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My Slave Roots Mon 9 October: St Catharine’s College, McGrath Centre

Author Malik Al Nasir (History PhD candidate at St Catharine’s) will be talking about his new book, ‘Searching for My Slave Roots’ (2025 William Collins). This event is organised by the St Catharine’s History Society and the Faculty of Education and is sponsored by the University’s Legacies of Enslavement project and ThinkLab. Malik will be in conversation with Dr Amilcar Pereira from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Game On: Sport, Mental Health, and the Future of Black Excellence Tues 10 October: St Edmund’s College

Game On brings together an international group of thought leaders from sport, media, and public life to discuss the role of sport in fostering mental health, community empowerment, and Black excellence.

Panelists include US Attorney, Joe Briggs, Delroy Corinaldi from the Black Footballers Partnership and the Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner.

The evening will also feature the Genius for Men awards ceremony, honouring individuals whose work expands the narrative around Black men and holistic wellbeing.

Sign up here for this free event.

Welcome Walking Tour Sun 12 October (2 - 4pm)

Join members of the Black Advisory Hub’s FYI Team and other first year students for a guided walking tour of the University from Black student perspectives. Students will make new connections, stop by relevant landmarks and businesses, and enjoy a treat along the route. More details about the Black Advisory Hub can be found here: https://www.blackadvisory.hub.cam.ac.uk/

Black@Cambridge: What lies ahead? Wed 15 October: St Catharine’s College

This half-day event is aimed at understanding the workplace experiences of Black members of staff across the University.

It will give attendees an opportunity to share their experiences, hear from guest speakers and participate in three interactive mini-workshops.

Find our more information, or book a ticket.

Black History Month Formal Hall Thurs 16 October: Homerton College

Lord Simon Woolley (Principal, Homerton College) hosts an evening to remember. Homerton’s BHM Formal is now legendary in Cambridge. In past years, the College has welcomed household names from the worlds of politics, business, and fashion. This year promises to be no exception. 

Tickets are on a first-come basis.

Homerton students should book their ticket through HUS-President@homerton.cam.ac.uk or MCR-President@homerton.cam.ac.uk

Non-Homerton students should book through the University’s African-Caribbean Society: cambridgeacsenquiries@gmail.com

Other Formals:

Hughes Hall will host its Black History Month formal on Fri 17 October and, for the first time Gonville and Caius College will host a BHM formal on Mon 27 October (in conjunction with the ACS and the Cambridge Union).

60 years since the first Race Relations Act Mon 20 October Cambridge Union

Details tbc

Through Our Lens: Reflecting on the Black academic journey at Cambridge  Tues 21 October: Jesus College

In a similar vein, the forum Through Our Lens is intended to be an engaging, informal and interactive event that centres the experiences, contributions and challenges faced by Black scholars at various stages of the academic journey at the University of Cambridge. The event seeks to illuminate the systemic barriers faced by Black academics, as well as celebrate their resistance, scholarship and trailblazing within the academy. This forum will serve as a space to amplify the personal and professional journeys of Black academics at Cambridge. More details can be found through the Black Advisory Hub.

Black Divas from the 18th century to today Mon 27 October: Hughes Hall

This lecture-recital will examine the legacy of Vittoria Tesi, one of the most celebrated opera divas of the 18th century. Singer Lufuno Ndou will perform an aria written especially for Tesi and Carol Leeming will read her poem ‘Praise Song for Black Divas’. There will be a discussion on the influence Tesi has had on modern day singers such as Beyoncé. More details as well as booking information.

Reframing Blackness Mon 27 October: Murray Edwards College

The Women’s Art Collection at Murray Edwards will host an evening with Alayo Akinkugbe. Alayo runs the Instagram platform @ABlackHistoryofArt, which highlights Black artists, curators and thinkers from art history and the present day, and also hosts the podcast A Shared Gaze. The discussion will be followed by a book signing.

Book this event.

Remembering the Bristol Bus Boycott Tues 28 October: Homerton College

This event explores the legacy of the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott - a pivotal moment in British civil rights history that helped pave the way for the UK's first Race Relations Act.

The speakers taking part are; Lilleith Morrison (co-author of a biography on Bristol Bus Boycott activist, the late Dr Paul Stephenson), Lord Marvin Rees (Metro mayor of Bristol at the time of the Black Lives Matter protests), Professor Jason Arday (Cambridge University), Lord Simon Woolley (Principal, Homerton College), Dr Walter Milton Jnr (Founder and CEO of Black History 365) and Zain Kakooza (Homerton HUS BAME Officer).

Book this event.

Race Equality Lecture Thurs 30 October

The University’s annual Race Equality Lecture will be delivered.

Details tbc.

October brings a new academic year but it also offers the opportunity to celebrate Black talent. A number of events and activities are being staged around the University and the Colleges to mark Black History Month. Some of the details around a couple of events are still being finalised so be sure to keep checking back on this page.

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Yes

These tiny clusters, called alpha-synuclein oligomers, have long been considered the likely culprits for Parkinson’s disease to start developing in the brain, but until now, they have evaded direct detection in human brain tissue.

Now, researchers from the University of Cambridge, UCL, the Francis Crick Institute and Polytechnique Montréal have developed an imaging technique that allows them to see, count and compare oligomers in human brain tissue, a development one of the team says is “like being able to see stars in broad daylight.”

Their results, reported in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, could help unravel the mechanics of how Parkinson’s spreads through the brain and support the development of diagnostics and potential treatments.

Around 166,000 people in the UK live with Parkinson’s disease, and the number is rising. By 2050, the number of people with Parkinson’s worldwide is expected to double to 25 million. While there are drugs that can help alleviate some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s, such as tremor and stiffness, there are no drugs that can slow or stop the disease itself.

For more than a century, doctors have recognised Parkinson’s by the presence of large protein deposits called Lewy bodies. But scientists have suspected that smaller, earlier-forming oligomers may cause damage to brain cells. Until now, these oligomers were simply too small to see – just a few nanometres long.

“Lewy bodies are the hallmark of Parkinson’s, but they essentially tell you where the disease has been, not where it is right now,” said Professor Steven Lee from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, who co-led the research. “If we can observe Parkinson’s at its earliest stages, that would tell us a whole lot more about how the disease develops in the brain and how we might be able to treat it.”

Now, Lee and his colleagues have developed a technique, called ASA-PD (Advanced Sensing of Aggregates for Parkinson’s Disease), which uses ultra-sensitive fluorescence microscopy to detect and analyse millions of oligomers in post-mortem brain tissue. Since oligomers are so small, their signal is extremely weak. ASA-PD maximises the signal while decreasing the background, dramatically boosting sensitivity to the point where individual alpha-synuclein oligomers can be observed and studied.

“This is the first time we've been able to look at oligomers directly in human brain tissue at this scale: it’s like being able to see stars in broad daylight,” said co-first author Dr Rebecca Andrews, who conducted the work when she was a postdoctoral researcher in Lee’s lab. “It opens new doors in Parkinson’s research.”

The team examined post-mortem brain tissue samples from people with Parkinson’s and compared them to healthy individuals of similar age. They found that oligomers exist in both healthy and Parkinson’s brains. The main difference between disease and healthy brains was the size of the oligomers, which were larger, brighter and more numerous in disease samples, suggesting a direct link to the progression of Parkinson’s.

The team also discovered a subclass of oligomers that appeared only in Parkinson’s patients, which could be the earliest visible markers of the disease, potentially years before symptoms appear.

“This method doesn’t just give us a snapshot,” said Professor Lucien Weiss from Polytechnique Montréal, wo co-led the research. “It offers a whole atlas of protein changes across the brain, and similar technologies could be applied to other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s.

“Oligomers have been the needle in the haystack, but now that we know where those needles are, it could help us target specific cell types in certain regions of the brain.”

“The only real way to understand what is happening in human disease is to study the human brain directly, but because of the brain’s sheer complexity, this is very challenging,” said Professor Sonia Gandhi from The Francis Crick Institute, who co-led the research. “We hope that breaking through this technological barrier will allow us to understand why, where and how protein clusters form and how this changes the brain environment and leads to disease.”

The research was supported in part by Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and the Medical Research Council (MRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The researchers thank the patients, families and carers who donated tissue to brain banks, enabling this work to happen.

 

Reference:
Rebecca Andrews, Bin Fu, Christina E. Toomey et al. ‘Large-scale visualisation of α-synuclein oligomers in Parkinson’s disease brain tissue.’ Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-025-01496-4

Scientists have, for the first time, directly visualised and quantified the protein clusters believed to trigger Parkinson’s, marking a major advance in the study of the world’s fastest-growing neurological disease.

Steven F. Lee LabRepresentative images of two Parkinson's Disease patients stained for alpha-synuclein

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Yes

The awards were presented on Tuesday 30 September at a ceremony at BBC Broadcasting House, broadcast live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row.

BBC National Short Story Award 2025

Colwill Brown won the twentieth anniversary BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University for 'You Cannot Thead a Moving Needle', a story praised for its “startling prose” and “astonishing” voice.

The story follows teenager Shaz, whose life is changed after a brutal incident with two boys, one the boyfriend of her best friend. Written in the Doncaster dialect of Brown’s childhood and in the second person, the story explores shame, silence, and the long-term impact of trauma within a small community.

Brown, whose debut novel We Pretty Pieces of Flesh was published earlier this year, received the £15,000 prize from the 2025 Chair of Judges Di Speirs MBE. The story is available to listen to on BBC Sounds, read by Sophie McShera.

Di Speirs said: “From first reading, Colwill Brown’s story leapt from the page, alive and immediately compelling, deeply disturbing, a story we couldn’t forget. The brio of the dialect, the brilliance of both the second person narration and the handling of the passage of time, and above all the exploration of a life critically damaged in a moment, all made this our unanimous winner.”

Speaking about her work, Brown said:
“The story was inspired by memories of growing up in Doncaster in the late nineties and early noughties, based on my sense of the atmosphere at that time, what it was like to be a teenager, in particular what it was like to be a girl. I admire so many of the writers who have appeared on the [BBC NSSA] list; it’s a real honour to have a story of mine in company with theirs.”

Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson, Fellow, Lecturer and Director of Studies at Cambridge University, said:
“Colwill Brown’s Yorkshire-dialect story is a fast, taut examination of repercussions. One messy, half-remembered night in a young woman’s life echos down the years in bouts of rage and shame, in the need for silence to protect friends and the struggle to find a way to live among dwindling opportunities when the same people still wander the same streets each day. This year’s winning story demonstrates how seemingly small events can shape our futures, how the thoughtlessness of youth can shadow our adult choices. All of this is done in deft, startling prose that opens new possibilities in contemporary literary voice. Congratulations Colwill!”

Brown topped the impressive shortlist that included Andrew Miller, Caoilinn Hughes, Edward Hogan, and Emily Abdeni-Holman.

BBC Young Writers’ Award 2025

The winner of the BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University 2025 was announced alongside the NSSA. Rebecca Smith, a 17-year-old sixth former from Sheffield, received the award for 'Scouse’s Run', a story exploring toxic masculinity, bullying, and the violence that can result from suppressed emotions.

Set in Yorkshire and written in local dialect, the story follows Scouse, who bets friends he can ride a shopping trolley down a hill without crying out, with tragic consequences. The story was praised for its strong voice, tension, and finely calibrated prose. It is available to listen to on BBC Sounds, read by Andy Clark.

Lauren Layfield, Chair of Judges, said:
“Despite hundreds of incredible entries for the Young Writers Award 2025, it was Scouse’s Run that I couldn’t stop thinking about. A singular, tragic event told in a truly authentic voice, it deftly explores the theme of toxic masculinity amongst young boys. It’s important, massively relevant to 2025 and fun to read – until you reach the ending which will take your breath away. Rebecca Smith has written something remarkable, capturing kitchen sink realism and Northern grit – she’s a true talent with a big future ahead and I’m thrilled that she takes the Young Writers Award 2025.”

Rebecca Smith said:
“I started the story as a sort of epic adventure gone wrong, but as I was writing I began to lean into themes of peer pressure and toxic masculinity. The character Runty’s reaction is a result of built-up resentment from the bullying he has received [and] this violent element demonstrates, in my opinion, how young men deal with feeling powerless. I’m so glad that a story I've been so invested in, and have become so attached to, has received this recognition. And I'm beyond excited for everything that comes next as a part of this award.”

Dr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills, University Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Fellow of Robinson College Cambridge, said:
“It’s a pleasure to congratulate Rebecca Smith on her powerful winning story, which has been rattling around in my head ever since I first read it. While Scouse’s cart runs out of control, Smith’s prose is only ever perfectly handled, each word finely calibrated to draw us in to the intimacy and violence of teen friendship. The sucker-punch of an ending is exquisite. This is a story that will stay with me a long time, and a worthy winner among an outstanding shortlist. Congratulations to Rebecca, and to all the shortlisted Young Writers.”

Smith topped a competitive shortlist of Holly Dye, Anoushka Patel, Edith Taussig, and Anna Tuchinda.

About the awards

The BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University was established in 2006 and is one of the most prestigious awards for a single short story. The BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University was created in 2015 to discover and inspire the next generation of short story writers.

Cambridge's long-term partnership with both the Awards, is led by Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Fellow and Associate Professor in English at Downing and Newnham Colleges) and Dr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills (University Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Fellow of Robinson College).

In 2025, the Award is generously supported by the School of Arts and Humanities, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculties of English and Education, Downing and Robinson Colleges, the University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Professional and Continuing Education (PACE).

Doncaster-born writer Colwill Brown and Sheffield sixth former Rebecca Smith have been announced as the winners of the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award (NSSA) and BBC Young Writers’ Award (YWA) with Cambridge University.

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Yes

In Rewilding Education, Professor Hilary Cremin argues that modern schooling is defined by an obsession with standardisation and outdated thinking, while it fails to nurture creativity, critical thought, or the physical and mental health of students and teachers.

Cremin, who is Head of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, draws on decades of experience as a teacher, academic and consultant – as well as the work of other scholars – to put forward a programme for “long-term, radical change”, including a stronger focus on students’ social and emotional development alongside academic achievement.

The book’s numerous proposals include more lessons outdoors, and more projects that connect students to their communities beyond the school gates. Steps such as these, she argues, would help prepare young people to live responsibly – and well – in a rapidly changing world.

Cremin acknowledges that these ideas may be disparaged by traditionalists and policy-makers – as, indeed, they have been before. In 2013, she was one of 100 academic critics of Michael Gove’s educational reforms whom the then Education Secretary branded “enemies of promise”.

More than a decade later, she argues, there is still no evidence that those reforms, like many before and since, have narrowed the attainment gap between wealthy and poorer students as promised. Research shows that the gap widens throughout school, reaching the equivalent of more than 19 months of learning by the end of secondary education.

“Despite decades of reform, I think the school system as we presently configure it may be beyond redemption,” Cremin said. “This isn’t an attack on the idea of education, or on the thousands of brilliant teachers who give the job their all. But government after government has tinkered with education when the basic model is obsolete.”

“If we keep preparing children for the second half of the 21st century using a system designed in the 19th, it could do catastrophic harm. We need to rethink what it means to educate, and what we are educating for.”

Rewilding Education challenges the ‘myth of social mobility’, arguing that education functions more as a sorting mechanism than a levelling force. High-performing school still admit disproportionately few disadvantaged young people, and poverty remains the strongest available predictor of student outcomes.

The chimerical belief persists that good grades will secure students a better future. “None of the ideas driving schools policy really stands up to scrutiny,” Cremin writes, “yet this hardly seems to matter”.

Cremin contends that schools often resemble outdated, factory-style production lines: rigid, standardised and with sometimes militaristic discipline. This, she suggests, suppresses curiosity, discourages critical thinking and disempowers teachers.

Her critique of the effects on physical and mental health is particularly urgent. Cremin argues that schools are making students and teachers ill. She presents evidence linking the loss of physical education and the sale of school playing fields to rising childhood obesity, and notes that even basic needs – such as access to adequate toilet facilities – often go unmet.

High-stakes testing, she adds, is fuelling poor mental health, while zero-tolerance behaviour policies have driven a 60% rise in permanent exclusions since 2015, with disadvantaged students four times more likely to be excluded. Students and teachers, she suggests, sometimes turn to medication to cope with an “ailing system”.

This bleak reality, she argues, demands more than incremental reform. The book calls for a new educational model for a new kind of future – one shaped by the climate crisis, downward mobility, Generative AI and post-truth politics. “We are educating for jobs and lifestyles that will soon cease to exist,” Cremin writes, “while failing to educate for those that don’t yet exist.”

This leads Cremin to call for education to be ‘rewilded’ – a metaphor drawn from ecological restoration. In schools, it implies letting go of rigid, one-size-fits-all structures, and allowing less predictable and more holistic forms of learning to emerge.

Nature plays a central role in her vision. Drawing on thinkers like Rabindranath Tagore, Cremin argues that schools should treat the natural world as a “co-educator”. She encourages outdoor and experience-based learning and suggests that even small changes – like planting trees, creating school gardens or nature-inspired arts activities – could help foster greater respect for the environment.

Rewilding Education also urges a rebalancing towards project-based learning, the arts and civic engagement. Students, Cremin argues, must learn not only to reproduce knowledge, but to act with wisdom and care, and to think critically about complex problems. This requires education for “body, mind, heart and soul”.

She proposes, for example, giving students time to walk and reflect when grappling with difficult questions, and highlights research linking later start times for adolescents – who have different sleep patterns – to better performance and wellbeing. She also champions mindfulness and ‘metacognitive’ approaches, that help children reflect on how they are thinking while they are learning.

In a chapter Cremin anticipates critics will deliberately misread, she calls for greater trust and deeper relationships between teachers and students. Risk aversion in schools, she argues, has counter-intuitively made it harder for teachers to care and support pupils, in favour of rule enforcement and teaching facts.

The book draws on examples from the UK, India, Germany and the US to show how ‘rewilding’ is not just possible, but already happening, in some schools that emphasise education for togetherness, harmony and wellbeing. “Something fundamental needs to change,” Cremin added. “We are crying out for systemic transformation: a completely new vision of what education involves, however challenging that may be.”

A new book warns that the school system may be “broken beyond repair”, claiming that it is deepening inequality and making children ill.

We are crying out for systemic transformation: a completely new vision of what education involves, however challenging that may beHilary CreminCaia images/GettyGirl takes exam in a London secondary school.

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Yes

A combination of metformin, a diabetes drug, and clemastine, an antihistamine, can help repair myelin – the protective coating around nerves, which gets damaged in multiple sclerosis (MS) causing symptoms like fatigue, pain, spasms and problems with walking.

This is according to early findings from the phase two clinical trial, CCMR-Two, carried out by researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Clinical Neurosciences, and funded by the MS Society.

The scientists say the results take us another step closer to finally being able to stop disease progression in MS. However, they stress that people should not attempt to acquire the drugs outside a clinical trial, as further research is needed to fully understand their efficacy and safety in MS.

Previous evidence from animal studies showed that metformin enhances the effect of clemastine on myelin repair, but until now the two drugs had never been tested together in people. News of the latest trial was presented today at this year’s European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) – one of the world’s biggest MS research conferences. 

“I am increasingly sure that remyelination is part of the solution to stopping progressive disability in MS,” said Dr Nick Cunniffe, a clinical lecturer in Neurology at Cambridge, who led the CCMR-Two trial.

“We still need to research the long-term benefits and side effects before people with MS consider taking these drugs. But my instinct is that we are on the brink of a new class of treatments to stop MS progression, and within the next decade we could see the first licensed treatment that repairs myelin and improves the lives of people living with MS.”

Over 150,000 people live with MS in the UK. While there are around 20 disease modifying therapies or people with relapsing MS, and some emerging for active progressive MS, tens of thousands of people remain without effective treatment.

Those drugs that do exist only work on one aspect of the condition – the immune system. They don’t stop the gradual nerve damage that leads to long-term disability. The scientists say that finding ways to protect nerves from damage, and boosting the body's natural ability to put myelin back onto nerves, could be a way in.  

“We desperately need ways to protect nerves from damage and repair lost myelin, and this research gives us real hope that myelin repair drugs will be part of the armoury of MS treatments in the future,” said Dr Emma Gray, Director of Research at the MS Society. “These results are truly exciting, and could represent a turning point in the way MS is treated.”

Some 70 people with relapsing MS took part in the trials for six months, half of whom took the drug combination and half took a placebo. The primary outcome used to gauge the effectiveness of the drug was a “visual evoked potential” test, which measures how quickly signals travel between the eyes and the brain. The speed of signals slowed down in the placebo group over the course of six months, but remained constant in the drug group.

While the primary outcome was positive, scientists point out that people did not feel better on the drugs. The benefit from myelin repair is to insulate and protect damaged nerves, preventing them from degenerating over years. Researchers believe that drugs that promote remyelination will have an effect on disability in the long term, which will be the subject of further research.

Researchers argue that MS is just the beginning. Finding ways to protect the brain before irreversible damage sets in, is vital across all neurodegenerative conditions from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s, diseases that together cost the UK hundreds of billions and place an enormous burden on the NHS and carers.

Hannah Threlfell, 43, from Abington was diagnosed with relapsing MS in 2019 after experiencing optic neuritis. She joined the CCMR-Two trial in the hope she could help future generations.

“Before I was diagnosed, I sat through a talk from MS specialist, Professor Alasdair Coles, about groundbreaking MS research. Even though I didn’t know I had it then, I remember thinking how incredible it was that so much had been achieved. And now I have MS, joining the trial was a no brainer,” said Threlfall, a former teacher who has recently become a curate.

“I love helping and I know being on this trial will make a difference to someone else in the future – even small ripples have long-lasting effects! This research gives me even more reason to believe that in my lifetime everyone with MS will have treatments that work for them.” 

CCMR-Two is being funded by donations to the MS Society’s Stop MS Appeal. The appeal hopes to raise £100 million by the end of 2025 to help find treatments that could slow or stop the build-up of disability for everyone with MS.

Scientists behind the trial say they are “on the brink of a new class of treatments” and that the findings take us another step closer to stopping disease progression in MS.

My instinct is that we are on the brink of a new class of treatments to stop MS progressionDr Nick CunniffeMS Society Dr Nick Cunniffe running a “visual evoked potential” test with a trial participant in the Cambridge Clinical Vision Laboratory.

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Yes

A Nobel prize-winner and one of the most influential scientists of the twentieth century, Edwards spent much of his career in the Department of Physiology at the University of Cambridge.

Together with gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and technician and embryologist Jean Purdy, Edwards pioneered the technique of IVF, in which eggs are fertilised by sperm in a laboratory, creating an embryo that is transferred into a woman’s womb to achieve pregnancy.

Their breakthrough came when the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, was born in July 1978 - marking the beginning of a new era of medicine.

Researchers estimate there have now been over 13 million babies born from IVF worldwide.

A two-part event on Friday 26 September at the University of Cambridge will celebrate Edwards’ life, work and legacy, marking what would have been his 100th birthday on Saturday 27 September.

An afternoon of talks and discussion, focusing on science and clinical practice, will take part in the Physiology Lecture Theatre - the building where Edwards succeeding in fertilising a human egg in a test tube. It will involve clinicians and scientists who were trained or inspired by Edwards.

This will be followed by an evening panel discussion open to the public at Churchill College, Cambridge, where Edwards was a Fellow from 1979 and a Member from 1974.

Among the evening panellists will be Louise Brown - the first IVF baby, Dr Jenny Joy - the second of Edwards’ five daughters, Emma Barnett - British Broadcaster and Journalist with a young IVF child, and Dr Mike Macnamee - former CEO of the world’s first IVF clinic, Bourn Hall Clinic, which was established in 1980 by Edwards together with Steptoe and Purdy.

“Scientists studying human reproduction at the University of Cambridge today are building on Sir Bob Edwards’ incredible legacy. Many of their careers overlapped with his, and now they’re developing his science further, and also building on his pioneering contributions to the ethics of assisted reproduction,” said Professor Kathy Niakan, Director of the University of Cambridge’s Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research, who will chair the scientific sessions at Friday’s event.

She added: “To be part of this field today is a unique opportunity for discovery and innovation, and a great honour to carry forward Sir Bob Edwards’ vision in advancing our understanding of human reproduction.”

Dr Jenny Joy, Edwards’ daughter, said, “Our family is delighted to be involved in this event, working with the Loke Centre in the Physiology Department and Churchill College, which both meant a great deal to our father.”

Edwards joined the University of Cambridge in 1963, and went on to win the Nobel Prize in 2010 for his work, by which time around four million people had been born following IVF treatment. Edwards died in 2013, aged 87.

Infertility affects over 10% of all couples worldwide, and IVF is now one of the most commonly used and successful fertility treatments available.

More information about the event is available online.

The Bob Edwards centenary conference has been organised by the family of Sir Robert Edwards, the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research, and Churchill Archives Centre (Churchill College) - which houses Edwards’ papers.

The conference is supported by Cambridge Reproduction.

Celebrations at the University of Cambridge honour the life, work and legacy of Sir Robert Edwards, whose work revolutionised fertility treatment through the invention of in vitro fertilisation.

Scientists studying human reproduction at the University of Cambridge today are building on Sir Bob Edwards’ incredible legacy.Kathy NiakanChurchill Archives CentreBob Edwards giving a talk at a Berlin symposium

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YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

LLMs are powering more and more products, but testing their safety, reliability and performance is a significant challenge. Current testing methods are slow, manual and inconsistent, making it difficult for teams to iterate quickly or trust their results.

Trismik aims to solve this by using adaptive testing and automatic scoring to evaluate models against a number of dimensions including factual accuracy, bias and toxicity. Inspired by psychometrics and machine learning, the system dynamically selects the most informative test cases, dramatically reducing the number of datapoints required while achieving high reliability and enabling faster development cycles.

“AI is no longer just generating answers, it's shaping decisions, products and lives. If we want trustworthy AI, we need to treat evaluation as seriously as we take training. Trismik aims to lead that charge by giving AI engineers the tools to test with precision, act with confidence and build with integrity,” said Nigel Collier, Professor of Natural Language Processing at the University of Cambridge and co-founder and Chief Scientist at Trismik.

Collier, who started his career in the 1990s with a PhD in machine translation using neural networks, has increasingly focused on how we can ensure AI acts as a trusted partner to humanity rather than a risk to it. Collier’s curiosity for whether AI could be assessed in the same efficient and fair way as humans, created the genesis for Trismik’s approach to adaptive evaluation.

In 2023 Collier met co-founder Rebekka Mikkola, a repeat founder and enterprise sales executive with a passion both for building in AI and opening doors for women in tech. The pair were backed early by Cambridge Enterprise and in 2025 were joined by former Amazon scientist Marco Basaldella as CTO, completing a founding team that blends science, engineering and commercial expertise.

Dr Christine Martin, Head of Ventures at Cambridge Enterprise, said: "Trismik exemplifies Cambridge’s continued contribution to global AI development with the team combining world-class academic credentials and practical industry experience that has given them the unique authority to define how AI capabilities should be measured. By solving a pivotal challenge in AI adoption, Trismik is positioned to drive trust at scale - we’re excited to support their journey to market."

The £2.2m in pre-seed financing was led by Twinpath Ventures, with participation from Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Parkwalk Advisors, Fund F, Vento Ventures and angel investors from Ventures Together. 

Read the full news story on the Cambridge Enterprise website.

As AI becomes embedded in everyday tools and decisions, ensuring the safety and reliability of large language models (LLMs) is more critical than ever. Cambridge spinout Trismik has raised £2.2 million to help it make AI testing faster, smarter and more trustworthy.

AI is no longer just generating answers, it's shaping decisions, products and lives. If we want trustworthy AI, we need to treat evaluation as seriously as we take training.Nigel Collier, Professor of Natural Language Processing and co-founder of TrismikNigel Collier

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Yes

Professor Cecilia Mascolo, Professor of Mobile Systems in the Department of Computer Science and Technology and Professor Swami Swaminathan, Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Department of Engineering, are among 74 leading figures in the field of engineering and technology elected to a Fellowship.

This year’s group consists of 60 Fellows, nine International Fellows and five Honorary Fellows.

They are drawn from every specialism from within the engineering and technology professions and cover sectors ranging from energy and defence to new materials. They have made exceptional contributions to their field: pioneering new innovations within academia and business, providing expert advice to government, and fostering a wider comprehension of engineering and technology.

Professor Cecilia Mascolo, who is also a Fellow of Jesus College, is a pioneer in devising frameworks to collect sensing data from devices such as phones and wearables with the purpose of developing models to understand behaviour and health. During the pandemic, she and her colleagues developed the COVID-19 Sounds App, which collects and analyses short recordings of users coughing and breathing to detect if they are suffering from COVID-19.

Since then, she has been working on ways to turn the devices we wear – such as earbuds – into mobile monitors that can collect data about our state of health, and developing cutting edge machine learning tools to evaluate that data on the device itself.

Professor Swami Swaminathan, who is also a Fellow of Robinson College, is an expert in the physics and chemistry of turbulent reacting flows, their modelling and simulations. His significant finding in turbulence-scalar-chemistry interaction led to a robust and accurate modelling framework enabling quantitative estimates of temperature distribution, emissions, combustion noise and instabilities in combustors using single simulation. His work helps engineers find robust designs of ‘green combustion systems’ for power generation using low- and zero-carbon fuel and helps devise simple models for complex fundamental phenomena.

This year’s new Fellows continue to reflect the Academy’s ongoing Fellowship Fit for the Future initiative announced in July 2020, to drive more nominations of outstanding engineers from underrepresented groups. This commits the Academy to strive for increased representation from women, disabled and LGBTQ+ engineers, those from minority ethnic backgrounds, non-traditional education pathways and emerging industries, and those who have achieved excellence at an earlier career stage than normal.

“As we approach our 50th anniversary next year it’s a good time to reflect on how much we have achieved,” said Sir John Lazar CBE FREng, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. “The Academy is built on the foundation of our Fellowship, and that remains as true today as half a century ago.

“Today’s cohort join a community of around 1,700 of some of the most talented engineers and innovators in the UK and around the globe. Their knowledge and experience make them uniquely well placed to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world, and our determination to advance and promote excellence in engineering remains undimmed.”

The new Fellows will be formally admitted to the Academy at a ceremony in London on 18 November.

Two Cambridge researchers have been named Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering in recognition of their exceptional contributions to their fields.

Cecilia Mascolo and Swami Swaminathan

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Yes

The Encode: AI for Science Fellowships embed top AI talent in the UK’s leading labs to tackle scientific challenges and accelerate the path to real-world solutions. Three Fellowships in the first cohort are being hosted at Cambridge.

Encode Fellow Jonathan Carter is using technology originally developed for astrophysics research to decipher how humans understand physics – for example, how the human brain performs intuitive physics calculations, like predicting where a thrown ball will land. Working with Hiranya Peiris, who holds the Cambridge Professorship of Astrophysics (1909), their approach uses interpretable variational encoders, a specialised neural network that can find compact, meaningful representations in complex data. This cross-disciplinary research could advance both our understanding of human intelligence and our ability to build AI systems that learn and generalise like humans do.

Shruti Mishra, another Encode Fellow, is developing an AI system that can discover clear, understandable equations describing how turbulent flows behave across different scales. This is a long-standing challenge in physics that affects everything from weather prediction to aerospace design. Guided by Miles Cranmer, Assistant Professor of Data Intensive Science at Cambridge, Shruti is combining machine learning with symbolic mathematics to automatically produce equations that scientists can interpret and trust, rather than ‘black-box predictions’, where the decision-making process is difficult to understand. Their work has the potential to enable more accurate climate predictions and improve industrial designs.

And Encode Fellow Martyna Stachaczyk is working with Rika Antonova, Associate Professor at Cambridge, to design a biologically inspired, on-device control architecture for real-time, local intelligence. This research could free intelligent systems from the cloud – which can be insecure and inaccessible where connectivity is limited – enabling robust, adaptive autonomy for prosthetics, robots, and environmental platforms even in resource-constrained or disconnected settings.

The Encode AI for Science Fellowship programme is run by Pillar VC, with funding from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) and the UK Government’s Sovereign AI Unit.

Cambridge scientists are using AI technology to boost research in a range of fields – from better understanding human intelligence, to describing turbulent flows, to freeing computer systems from the cloud – after securing new Fellowships launched to drive breakthrough discoveries.

Weiquan LinPeople and Artificial Intelligence

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Yes

The Academy is completing the national rollout of its ECRN, a researcher-led network for UK-based researchers in Humanities and Social Sciences, as a new cluster is launched to serve the East of England.

At Cambridge, the ECRN will be based at CRASSH (the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) and also supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Facilitation Team and the Postdoc Academy.

“Early career researchers are the architects of some of the most innovative and dynamic projects, events, and networks we host at CRASSH, and we are delighted to be able to extend our work with them in this way,” said Professor Joanna Page, Director of CRASSH and academic lead for the East of England Cluster.

“The British Academy ECRN will provide a wonderful opportunity for researchers across the region to connect with each other and benefit from a rich programme of research and professional development.”

ECRN members benefit from mentoring schemes, training, networking events, grant-writing retreats, academic book-publishing conferences, travel grants to attend network events and conferences, and seed-funding opportunities.

“The University of Cambridge has a longstanding commitment to supporting early career researchers, and we are honoured to play a part in this excellent initiative,” said Professor John Aston, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge.

“The British Academy Early Career Researcher Network also helps us to achieve our aims to strengthen ties with academic leaders and communities across the East of England region, helping further the exciting research taking place in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.”

Daniela Dora, ECR assembly representative for the University of Cambridge School of Arts and Humanities, said: “It is exciting to see the British Academy ECR Network launch in the East of England. The network offers not only new opportunities to share ideas and experiences across disciplines but also provides a supportive community for researchers. For early career researchers, this comes at a crucial stage where collaboration and connection matter most.”

The launch event for the East of England cluster of the ECRN will take place on 24 November 2025 in Cambridge, and ECRs from across the region will be invited to take part.

Funded by the Wolfson Foundation, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and Wellcome, the ECRN launched in 2021 as a pilot programme and has since been extended to 2027 due to its success.

Find out more and sign up to the ECRN with the British Academy.

The University has been selected as the lead delivery partner for the British Academy’s new East of England Early Career Researcher Network (ECRN) cluster. Cambridge will work closely with the other delivery partners, Anglia Ruskin University and the University of East Anglia, to support early career researchers in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences across the region.

Early career researchers are the architects of some of the most innovative and dynamic projectsJoanna PageTwo students walking through central Cambridge

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Yes

Fewer young people from the South West progress to university than in any other English region - and the region has some of the poorest outcomes for pupils in receipt of free school meals. On the 11th September, at the University of Exeter, more than 100 delegates gathered for the inaugural Your Future Story conference. The conference brought together representatives from more than 30 secondary schools, multi-academy trusts, and senior leaders from universities, local authorities, employers and national charities – all of them keen to ensure that background is never a barrier to high attainment or opportunity.

“There was a wonderful energy in the room,” said Nick Wakeling, Director of the Colyton Foundation. “A shared sense of belief and commitment to ensuring that young people in the South West have equitable access to opportunity. That’s how lasting change happens. Now the real work begins.”

In addition to providing funding, the University of Cambridge and Downing College will welcome visits from students in the region and offer online support through colleges with existing links to the South West.

Tom Levinson, Head of Widening Participation, said: “This is a genuine collaboration between schools, trusts, charities, local authorities, universities and employers. This joined-up approach is rare and extremely powerful.”

Earlier in the year, Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deborah Prentice, led a delegation to the South West and visited Colyton Grammar School to hear first hand about the barriers preventing students from the area applying to leading universities.

The first cohort of 100 pupils will begin the programme this term. New cohorts will join annually until the programme reaches 1,000 pupils across the region.

The University of Cambridge is supporting a new initiative to raise educational aspirations across the South West. Led by the Colyton Foundation Your Future Story is a ten-year programme designed to support 1,000 high-attaining pupils from under-resourced backgrounds across Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset to remain on the pathway to higher education.

This joined up approach is rare and extremely powerfulTom Levinson

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Yes

The experiment, by two education researchers, asked the chatbot to solve a version of the “doubling the square” problem – a lesson described by Plato in about 385 BCE and, the paper suggests, “perhaps the earliest documented experiment in mathematics education”. The puzzle sparked centuries of debate about whether knowledge is latent within us, waiting to be ‘retrieved’, or something that we ‘generate’ through lived experience and encounters.

The new study explored a similar question about ChatGPT’s mathematical ‘knowledge’ – as that can be perceived by its users. The researchers wanted to know whether it would solve Plato’s problem using knowledge it already ‘held’, or by adaptively developing its own solutions.

Plato describes Socrates teaching an uneducated boy how to double the area of a square. At first, the boy mistakenly suggests doubling the length of each side, but Socrates eventually leads him to understand that the new square’s sides should be the same length as the diagonal of the original.

The researchers put this problem to ChatGPT-4, at first imitating Socrates’ questions, and then deliberately introducing errors, queries and new variants of the problem.

Like other Large Language Models (LLMs), ChatGPT is trained on vast collections of text and generates responses by predicting sequences of words learned during its training. The researchers expected it to handle their Ancient Greek maths challenge by regurgitating its pre-existing ‘knowledge’ of Socrates’ famous solution. Instead, however, it seemed to improvise its approach and, at one point, also made a distinctly human-like error.

The study was conducted by Dr Nadav Marco, a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, and Andreas Stylianides, Professor of Mathematics Education at Cambridge. Marco is permanently based at the Hebrew University and David Yellin College of Education, Jerusalem.

While they are cautious about the results, stressing that LLMs do not think like humans or ‘work things out’, Marco did characterise ChatGPT’s behaviour as “learner-like”.

“When we face a new problem, our instinct is often to try things out based on our past experience,” Marco said. “In our experiment, ChatGPT seemed to do something similar. Like a learner or scholar, it appeared to come up with its own hypotheses and solutions.”

Because ChatGPT is trained on text and not diagrams, it tends to be weaker at the sort of geometrical reasoning that Socrates used in the doubling the square problem. Despite this, Plato’s text is so well known that the researchers expected the chatbot to recognise their questions and reproduce Socrates’ solution.

Intriguingly, it failed to do so. Asked to double the square, ChatGPT opted for an algebraic approach that would have been unknown in Plato’s time.

It then resisted attempts to get it to make the boy’s mistake and stubbornly stuck to algebra even when the researchers complained about its answer being an approximation. Only when Marco and Stylianides told it they were disappointed that, for all its training, it could not provide an “elegant and exact” answer, did the Chat produce the geometrical alternative.

Despite this, ChatGPT demonstrated full knowledge of Plato’s work when asked about it. “If it had only been recalling from memory, it would almost certainly have referenced the classical solution of building a new square on the original square’s diagonal straight away,” Stylianides said. “Instead, it seemed to take its own approach.”

The researchers also posed a variant of Plato’s problem, asking ChatGPT to double the area of a rectangle while retaining its proportions. Even though it was now aware of their preference for geometry, the Chat stubbornly stuck to algebra. When pressed, it then mistakenly claimed that, because the diagonal of a rectangle cannot be used to double its size, a geometrical solution was unavailable.

The point about the diagonal is true, but a different geometrical solution does exist. Marco suggested that the chance that this false claim came from the chatbot’s knowledge base was “vanishingly small”. Instead, the Chat appeared to be improvising its responses based on their previous discussion about the square.

Finally, Marco and Stylianides asked it to double the size of a triangle. The Chat reverted to algebra yet again – but after more prompting did come up with a correct geometrical answer.

The researchers stress the importance of not over-interpreting these results, since they could not scientifically observe the Chat’s coding. From the perspective of their digital experience as users, however, what emerged at that surface level was a blend of data retrieval and on-the-fly reasoning.

They liken this behaviour to the educational concept of a “zone of proximal development” (ZPD) – the gap between what a learner already knows, and what they might eventually know with support and guidance. Perhaps, they argue, Generative AI has a metaphorical “Chat’s ZPD”: in some cases, it will not be able to solve problems immediately but could do so with prompting.

The authors suggest that working with the Chat in its ZPD can help turn its limitations into opportunities for learning. By prompting, questioning, and testing its responses, students will not only navigate the Chat’s boundaries but also develop the critical skills of proof evaluation and reasoning that lie at the heart of mathematical thinking.

“Unlike proofs found in reputable textbooks, students cannot assume that Chat GPT’s proofs are valid. Understanding and evaluating AI-generated proofs are emerging as key skills that need to be embedded in the mathematics curriculum,” Stylianides said.

“These are core skills we want students to master, but it means using prompts like, ‘I want us to explore this problem together,’ not, ‘Tell me the answer,’” Marco added.

The research is published in the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology.

The Artificial Intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, appeared to improvise ideas and make mistakes like a student in a study that rebooted a 2,400-year-old mathematical challenge.

Unlike proofs found in reputable textbooks, students cannot assume that Chat GPT’s proofs are validAndreas StylianidesGreg O’Bairne, CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence, via Wikimedia Commons / NadaDespite ‘knowing’ the famous geometrical solution Socrates (left) gave to double the size of any square (right), ChatGPT preferred its own idiosyncratic approach, researchers found.

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Yes

A study published in The Lancet Global Health has revealed stark global inequalities in survival after emergency abdominal surgery for traumatic injuries. The research found that patients in the world’s least developed countries face a substantially higher risk of dying within 30 days of surgery than those in the most developed nations, as ranked by the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI).

Although overall mortality rates appeared similar across settings at 11%, risk-adjusted analysis showed that patients in the lowest-HDI countries faced more than three times the risk of death compared with those in the highest-HDI group, while the risk in middle-HDI countries was nearly double.

The Global Outcomes After Laparotomy for Trauma (GOAL-Trauma) study was led by the University of Cambridge and carried out by a global network of collaborators. It analysed data from 1,769 patients treated in 187 hospitals across 51 countries, ranging from conflict-affected areas such as the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Ukraine, and Sudan to well-resourced trauma centres in Europe and the United States. All patients had undergone a trauma laparotomy — emergency surgery to repair internal abdominal injuries – as a result of incidents such as road traffic accidents, stabbings, or gunshot wounds.

Among patients who underwent surgery, those in low-HDI countries typically had less severe injuries than those in higher-ranked countries. This suggests that the most critically injured may die before reaching hospital, or that some life-threatening injuries are missed on arrival.

“Our findings point to a survival gap that begins before patients even reach the operating theatre,” said lead author Dr Michael Bath from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “This may be because the most seriously injured die before they can access life-saving care, or because limitations in diagnosis mean their injuries go undetected.”

The researchers also found wide disparities in hospital care. For example, access to CT scans before surgery — a critical tool for diagnosing internal injuries — was available in over three-quarters of patients in the more developed settings, but in fewer than one-quarter in the lowest-ranked group.

The researchers say that addressing this survival gap will take more than simply faster transport or greater access to diagnostic tools such as CT scans. They call for coordinated improvements across the entire trauma pathway – from the moment of injury to full recovery – to ensure critically injured patients receive the care they need.

“The GOAL-Trauma study provides for the first time comparable global data on laparotomy for trauma, revealing that similar mortality rates can mask profound inequalities in care pathways,” said co-author Dr Daniel U. Baderhabusha of Hôpital de Kyeshero in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “This information will help design more equitable trauma systems that are better adapted to local realities. It paves the way for strategies that can offer every patient, wherever they live, the best chance of survival and recovery.”

“The GOAL-Trauma study is one of the biggest global studies of trauma care yet published,” said senior author Dr Tom Bashford from the Cambridge’s Department of Engineering and Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust. “It represents a huge effort by a team of partners from across the world, some of whom are practising in the most extreme conditions imaginable and yet still recognise the importance of contributing to international research.”

Reference:
Michael F. Bath et al. ‘Global variation in patient factors, interventions, and post-operative outcomes for those undergoing trauma laparotomy: an international prospective observational cohort study.’ The Lancet Global Health (2025). DOI: 10.1016/S2214-109X(25)00303-1

Mortality after emergency abdominal surgery is more than three times higher in the least developed countries compared to the most developed. Yet among those who undergo surgery, injuries tend to be less severe – raising concerns that those most critically injured are not even reaching the operating theatre.

Drs Producoes via Getty ImagesSurgical instrument table

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Yes

Cambridge researchers Dr Claudia Bonfio, Dr Akshay Deshmukh and Dr Elizabeth Radford have been awarded UKRI Future Leader Fellowships, which provides up to seven years of support to enable them to tackle ambitious programmes or multidisciplinary questions, and new or emerging research and innovation areas and partnerships.

Dr Claudia Bonfio’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry studies how life emerges from non-living matter and tries to answer this question by designing and building active primitive cells. Her Future Leader Fellowship project addresses this evolutionary question through an approach that bridges chemistry and biophysics, by investigating how the synergy between primitive lipids and peptides led to the emergence of membrane proteins – a hallmark of living cells.

Dr Akshay Deshmukh is returning to Cambridge’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology from MIT to take up his Future Leader Fellowship. To reach net zero by 2050, we will require seven times more critical metals than we produce today. Current extraction methods use large amounts of energy, water, chemicals, and land. During his Fellowship, Deshmukh will develop new processes to recover metals from sources like brines and recycling streams. His research combines experiments, spectroscopy, and mechanistic studies to create a framework for designing next-generation membranes, and aims to speed up the development of cheaper, more sustainable separation technologies.

Dr Elizabeth Radford is a paediatric neurologist based in the Department of Paediatrics, whose research is working to accelerate diagnosis and expand the treatment options for children affected by neurodevelopmental genetic conditions. Everyone carries small genetic changes, and while most are harmless, some disrupt how the proteins in our cells work and can affect a child’s development. However, it isn’t always clear which changes cause problems, making diagnosis slow and uncertain. During her Fellowship, Radford will study thousands of genetic changes by recreating them in human cells grown in the lab. This will show which changes damage proteins, helping doctors interpret genetic tests and provide earlier diagnoses, and paving the way for future treatments.

UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowships fund allows universities and businesses to develop talented early career researchers and innovators and attract new people to their organisations, including from overseas.

Out of the successful applications, thirteen projects are led by businesses and funded by Innovate UK.

To support excellent research and innovation wherever it arises and to facilitate movement of people and projects between sectors, FLF fellows are based in the most appropriate environment for their projects, be that universities, businesses, charities, or other independent research organisations.

The Fellowship allows the individual to devote their time to tackle challenging research and innovation problems and to develop their careers as they become the next wave of world-class research and innovation leaders.

The Fellowship also allows recipients access to the FLF Development Network, which provides specialised leadership training, access to networks, workshops, mentors, one-to-one coaching, and opportunities for additional seed-funding for collaborative projects.

“UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships provide researchers and innovators with long-term support and training to embark on large and complex research programmes, to address key national and global challenges,” said Frances Burstow, Director of Talent and Skills at UKRI. “The programme supports the research and innovation leaders of the future to transcend disciplinary and sector boundaries, bridging the gap between academia and business. UKRI supports excellence across the entire breadth of its remit, supporting early-career researchers to lessen the distance from discovery to real world impact.”

“UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships offer long-term support to outstanding researchers, helping them turn bold ideas into innovations that improve lives and livelihoods in the UK and beyond,” said UKRI Chief Executive, Professor Sir Ian Chapman. “These fellowships continue to drive excellence and accelerate the journey from discovery to public benefit. I wish them every success.”

Three Cambridge researchers are among 77 early-career researchers who have been awarded a total of £120 million to lead vital research, collaborate with innovators and develop their careers as the research and innovation leaders of the future.

University of Cambridge(L-R) Dr Claudia Bonfio, Dr Akshay Deshmukh and Dr Elizabeth Radford

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Yes

Rita joins the University from the University of London, where she has been Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Finance and Operations) since 2020 and has led a major transformation programme across its finance, digital, estates and HR services.

She has more than 30 years of experience in financial leadership across higher education, infrastructure investment, housing, and the charity sector. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

In parallel with her career in university leadership, Rita serves as Chair of the Audit Committee and Non-Executive Director at HICL Infrastructure plc, a FTSE 250-listed £3bn investment fund with over 100 infrastructure assets across the UK, Europe, the US, Australia, and New Zealand, supporting education, health, utilities, communication and transport.

Rita will report to the Vice-Chancellor and provide strategic oversight of the University’s financial activities.

She will also lead and manage the University’s Finance Division, and be the sponsor for the Finance Transformation Programme, which is modernising ways of working through new processes, technology and governance.

Anthony Odgers, the University’s current Chief Financial Officer, will step down from his role on 31 December 2025.

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor, said: "I am delighted to welcome Rita as our new Chief Financial Officer. Rita impressed the interview panel with her vast experience, particularly in finance transformation, her passion for higher education and her commitment to inclusive leadership."

Rita said: "Joining the University of Cambridge is a tremendous honour. I am inspired by the opportunity to lead a transformative finance agenda that supports the University's long-term strategic ambitions. I look forward to working collaboratively across the University to build a finance function that is modern, transparent, and aligned with Cambridge’s world-leading mission."

Rita Akushie has been appointed as the University’s new Chief Financial Officer. She will take up the role in December 2025.

I look forward to working collaboratively across the University to build a finance function that is modern, transparent, and aligned with Cambridge’s world-leading mission.Rita Akushie, Chief Financial Officer

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Yes

Autistic people experience poorer mental and physical health and live shorter lives than the general population. They are significantly more likely than non-autistic people to die by suicide. Recent estimates suggest that one in three autistic people has experienced suicidal ideation and nearly one in four has attempted suicide.

In a study published today in Autism, researchers from the University of Cambridge and Bournemouth University found that of more than 1,000 autistic adults surveyed, only one in four reached out to the NHS the last time they experienced suicidal thoughts or behaviours.

Among those who did not seek NHS support, the most common reasons were that they believed the NHS could not help them (48%), that they tried to cope alone (54%), or that they felt there was “no point” due to long waiting lists for mental health services (43%). Many participants commented that the NHS’s limited range of mental health services was not suitable for “people like us”.

Just over a third (36%) of participants who did not seek NHS support reported previous negative experiences with the NHS, while a similar number (34%) said they had had bad experiences specifically when seeking help for suicidality – and more than one in 10 (12%) said they had been turned away or had a referral rejected.

One in four participants (25%) said they feared consequences such as being sectioned. Others highlighted practical barriers, suggesting they could not face trying to get an appointment with their GP (34%). No participants said they didn’t want to be stopped.

This study also corroborates findings that certain gender groups may experience even greater barriers to accessing NHS support. Analysis by the team at Bournemouth and Cambridge showed that among the participants, cisgender women and those who were transgender or gender-divergent were more likely to have had negative experiences, while transgender and gender-divergent autistic people were especially likely to fear that they would not be believed by NHS staff.

Co-lead author Dr Tanya Procyshyn from the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge said: “Our findings make it clear that autistic people do want support when they are struggling with suicidality, but many have been let down by a system that they experience as inaccessible, unhelpful, or even harmful. Without urgent reform to make services trustworthy and better suited to autistic people’s needs, preventable deaths will continue.”

This study offers new insights on significantly higher suicide rates among the autistic population, a stark reality recognised by the Government’s inclusion of autistic people as a priority group in the 2023 Suicide Prevention Strategy. The authors note that policy commitments must lead to meaningful service changes, such as autism-informed training for healthcare professionals, alternatives to phone-based appointment booking, and flexible, autism-adapted mental health services. They stress that these changes must be co-designed with autistic people to ensure acceptability and rebuild trust.

Co-lead author, Dr Rachel Moseley from the Department of Psychology at Bournemouth University, said: “We know from other research that healthcare professionals don’t receive sufficient training to help them work effectively with autistic people. Our work shows that when faced with autistic people in crisis, clinicians often overlook these signs, or react in a way that causes further damage. For these reasons, it’s imperative that the government takes steps to address inequalities that prevent autistic people from accessing healthcare that could save their lives.”

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge and the senior author on the team, added: “There is a mental health crisis in the autism community, with one in four autistic adults planning or attempting suicide. This is unacceptably high. Although the UK Government has finally now recognised autistic people as a high-risk group in relation to suicide, the essential changes that could prevent these unnecessary deaths are not materialising fast enough.

“We are glad that Autism Action, the charity that funds a number of our suicide prevention studies, is translating the research into policy and practice, but we need to see a massive injection of funding into support services to avert multiple future tragedies.”

The research was instigated by the charity Autism Action as part of its mission to reduce the number of autistic people who think about, attempt and die by suicide.

Tom Purser, CEO of Autism Action, said: “It is unacceptable that our health service fails autistic people at the time of their greatest need. Autistic people want help but barriers in the form of inaccessible systems, poor attitudes and lack of training are preventing this, and in one in ten cases people are being turned away or rejected.

“The recently published Learning from Lives and Deaths report, focused on people with a learning disability and autistic people, highlighted that a lack of access to the right support is a massive factor that leads to premature deaths. We know a better system is possible – the Government must now lead the way to save lives.”

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. Alternatively, you can contact PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide) HOPELINE247 on 0800 068 4141 or by texting 88247.

Reference
‘I did not think they could help me’: Autistic adults’ reasons for not seeking public healthcare when they last experienced suicidality. Autism; 15 Sept 2025

Life-saving opportunities to prevent suicide among autistic people are being missed because systemic barriers make it difficult for them to access NHS support during times of mental health crisis, according to new research.

Without urgent reform to make services trustworthy and better suited to autistic people’s needs, preventable deaths will continueTanya ProcyshynZhu LiangSilhouette of a person facing glass wall

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

Now in its 11th year, the Award invites young people aged 14-18 from across the UK to submit stories of up to 1,000 words. It was created to discover and inspire the next generation of writers and is a cross-network collaboration between BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4.

This year’s shortlist features five young female writers whose stories explore contemporary themes ranging from toxic masculinity and inter-generational relations to climate change, power and responsibility. Praised as ‘beautifully subversive,’ ‘nuanced’ and ‘mature,’ the shortlisted works range from a dark tale told from the perspective of a black cat to a mythological retelling of the climate crisis, a lyrical portrait of three generations of women cooking together, a supernatural ‘housewife’s revenge’ story, and a sharp look at peer pressure and toxic masculinity

Dr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills, University Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Fellow of Robinson College, said:

“It's a pleasure once again to read these remarkable and often startling stories. We have become accustomed to the shortlisted stories for the YWA offering us reassuring evidence of young writers' skill and ambition. This year's shortlist, with work that experiments with voice and violence, bodies and gender, things unspoken and unspeakable, feels especially timely. These are stories that look both outwards and inwards, and which confront the reader powerfully. The University of Cambridge is extremely proud to support the Young Writers Award.”

The shortlisted stories are:

• ‘Wildfolk Report 2025’ by Holly Dye, 17, from Tunbridge Wells
• ‘Adu, Lasun and Marcha’ by Anoushka Patel, 18, from Leicester
• ‘Roast Beef’ by Edith Taussig, 17, from New Malden, Greater London
• ‘The Omen’ by Anna Tuchinda, 17, from Thailand, an international student in Edinburgh
• ‘Scouse’s Run’ by Rebecca Smith, 17, from Sheffield

The five stories will be available to listen to on BBC Sounds, read by actors including Amit Shah, Maggie Service, Priya Kansara, Sam Pitcher and Andy Clark. Interviews with the writers are also available to listen to, and can be read on the BBC Radio 1 website. 

The winner will be announced at the BBC Short Story Awards ceremony at Broadcasting House on Tuesday 30 September, broadcast live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, with the winning writer also appearing on Radio 1’s Life Hacks.

Cambridge involvement

The University’s support for the Award in 2025 generously comes from the School of Arts and Humanities, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculties of English and Education, Downing and Robinson Colleges, the University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Professional and Continuing Education (PACE).

The partnership also offers unique professional development opportunities for Cambridge PhD students, who take part in a BBC shadowing scheme, gaining experience in cultural engagement and public communication.

Cambridge's long-term partnership with both the BBC National Short Story Award and the BBC Young Writers’ Award, is led by Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Fellow and Associate Professor in English at Downing and Newnham Colleges) and Dr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills (University Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Fellow of Robinson College).

Dr Lander Johnson said:

“The National Short Story Awards continue to be the largest and most prestigious awards of their kind in the UK. I am proud to represent the University on this partnership; I believe we have a role to play in supporting the production of literary excellence in Britain. Storytelling is an essential human impulse through which we reflect on our changing world, inspire younger generations, and make sense of our collective and individual lives. It is essential that Cambridge University remains part of such crucial cultural work. Who are we if we cannot tell our stories?”

About the Award

Since its launch in 2015, the BBC Young Writers’ Award has highlighted some of the most talented young voices in the country. Previous winners include Lottie Mills, Tabitha Rubens, Elena Barham, Atlas Weyland Eden and Lulu Frisson, with many going on to secure further prizes, publications and acclaim.

The 2025 judging panel is chaired by Radio 1 presenter Lauren Layfield, joined by poet and former Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho, novelist Jessica Moor, poet Matt Goodfellow, and 2020 Young Writers’ Award winner Lottie Mills.

For more information, visit www.bbc.co.uk/ywa.

 

 

The shortlist for the 2025 BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University was announced Sunday 14 September, live on BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks.

This year's shortlist, with work that experiments with voice and violence, bodies and gender, things unspoken and unspeakable, feels especially timely. These are stories that look both outwards and inwards, and which confront the reader powerfullyDr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills

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Yes

Now, in a first-of-a-kind study, researchers at the University of Cambridge have trialled an unusual solution: a series of regular chats with a humanoid robot.

In work published in the International Journal of Social Robotics, the researchers found that when carers talked regularly to a robot programmed to interact with them, it produced significant positive benefits. These included the carers feeling less lonely and overwhelmed, and being more in touch with their own emotions.  

“In other words, these conversations with a social robot gave caregivers something that they sorely lack – a space to talk about themselves,” said first author Dr Guy Laban from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology.

He and an international team of colleagues set up a five-week intervention with a group of informal caregivers – those who care for friends or family members without being paid or formally trained to do so.

While many carers find the experience rewarding, supporting those who have significant physical and mental health conditions can also cause them physical and emotional strain.

The researchers found that increased care and family responsibilities, along with shrinking personal space and reduced social engagement, are reasons why informal caregivers often report a tremendous sense of loneliness.

One coping strategy often used by people in emotional distress is self-disclosure and social sharing – for example, talking to friends. But this is not always possible for carers who often face a lack of social support and in-person interaction.

Interested in seeing how the rapidly developing field of social robotics could help address this issue, the researchers set up an intervention for a group of carers.

Those who took part, ranging from parents looking after children with disabilities to older adults caring for a partner with dementia, were able to chat to the humanoid robot Pepper twice a week throughout the five weeks.

The research team wanted to see how carers’ perceptions of the robot evolved over time and whether they saw it as comforting. They were also looking to see how that in turn affected their moods, their feelings of loneliness and stress levels and what the impact was on their emotion regulation.

After discussing everyday topics with Pepper, the carers’ moods improved and they viewed the robot as increasingly comforting, the researchers found. The participants also reported feeling progressively less lonely and stressed.

“Over those five weeks, carers gradually opened up more,” said Laban. “They spoke to Pepper more freely, for longer than they had done at the start, and they also reflected more deeply on their own experiences.

“They told us that chatting to the robot helped them to open up, feel less lonely and overwhelmed, and reconnect with their own emotional needs.”

The research also showed that being able to talk to a social robot could help carers translate their unspoken emotions into meaningful, shared understanding.

For example, after the five-week intervention, carers reported a greater acceptance of their caregiving role, reappraising it more positively and with reduced feelings of blame towards others.

These results highlight the potential of social robots to provide emotional support for individuals coping with emotional distress.

“Informal carers are often overwhelmed by emotional burdens and isolation,” said co-author Professor Emily Cross from ETH Zürich. “This study is – to the best of our knowledge – the first to show that a series of conversations with a robot about themselves can significantly reduce carers’ loneliness and stress.

“The intervention also promoted acceptance of their caregiving role and strengthened their ability to regulate their emotions. This highlights ways in which assistive social robots can offer emotional support when human connection is often scarce.”

Reference:
Guy Laban, Val Morrison, Arvid Kappas, Emily S. Cross. ‘Coping with Emotional Distress via Self-Disclosure to Robots: An Intervention with Caregivers.’ International Journal of Social Robotics (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s12369-024-01207-0

People who care informally for sick or disabled friends and relatives often become invisible in their own lives. Focusing on the needs of those they care for, they rarely get the chance to talk about their own emotions or challenges, and this can lead to them feeling increasingly stressed and isolated.  

Alex Knight via Wikimedia CommonsPepper the robot

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

The University of Cambridge is proud to support the Award, recognised as one of the UK’s most significant literary prizes for a single short story. The prize aims to expand opportunities for British writers, readers and publishers of the short form, and to honour the country’s finest exponents of the genre. Cambridge staff, students and researchers contribute to the partnership, which also offers unique professional development opportunities for PhD students through a BBC shadowing scheme.

The 2025 shortlist

This year’s shortlist has been praised for its ‘intimate,’ ‘elegant’ and ‘nuanced’ explorations of relationships, community and the specificities of place:

• ‘Yair’ by Emily Abdeni-Holman
• ‘You Cannot Thread a Moving Needle’ by Colwill Brown
• ‘Little Green Man’ by Edward Hogan
• ‘Two Hands’ by Caoilinn Hughes
• ‘Rain, a History’ by Andrew Miller

Set in locations from Derbyshire and Doncaster to Jerusalem and County Kildare, the stories explore ‘self-contained’ worlds often inspired by personal memories and experiences, from the complexities of marriage, to the mysteries of survival in crisis; from newly formed inter-generational bonds, to the quiet tension between people and place, each reveals the short story’s ‘unparalleled’ power to reflect ‘the times we are living through.’  

The five shortlisted stories will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 15 - 19 September and made available on BBC Sounds. They will also appear in an anthology published by Comma Press.

The winner will receive £15,000, with £600 awarded to each of the other shortlisted writers. The announcement will be made live on Front Row on Tuesday 30 September 2025.

A BBC and Cambridge partnership

Cambridge's long-term partnership with both the BBC National Short Story Award and the BBC Young Writers’ Award, is led by Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Fellow and Associate Professor in English at Downing and Newnham Colleges) and Dr Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills (University Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Fellow of Robinson College).

Dr Lander Johnson said:

“The National Short Story Awards continue to be the largest and most prestigious awards of their kind in the UK. I am proud to represent the University on this partnership; I believe we have a role to play in supporting the production of literary excellence in Britain. Storytelling is an essential human impulse through which we reflect on our changing world, inspire younger generations, and make sense of our collective and individual lives. It is essential that Cambridge University remains part of such crucial cultural work. Who are we if we cannot tell our stories?”

Dr Rawlinson-Mills added:

“The short story as a form is intense. Compact, powerful, challenging – for the writer and, often, for the reader. Each year the National Short Story Award brings us into contact with some of the most exciting voices in English writing, and over the past twenty years it’s been a privilege to see the ways in which winning this prize has boosted writers’ profiles and brought their work to new audiences through the broadcasts on R4. Every year there are new reasons to feel that we need stories more than ever. I am very proud of the part the University of Cambridge continues to play in supporting the prize and therefore supporting new writing.”

In 2025, the Award is generously supported by the School of Arts and Humanities, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculties of English and Education, Downing and Robinson Colleges, the University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Professional and Continuing Education (PACE).

Cambridge PhD students are also benefitting from the BBC Partnership Shadowing Scheme, which allows arts and social sciences researchers at Cambridge to work with BBC teams on programming around the Awards, developing valuable skills in cultural engagement and public communication.

About the Award

First presented in 2006, the BBC National Short Story Award has honoured leading and emerging voices including Sarah Hall, Cynan Jones, Ingrid Persaud, and Saba Sams. Alumni of the shortlist include Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel, Tessa Hadley and Caleb Azumah Nelson.

The 2025 judging panel is chaired by Di Speirs MBE, joined by William Boyd, Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.

The BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University, now in its 11th year, also continues to inspire writers aged 14 - 18. The shortlist will be announced on Sunday 14 September, with the winner also revealed on 30 September.

For more information, visit www.bbc.co.uk/nssa.

 

The shortlist for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University was announced last night, Thursday 11 September, on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, as the prestigious prize celebrates its 20th anniversary.

I am proud to represent the University on this partnership; I believe we have a role to play in supporting the production of literary excellence in Britain.Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson

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Yes

Despite changes to the HM Treasury Green Book to encourage forms of valuation other than economic, local authorities are struggling to capture social, environmental and cultural value in a way that feeds into their systems and processes. The Public Map Platform project aims to make this easy by spatialising data so that it can be used as a basis for targeted hyperlocal action for a green transition.

Professor Flora Samuel said: “Climate change cannot be addressed without revealing and tackling the inequalities within society and where they are happening. Only when we know what is happening where, and how people are adapting to climate change can we make well informed decisions.”

“The aim of this pragmatic project is to create a Public Map Platform that will bring together multiple layers of spatial information to give a social, environmental, cultural and economic picture of what is happening in a neighbourhood, area, local authority, region or nation.”

In 2023, the project was awarded one of four new £4.625 million Green Transition Ecosystem grants. The second phase funding will enable to project to build on its impacts and benefits.

The project features at the Venice Architecture Biennale (until 28th Sept 2025) and at the Design Museum’s 'Future Observatory: Tools for Transition' display, in London, of work by all four Green Transition Ecosystem projects (12th Sept 2025 – Aug 2026). The Public Map Platform’s Rural Roaming Room structure will be on show outside the museum.

Flora Samuel’s team is presenting to the Welsh Government at the Sennedd in Cardiff on 30th September 2025. They have engaged with hundreds of children on the Isle of Anglesey and will be bringing the Public Map Platform to Cambridge working with the team in The Cambridge Room.

Green Transition Ecosystems (GTEs) are large-scale projects that focus on translating the best design-led research into real-world benefits. Capitalising on clusters of design excellence, GTEs address distinct challenges posed by the climate crisis including, but not limited to, realising net zero goals.

GTEs are the flagship funding strand of the £25m Future Observatory: Design the Green Transition programme, funded by the AHRC and delivered in partnership with the Design Museum.

The Public Map Platform is addressing the following overarching aims of the Green Transitions Ecosystem call: measurable, green transition-supportive behavioural change across sectors and publics; design that fosters positive behavioural change in support of green transition goals, including strategy and policy; region-focused solutions for example the infrastructure supporting rural communities and, lastly, designing for diversity.

To meet these aims the project will deliver a baseline model mapping platform for decision making with communities for use by Local Authorities (LoAs) across the UK and beyond. To do this a pilot platform will be made for the Isle of Anglesey to help the LoA measure its progress towards a green transition and fulfilment of the Future Generations Wales Act in a transparent and inclusive way.

The Isle of Anglesey/Ynys Môn in North Wales was chosen as the case study for this project largely because it is a discrete geographical place that is rural, disconnected and in decline, with a local authority that has high ambitions to reinvent itself as a centre of sustainable innovation, to be an 'Energy Island’ at the centre of low-carbon energy research and development. The bilingual context of Anglesey provides a particular opportunity to explore issues around multilingual engagement, inclusion and culture – a UK-wide challenge.

The project, a collaboration with the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (Wiserd) at Cardiff University and Wrexham Glyndwr University as well as several other partners is supported by the Welsh Government and the Future Generations Commission in Wales who are investigating ways to measure, and spatialise, attainment against the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act (2015), a world-leading piece of sustainability legislation.

The Public Map Platform will offer a range of well designed and accessible information to communities, local authorities and policy makers alike, as well as opportunities to contribute to the maps. The map layers will constantly grow with information and sophistication, reconfigured according to local policy and boundaries. And crucially, they will be developed and monitored with and by a representative cross section of the local community.

An accessible website will be designed as a data repository tailored to a range of audiences, scalable for use across the UK. Social, cultural and environmental map layers will be co-created with children and young people to show, for instance, where people connect, engage with cultural activities and do small things to adapt to climate change.

The community-made data will be overlaid onto existing census and administrative data sets to build a baseline Future Generations map of the Isle of Anglesey. The layers can be clustered together to measure the island’s progress against the Act but can also be reconfigured to other kinds of measurement schema. In this way the project will offer a model for inclusive, transparent and evidence based planning, offering lessons for the rest of the UK and beyond.

This award is part of the Future Observatory: Design the Green Transition programme, the largest publicly funded design research and innovation programme in the UK. Funded by AHRC in partnership with Future Observatory at the Design Museum, this £25m multimodal investment aims to bring design researchers, universities, and businesses together to catalyse the transition to net zero and a green economy.

Christopher Smith, Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council said:

“Design is a critical bridge between research and innovation. Placing the individual act of production or consumption within the context of a wider system of social and economic behaviour is critical to productivity, development and sustainability.

"That’s why design is the essential tool for us to confront and chart a path through our current global and local predicaments, and that’s why AHRC has placed design at the heart of its strategy for collaboration within UKRI.

"From health systems to energy efficiency to sustainability, these four Green Transition Ecosystem projects the UK are at the cutting edge of design, offering models for problem solving, and will touch on lives right across the UK.”

A team led by Professor Flora Samuel from Cambridge’s Department of Architecture has been awarded a further Green Transition Ecosystem grant of £3.12 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to create a Public Map Platform to chart the green transition on the Isle of Anglesey/Ynys Môn.

Climate change cannot be addressed without revealing and tackling the inequalities within society and where they are happeningFlora SamuelEllena McGuinness on UnsplashAnglesey beach crowded with people

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YesLicence type: Attribution