An Essex University professor will be lecturing next week at one of the highest-profile addresses in the country.
Jonathan Gershuny, director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research, has been invited to 10 Downing Street to give the first in a series of millennium lectures.
And among the audience of opinion-formers and specialists will be Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie.
Professor Gershuny is one of six leading figures who will be highlighting some of the challenges facing the nation post 2000.
His topic on Wednesday - work and leisure - will be followed by education, wealth creation, science, arts and culture and what it means to be British in the 21st century.
Another Essex representative at the lecture will be Joy MacMillan, of the Chelmsford College-based Essex Returners Unit.
The group, originally set up to promote the return to work of mature men and women, has widened its remit to include ethnic minorities, ex-offenders and the disabled.
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