Despite the recent fall-out of finance, confidence in the market does not seem to be diminishing, but on the contrary, market mechanisms are becoming key instruments to deal with core contemporary collective concerns such as environmental pollution, security of supply of energy, quality of education, poverty and health care. On December 11 and 12 the Markets and Valuation Cluster hosts a workshop with a lineup of very remarkable scholars devoted to discuss the proliferation of markets that have been devised – not only to work economically – but also to solve key contemporary collective issues.