INNOVATION and enterprise will be celebrated at scores of special events taking place as part of the 2013 York Festival of Ideas.

The festival will be launched at a Downton Abbey-themed dinner for the professional and business community on June 5.

Featuring more than 100 events between June 13 and 19, the festival will celebrate ideas and innovation in the north.

The launch dinner at the Ron Cooke Hub on June 5 will include a menu, adapted from records in the University of York’s Borthwick Institute, of meals cooked for famous political and society figures at Yorkshire country houses in the 18th and 19th century.

Policy expert Roger Liddle, a former adviser to Tony Blair, will give an after-dinner speech exploring the growing tensions between the north and south and discuss ideas of Englishness and Britishness and the future of the UK’s place in Europe and the world.

Rachel Goddard, chair of York Professionals, said: “This collaboration helps promote the York Festival of Ideas as a valuable opportunity for the professional services sector to engage with major policy-makers, politicians, business leaders and economists.”

The Economy, Entrepreneurship and Equality day at the Ron Cooke Hub on June 14, held in association with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will bring world-class speakers to the city.

The line-up will include economists Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, and Paul Johnson, of the Institute For Fiscal Studies, journalists Zoe Williams and Martin Vander Weyer, regional policy experts including Ed Cox, director of IPPR North and deputy chair of the Northern Economic Futures Commission, local business leaders and equality experts.

The event, which starts at 10am and is aimed at businesses, policy-makers and the charity and voluntary sector, will provoke discussion of the factors required to grow the economy, how to support regional innovation and entrepreneurship and how to create a fairer society. All sessions are free to enter.

Joan Concannon, director of external relations and festival director, said: “The theme of North and South has been chosen to showcase and celebrate ideas and innovation in the North, as well as to reflect on major issues such as global challenges for British business, place and identity, cultural and media representations of the North and much more.”

The festival will also include participation by writers, musicians, scientists and explorers.