Source: The Conversation – UK – By Cathy Herbrand, Professor of Medical and Family Sociology, De Montfort University
Ten years after the UK became the first country to legalise mitochondrial donation, the first results from the use of these high-profile reproductive technologies – designed to prevent passing on genetic disorders – have finally been published.
So far, eight children have been born, all reportedly healthy, thanks to the long-term efforts of scientists and doctors in Newcastle, England. Should this be a cause for excitement, disappointment or concern? Perhaps, I would suggest, it could be a bit of all three.
The New England Journal of Medicine has published twopapers on a groundbreaking fertility treatment that could prevent devastating inherited diseases. The technique, called mitochondrial donation, was used to help 22 women who carry faulty genes that would otherwise pass serious genetic disorders – such as Leigh syndrome – to their children. These disorders affect the body’s ability to produce energy at the cellular level and can cause severe disability or death in babies.
The technique, developed by the Newcastle team, involves creating an embryo using DNA from three people: nuclear DNA from the intended mother and father, and healthy mitochondrial DNA from a donor egg. During the parliamentary debates leading up to The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Mitochondrial Donation) Regulations in 2015, there were concerns about the effectiveness of the procedure and its potential side effects.
The announcement that this technology has led to the birth of eight apparently healthy children therefore marks a major scientific achievement for the UK, which has been widely praised by numerous scientists and patient support groups. However, these results should not detract from some important questions they also raise.
First, why has it taken so long for any updates on the application of this technology, including its outcomes and its limitations, to be made public? Especially given the significant public financial investment made into its development.
In a country positioning itself as a leader in the governance and practice of reproductive and genomic medicine, transparency should be a central principle. Transparency not only supports the progress of other research teams but also keeps the public and patients well informed.
Second, what is the significance of these results? While eight babies were born using this technology, this figure contrasts starkly with the predicted number of 150 babies per year likely to be born using the technique.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the UK regulator in this area, has approved 32 applications since 2017 when the Newcastle team obtained its licence, but the technique was used with only 22 of them, resulting in eight babies. Does this constitute sufficiently robust data to prove the effectiveness of the technology and was it worth the considerable efforts and investments over almost two decades of campaigning, debate and research?
As I wrote when this law was passed, officials should have been more realistic about how many people this treatment could actually help. By overestimating the number of patients who might benefit, they risked giving false hope to families who wouldn’t be eligible for the procedure.
The safety question
Third, is it safe enough? In two of the eight cases, the babies showed higher levels of maternal mitochondrial DNA, meaning the risk of developing a mitochondrial disorder cannot be ruled out. This potential for a “reversal” – where the faulty mitochondria reassert themselves – was also highlighted in a recent study conducted in Greece involving patients who used the technique to treat infertility problems.
As a result, the technology is no longer framed by the Newcastle team as a way to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial disorders, but rather to reduce the risk. But is the risk reduction enough to justify offering the technique to more patients? And what will the risk of reassertion mean for the children born through it and their parents, who may live with the continuing uncertainty that the condition could emerge later in life?
As some experts have suggested, it may be worth testing this technology on women who have fertility problems but don’t carry mitochondrial diseases. This would help doctors better understand the risks of the faulty mitochondria coming back, before using the technique only on women who could pass these serious genetic conditions to their children.
This leads to a fourth question. What has been the patient experience with this technology? It would be valuable to know how many people applied for mitochondrial donation, why some were not approved, and, among those 32 approved cases, why only 22 proceeded with treatment.
It also raises important questions about how patients who were either unable to access the technology, or for whom it was ultimately unsuccessful feel, particularly after investing significant time, effort and hope in the process. How do they come to terms with not having the healthy biological child they had been offered?
This is not to say we shouldn’t celebrate these births and what they represent for the UK in terms of scientific achievement. The birth of eight healthy children represents a genuine scientific breakthrough that families affected by mitochondrial diseases have waited decades to see. However, some important questions remain unanswered, and more evidence is needed and it should be communicated in a timely manner to make conclusions about the long-term use of the technology.
Breakthroughs come with responsibilities. If the UK wants to maintain its position as a leader in reproductive medicine, it must be more transparent about both the successes and limitations of this technology. The families still waiting to have the procedure – and those who may never receive it – deserve nothing less than complete honesty about what this treatment can and cannot deliver.
Cathy Herbrand receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Alan Hirsch, Senior Research Fellow New South Institute, Emeritus Professor at The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town
It’s not uncommon to find a Ugandan taxi driver in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, just as one regularly meets Zimbabwean Uber drivers in South Africa. But there is a big difference. A Ugandan working in Rwanda most likely has a secure legal right to be there, whereas Zimbabweans working in South Africa are often uncertain of their current or future legality.
East Africa has made greater strides towards the free flow of people crossing borders and seeking work than most of Africa. Only the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) is in the same league.
Ecowas and the East African Community (EAC) have driven ambitiously towards regional common markets including the freeing up of job-seeking, residential settlement and business development across the borders of member states.
The New South Institute, a think-tank focused on governance reforms in the global south, is nearing the end of a research programme on migration governance reform in Africa. Our new report is on East Africa.
We have found that unlike much of the global north, the African continent is moving towards more open borders for people. In some of the global south the promise of economic growth outweighs political fears. Yet progress is slow, and not coordinated. Mostly migration reform happens in regions and between neighbours.
The progress in the East African Community is particularly notable compared with other African regional communities. We identify a number of reasons for this, including strong leadership and co-operation between state and non-state actors.
The commitment to free movement
The East African Community adopted its Common Market Protocol in 2010. The bloc is made up of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, the DRC and Somalia.
The regional body’s common market pact includes the movement of goods, services, capital and people. It gives people the right – on paper at least – to find employment across borders, the right to reside and the right to establish a business. There is also a commitment to the harmonisation and mutual recognition of academic and professional qualifications and labour policies to ease mobility.
Even before the common market protocol, the regional bloc began to establish one-stop border posts on many of its internal borders to facilitate the flow of goods and people. Though they don’t all operate the same way or equally well, they have been successful at easing movement.
Uneven outcomes
The common market’s impact on the movement of people has been uneven within the region. Most integrated are Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, which allow the cross-border movement of citizens with standardised identity documents – they do not need passports.
It is also relatively easy to get jobs across these borders.
Tanzania and Burundi are close to the inner circle but still require passports, though no visas. The three states which joined more recently, South Sudan, the DRC and Somalia, are all fragile states with governance systems that do not always meet the standards needed for acceptance into all the privileges of the regional bloc.
In practice there is differential treatment. Generally, it is more difficult for citizens of the three latecomers to get regular access and jobs in their regional partners.
Another limitation when it comes to the mobility of people is that little progress has been made in the formal harmonisation of education, health and social welfare systems between member states. This inhibits job seeking across borders.
In addition, national labour laws, which tend to require permits for foreigners, still apply to varying degrees in the region. Some countries are more permissive. For example, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda have a reciprocal no-fee work permit agreement.
Another shortcoming has been that the outcomes of court processes in enforcing the freedom of movement have been disappointing. This is so even though the regional bloc has an active East African Court of Justice. Its legal mandate includes the enforcement of the bloc’s treaty and its protocols.
In some cases the court has found that national actions inhibiting the movement of persons were trumped by the regional protocol. It has instructed the errant governments to comply. But its ability to enforce the decisions is minimal.
Reasons for success
Leadership has been important. The fact that the strongest economy in the region, Kenya, has been part of the leading echelon is significant.
Rwanda and Uganda have led by example too. Rwanda was one of the first countries on the continent to offer visa-free entry to all other African countries. For its part, Uganda is widely admired for its refugee inclusion programmes.
Another factor outlined in our report has been the opportunity for collaboration fostered by relationships between formal institutions, such as governments, and non-state actors such as the International Organisation for Migration. Interactions between these various players have created opportunities for officials and policymakers from states of the region to meet, discuss issues of concern, and develop relationships of trust and understanding.
Another non-state donor-funded actor, TradeMark Africa, which was established in 2010 to support in the implementation of the common market in east Africa, provided considerable support. For example it supported the implementation of the regional One-Stop Border Post programme..
Way forward
Based on our report we identified changes that could make a positive difference.
Firstly, the development of reliable, harmonised systems in the region to collect and manage data on population mobility and employment. This would build confidence that policy was being made on the basis of reliable information.
Secondly, reducing friction in cross-border monetary transactions, including migrants’ remittances. This would make it easier for migrants to send some of their income to their countries of origin.
Thirdly, improvements to population registers, identity documents, passports and cross-border migration management systems. Improvements would build mutual trust in the integrity of systems and pave the way for further commitments to lowering migration barriers.
Fourth, cooperation on cross-border access to social services such as health and education. This is one of the most important intermediate steps towards freeing up mobility for the citizens of the region.
Fifth, reconsidering some of the amendments made to weaken the East African Court of Justice in 2007. This would strengthen the de jure powers of the court, adding considerably to the entrenchment of cross-border rights in the region.
Ultimately, the key constraint in the region is political and security instability, which holds back social and economic development. Nevertheless, incremental progress on mobility is possible despite issues in the fragile states, even though it may result in asymmetric progress within the East African Community.
Alan Hirsch’s work on migration governance is part of his responsibilities while employed as a Senior Research Fellow at the New South Institute.
Avant tout, deux observations d’ordre général sur les accords de paix et un point plus spécifique relatif à une complication particulière dans le cas de l’accord RDC-Rwanda.
Premièrement, un seul accord suffit rarement à résoudre un conflit complexe. La plupart des accords font partie d’une série d’accords, parfois entre différents acteurs. Ils font souvent référence à des accords conclus précédemment et seront cités dans les accords ultérieurs.
Deuxièmement, la paix est un processus qui nécessite un engagement large et soutenu. Il est essentiel que d’autres acteurs, tels que les groupes armés, soient impliqués dans le processus. Les acteurs de la société civile doivent également être impliqués. Plus les points de vue sont représentés dans les négociations, plus l’accord sera légitime et efficace.
Mais dans le cas de l’accord RDC–Rwanda, un élément complique la situation : le rôle des États-Unis. Washington ne semble pas avoir agi comme un médiateur neutre. Au contraire, les États-Unis semblent poursuivre leurs propres intérêts économiques. Cela n’est pas bon signe pour la suite.
Il n’existe pas de recette miracle pour un accord de paix efficace, mais les recherches montrent que quatre éléments sont importants : un engagement sérieux des parties, une langage clair et précis, un calendrier clair et des dispositions de mise en œuvre solides.
Les fondements d’un accord efficace
Tout d’abord, les parties doivent prendre l’accord au sérieux et être en mesure de s’engager à en respecter les termes. Il ne doit pas servir de prétexte pour gagner du temps, se réarmer ou poursuivre les combats. Une paix durable ne peut pas reposer uniquement sur des décisions prises au sommet de l’État. Les accords qui sont le fruit de processus plus inclusifs, avec la participation et le soutien des communautés concernées, réussissent mieux en général.
Deuxièmement, l’accord doit traiter les questions qu’il vise à résoudre, et ses dispositions doivent être rédigées avec soin et sans ambiguïté. Lorsque les accords sont vagues ou passent sous silence des aspects essentiels, ils sont souvent de courte durée. Les expériences passées peuvent guider les négociateurs et les médiateurs de paix dans le processus de rédaction. Les bases de données sur les accords de paix établies par les Nations unies et les institutions universitaires constituent un outil utile à cet égard.
Troisièmement, il est essentiel de fixer des délais clairs et réalistes. Ceux-ci peuvent concerner le retrait des forces armées de territoires spécifiques, le retour des réfugiés et des personnes déplacées à l’intérieur du pays, et la mise en place de mécanismes prévoyant des réparations ou d’autres formes de justice transitionnelle.
Quatrièmement, un accord doit inclure des dispositions relatives à sa mise en œuvre. Un soutien extérieur est généralement utile à cet égard. Des États tiers ou des organisations internationales, telles que les Nations unies et l’Union africaine, peuvent être chargés de superviser cette phase. Ils peuvent également fournir des garanties de sécurité, voire déployer une opération de maintien de la paix. Il est essentiel que ces acteurs s’engagent dans le processus et ne poursuivent pas leurs propres intérêts.
Pour bien évaluer ce qu’on peut attendre d’un accord de paix en particulier, il faut aussi garder à l’esprit qu’il existe plusieurs types d’accords. Certains sont des arrangements préparatoires ou des cessez-le-feu. D’autres sont plus complets et visent à régler le conflit dans sa globalité ou à organiser la mise en oeuvre. Un simple cessez-le-feu entre quelques acteurs ne suffit généralement pas à résoudre un conflit en profondeur.
Pour savoir ce que l’on peut attendre de manière réaliste d’un accord de paix spécifique, il est important de comprendre que ces accords peuvent prendre des formes très différentes. Celles-ci vont des accords préliminaires et des cessez-le-feu aux accords de paix globaux et aux accords de mise en œuvre.
Un simple cessez-le-feu, signé par quelques parties seulement, ne permet généralement pas de régler un conflit durablement.
L’accord entre la RDC et le Rwanda présente de nombreuses lacunes
Il est difficile de dire à ce stade si la RDC et le Rwanda sont vraiment déterminés à instaurer la paix et si leur engagement sera suffisant.
Leur volonté affichée de respecter mutuellement leurs territoires et de renoncer à toute agression est un point important.
Mais le Rwanda a déjà mené des opérations militaires directes en RDC depuis les années 1990. L’accord évoque vaguement un « désengagement des forces » ou la levée de « mesures défensives » par le Rwanda, sans toutefois mentionner clairement le retrait des milliers de soldats rwandais présents dans l’est de la RDC.
Le gouvernement rwandais dirigé par Paul Kagame soutient également les groupes armés dominés par les Tutsis en RDC depuis le génocide rwandais de 1994. Le Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) est l’acteur militaire principal actuellement dans l’est de la RDC. Mais l’accord entre les gouvernements de la RDC et du Rwanda n’inclut pas le M23 ni d’autres groupes. Les deux gouvernements s’engagent uniquement à soutenir les négociations en cours entre la RDC et le M23 facilitées par le Qatar.
L’accord prévoit également la « neutralisation » d’un autre groupe armé, les Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR), dominées par les Hutus. Ce groupe prétend protéger les réfugiés hutus rwandais en RDC, mais est considéré comme « génocidaire » par le gouvernement rwandais. Le groupe a réagi à ce plan en appelant à une solution politique et à un processus de paix plus inclusif.
Par exemple, hormis un engagement général à promouvoir les droits humains et le droit international humanitaire, il n’est fait aucune mention des violations massives des droits humains et des crimes de guerre qui auraient été commis par toutes les parties. Il s’agit notamment d’exécutions sommaires et de violences sexuelles et sexistes, y compris à l’encontre d’enfants.
Un mécanisme de justice et de réconciliation pour traiter ces violences à grande échelle aurait dû être envisagé. Cela a été le cas dans l’accord signé en 2016 entre le gouvernement colombien et les FARC (Forces armées révolutionnaires de Colombie), qui a connu un certain succès. Ce type de dispositif peut aider à prévenir de nouvelles violences.
Il envoie un message clair : les crimes ne resteront pas impunis. Cela aiderait également la population à se reconstruire et donnerait une meilleure chance à la paix.
Il n’existe pas de modèle unique. La justice dite « transitionnelle » – définie comme « l’ensemble des processus et mécanismes mis en place par une société pour faire face à un passé marqué par des abus à grande échelle, afin d’assurer la responsabilité, rendre justice et favoriser la réconciliation » – demeure un sujet controversé.
Par exemple, le fait de réclamer des procès pour crimes de guerre peut être perçu comme une menace pour un processus de paix encore fragile.
Mais depuis quelques décennies, les accords signés dans le monde, en Libye, en Centrafrique, et ailleurs, s’éloignent des amnisties générales. Ils comprennent de plus en plus de dispositions visant à garantir la responsabilité, en particulier pour les crimes graves. L’accord entre la RDC et le Rwanda reste muet sur ces questions.
Une autre lecture de l’accord
L’accord entre la RDC et le Rwanda est compliqué par le rôle de Washington et la poursuite de ses intérêts économiques.
Les deux États ont convenu de créer un comité de suivi conjoint, composé de membres de l’Union africaine, du Qatar et des États-Unis. L’accord prévoit aussi un cadre d’« intégration économique régionale ». Mais cette initiative est critiquée. Elle pourrait ouvrir la porte à une nouvelle forme d’ingérence étrangère dans les ressources minières du Congo.
Philipp Kastner 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.
The majority of the world’s rechargeable batteries are now made using lithium-ion. Most rely on a combination of different rare earth metals such as cobalt or nickel for their electrodes. But around the world, teams of researchers are looking for alternative – and more sustainable – materials to build the batteries of the future.
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to four scientists who are testing a variety of potential battery materials about the promises they may offer.
When lithium-ion batteries emerged in the 1990s, they were a huge breakthrough, says Laurence Hardwick, a professor of electrochemistry at the University of Liverpool in the UK. He explains that lithium-ion batteries “ became commercialised at the same time as the mobile electronics industry really took off”. But their subsequent use in electric cars now presents “a challenge of scale”, given the use of rare earth minerals within their components.
Hardwick is director of the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy, named after the 19th-century engineer George Stephenson – builder of the world’s first inter-city rail link between Liverpool and Manchester, which passed close by to the University of Liverpool’s campus.
Hardwick’s work focuses on what other materials could be used either in conjunction with lithium, or on their own, to diversify battery manufacturing away from rare earth metals. Part of this includes research on solid-state batteries, which use ceramic plates rather than a solvents to conduct the ions that provide the charge. “ Solid-state batteries offer a lot of potential energy-gaining benefits and safety benefits,” he says.
Sodium-ion is also being touted as a potential alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Robert Armstrong, principal research fellow in chemistry at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, is part of a consortium of UK-based researchers working on questions around sodium-ion batteries, including what type of electrodes and electrolytes work best.
Like potassium-ion, which is also a potential battery candidate, sodium-ion is heavier than lithium-ion, but Armstrong says sodium is fairly evenly abundant: “So you don’t have the supply issues that might affect lithium-ion, and you’re not like to see the same price volatility.”
Some Chinese manufacturers in China, such as BYD and CATL, are pushing ahead with sodium-ion batteries for cars, despite the fact they’re heavier than lithium-ion batteries. There’s also interest in sodium-based technology in countries in the Arabian Gulf that use desalination plants. “They’ve got all this sodium kicking around. Why not make use of it?” says Armstrong.
Batteries which biodegrade
Terracell on display at the Prototypes for Humanity 2024 showcase in Dubai. Gemma Ware, CC BY-SA
Other researchers are looking at how to make batteries out of plant-based materials that are biodegradable. Bill Yen, a PhD candidate in electrical engineering at Stanford University, is part of a team who are developing Terracell, a type of battery that generates power using microbes in the soil.
Their inspiration was how to power environmental sensors in damp environments without leaving lots of electronic waste behind at the end of the battery’s life. Terracell won the energy category of the Prototypes for Humanity 2024 event in 2024 in Dubai, a showcase for sustainable solutions to the world’s problems.
Also in Dubai was Ulugbek Asimov, a professor of mechanical and construction engineering at Northumbria University in the UK, who is developing BioPower Cells, a type of rechargeable battery made from waste products such as coffee which doesn’t contain any rare earth metals. “ And at the end of its lifespan, we drop it into boiling water and it will be turned into liquid ionic fertilizer,” Asimov said.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly to hear the conversations with these four scientists about their work and the batteries of the future.
Applications are now open for early career researchers to submit their projects for the Prototypes for Humanity 2025 awards and showcase in Dubai.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware with assistance from Mend Mariwany and Katie Flood. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Bill Yen has received funding for his work on Terracell from National Science Foundation, the Agricultural and Food Research Initiative and support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,VMware Research, and 3M. Laurence Hardwick has received funding from the Faraday Institution and is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Ulugbek Asimoz has received funding from the Northern Accelerator Proof of Concept to develop certain stages of the BioPower Cells project, which will be a spinout company from Northumbria University in the future. Robert Armstrong has received funding from the Faraday Institution and funding from EPSRC and Leverhulme Trust.
Why didn’t the universe annihilate itself moments after the big bang? A new finding at Cern on the French-Swiss border brings us closer to answering this fundamental question about why matter dominates over its opposite – antimatter.
Much of what we see in everyday life is made up of matter. But antimatter exists in much smaller quantities. Matter and antimatter are almost direct opposites. Matter particles have an antimatter counterpart that has the same mass, but the opposite electric charge. For example, the matter proton particle is partnered by the antimatter antiproton, while the matter electron is partnered by the antimatter positron.
However, the symmetry in behaviour between matter and antimatter is not perfect. In a paper published this week in Nature, the team working on an experiment at Cern, called LHCb, has reported that it has discovered differences in the rate at which matter particles called baryons decay relative to the rate of their antimatter counterparts. In particle physics, decay refers to the process where unstable subatomic particles transform into two or more lighter, more stable particles.
According to cosmological models, equal amounts of matter and antimatter were made in the big bang. If matter and antimatter particles come in contact, they annihilate one another, leaving behind pure energy. With this in mind, it’s a wonder that the universe doesn’t consist only of leftover energy from this annihilation process.
However, astronomical observations show that there is now a negligible amount of antimatter in the universe compared to the amount of matter. We therefore know that matter and antimatter must behave differently, such that the antimatter has disappeared while the matter has not.
Understanding what causes this difference in behaviour between matter and antimatter is a key unanswered question. While there are differences between matter and antimatter in our best theory of fundamental quantum physics, the standard model, these differences are far too small to explain where all the antimatter has gone.
So we know there must be additional fundamental particles that we haven’t found yet, or effects beyond those described in the standard model. These would give rise to large enough differences in the behaviour of matter and antimatter for our universe to exist in its current form.
Revealing new particles
Highly precise measurements of the differences between matter and antimatter are a key topic of research because they have the potential to be influenced by and reveal these new fundamental particles, helping us discover the physics that led to the universe we live in today.
Differences between matter and antimatter have previously been observed in the behaviour of another type of particle, mesons, which are made of a quark and an antiquark. There are also hints of differences in how the matter and antimatter versions of a further type of particle, the neutrino, behave as they travel.
Equivalent amounts of matter and antimatter were generated by the Big Bang. Triff / Shutterstock
The new measurement from LHCb has found differences between baryons and antibaryons, which are made of three quarks and three antiquarks respectively. Significantly, baryons make up most of the known matter in our universe, and this is the first time that we have observed differences between matter and antimatter in this group of particles.
The LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is designed to make highly precise measurements of differences in the behaviour of matter and antimatter. The experiment is operated by an international collaboration of scientists, made up of over 1,800 people based in 24 countries. In order to achieve the new result, the LHCb team studied over 80,000 baryons (“lambda-b” baryons, which are made up of a beauty quark, an up quark and a down quark) and their antimatter counterparts.
Crucially, we found that these baryons decay to specific subatomic particles (a proton, a kaon and two pions) slightly more frequently – 5% more often – than the rate at which the same process happens with antiparticles. While small, this difference is statistically significant enough to be the first observation of differences in behaviour between baryon and antibaryon decays.
To date, all measurements of matter-antimatter differences have been consistent with the small level present in the standard model. While the new measurement from LHCb is also in line with this theory, it is a major step forward. We have now seen differences in the behaviour of matter and antimatter in the group of particles that dominate the known matter of the universe. It’s a potential step in the direction of understanding why that situation came to be after the big bang.
With the current and forthcoming data runs of LHCb we will be able to study these differences forensically, and, we hope, tease out any sign of new fundamental particles that might be present.
William Barter works for the University of Edinburgh. He receives funding from UKRI. He is a member of the LHCb collaboration at Cern.
Source: The Conversation – in French – By Nicolas Postel, Professeur de Sciences Economiques- Titualire chaire Socioeconomie des communs, Université de Lille
Pour Karl Polanyi, le marché n’est pas une structure abstraite, il est encastré dans la société. (_Le Marché et la fontaine des Innocents en 1855_, de Fédor Hoffbauer [1839-1922]).Fédor Hoffbauer/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
Économiste, sociologue, mais aussi philosophe, Karl Polanyi est un penseur critique des excès du capitalisme des années 1920. Dans la Grande Transformation (1944), il décrypte le lien entre un capitalisme sans limite et les totalitarismes. Une œuvre à redécouvrir d’urgence, alors que l’on peut craindre que les mêmes causes produisent les mêmes effets.
Que nous arrive-t-il ? Pour de nombreux citoyens et chercheurs en sciences sociales, le début de l’année 2025 a été le temps d’une sidération, souvent refoulée. Les premiers mois du mandat de Donald Trump nous secouent d’autant plus que, dans le même, temps, jour après jour, les informations les plus alarmantes se succèdent sur l’accélération des effets du réchauffement climatique et de l’effondrement de la biodiversité. L’analyse que propose Karl Polanyi peut nous aider à sortir de cette sidération, en nous donnant des clés de lecture de la situation que nous vivons et des voies permettant de sortir de l’ornière.
Karl Polanyi (1886-1964) est un analyste extrêmement précieux des rapports problématiques qu’entretient notre système économique avec la société et la biosphère. Dans la Grande Transformation, son ouvrage majeur (1944), il propose à la fois une histoire du capitalisme et une mise en évidence de sa singularité à l’échelle du temps long de l’humanité.
Le capitalisme constitue en effet une réponse très singulière à la question économique – question dont aucune société ne peut s’affranchir et que Polanyi définit comme : un « procès institutionnalisé d’interaction entre l’homme et son environnement qui se traduit par la fourniture continue des moyens matériels permettant la satisfaction des besoins ».
Trois bouleversements
À première vue, cette définition peut sembler banale. Mais si on confronte cette définition à notre impensé économique, c’est bouleversant pour trois raisons :
(1) L’économie est un process institutionnalisé, cela nous dit clairement que la réponse que donne toute société à la question de la satisfaction des besoins (aux conditions de sa reproduction) est d’abord collective, sociale, politique. Il n’y a pas d’économie « avant » les institutions collectives. Exit donc, nos illusions sur l’économie comme étant le lieu d’une émancipation par l’égoïsme rationnel ! Il n’y a, à l’origine, ni Homo œconomicus, ni concurrence libre et non faussée, ni loi de marché. L’économie est d’abord et toujours une question d’institutions et donc de choix collectifs et politiques. Là se joue la liberté des acteurs : participer à la construction des institutions qui forment une réponse collective à la question de la vie matérielle.
(2) Un process « entre l’homme et son environnement » : cette définition pose ici immédiatement la question de l’insertion de la communauté humaine dans la nature, dans la biosphère, dans son lieu de vie. Seconde surprise, donc : la question écologique n’est donc pas « nouvelle »… C’est même la question fondatrice de l’économie pour Polanyi.
(3) Il s’agit de satisfaire « des besoins » et non pas des désirs insatiables d’accumulation… Là encore, cette dimension substantive de l’économique nous est devenue invisible, enfouie sous un principe d’accumulation illimitée qui nous a fait oublier la question de « ce dont nous avons vraiment besoin », au point paradoxalement de conduire nos sociétés contemporaines à assurer le superflu mais plus le nécessaire. Nous sommes, de fait (c’est ce que nous indique le franchissement des « limites environnementales »), sortis d’une trajectoire de reproductibilité des conditions de vie authentiquement humaine sur terre, alors même que nous accumulons des biens et services inutiles.
Marché autorégulateur
Cette sortie de route est un effet pervers du déploiement, depuis la révolution industrielle, d’un système de marché autorégulateur qui sert de base au mode de production capitaliste. C’est le second apport de Polanyi. Pendant des millénaires, la communauté humaine est parvenue à se reproduire de manière résiliente en pratiquant des formes d’économie socialement encastrées et cohérentes avec notre milieu de vie.
Polanyi repère ces formes sociales d’économie : l’économie domestique (autarcique) du clan ; la réciprocité entre les différentes entités progressivement mises en relation et pratiquant de manière ritualisée du don contre don ; la redistribution qui se met en place à un stade plus avancé de communautés humaines organisées autour d’un centre puissant et légitime, habilité à prélever des ressources et à les repartir, selon des critères considérés comme justes, entre les différents membres de la communauté… et le commerce, ou marché-rencontre, aux marges de la société (le mot donnera marché) dans lequel les acteurs diversifient leur consommation et négocient de gré à gré, en dehors de toute logique concurrentielle, le « juste prix ».
Ces formes économiques insérées, mises au service de la société, sont balayées par le capitalisme. Lorsque le phénomène industriel émerge et, avec lui, la promesse de l’abondance, il apparaît très clairement nécessaire de plier la société aux besoins de l’industrie. Il faut alimenter la machine productive en flux continu de travail, de matière première, et de financement permettant l’investissement. Pour que cette dynamique capitaliste fonctionne, il devient donc « nécessaire » de traiter le travail (la vie humaine), la terre (la biosphère) et la monnaie de crédit (indispensable à l’investissement) comme s’ils étaient des marchandises « produites pour être vendues ». C’est nécessaire, mais c’est faux, évidemment.
La société au service de l’économie ou l’inverse
Là est le mythe fondateur de nos sociétés qui se comprend assez vite dans les expressions désormais courantes : « ressources humaines », « ressources naturelles », « ressources monétaires ». Mais ressources pour qui ? pour quoi ? Pour la production de richesse ! Voilà ce qui constitue une inversion remarquable : la société et son environnement naturel se voient artificiellement « mises au service » de l’économie… et non l’inverse. La biosphère et la société doivent se soumettre, enfin, à « la loi » de l’économie !
Ce mythe – souligne Polanyi – travaille et détruit la société si l’on ne prend pas garde de « protéger » la vie humaine, la nature et le monnaie de cette logique concurrentielle. C’est ce que vécut Polanyi : l’effondrement de la société viennoise de l’entre-deux-guerres et de sa vie intellectuelle brillante (Einstein, Freud, Wittgenstein, Hayek, Popper… sans parler d’écrivains comme Zweig ou Schnitzler) qui s’abîma en quelques mois, dans le nazisme.
Karl Polanyi, juif, dut fuir en Angleterre. Il passera sa vie à saisir les causes de cet effondrement. Il perçoit alors que le fascisme révèle au fond « la réalité d’une société de marché » : c’est le produit d’un libéralisme économique débridé. L’échec des contre-mouvements qui, au long du XIXe siècle, cherchèrent à limiter l’emprise du marché sur la société (les paysans attachés aux communaux, les artisans attachés au travail libre, puis les prolétaires à celle d’un respect des droits humains, les nations attachées à l’étalon-or…) se traduit par une crise sociale majeure.
Une réaction sociale convulsive
Dans cette société dominée par la concurrence de tous contre tous, chaque individu est renvoyé à son intérêt propre, désocialisé.
L’espace commun de délibération se réduit, s’étiole, disparaît. Mais la société ne disparaît pas : elle se régénère maladivement, de manière dysfonctionnelle non plus par la raison et l’existence d’un dessein commun, mais par le sang, la « race », et l’homme providentiel. Le totalitarisme, c’est cette réaction sociale, presque convulsive, maladive et qui est le symptôme d’une société disloquée sous l’effet du libéralisme.
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Polanyi pense, lorsqu’il présente cette analyse dans l’immédiat après-guerre, que cet effondrement appartient au passé. Les sociétés occidentales vont se reconstruire en pleine connaissance de cause. C’est le sens de la « grande transformation » (le titre de son livre) qui s’opère avec, notamment, les accords de Philadelphie (fondateurs, en 1944, de l’Organisation internationale du travail) qui actent la nécessité de « protéger » le travail contre la logique concurrentielle, et ceux de Bretton Wood qui actent la constitution d’un système monétaire international réduisant le rôle des marchés et plaçant la question du financement dans la main des États.
Les institutions collectives, politiques, reprennent la main sur l’économique et lui assignent des règles qui, partiellement, « dé-marchandisent » le rapport à la monnaie et au travail (mais pas à la nature). Le monde occidental connaît alors un cycle long de prospérité et de paix. Les Occidentaux voient leur qualité de vie augmenter au fur et à mesure que la production se déploie, grâce à la redistribution des gains de productivité, au point que hausse du PIB et hausse du bonheur finissent par se confondre dans l’esprit public… au détriment des rentiers qui voient leur avoir diminuer.
Réencastrement partiel
Mais ce réencastrement de l’économie dans la société est partiel. La sphère domestique continue d’être niée, la nature d’être pillée, le travail d’être aliéné dans son contenu (c’est la période taylorienne).
Au début des années soixante-dix, les détenteurs de patrimoine financier, lésés par l’État social, sonnent l’heure de la révolte, et parviennent à démanteler le système monétaire international et à réactiver la puissance des marchés financiers. Ceci tandis que les populations mondiales dénoncent l’épouvantable exploitation des ressources mondiales au seul profit de l’Occident et que les salariés dénoncent le taylorisme. Le compromis de l’après-guerre ainsi mis en critique s’étiole et laisse la place à une phase dite néolibérale. C’est cette phase de remarchandisation très rapide qui, aujourd’hui, nous amène au bord du gouffre.
Le néolibéralisme a débuté sa révolution par la remarchandisation de la monnaie et la redynamisation du pouvoir des marchés et des actionnaires, la seconde phase se traduit par la remarchandisation du travail (le droit du travail est allégé, les protections sociales affaiblies), et de la nature (marché de l’énergie, marché carbone, brevetabilité du vivant, accaparement foncier…). Cette remarchandisation, qui oublie totalement les leçons de l’histoire, nous conduit au bord d’un précipice écologique et social.
Monétairement, socialement, politiquement, écologiquement, tout notre système se fissure. Ces failles structurelles entraînent un immense désarroi social et… la résurgence de mouvements néo-fascistes, néonazis, nationalistes autoritaires… Selon une mécanique extrêmement proche de celle que décrit Polanyi. La crise politique de nos démocraties est donc d’abord une crise de notre économie, ou, plus précisément, de la pression qu’exerce l’économique (dans sa version marchande) sur le social et la biosphère.
BFM Business.
Retour aux sagesses anciennes ?
Au-delà du diagnostic, Polanyi nous donne des ressources pour agir. Il nous permet de percevoir la résilience des structures de « l’ancien monde » dans nos vies et nos économies. Les sagesses anciennes n’ont pas disparu : nous pratiquons à très grande échelle la redistribution, une large part de nos échanges sociaux est fondée sur la réciprocité (et notamment au sein de l’économie sociale et solidaire), et chacun sait l’importance vitale de notre foyer familial.
Nous vivons, des temps polanyiens, et ils ont leur part de noirceur. Mais, si l’on suit Polanyi, la liberté – celle qui consiste à choisir ensemble un horizon commun – est devant nous. Notre extraordinaire capacité de production – héritage indéniable du capitalisme – doit nous permettre de nous poser sereinement la question de nos besoins, et cela nous amènera à consommer moins !
Moins de nourriture, moins de psychotropes, moins de déplacements professionnels, et plus de temps libre : ce ne serait tout de même pas triste ! Polanyi ne nous propose pas de solutions clés en main, mais montre un chemin : retrouver le goût de la délibération collective et la défendre contre l’établissement d’un principe de concurrence généralisée – celui de la gouvernance actionnariale – qui détruit la société, nourrit le totalitarisme et se heurte violemment aux limites planétaires.
Nicolas Postel ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
The global shift toward renewable energy is no longer a choice but a necessity: the climate crisis intensifies, with 2024 confirmed as the warmest year on record.
Yet in Indonesia, coal remains an economic lifeline for several regions. In East Kutai, East Kalimantan, coal mining accounts for nearly 75% of the district’s gross regional domestic product (GRDP).
The end of the coal mining era will come at a cost to local residents, many of whom risk losing their current jobs — especially after their traditional forest-based livelihoods have already been eroded by environmental degradation tied to fossil fuel extraction.
Aulia, 31, a Dayak women from East Kutai, admitted:
We’re heavily dependent on mining—it’s the only thing that gives us a substantial income.
Yet, amid this dilemma, indigenous Dayak women are unfolding a quiet revolution.
By growing food crops in their backyards, these women not only generate income but also demonstrate that sustainable agriculture can align with local traditions. Their initiative is an inspiration, especially for communities near mining sites seeking alternative sources of income.
Mining’s hidden toll on women and indigenous communities
Instead of prosperity, many residents face environmental degradation and the loss of traditional livelihoods (land-based livelihood). This is especially true for women, who are often marginalised in decision-making and excluded from the mining sector.
Since the forest was converted into a mining pit, the indigenous Dayak Basap community, which once relied on the forest for its livelihood, has lost its traditional living space and been forced to adapt to survive.
Many men have turned to mining, while women have sought other ways to support their families: some teach, others run small businesses, and many now grow chillies, spinach, and watercress in their backyards.
From backyards to resistance: A community’s fight for survival
With the changing economic landscape, Basap Dayak women are turning to their yards as a source of alternative income. There, they grow food crops that yield quick harvests, are in high demand, and may influence local inflation — such as chillies. Spinach and watercress are also among the popular choices.
On a 700-square-metre plot, local residents have learned to blend traditional farming with modern permaculture techniques, including composting and crop rotation. Permaculture is a holistic approach to agriculture and land management that mimics patterns found in surrounding natural ecosystems. Local youth are also engaged as community mobilisers to support the post-coal transition.
The results are promising. With agricultural science and technological support from the startup HARA, Dayak Basap women have overcome challenges such as acidic soil and water pollution caused by mining. Through seed cultivation, their crop yields have even outperformed those of conventional farming methods previously tested.
They’ve also learned to sell their harvests directly to consumers — such as restaurants and cracker producers — cutting out middlemen and increasing their bargaining power. This combination of traditional knowledge and modern innovation is not only enhancing community capacity but also delivering tangible economic benefits.
When innovation meets tradition: Overcoming barriers
However, the journey is far from easy. Formerly mined land takes a long time to recover. Acidic soil and water contaminated with heavy metals pose serious challenges, while limited access to tools and fertilisers remains a significant barrier. In some cases, communities must purchase pre-grown seedlings to speed up the planting process.
This chilli planting program has been very good. It’s just that the condition of the land was inadequate and hard to improve. If there’s a chance, maybe we can try farming that lasts more than just one season—Indigenous Dayak women.
Furthermore, the transition from shifting cropping to a long-term management system requires ongoing training. This kind of adaptation certainly cannot be achieved overnight and requires intensive mentoring.
A just transition must be grassroots-led
Initiatives like these offer valuable lessons.
First, the energy transition must involve local communities—especially women—from the outset.
Second, collective, community-based approaches have proven more sustainable than top-down programmes, which often fail to address real needs on the ground.
Third, policy support must be directed toward grassroots initiatives like this. The focus should not only be on meeting transition targets, but also on ensuring social and ecological justice.
In the global context, Indonesia has expressed its commitment through the Paris Agreement and the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). However, this commitment must be grounded in the lived experiences of communities, particularly indigenous women and those directly impacted by extractive industries.
A just energy transition requires gradual steps, targeted programme support, inclusive partnerships, and genuine commitment from all stakeholders.
The story of the Dayak Basap women is more than one of resilience—it is a roadmap for a just energy transition. Their success proves that economic diversification is possible, even in coal-dependent regions. But that success hinges on the quality of support: whether it truly meets community needs and is led by strong local leadership.
Aidy Halimanjaya terafiliasi sebagai pendiri dan direktur Yayasan Transisi berkeadilan Indonesia. Ia menerima dana dari Bank Indonesia melalui Universitas Parahyangan.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Amelia Scott, Honorary Affiliate and Clinical Psychologist at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, and Macquarie University Research Fellow, Macquarie University
If you spend any time in the wellness corners of TikTok or Instagram, you’ll see claims women need one to two hours more sleep than men.
But what does the research actually say? And how does this relate to what’s going on in real life?
As we’ll see, who gets to sleep, and for how long, is a complex mix of biology, psychology and societal expectations. It also depends on how you measure sleep.
What does the evidence say?
Researchers usually measure sleep in two ways:
by asking people how much they sleep (known as self-reporting). But people are surprisingly inaccurate at estimating how much sleep they get
using objective tools, such as research-grade, wearable sleep trackers or the gold-standard polysomnography, which records brain waves, breathing and movement while you sleep during a sleep study in a lab or clinic.
Looking at the objective data, well-conducted studies usually show women sleep about 20 minutes more than men.
One global study of nearly 70,000 people who wore wearable sleep trackers found a consistent, small difference between men and women across age groups. For example, the sleep difference between men and women aged 40–44 was about 23–29 minutes.
Another large study using polysomnography found women slept about 19 minutes longer than men. In this study, women also spent more time in deep sleep: about 23% of the night compared to about 14% for men. The study also found only men’s quality of sleep declined with age.
The key caveat to these findings is that our individual sleep needs vary considerably. Women may sleep slightly more on average, just as they are slightly shorter on average. But there is no one-size-fits-all sleep duration, just as there is no universal height.
Suggesting every woman needs 20 extra minutes (let alone two hours) misses the point. It’s the same as insisting all women should be shorter than all men.
Even though women tend to sleep a little longer and deeper, they consistently report poorer sleep quality. They’re also about 40% more likely to be diagnosed with insomnia.
This mismatch between lab findings and the real world is a well-known puzzle in sleep research, and there are many reasons for it.
For instance, many research studies don’t consider mental health problems, medications, alcohol use and hormonal fluctuations. This filters out the very factors that shape sleep in the real world.
This mismatch between the lab and the bedroom also reminds us sleep doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Women’s sleep is shaped by a complex mix of biological, psychological and social factors, and this complexity is hard to capture in individual studies.
Let’s start with biology
Sleep problems begin to diverge between the sexes around puberty. They spike again during pregnancy, after birth and during perimenopause.
Fluctuating levels of ovarian hormones, particularly oestrogen and progesterone, seem to explain some of these sex differences in sleep.
For example, many girls and women report poorer sleep during the premenstrual phase just before their periods, when oestrogen and progesterone begin to fall.
Perhaps the most well-documented hormonal influence on our sleep is the decline in oestrogen during perimenopause. This is linked to increased sleep disturbances, particularly waking at 3am and struggling to get back to sleep.
Caregiving and emotional labour still fall disproportionately on women. Government data released this year suggests Australian women perform an average nine more hours of unpaid care and work each week than men.
While many women manage to put enough time aside for sleep, their opportunities for daytime rest are often scarce. This puts a lot of pressure on sleep to deliver all the restoration women need.
In my work with patients, we often untangle the threads woven into their experience of fatigue. While poor sleep is the obvious culprit, fatigue can also signal something deeper, such as underlying health issues, emotional strain, or too-high expectations of themselves. Sleep is certainly part of the picture, but it’s rarely the whole story.
For instance, rates of iron deficiency (which we know is more common in women and linked to sleep problems) are also higher in the reproductive years. This is just as many women are raising children and grappling with the “juggle” and the “mental load”.
Women in perimenopause are often navigating full-time work, teenagers, ageing parents and 3am hot flashes. These women may have adequate or even high-quality sleep (according to objective measures), but that doesn’t mean they wake feeling restored.
Most existing research also ignores gender-diverse populations. This limits our understanding of how sleep is shaped not just by biology, but by things such as identity and social context.
So where does this leave us?
While women sleep longer and better in the lab, they face more barriers to feeling rested in everyday life.
So, do women need more sleep than men? On average, yes, a little. But more importantly, women need more support and opportunity to recharge and recover across the day, and at night.
Amelia Scott is a member of the psychology education subcommittee of the Australasian Sleep Association. She receives funding from Macquarie University.
Catholic bishops invited by Mark Seitz, center, the bishop of El Paso, Texas, lead a march in solidarity with migrants on March 24, 2025, in downtown El Paso.AP Photo/Andres Leighton
Catholic priests across the U.S. discuss immigration with their congregations more than leaders in many other faith traditions, according to our new research published in the journal Sociological Focus.
Catholic priests also said they discussed immigration more than nearly all other political issues, including hunger in their communities, capital punishment, health care and the environment. Abortion was the only one priests discussed slightly more often.
Our study, which uses data from the 2022 National Survey of Religious Leaders, found that 71% of Catholic priests surveyed said they spoke about any political issue with their congregations. Among them, just over half talked about immigration.
In white conservative Protestant congregations, Black Protestant congregations and non-Christian congregations, only about a quarter of leaders who discussed political issues said they talked about immigration. Leaders of white liberal Protestant congregations, however, talked about the topic almost as much as Catholic leaders did.
Why it matters
The United States has a long history of religious leaders addressing political matters, on both the left and the right – and today is no different.
As sociologists who study politics and religion, we wanted to know what is happening on the ground in congregations. Given the church’s teachings about caring for the vulnerable, we expected that Catholic clergy might be particularly likely to speak out.
However, the percentage of people affiliated with a religious congregation is decreasing, and those who do attend are increasingly politically conservative. Rank and file Catholics are very divided on their support for immigrants, according to a 2024 national survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
In this context, we were curious about whether clergy would discuss a political issue such as immigration with their congregations or say they avoid it altogether.
What still isn’t known
The survey we used is from 2022, before some of today’s immigration enforcement policies took effect. That said, these findings demonstrate that immigration was on the radar for Catholic leaders before the recent changes under the current administration.
Because we focused on survey data, we got a good picture of trends among Catholic leaders nationwide. However, we could look only at whether religious leaders reported discussing immigration; we could not know exactly what they said, or how. There is much more to learn about what kinds of political messages come from the pulpit today and what messages tend to stick with congregants.
We did find that Catholic leaders of congregations where the majority of worshipers are Hispanic were much more likely to talk about immigration, compared with leaders of non-Catholic Hispanic congregations and Catholic leaders of mostly white congregations. Because Hispanic communities in the U.S. are facing the brunt of the immigration crackdown, this finding shows that Catholic leaders have been addressing the needs of their communities.
What’s next
Catholic parishioners may be exposed to different opinions about immigration from religious and political leaders. Diane, one of the authors, is furthering this research by conducting interviews with Catholics in Greater Boston. By asking church members to talk through their attitudes toward immigrants, we can learn more about how people make sense of complicated ethical questions.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Diane Beckman received funding from Duke University to conduct research using data from the National Survey of Religious Leaders.
Evan Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Few issues ignite communities more fiercely than what to do with land. The prospect of releasing small portions of green belt land for housing developments, a windfarm proposal or plans for a new road can transform mild-mannered citizens into passionate advocates overnight.
This visceral connection between people and place perfectly illustrates the famous observation that “all politics is local”. In England, the principle that every citizen should be given the opportunity to “have their say” on planning matters is enshrined in law. Before any planning document is adopted, local authorities must give the public the chance to provide feedback.
The logic for this is based on a common-sense morality: before binding decisions are made about how an area might change, the local people who have to live with those decisions should be given the opportunity to endorse or reject that plan.
In practice this is a hugely cumbersome process. Local authorities have to make sense of thousands of comments. This prompted my colleagues and I at the University of Liverpool to begin thinking about how AI could be used to make this process more efficient.
Once a local authority publishes the relevant local planning document, every citizen, company, public, private or third sector organisation has the right to submit a written response. These may address the entire document or focus on a specific issue.
In all cases, the local authority is obliged to collate, comprehend and concisely summarise all public submissions. They will then decide whether the document requires amendments or if further evidence is needed to justify the proposals.
This creates an overwhelming burden for planning departments up and down the country. In high-development areas, submissions often number in the tens of thousands. And individual submissions range from a few sentences to over 100 pages.
Planners must read, absorb and synthesise all this information into a final report which will be used to make a decision. This report must fairly represent the aggregate views across all submissions.
Beyond the sheer volume of responses, human cognitive limitations and biases further complicate the process. Some submissions may be given greater emphasis than others. Recently read submissions are likely to have a greater influence on the reader than those reviewed earlier.
A digital solution
These challenges prompted us to explore alternatives. We partnered with Greater Cambridge Shared Planning – the planning authority for Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire District Councils – to develop an AI-powered solution. Our tool, Plan AI, would read and summarise public submissions to the planning process.
In 2025, my colleagues and I conducted a real-world experiment. Three live public consultation exercises were processed in parallel – once by planners and once by Plan AI.
It took a planning officer just over 60 hours in total to download and process 320 submissions. Eighteen hours of this time was used to summarise each submission – a task that took Plan AI only 16 minutes. In that time, the AI tool was also able to create comprehensive reports identifying key themes, referenced sources and geographic analysis of the submissions.
A subsequent qualitative assessment found there to be no discernible difference in the quality of the summaries produced by the human planning officer and those by Plan AI. In fact, the general overview document produced by Plan AI is a significant addition to what would normally be produced. It included a geographic analysis of the origins of submissions – crucial information for planners to understand which communities and demographic groups were participating in the consultation.
Controversial planning proposals can attract tens of thousands of public comments. pjhpix/Shutterstock
The future of planning
The UK government has set out a vision for local authorities to embrace AI for reducing administrative burden and improving the efficiency of government. For example, it recently rolled out an AI tool, developed with Google DeepMind, to digitise planning records.
The implications of experiments like these are far reaching. Planners can focus on their core expertise – assessing applications and supporting government priorities for housing, new towns and infrastructure renewal – rather than spending countless hours processing public comments.
AI can process vast amounts of text more consistently and comprehensively than humans. It can also identify connections between submissions that might otherwise be missed.
With the administrative burden drastically reduced, local authorities could potentially consult citizens more frequently across a wider range of planning issues, making planning even more democratic. Planners freed from paperwork could also dedicate more time to meaningful public engagement.
Of course, one danger with AI is that it could be used on the other side of the consultation, to generate a large volume of submissions in an attempt to over-amplify a particular point of view. However, AI tools could be used to defend against this.
PlanAI or similar programmes can generate an immediate summary of a comment submission, an ideal opportunity to insert a verification check that the submitter is indeed human. Putting the human back in the loop in this way reduces the potential for AI to be used to skew consultations.
By building the right tools and systems, we can create planning processes that are both more efficient and more responsive to citizen input – a win for democracy and effective governance alike.
PlanAI was developed under a paid contract with Greater Cambridge Shared Planning. At the time of publication, it is not sold or marketed to other governments or authorities, but may be so in the future. Alex Lord and the other researchers involved received funding from the UK government’s PropTech initiative and Greater Cambridge Shared Planning.
