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This week’s Our Scottish Future podcast looks ahead to the challenge facing the new SNP leader and First Minister who will be elected next week. What should their priorities be? What do they do about independence? And how should they cooperate with the UK Government? 

OSF’s Eddie Barnes is joined by three leading experts to discuss this and more: OSF chair Professor Jim Gallagher, former civil servant and education expert Lucy Hunter Blackburn, and the Spectator’s social media editor Lucy Dunn.
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This week Eddie is joined by James Mitchell, Professor of Public Policy at Edinburgh University and one of Scotland’s foremost experts on devolution and public reform; the former leader of Scottish Labour, Johann Lamont, who was Labour’s representative on the cross-party Commission on Parliamentary Reform; and Donald Cameron MSP, the Scottish Conservative Party’s Shadow Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution.
They discuss whether Scotland’s democratic institutions hold the government to account, how  we want our democratic institutions to work, their shortcomings and how we fix them. They consider these questions in the context of the SNP leadership campaign and ask whether the big change at the top might provide a reset which allows the question of Scotland's democratic health to be debated and discussed.
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Prof Jim Gallagher and Cllr Molly Nolan discuss the continuing fallout  from Nicola Sturgeon's decision to quit office. They set out their opinions on the first few hustings events involving the three candidates and all the various issues that they have been discussing from the apparently doomed bottle deposit scheme, to the place of religion in the modern secular society, and the concept of an independence readiness thermometer in George Square in Glasgow.

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Kirsty McNeill and Philip Rycroft join Eddie to chat about the extraordinary couple of weeks we've seen in Scottish politics since Nicola Sturgeon announced that she would be stepping down as FM. They examine where the turmoil in the SNP leaves Scottish politics and our wider constitutional debate - and how this moment represents an opportunity to take Scotland forward.
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On Wednesday 6th October we were joined by renowned US political scientist Eitan Hersch, author of "Politics is for Power", for our online event event "Making Change Happen". 

We talked to Eitan about how to turn yourself into an effective activist, what it means to be part of a community and the role of young people in making change.

Our new chair, Kirsty McNeill, was also on hand to talk about how we can all get involved in listening to people across Scotland about the change they want to see.
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In this week's podcast, Eddie Barnes speaks to Ruairidh Macintosh, the author of our report on Scotland's video games industry. 

Globally, the video games industry is now worth $200 billion - a figure that is set to double by 2028. Scotland accounts for a disproportionate share of the UK-wide industry, with Scottish based firms punching well above their weight. Yet Scotland’s gaming sector now risks being left behind as American, Chinese and Japanese giants dominate the market. He talks about our proposals to help turn Scotland’s gaming sector into a global superpower.
Click the link to read Ruairidh's report Playing to Win.
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