Masaryk debates

Masaryk Debates are one of the largest projects of the IIPS Student Section. It is a publicly accessible moderated debate on a current societal issue. The debate follows the so-called Oxford format, where two teams – each with two speakers – face off and try to persuade the audience of the validity or invalidity of a given thesis. Each speaker has seven minutes for an opening statement, followed by twenty-five minutes of debate between the speakers and another twenty-five minutes for audience questions. At the end of the debate, each speaker has three minutes for a closing summary.

Before the debate, the audience votes on whether they agree with the thesis, are undecided, or disagree. The same vote takes place after the debate. The winning side is the one with the greatest percentage difference compared to the initial vote.

We always strive to invite guests from different backgrounds to make the debate as diverse as possible. Our goal is to cultivate and promote public debate and foster critical thinking. Each debate has a clearly defined thesis, but this does not mean that the Student Section endorses the thesis. The debates take place at the Faculty of Social Studies, although in the past we also visited the Scala University Cinema or the Břetislav Bakala Hall.