The Gomes Lecture is held in College annually in admiration of the late Reverend Professor Peter Gomes of Harvard University. He was an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel.
The lecture was established in 1997, as a gift to the College. Our benefactors are Kenneth & Cynthia Rossano and Mary Rossano, a graduate of Harvard & Cambridge.
Each lecture is a College occasion of intellectual significance. It strengthens the ties between Emmanuel & Harvard University, and our respective countries. It is also a celebration of those who have gone before.
Attendance is by invitation. The Gomes Lecture is usually filmed and shared online for all to watch, and a transcript is published in the Emmanuel College Magazine.
Gomes Lecturers
Each lecture listed below can be found in print in the Emmanuel College Magazine for its respective year.
- 2025 The Rt. Hon. the Baroness Ashton of Upholland LG GCMG: What Next? Thoughts on British Diplomacy in Today's Turbulent Times
- 2024 Amanda Pritchard: The NHS of the future and how we get there
- 2023 General Chris Cavoli: Our World has Changed: Observations on the War in Ukraine
- 2022 Caroline Wyatt: In Defence of Journalism
- 2021 James Rebanks: English Pastoral: An Inheritance
- 2020 Professor Lawrence Bacow: The Research University in Contentious Times
- 2019 Mr Edmund de Waal: In Touch: Objects, Families, Stories
- 2018 Adam Nicholson, Lord Carnock: Seabirds: Planetary Sentinels
- 2017 Lord Robert Winston: The Dark Side of Genetics
- 2016 Mr Tim Knox: The Stripping of the Country House
- 2015 Professor Linda Colley: A Changing Magna Carta: Present, Past, and Future
- 2014 Lord Berkeley of Knighton: Music in Society: Its Role and Power
- 2013 Dr Sandy Nairne: Art Theft: Reality and Fiction
- 2012 Lord Rees of Ludlow: Science, Politics and the People
- 2010 Professor Alison Richard: A Vice-Chancellor Reflects
- 2009 The Reverend Professor Peter Gomes: Cambridge in my Experience: A Transatlantic View
- 2008 The Very Reverend Colin Slee: Import/Export: Religious Freedom and Religious Extremism
- 2007 Baroness James of Holland Park: Murder and Mystery: The Craft of the Detective Story
- 2006 Sir Eric Anderson: Schools and the Whirligig of Time
- 2005 Lord May of Oxford: Science in Society
- 2004 Sir Edward George: Reflections from a Central Banker
- 2003 Professor David Ford: Knowledge, Meaning and the World's Greatest Challenges: Reinventing Cambridge University in the 21st Century
- 2002 Mr Neil MacGregor: Painting the Changing Church
- 2001 Sir Christopher Lee: The Media and Pressures on Institutions
- 2000 Professor John Polyani: The Responsibility of the Scientist
- 1999 Professor Amartya Sen: This Cambridge and That