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Inertial fusion is a grand challenge for humanity and promises many disruptive scientific applications, including nucleosynthesis of high-Z elements, future power generation and the brightest possible source for neutron scattering science. In March 2020, I chaired a Hooke discussion meeting in the Royal Society in London that brought together eighty of the world’s leading scientists and policy advocates to begin preparations for the next generation facilities that will enable movement to high energy gain in due course. In this talk, I will summarise the discussion in London as well as describe a number of key advances that promise reduced drive energy in order to realise the promise of inertial fusion, including direct-drive wetted foam implosion studies (our simulations indicate that it may be possible to approach energy breakeven using current day facilities), auxiliary heating and alternative ignition schemes (electron- and ion- fast ignition). In addition, I will provide a brief overview of recent extreme field physics research by my team in the Clarendon Laboratory. These include wakefield imaging and diagnosis using frequency domain holography and hyper-spectral imaging, photon-photon scattering in vacuum and energy absorption in the laser-QED regime . I will conclude with new scientific opportunities using 10 PW and 100 PW laser facilities that are on the horizon.