. 1 on the Billboard classical charts, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, New Republic, Guardian, and the New York Times Book Review. In Every Good Boy Does Fine, Denk passes on to his readers the lessons he has learned; honours the debt he owes to so many remarkable and different teachers; and reminds us that music is our creation, and that we need to keep asking questions about its purpose.


5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won multiple awards. Rundell is also the author of a book for adults, Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. She has written for, among others, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books and The New York Times: mostly about books, though sometimes about night climbing, tightrope walking, and animals. Her book Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, an 'unmissable' biography of the Renaissance poet, won the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories
Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories
Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories