By Clementine Collett, BRAID Fellow at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, University of Cambridge
Back in 2023, I was completing my doctorate on AI and gender bias and my debut novel, Something About Her, had just been published. It was also the year that many prominent authors including Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and George R.R. Martin filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for using their work to train generative artificial intelligence (a type of AI that creates new content based on user prompts) without permission. This case is still proceeding through the courts, as are many others on similar grounds.
At the time, I remember thinking: we desperately need to know more about the implications…
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By Louise Ashley, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Work, Queen Mary University of London
Elena Doldor, Professor of Leadership & Diversity, Queen Mary University of London
Ahead of delivering a consequential budget, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the exchequer, told the Times she was “sick of people mansplaining how to be chancellor to me”. She added: “I recognise that I’ve got a target on me. You can see that in the media; they’re going for me all the time.”
The term “mansplaining” signals a gendered dimension to how Reeves is critiqued. The suggestion is that, as a woman in a highly visible role, she is subject to patronising explanation, implicitly from men, that would not be levelled at a male chancellor. The prime minister backed…
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By Susan Ann Samuel, PhD Candidate, School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds
At the UN climate conference Cop30 in Belém, Brazil, I asked some young climate activists and negotiators about their hopes, expectations and demands. Despite their positivity and the push for action from climate movements, Indigenous people and civil society, a lack of consensus on key issues was palpable.
Following overnight negotiations on November 21-22, the Brazilian presidency unveiled an outcome decision referred to as the “global mutirão” (collective…
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By Emma Linford, Honorary research associate, English literature, University of Hull
Arthur Conan Doyle was not just one of the world’s best crime fiction writers. He was a progressive wordsmith who brought light to controversial and taboo subjects. One of those taboo subjects was male vulnerability and mental health problems – a topic of personal significance to the author.
Doyle was a vulnerable child. His father, Charles, was…
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By Francesca Lessa, Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas, UCL
Fifty years ago on November 25 1975, military intelligence officers from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay gathered in the Chilean capital of Santiago to set up what they called the “Condor System”.
Better known as Operation Condor, this was a secret transnational terror network that allowed repressive regimes in these countries to persecute opponents living in exile. It left behind…
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By Selbi Durdiyeva, Visiting Scholar, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University
Details of a new peace plan for Ukraine are emerging after officials from the US, Ukraine and its European allies met in Geneva on November 23. They discussed the 28-point plan presented by Russia and the US the previous week, which has been widely criticised as requiring concessions from Kyiv that critics said would be tantamount to surrender.
These two plans, which represent the contrasting positions approved by Ukraine and Russia, are now being discussed…
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By Daniel Mills, Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine, University of Lincoln
Humans have probably shared their homes with dogs ever since they first settled. So it could be argued that there is no such thing as “human society” without including animals as part of it. Our long shared history with dogs has even be described as a form of co-evolution.
And a new study my colleagues at Cambridge and I published…
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By Vanessa Gash, Deputy Director of the Violence and Society Centre, City St George's, University of London
Despite decades of progress, the gender pay gap remains a persistent feature of the UK labour market. According to women’s rights charity the Fawcett Society, November 22 marked Equal Pay Day 2025 – the day when women effectively stop getting paid due to the wage gap with men.
This gender pay gap means women continue to earn less than men – currently by around 11% in the UK. This is not just because of differences…
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By Mike Cassidy, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham
In regions like the Pacific, South America and Indonesia, an eruption from a volcano with no recorded history occurs every seven to ten years.
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By Ed Hutchinson, Professor, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, University of Glasgow
A patient in Washington state has died from H5N5 bird flu, the first known human infection with this virus – but experts say the wider risk remains low.
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