Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Maha Rafi Atal, Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow

The Cop30 climate summit is under way in Brazil under the shadow of US president Donald Trump’s second term. Delegates from around the world have poured into the Amazonian port of Belém for the conference, which promises to focus on economic development and the fight against global poverty, as well as green tech and finance.

For the first time in three decades of the talks, there are no high-level US officials expected at Cop30. Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the Paris climate agreement, dismantled key environmental regulations, and scrapped Biden-era tax credits which were designed to promote wind and solar power.

And now Trump’s aggressive tariff policy is rippling through the global economy, forcing countries to rethink how they balance trade and climate commitments.

For the UK, the consequences are particularly acute. Post-Brexit, Britain must maintain close regulatory alignment with the European Union on many goods. This effectively means that despite having quit the EU, the UK voluntarily follows its single market rules in some sectors in order to minimise trade friction.

For its part, the bloc has made compliance with European environmental standards a requirement for firms in key sectors looking to export into the EU market. Under this regulation, a foreign company selling products to European consumers must report on the carbon footprint of their factories overseas. Companies are fined per unit of carbon emitted before the product gets to the EU.

To be exempt, companies will have to show that the foreign countries where the good was produced impose an equivalent type of carbon regulation to that in EU law.

These “carbon border” mechanisms are vital for cutting emissions in a globalised economy. The UK has committed to introducing a similar measure to some of the most polluting sectors (such as steel, aluminium, cement and fertiliser) in 2027.

At the same time, the UK government hopes that closer trade with the United States will drive economic growth. But the Trump administration is pressuring its European partners to relax environmental standards, or exempt US companies from complying with them, in exchange for tariff relief. This could leave the UK caught between its two most important allies.

Race to the bottom

The ripple effects extend far beyond Europe. With the carbon border increasing the cost of exports to the EU and Trump’s tariffs doing the same for access to US markets, many countries are seeking new trading routes.

This creates openings for major carbon emitters such as China, Russia and the Gulf states to expand their influence through deals with developing nations that are unable to pay the premium for entry into US or European markets.

The result could be the creation of “sacrifice zones” – regions that become dumping grounds for high-emission products such as electronics or vehicles made with steel or aluminium produced using cheaper, less sustainable production methods. This both damages local environments and deepens global inequality in the transition to a more sustainable economy.

Meanwhile, tariffs are expected to slow down global economic growth. Businesses are diverting funds from investment and job creation to cover the extra cost of trade barriers – potentially wiping US$2 trillion (£1.5 trillion) off world GDP over the next two years.

That shortfall could have serious implications for Cop30, where rich countries will be asked to increase financial support for poorer nations so that they can build renewable energy systems and recover from climate-related disasters such as floods and wildfires.

Amid all the uncertainty that Trump is creating with his impulsive and inconsistent approach to trade, governments may feel that they cannot afford to make these commitments right now. But the planet cannot afford for them to wait.

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The Conversation and LSE’s International Inequalities Institute have teamed up for a special online event on Tuesday, November 18 from 5pm-6.30pm. Join experts from the worlds of business, taxation and government policy as they discuss the difficult choices facing Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her budget. Sign up for free here

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Maha Rafi Atal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Trump’s trade policies are weakening international climate commitments – https://theconversation.com/how-trumps-trade-policies-are-weakening-international-climate-commitments-269409

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gabrielle Samuel, Lecturer in Environmental Justice and Health, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London

Environmental deaths in the UK are primarily attributed to air pollution, which the Royal College of Physicians estimates contributed to around 30,000 deaths in 2025, costing the economy billions each year. Other environmental risks include climate-related events such as extreme heat, which could cause tens of thousands of deaths annually, and pollutants from diesel emissions or home wood-burning stoves.

But environmental harm does not fall evenly. It is shaped by race and social class. The unequal distribution of risk and damage, known as environmental racism, is systemic, not accidental. It is the product of decades of inequity and political neglect.

In many countries, marginalised communities are more likely to live with polluted air, unsafe water and toxic land. In England, for example, data shows people from ethnic minority backgrounds are around three times more likely than white people to live in neighbourhoods with high air pollution.

A joint Greenpeace UK and Runnymede Trust report found that communities of colour are disproportionately affected by waste incinerators, poor housing quality and limited access to green space.

Environmental racism shows up in decisions about where factories are built, whose neighbourhoods get green spaces, whose water systems are upgraded, and who lives next to landfills, toxic waste facilities or heavy-polluting industries. Put bluntly, some communities are forced to carry the weight of environmental damage so others do not have to.

The term gained prominence in the US in the late 20th century when low-income communities of colour mobilised around anti-waste and anti-dumping campaigns. The 1987 toxic wastes and race report by the United Church of Christ showed that hazardous waste facilities were overwhelmingly located in minority and low-income areas.

It helped launch the modern environmental justice movement, which crystallised in 1991 at the first National People of Colour Environmental Leadership Summit, where delegates drafted the seventeen principles of environmental justice.

Since then, evidence of environmental racism has been documented worldwide — from the siting of polluting industries and the dumping of waste in the global south to unequal access to renewable energy and the health impacts of climate change itself.

Where we live is one of the strongest predictors of our health. When environments are unsafe, polluted or neglected, the consequences are devastating. The World Health Organization estimates that environmental factors contribute to nearly one-quarter of all deaths worldwide and almost 20% of cancers. Living with constant exposure to hazards also takes a toll on mental health, fuelling stress, anxiety and despair.

In the UK, air pollution remains the single biggest environmental threat to health. It is linked to asthma, heart disease and respiratory illness.

Yet exposure is not equally distributed. Local emissions from transport, heating and industry are higher on average in more deprived areas. A 2024 study also showed that, even after accounting for deprivation, minoritised ethnic groups in England remain exposed to higher levels of harmful emissions.

These environmental burdens do not just damage lungs; they affect livelihoods. Poor health means missed work or school, deepening financial and educational struggles. Families who want to move to safer areas often cannot afford to, trapping communities in a cycle of disadvantage.

There are, however, signs of progress. Recent data show that ethnic minorities’ exposure to air pollution in England fell from 13% above the national average in 2003 to 6% in 2023.

This narrowing reflects two decades of cleaner-air policies: low-emission zones, stricter vehicle standards and tighter industrial regulation. Yet it also reflects residential shifts, as some families move away from heavily polluted urban centres, rather than the full dismantling of structural inequalities.

So while the trend is encouraging, it does not mean environmental racism has been solved. As the Race Equality Foundation warns, the UK still lacks a coordinated strategy that explicitly addresses race and class disparities in environmental exposure, community consultation and land-use decision-making.

Polluted air, toxic stress and systemic neglect become embodied as disease — quite literally getting “under the skin”, as public health scholar Nancy Krieger puts it. The damage accumulates across lifetimes and generations.

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Read more:
Who controls the air we breathe at home? Awaab’s law and the limits of individual actions

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Environmental racism is not just an environmental issue. It is a health issue, a justice issue and a life-or-death issue. That reality places a moral obligation on governments, institutions and industries to act.

But history shows that change rarely comes easily. Too often, action only follows public outrage, and solutions are framed as technical fixes — treating the symptoms rather than the causes. Those causes are about power: who holds it, who benefits from it, and who is left to suffer its consequences.

Dismantling environmental racism requires more than installing air filters or building treatment plants. It demands a reckoning with history and a redistribution of power – giving the communities most affected a real seat at the table when decisions are made. Only then can we begin to talk about health for all.

Gabrielle Samuel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Pollution, poverty and power: the real cost of environmental inequality in the UK – https://theconversation.com/pollution-poverty-and-power-the-real-cost-of-environmental-inequality-in-the-uk-263936

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heba Ghazal, Senior Lecturer, Pharmacy, Kingston University

A study presented at the American Heart Association’s scientific meetings has raised concerns about melatonin, one of Britain’s most commonly prescribed sleep aids. The findings suggest that long-term users face a higher risk of heart failure. But the preliminary data demands careful scrutiny before the alarm is sounded.

Melatonin has been prescribed in the UK for nearly two decades, with 2.5 million prescriptions issued in England last year alone. The drug is a synthetic version of the hormone naturally produced in the brain – the so-called “hormone of darkness” that regulates our sleep–wake cycle.

For years, it’s been considered safe for treating short-term sleep problems in adults and, under specialist supervision, for children with learning disabilities or ADHD.

The study, published only as a brief summary, analysed electronic health records of roughly 130,000 adults with sleep difficulties over five years – half of whom took melatonin and half of whom didn’t.

People who took melatonin for at least a year were roughly three times more likely to be hospitalised with heart failure than non-users (19% of people who took melatonin versus 6.6% of people who did not). Long-term users also faced higher rates of heart failure diagnosis and death from any cause.

The researchers attempted to balance their comparison by matching melatonin users with non-users across 40 factors, including age, health conditions and medications. Yet the study found only an association, not causation. This distinction matters. Correlation doesn’t prove that melatonin caused heart failure.

The devil, as ever, lives in the missing details. Only a 300-word summary of the study exists so far, meaning crucial information – melatonin dosage, insomnia severity, lifestyle factors – remains unreported.

The study’s methodology raises questions. It relied on electronic medical records rather than direct patient follow-up or interviews, which can leave gaps in the data. The research drew from TriNetX Global Research Network, a large international database. But healthcare practices and record-keeping vary wildly between hospitals and nations, potentially skewing results.

In the UK, melatonin requires a prescription for specific conditions. But in the US, it’s sold over the counter – purchases that are often not documented in medical records. This means some people categorised as non-users may actually have been taking melatonin, muddying the comparison.

The missing piece of the puzzle

Even assuming both groups were correctly identified and matched, a key question lingers: why did one group receive melatonin while the other didn’t? Perhaps those prescribed the drug suffered more severe or disruptive sleep problems – symptoms that might reflect underlying health issues, including heart problems. If so, melatonin might simply be a marker of existing risk rather than the cause of it.

Intriguingly, previous studies in heart failure patients suggested melatonin may actually protect heart health by improving psychological wellbeing and heart function. Other research indicated it could ease symptoms in people with heart failure and serve as a safe complementary therapy.

Since the study exists only as an abstract, it hasn’t undergone peer review. And information on the study’s methods and results remains limited. While the findings are noteworthy and raise legitimate questions about the long-term risks of using this supplement, they’re far from conclusive. Further studies are needed to determine whether prolonged melatonin use affects heart health, and if so, how.

Doctors face a familiar balancing act: weighing treatment benefits against potential risks. Poor sleep doesn’t just affect the heart; it’s linked to problems with metabolism, mental health and the immune system, among others.

Doctors typically start with lifestyle changes, better sleep habits and talk therapy. But when these fail to improve sleep quality, short-term medication may be necessary to restore healthy patterns and prevent further health complications.

The melatonin story isn’t over. It’s just beginning. Until fuller evidence emerges, panic seems premature.

Heba Ghazal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Should you worry about melatonin and heart failure? The evidence isn’t clear – https://theconversation.com/should-you-worry-about-melatonin-and-heart-failure-the-evidence-isnt-clear-269131

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in Climate Justice, University of Bristol

The world’s most important climate summit – known this year as Cop30 – has begun in the Amazonian port city of Belém, Brazil. It promises to be contentious: key countries haven’t submitted new climate plans, and negotiations are held up by disputes over who should pay for climate action.

We attended a preliminary round of negotiations in June, which ended with very few concrete agreements. Many outcome documents were instead heavily caveated as “not agreed”, “open to revision”, or “without formal status”.

Those fractious pre-summit talks followed a disappointing Cop29 in Azerbaijan last year. This year, here are five key issues to watch – and why they matter.

Are countries keeping their Paris pledges?

Ten years after the Paris agreement, countries are due to submit their third round of national climate plans, or nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in the jargon. These are refreshed every five years and are supposed to present “best efforts” to scale up climate action.

Yet as of November 2025, only 79 countries – covering 64% of global emissions – have submitted their NDCs. Countries not submitting include some of the highest emitters, such as India, while the US has (once again) left the Paris agreement and will not have high-level representatives at Cop30.

This is a big deal because these plans give us a snapshot of how countries’ planning matches up to global goals, including keeping temperature changes to below 1.5°C, which is looking increasingly unlikely (even if every country fulfilled its pledges, we’re still on course for nearly 3°C).

Who pays for this?

At Cop29 last year, countries agreed to pledge US$300 billion (£227 billion) a year by 2035 to help developing countries. While this was three times higher than the previous goal, it is barely a dent in the US$1.3 trillion developing countries requested – an amount now sidelined as “aspirational”.

Several countries, including India and Nigeria accused the Cop29 host Azerbaijan of forcing through a deal without consensus. Disappointment still lingers, and the fallout delayed agreement on an agenda for Cop30.

The question of who pays for climate change remains unresolved. Without agreement talks risk further breakdown, potentially stalling both adaptation and mitigation efforts worldwide.

What does a ‘just transition’ actually mean?

If the switch from a high to low-emissions world is to be successful it must be fair and inclusive, with no one left behind. This is known as the “just transition”.

Just transition talks have been fraught since Cop28, where richer countries insisted that it focus narrowly on finding new jobs for workers in fossil fuel industries. Various developing and middle-income countries, including China and some of the most climate-vulnerable nations, were more radical and ambitious. In their view, a just transition involves systemic change, arguing that “business as usual” perpetuates inequality.

This would have meant an overhaul of how we approach climate change. However, the wealthier countries eventually got their way in the final agreement, as the text was watered down to focus on the energy and labour sector. The broader ambition was effectively erased. This short-term win for the wealthier countries led to long-term fallout: negotiations collapsed at last year’s Cop29.

At this year’s preliminary meeting in Bonn, Germany, committee chairs enforced strict timekeeping and repeatedly urged delegates to focus on moving forward the text, at one point openly saying, “we already know everyone’s positions, let’s get down to brass tacks, let’s stop with general statements”. This approach seemed to work, as the working group did end up submitting an informal note (rather than a fully-fledged agreement), heavily caveated as not being final.

Unfortunately, as a result, the UN process still lacks agreement on what “just transition” really means or how to achieve it. Without clarity, the term risks becoming empty rhetoric rather than a roadmap for fair and inclusive climate action.

Saving tropical rainforests

The summit’s Amazonian setting has turned attention to tropical forests. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has proposed a bold initiative – the Tropical Forest Forever Facility – that aims to raise US$125 billion to reward countries for preservation efforts. Yet the UK, for instance, has already opted out of contributing to the forest facility, despite reports detailing its alarming global deforestation footprint.

The Amazon stores up to 20 years of global CO₂ emissions, holds 10% of terrestrial biodiversity, and supports billions of dollars
in ecosystem services. Its destruction endangers Indigenous sovereignty and the planet’s climate stability. If Cop30 can meet its aim to protect rainforests, it stands a real chance of making a difference.

Inequity at the negotiations

Cop30 may be turn out to be one of the least equitable climate talks in recent memory. Belém’s astronomical accommodation costs mean many low-income countries and marginalised communities will struggle to attend, exacerbating longstanding UN issues.

Around 3,000 Indigenous representatives are expected, but so are thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists – a record number attended last year. However, as reports continually show, people linked to fossil fuels continue to participate – even in the main formal negotiations – without needing to disclose their affiliation.

If Cop30 could centre Indigenous rights, ensure equitable discussion, and limit lobbyist influence, it could restore some legitimacy to the process. Otherwise, it risks deepening the divide between rhetoric and reality in global climate governance.

The summit is set to be anything but technocratic and boring. We expect to see a tumultuous and controversial set of negotiations that will likely have repercussions well into the future.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Five key issues at the UN climate summit in Brazil – and why they matter to you and the planet – https://theconversation.com/five-key-issues-at-the-un-climate-summit-in-brazil-and-why-they-matter-to-you-and-the-planet-269216

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Yolanda Lok Yiu Lau, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases, Queen Mary University of London

A ten-week online brain training programme helped older adults’ brains act as though they were a decade younger, a recent study has found.

Much like exercise for the body, regular mental workouts can help keep the brain in shape. As we age, brain processes that support memory, attention and decision-making can become less efficient. Keeping the mind active is thought to build a reserve that helps people cope better with these age-related changes.

Studies suggest that people who stay mentally, physically and socially active have a lower risk of developing dementia. For example, in a study involving 120 older adults, those who engaged in regular aerobic exercise had larger brain volumes and better cognitive performance than those who were less active, reversing age-related loss in brain volume over a couple of years.

Studies have also found that brain training can improve older adults’ cognitive performance.

The latest study adds to what we know by testing whether brain training programmes – BrainHQ, in this instance – can change the brain’s chemistry, offering biological clues about how brain training might work.

BrainHQ is a brain training app that offers short, game-like exercises that train cognitive skills such as attention, memory and brain speed. As users improve, the challenges get harder, pushing the brain to adapt – much like increasing the weights during a workout.

Ninety-two healthy adults from Canada, 65 and older, took part. Half of them completed brain training exercises using BrainHQ for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, over ten weeks. The other half, a comparison group, spent the same amount of time playing games designed just for entertainment, such as solitaire.

To see whether the programme made a difference to the brain, all participants had specialised scans before and after the ten weeks of training. These scans can detect tiny chemical changes in brain activity.

The researchers focused on a region called the anterior cingulate cortex, which plays an important role in attention, learning and memory. Those who completed the speed-based exercises showed stronger activity in this area compared to those in the comparison group. The change in brain chemicals seen is described by the researchers as equivalent to shaving ten years off their biological age.

Ageing and cognitive decline (including Alzheimer’s disease) are often linked to reduced activity in this part of the brain. Strengthening it may therefore help delay or reduce cognitive decline and lower the risk of developing dementia later in life.

Although the results look promising, we should be careful about how we interpret them. The study measured many different outcomes. Although the brain training group showed increased activity compared with their own baseline, the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant.

Because the study looked at so many outcomes and involved only a small number of people, some of these changes may simply be due to chance rather than real effects of the training.

The bigger picture

This was a small study involving healthy, mostly white older adults, and it looked at one specific brain training app. The findings may not apply to people with memory problems or to other types of brain-training programmes, or to longer-term outcomes.

This intervention is relatively short. Research found that most interventions aiming to improve cognitive performance that are successful typically last at least four to six months. Longer-term participation is almost certainly key to achieving lasting improvement in brain health.

Studies like this rely on brain scans as early indicators of benefit, but it remains to be seen whether these biological changes translate into lasting improvements in functioning. Researchers are testing whether similar brain-training programmes can help people who show early signs of dementia. These studies will reveal whether boosting brain activity this way can slow cognitive decline in those already showing symptoms.

High-intensity interventions – such as the one tested that required two and a half hours of training per week – may not suit everyone.

For example, people with existing cognitive concerns who want to improve their cognitive wellbeing may struggle to access digital programmes. They may need more community-based, supportive and lower-intensity interventions. To be an effective dementia programme, recruitment needs to be inclusive, especially reaching people from underserved groups who are at the highest risk.

Cognitive ageing is shaped by many factors – including physical activity, social connection, healthy diet and mental wellbeing – so brain training is likely to be just one part of a broader approach to supporting brain health and dementia prevention. Keeping the mind active may not stop ageing, but it could help the brain stay younger for longer.

Yolanda Lok Yiu Lau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Can brain training really shave ten years off brain ageing, as a recent study suggests? – https://theconversation.com/can-brain-training-really-shave-ten-years-off-brain-ageing-as-a-recent-study-suggests-268904

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Rachel Delman, Heritage Partnerships Coordinator, University of Oxford

A new statue of Dervorguilla of Galloway was installed in the Master’s Court of the University of Oxford’s Balliol College in September. She was the 13th-century cofounder of Balliol and its first benefactor.

Carved from a single block of limestone by artist Alex Wenham, it was described by the college as “a valuable contribution to Oxford’s public art, where statues of women – particularly those outside royal or religious contexts – remain sadly rare”.

Wenham’s Dervorguilla has the feeling of a time traveller, at once both medieval and modern. The smooth contours of her recognisably 13th-century form emerge, polished, crisp and authoritative, from the unworked stone around her.

The statue’s commission speaks to a strong drive to populate urban spaces with more monuments to women. Since the Lloyd’s Register Foundation reported in 2018 that fewer than 3% of statues in the UK were of real, non-royal women, several campaigns aimed at documenting and achieving greater gender representation in public art have gained a foothold.

But medieval women themselves shaped the built heritage of our towns and cities. Too often, their efforts have been hidden or ignored, and their legacies neglected.

The women who shaped our cities

My research considers how women used architectural patronage to fashion their identities and curate their legacies in the public realm. In Dervorguilla’s case, her statue complements a living, breathing foundation she brought into being. Even if the buildings of the college today are not ones her 13th-century eye would recognise.

Dervorguilla’s significance as Balliol’s co-founder, however, has been minimised throughout much of the establishment’s history. The college was named after her husband, John Balliol, but Dame Helen Ghosh, master of the college, recently commented it might just as appropriately have been called “Dervorguilla College”.

Ghosh explained that it was Dervorguilla who “did the practical work to set us up, writing our foundational Statutes and financing our first buildings on Broad Street”.

Balliol was not Dervorguilla’s only foundation – she also founded the Cistercian abbey of Dulce Cor in Scotland. It’s known as Sweetheart Abbey, because Dervorguilla was laid to rest there, clutching her husband’s heart – which she had kept in an ivory casket – to her bosom.

Nor was Dervorguilla the only medieval woman to leave a lasting mark on the built environment through her patronage. Many others commissioned foundations during their lifetimes and many of them continue to exist in tangible form, right under our noses. Like Dervorguilla, their actions have often been hidden behind those of male relatives, or overlooked entirely.

As creators and benefactors of educational, religious and charitable institutions – from university colleges and schools to churches, hospitals and almshouses – women of means found ways to circumvent the patriarchal power structures of medieval society.

They made themselves visible through acts of charity, piety and self-memorialisation. These women created more than just monuments. They left behind significant cultural and artistic legacies as dynamic testaments to their identities and ambitions.

Today, however, many of those foundations are little-known or awkward outliers in fast-paced and ever-evolving urban environments.

Trinity Apse in Edinburgh is a case in point. Once part of a grand collegiate foundation commissioned by Mary of Guelders, Queen of Scots in 1460, the church was dismantled in the 19th century to make room for platform two of Waverley train station.

After several years, numerous stones were salvaged and a partial rendering of the original church was reconstructed. It’s just behind the Royal Mile in a high-end IKEA flatpack-style reconfiguration now known as Trinity Apse. Though Grade A listed (the highest category of listing in Scotland), the Apse’s future as a publicly accessible heritage site hangs in the balance.

Just round the corner from the Apse on Cowgate – an area of Edinburgh famed for its lively nightlife – stands a pre-Reformation chapel. It contains the tomb of Jonet Rhynd. Rhynd was a local businesswoman responsible for overseeing the construction of the chapel and its associated almshouse, following the death of her husband in 1537.

Take a trip south to the Midlands and in Coventry you’ll find St John the Baptist Church. It was originally founded in 1344 by Queen Isabella of France as a chapel in memory of her family, but is now on the Heritage at Risk register.

Closer to Balliol, in Oxford, are the picturesque ruins of Godstow Abbey, founded by Edith of Winchester in 1115. Overlooked for many years, only in the last decade has the addition of an interpretation board put the abbey, and the story of its female founder, back on the map.

Many of these buildings and structures face a complex web of challenges. Not only are they expensive and complicated to maintain, their origins as religious foundations also adds to their precarity in a climate where the relevance of church buildings is hotly debated.

For the women who founded them, however, patronage was the language through which they made their voices heard. If we are seeking to reassert women’s presence in our public spaces, where better to look than to the very legacies they themselves constructed.

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Rachel Delman received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2013-2016) and the Leverhulme Trust (2019-2022)

– ref. Medieval women’s legacies live on in Britain’s towns and cities – https://theconversation.com/medieval-womens-legacies-live-on-in-britains-towns-and-cities-267906

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steven David Pickering, Honorary Professor, International Relations, Brunel University of London

Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, and Deborah Turness, its news CEO, have resigned over accusations of political bias in the corporation. Most notably, these relate to the editing of an episode of Panorama about the January 6 insurrection, which US president Donald Trump says misrepresented him.

Their departure is the latest – and most dramatic – chapter in story that dates back years. At first glance, the move may look like accountability at the top.

“There have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” said Davie in his resignation message. But Davie’s departure also speaks to the problems that have beset the BBC for years as it has tried to deal with a decline in trust.

The data tells a clear and worrying story: the problem is not only what the BBC does, but how it is seen across divided audiences.

Trust in the BBC is heavily conditioned by political identity. A survey I conducted with colleagues of 11,170 people in the UK, carried out between December 2022 and June 2024, showed striking differences between how people with left and right-wing party affiliations felt about the broadcaster.

Liberal Democrat voters averaged 4.54 on a one-to-seven trust scale. Those who vote Labour averaged 3.88. Trust among Conservative voters was lower at an average of 3.17. And notably, the average was just 2.16 for Brexit party voters. The findings date back to a time before the Brexit party became Reform UK – and before that party came to dominate in the polls.

In other words, those segments of the electorate that already felt most alienated from the BBC are now among the most politically ascendant.

That creates a profound legitimacy challenge. The broadcaster is losing the trust of the very audiences who, through the ballot box, are increasingly shaping the political environment in which it operates.

This helps explain why the crisis has erupted now. The political currents that distrusted the BBC for years are no longer fringe, but central to national politics.

When we asked respondents to place themselves on a political spectrum of left to right, we saw a similar patterns. Trust peaked around the centre-left, dropped at the centre, and stayed low on the right. The pattern clearly indicates that trust in the BBC is not uniform, nor does it develop in a vacuum.

We found in our research that these partisan fault lines were not in evidence for Japan’s public broadcaster – suggesting something specific is happening in the UK. In Japan, attitudes toward NHK (the equivalent of the BBC) cut across political lines, with conservatives and progressives reporting broadly similar levels of trust.

That contrast points to distinct political cultures. In Japan, public broadcasting still carries an aura of neutrality tied to institutional continuity, whereas in Britain, the BBC has become a symbolic battlefield in wider culture wars. The British media landscape is more openly adversarial, and perceptions of bias are now interpreted through partisan identity rather than journalistic performance.

Conservative-voting or Brexit-aligned respondents appear to see the BBC as metropolitan and institutionally liberal. On the left and centre-left, the BBC still retains a credibility cushion, but those holdouts will shrink. This is not simply about “bias” or “impartiality” in a narrow sense – it is about legitimacy in different political worldviews.

The fact that two senior figures have resigned should not lull us into thinking the problem has been fixed. On the contrary, what this moment reveals is that the BBC’s challenge is not only managerial – it is political and cultural.

The data from the TrustTracker project shows that trust in the BBC is already deeply polarised. Leadership change alone is unlikely to rebuild it. Instead, the BBC must engage with how it is perceived, by whom, and why. Otherwise, it risks losing the one thing that has set it apart: its role as a genuinely shared public broadcaster in a deeply divided society.

Steven David Pickering received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, reference ES/W011913/1) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, reference JPJSJRP 20211704).

– ref. Trust in the BBC is heavily tied to political identity – https://theconversation.com/trust-in-the-bbc-is-heavily-tied-to-political-identity-269434

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Greg Slabaugh, Professor of Computer Vision and AI, Director of the Digital Environment Research Unit, Queen Mary University of London

“China is going to win the AI race,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has told an AI summit in London. The Taiwanese-born boss of the chipmaker, the world’s most valuable public company, believes the Chinese are already just “nanoseconds” behind the Americans and well placed to overtake them.

He pointed to China’s energy superiority and AI research talent, as well as the risk that the Trump administration’s ban on selling China the most advanced chips will just galvanise Beijing to close that technological gap.

Huang did soften his stance later to say American could still win the race, but he has raised potentially existential questions about the road ahead. We asked two experts whether China is likely to prevail.

Yes

Greg Slabaugh, Professor of Computer Vision and AI, Queen Mary University of London

Artificial intelligence has always been an international enterprise: papers, open-source models and datasets often move freely, and breakthroughs emerge from collaborations across borders. Yet in several domains, China’s research dominance is already clear.

Take computer vision, the field that enables machines to interpret and reason about visual data. It underpins everything from autonomous vehicles and robotics to medical imaging and surveillance.

Held in October in Hawaii, the 2025 International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) is one of the world’s most prestigious and competitive computer vision venues. Of the research papers presented, half of all authors were affiliated with Chinese institutions, far ahead of the second-placed US, which had 17% of papers. If Chinese nationals working abroad were included, the gap would be even wider.

Based on this admittedly simplistic metric, China has already won. It led the world in the volume and visibility of cutting-edge computer vision research at the conference, shaping the agenda in one of AI’s most dynamic areas.

This strength stems from long-term strategic planning. In 2017, Beijing launched its new generation artificial intelligence development plan, a national strategy to make China the world leader in AI by 2030. That ambition has been backed by enormous state-guided investment.

China’s recently launched National Venture Capital Guidance Fund, worth around US$138 billion (£105 billion), now channels capital into strategic “hard tech” sectors such as AI, semiconductors and quantum computing.

Provincial governments and state-owned enterprises operate numerous additional funds that co-invest with private firms. Together, they create a coordinated financial ecosystem that can scale technologies from lab to market at speed.

The United States still leads in key areas: private-sector investment (by about 12 times), foundational models and advanced semiconductor design, led by companies like Nvidia. But China is moving quickly to close the gap. Its approach, guided more by state-led industrial policy than purely by market competition, aligns research, infrastructure and industry in a way that the more fragmented western system can struggle to match.

Cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen now host vast AI computing hubs, also known as “AI factories”, which supply the computational power for both research and industry. Technology giants like Huawei, Alibaba, Baidu and more recently DeepSeek are building competitive large-scale models and high-performance hardware alternatives.

Even with export controls limiting access to the most advanced chips, Chinese researchers are optimising algorithms to perform efficiently on domestic hardware – a hallmark of innovation under constraint.

China’s advantage also lies in scale. With 1.4 billion people and massive digital platforms, it generates data at a volume unmatched in other locations. This fuels rapid progress in model training and deployment.

Meanwhile, China now produces more PhDs in the sciences than anywhere else, ensuring a deep pool of AI expertise to sustain momentum. More data, more talent and more coordinated investment create a self-accelerating loop that drives both research and industrial adoption.

If current trends continue, Huang’s words could prove prophetic. China’s combination of scale, strategy and coordination gives it a real prospect of emerging as the world’s leading force in AI development and deployment.

For the west, that could mean adapting to a landscape where standards, platforms and priorities are increasingly shaped by Chinese institutions and industrial ecosystems.

But the future of AI should not be viewed as a zero-sum contest. The most meaningful progress will come from open, responsible collaboration, balanced with sensible export controls and safeguards for dual-use technologies.

Seeing AI as a shared race for human progress might just help us advance further together.

No

Sean Kenji Starrs, Lecturer in International Development, King’s College London

We should first make clear how far ahead the US is. As of early November 2025, it boasts all of the world’s top ten AI firms by market value as well as 37 of the top 50. Nvidia is at number one, having become the first company to be valued at US$5 trillion a few days before Huang’s speech.

China has just four AI firms in the top 50 – the same as Israel. This list excludes major unlisted Chinese AI firms like DeepSeek (valuation US$15 billion), but also much bigger private US players: OpenAI (US$500 billion), Anthropic (US$183 billion) and Databricks (US$100 billion).

Where the US really blows China out of the water is in AI compute power, driven by its access to the world’s most advanced chips. The US has total AI compute of 39.7 million petaflops – half of the world’s total (by summer 2025 numbers).

China’s compute is the world’s seventh largest with 400,000 petaflops, far below even India’s 1.2 million petaflops. This is the result of the US export ban on Nvidia and AMD’s most advanced chips, and is despite the fact that China has 46% (230) of the world’s AI data clusters.

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Read more:
DeepSeek: how China’s embrace of open-source AI caused a geopolitical earthquake

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With the launch of its low-cost high-performance large language model in January 2025, DeepSeek showed that Chinese firms can innovate around US export constraints and develop comparable AI models using far less resources. But DeepSeek could draw upon Nvidia chips stockpiled before the ban in 2023-24.

An insider has also claimed that DeepSeek secretly had access to 50,000 Nvidia H100s, very advanced chips which were never cleared for export to China (though a review by Nvidia claimed this wasn’t accurate). Meanwhile in September 2025, DeepSeek admitted that its model “unintentionally” distilled OpenAI’s ChatGPT (along with Anthropic’s Claude), underlining its reliance on US technology.

The massive headstart that US rivals have will likely only grow as they continually having unrestricted access to the world’s most advanced chips, as well as capital spending of hundreds of billions of dollars. This is a marathon for the long-term, not a dash, and China is running with much weaker legs.

Huang made his prediction about the AI race despite surely knowing better. It’s true that China has cheaper electricity, but they need a lot more of it because their AI chips are not only much slower but require more energy than Nvidia’s most advanced chips.

Daily energy costs for US AI firms are a rounding error compared to their hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure. US firms also have access to data centres in allied countries, including in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. These two nations have a combined 30.3 million petaflops of AI compute, which was built by US firms on condition they both severed ties with Chinese competitors.

What Huang really wants is for the Trump administration to ditch US export controls of his topline AI chips to China. But this isn’t going to happen. We live in a new era of “techno-nationalist globalisation” where major powers see national ownership of advanced technology as core to their security and geopolitical rivalry. The era of “free trade” is over.

Huang should take solace in the fact that he helms the most valuable company in history, and not peddle in self-interested alarmism.

Greg Slabaugh’s work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant number EP/Y009800/1), through Keystone project funding from Responsible Ai UK (KP0016). He is also a former employee of Huawei Technologies.

Sean Kenji Starrs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Will China win the AI race? – https://theconversation.com/will-china-win-the-ai-race-269415

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kirsten Roberts Lyer, Chair, Human Rights Program, Associate Professor, Central European University

Recent accusations that China pressured a UK university into pausing research on alleged human rights violations have raised questions about the state of academic freedom.

In early November 2025, it was reported that Sheffield Hallam University had paused Professor Laura Murphy’s research on Uyghur forced labour in China, later apologised, and restarted the work. Media outlets linked the pause to pressure from Chinese authorities. South Yorkshire Police have referred the allegations on to counter-terrorism police as they are thought to fall under the National Security Act.

A spokesperson for Sheffield Hallam said the pause arose from insurance and other procedural issues and denied any China-related commercial motive.

“We have apologised to Professor Murphy and wish to make clear our commitment to supporting her research and to securing and promoting freedom of speech and academic freedom within the law,” the spokesperson said.

Academic freedom is “the human right to acquire, develop, transmit, apply, and engage with a diversity of knowledge and ideas through research, teaching, learning, and discourse.” When scholarship is restricted or politically steered, the public loses access to evidence and the means to hold power to account.

Academic freedom is a measure of democratic health, and tracks closely with the quality of democratic institutions. Declines often appear before other signs of democratic erosion. Global datasets such as the Academic Freedom Index and V-Dem show a decade of decline across much of the world.

Scholars at Risk, a non-governmental organisation supporting threatened academics, reports similar patterns. Their findings of 395 attacks on scholars, students, and institutions in 49 countries and territories between July 2024 and June 2025 are “indicative of deteriorating global conditions for academic freedom”.

How pressure on academic freedom happens

Pressure on academic freedom is rarely dramatic. In domestic cases, where a government puts pressure on academics in its own country, it often accumulates through policies and decisions that narrow intellectual space and encourage self-censorship.

A familiar playbook targets institutions, academics and students. It includes politicised appointments, selective funding or budget cuts, legal intimidation through strategic lawsuits and travel and conference bans.

Alongside domestic pressures, transnational repression is a rising threat. This is intimidation, surveillance or coercion directed from outside a country’s borders. This is what is alleged in the Sheffield Hallam case.

Transnational repression increasingly targets civil society organisations, journalists, and academia. It undermines democratic life, and reminds us that universities are part of the infrastructure of scrutiny and accountability.

Human rights organisations Freedom House and Amnesty International have documented the experiences of scholars and students from China, Hong Kong, Iran, Russia and elsewhere working abroad. These scholars have reported monitoring, online harassment and even contact by domestic authorities with family members back home after campus events.

Pressure on academic freedom is a democratic problem first. Wherever it originates, the effect is the same: less evidence in the public sphere.

A societal right

Academic freedom is increasingly recognised as a human right, grounded in article 15 (the right to science) of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. This is an important connection. It underscores the societal importance of freedoms in research, teaching and academic debate.

Its connection to international human rights standards also means that states and institutions have duties to respect, protect and fulfil the right. They must refrain from unlawful interference and prevent third-party pressure. They should take positive measures so teaching and research can proceed without fear.

In England, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 places duties on universities to protect lawful speech. The Office for Students confirms the main duties took effect on 1 August 2025.

Where intimidation on UK soil is state linked, the National Security Act 2023 includes offences of assisting a foreign intelligence service and foreign interference. The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme adds further levers.

For example, it requires the disclosure of political influence directed by foreign powers. It is important that these frameworks are used to enable, not chill, teaching, research, campus debate and external engagement.

What universities can do

The following three steps reflect emerging international standards. Universities need clear policy, structured protection, and transparent escalation, creating workable defences they can implement.

1. Adopt a clear policy on academic freedom and transnational repression

Universities should commit to non-interference in research and teaching. They should have a single confidential reporting channel for intimidation, and protection for diaspora and exiled communities. Make these rules visible in staff and student guidance.

2. Build a protection pipeline

Universities should assess risks for sensitive research or fieldwork, including digital and family exposure. They should assign a case lead, provide legal and security advice, and, where needed, relocate or host threatened scholars. They should embed funding rules that are neutral towards different viewpoints and insert academic freedom clauses in all partnerships.

3. Document and escalate threats

Universities should keep an anonymised log of interference attempts. They should publish funding and partnership registers, and report credible threats to the appropriate authorities.

They should train staff to spot red flags such as pressure through consulates, funders or foreign institutions. University staff responding to threats should act in line with their country’s human rights obligations to protect human rights defenders, including exiled academics.

Academic freedom keeps evidence and ideas in public view. When institutions or authorities yield to pressure, whether foreign or domestic, the loss extends beyond academia. Protecting scholars’ freedom to inquire protects the public’s freedom to know.

Kirsten Roberts Lyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why threats to academic freedom are growing – and how universities can respond to intimidation – https://theconversation.com/why-threats-to-academic-freedom-are-growing-and-how-universities-can-respond-to-intimidation-269121

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Colleen Murrell, Full Professor in Journalism, Dublin City University

Just when the BBC should have been basking in its success at the record 12 million viewers who watched the Celebrity Traitors finale, the corporation has been brought to its knees. Tim Davie, BBC director general, and Deborah Turness, the CEO of news, resigned following a leaked memo concerning alleged bias in BBC programming.

The memo, written last May by Michael Prescott, then independent advisor to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, raised a number of concerns about alleged bias in the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues, and alleged anti-Israel bias in the BBC Arabic service.

But the key issue appears to have been in the editing of a 2024 Panorama documentary titled Trump: A Second Chance? In the documentary, two different sections from President Donald Trump’s speech on the day of the January 6 2021 riots had been spliced together into one clip, which could have led viewers to conclude that Trump was calling on protesters to carry out the riot. Trump is now threatening to sue the corporation.

In the past week, the Telegraph has repeatedly accused the BBC of institutional bias. The broadcasters’s lack of public response, other than to declare that it did not comment on leaked information, was totally inadequate in the face of such an onslaught.

But while BBC supporters looked on aghast, internally, BBC news staff were attempting to respond. According to Today presenter Nick Robinson, BBC news executives had “agreed the wording of a press release” explaining that the programme should have made clear an edit had been made, but that at no point was there any “intention to mislead the audience”.

The BBC board refused to sign off on this statement, and the BBC was left looking like it was keeping schtum for possibly nefarious purposes.

The BBC’s chairman, Samir Shah, has now finally delivered a statement apologising for an “error of judgement”. He said that the BBC had discussed the corporation’s US election coverage and: “We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

Meanwhile, BBC journalists in Washington had to front up at the White House where Trump has declared that BBC journalists “are very dishonest people”.

Trump has now threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion if they do not retract the documentary. As Shah has noted, Trump is “a litigious fellow”.

In July, Paramount settled a prospective lawsuit for US$16 million (£12.1 million) after Trump made a “false editing” accusation against 60 Minutes over an edit on a Kamala Harris interview headline during the last election campaign. Last year he also secured a US$15 million payment from ABC News as part-settlement in a defamation case against that network.

It is hard to imagine a scenario where the BBC would settle a dispute with the US government for cash. But with Trump, one never knows if his posturing might lead a media company to fold. For the BBC, this is a decisive own goal.

Internal politics

Arriving at the BBC this morning, Turness acknowledged the mistake in the Trump edit, but was clear that the BBC was not institutionally biased.

Some critics, however, have pointed the finger at the BBC’s own internal political challenges. Among them is David Yelland, a former editor of the Sun who now presents a BBC podcast. He called Turness and Davie’s resignations a “coup”, attributing it to alleged political bias on the BBC board.

Alongside this drama, BBC journalists such as Nick Robinson, David Sillito and Katie Razzall are carrying out a thorough job of examining the chaos. But a less-reported fact is that it is yet again an outsourced independent production programme that has led to the BBC’s current problems.

October Films Ltd made the film for BBC Panorama, just as it was HOYO Films that made the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. That film was narrated by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas deputy minister of agriculture, something that wasn’t explained to viewers, leading to an Ofcom sanction last October.

However, outsourcing production to an independent company doesn’t outsource the editorial checking, which should have been exhaustive in the case of this Panorama programme.

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Read more:
BBC Gaza documentary: how an editorial blame game overshadowed an important film and destroyed trust

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What’s next?

The BBC must now recruit two high-level executives, just as it should be readying for its 2027 royal charter renewal (major talks over the broadcaster’s future and funding). According to the Today programme, the top contenders are three women: Apple’s Jay Hunt, former Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon and former BBC chief content officer Charlotte Moore. But these are early days.

Some commentators will no doubt call for a “BBC cleanskin” so as to not be tainted by present controversies. But is this wise when the person will be called on to lead such a vastly complex and sprawling media organisation? Tim Davie had no background in journalism before becoming director general, and Deborah Turness had never worked for the BBC before.

The new broom may have to handle similar disputes to those over Gary Lineker’s social media posts or Bob Vylan’s anti-Israel Defense Forces chants at Glastonbury. Perhaps this should be the role of a deputy director, a post that used to exist at the BBC until recently.

It is worth remembering that the most important commodity in journalism is trust. To that end, the BBC continues to top the charts in the UK, according to the annual Reuters Digital News Report. The BBC houses some of the best journalists and news programming available today. The poor handling of this crisis puts all of their reputations at stake.

Colleen Murrell receives has received funding in the past from Irish regulator Coimisiún na Meán for the Reuters Digital News Report Ireland. She is chair of The Conversation’s UK editorial board.

– ref. Why has the BBC’s director general resigned and what could happen next? – https://theconversation.com/why-has-the-bbcs-director-general-resigned-and-what-could-happen-next-269408