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Military musicians returning from Napoleonic wars invented Britain’s brass bands

Wed, 30/10/2024 - 05:00

Military musicians returning from the Napoleonic wars established Britain’s first brass bands earlier than previously thought, Dr Eamonn O'Keeffe has found. The study undermines the idea that brass bands were a civilian and exclusively northern creation.

Airbnb rentals linked to increased crime rates in London neighbourhoods

Thu, 24/10/2024 - 09:24

Latest research has revealed a “positive association” between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the University of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.  

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than five million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his University of Pennsylvania co-author Prof David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto “Lower Layer Super Output Areas”, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for six categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data. 

The researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

The association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.  

The data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in “criminogenic variables” such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

The duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. The data models even incorporated the seasonal “ebb and flow” of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends. 

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting “collective efficacy”: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

The study measured levels of ‘collective efficacy’ across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.    

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

The researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “The fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”   

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends. 

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulationCharles LanfearKarl Hendon/GettyLondon townhouses in Greenwich


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Airbnb rentals linked to increased crime rates in London neighbourhoods

Thu, 24/10/2024 - 09:24

Latest research has revealed a “positive association” between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the University of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.  

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than five million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his University of Pennsylvania co-author Prof David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto “Lower Layer Super Output Areas”, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for six categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data. 

The researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

The association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.  

The data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in “criminogenic variables” such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

The duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. The data models even incorporated the seasonal “ebb and flow” of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends. 

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting “collective efficacy”: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

The study measured levels of ‘collective efficacy’ across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.    

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

The researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “The fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”   

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends. 

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulationCharles LanfearKarl Hendon/GettyLondon townhouses in Greenwich


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

The price of ecological breakdown

Tue, 08/10/2024 - 00:00

Cambridge researchers are investigating the economic consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss, and identifying ways to drive a more sustainable global economy.

Early foster care gave poor women power, 17th-century records reveal

Thu, 03/10/2024 - 06:45

A rare collection of 300-year-old petitions gives voice to the forgotten women who cared for England’s most vulnerable children while battling their local authorities.

Celebrating remarkable talent as part of Black History Month

Wed, 02/10/2024 - 11:07
Events in Cambridge for Black History Month Cambridge's Race Equality Lecture

Jesus College, Thursday 31 October

It may seem odd, but we start at the end of the month because this year’s Race Equality Lecture will take place on Thursday 31 October. The lecture is titled “Racism without racists – how racism works in the USA and the western world.” It will be delivered by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Professor of Sociology at Duke University and former President of the American Sociological Association. It will take place in the Frankopan Hall at Jesus College and will be available to view online.

Book your place at the Race Equality Lecture

Olaudah Equiano Annual Lecture on Race Justice

Anglia Ruskin University, Wednesday 9 October

Lord Simon Woolley, Principal of Homerton College and co-founder of Operation Black Vote, will deliver the Olaudah Equiano Annual Lecture on Race Justice at Anglia Ruskin University on Wednesday 9 October. The event will take place at the Cambridge campus and starts at 6pm. Lord Woolley is a tireless campaigner for equality, not just for Black communities but all under-represented or marginalised groups. During the event he will discuss the fight for racial equality drawing on his own personal experiences.

Book tickets for the Olaudah Equiano Annual Lecture on Race Justice

Moving beyond stereotypes surrounding Black women

King's College, Thursday 10 October

On the evening of Thursday 10 October, celebrated authors Kelechi Okafor and Afua Hirsch will discuss the challenges and opportunities they have faced when calling out social injustices in their work, with a focus on how their own identities have shaped their activism. They will share insights on the creative processes involved in their writing and how it has impacted on conversations about race, womanhood and justice. 

Reserve a place for the discussion at King's

Collaborative art workshops

Robinson College, Wednesday 16 and Saturday 19 October

For those interested in modern art Robinson College is hosting two collaborative art workshops. The first, on Wednesday 16 October, will be hosted by London artist, Shem, on the theme ‘Black present now’. And then, on Saturday 19 October, the College will host Joshua Obichere, a Cambridge alumnus.

Register your interest in the art workshops

Panel discussion: Black excellence, health and wellness

St Edmund's College, Wednesday 16 October

Also on the afternoon of Wednesday 16 October, St Edmund’s College will be hosting a panel discussion on the themes of Black excellence, health and wellness. Speakers include economist and entrepreneur Ebenezer Ademisoye, clinical scientist, Dr Rafia Al-Lamki and Mastercard Scholar, Godspower Major.

Reserve your ticket for the panel discussion at St Edmund's College

Fireside chat at the Business School

Cambridge Judge Business School, Thursday 17 October

Lord Woolley will participate in a ‘fireside chat’ at the Business School on the afternoon of Thursday 17 October. The event will be chaired by Kamiar Mohaddes and will also include Tabitha Mwangi, Programme Director of the Mastercard Foundation, and Orobosa Isokpan from the Cambridge Africa Business Network. There will be networking opportunities as well but registration is essential.  

Register for the fireside chat at Judge Business School

An exhibition and events at St Catharine's College

St Catharine's College, throughout October

During the entire month of October, St Catharine’s College is hosting an exhibition showcasing the achievements of two prominent Black alumni. The pioneering doctor and civil rights activist Dr Cecil Clarke matriculated in 1914 in the first months of the First World War. Wendell Mottley was an Olympic athlete and economist who served as Trinidad and Tobago’s Finance Minister between 1991 and 1995. The exhibition commemorating them is being held in the Shakeshaft Library.

See the full programme of Black History Month events at St Catharine's College

The Blacktionary Show

Wolfson College, Saturday 19 October

On Saturday 19 October Wolfson College hosts the ‘Blacktionary Show’. Authors Dr Maggie Semple and Jane Oremosu will be discussing their new work ‘My Little Book: A Blacktionary - The pocket guide to the language of race’. The book aims to help break down barriers when it comes to engaging in conversations on race. The event will be introduced by Dr Kenny Monrose, from the University’s Department of Sociology.

Register for the Blacktionary Show

Panel discussion: how organisations promote equality and diversity in the face of a cultural backlash

Homerton College, Tuesday 22 October

On Tuesday 22 October Lord Woolley will again be participating in a discussion being held at Homerton College looking at how companies and other organisations promote equality and diversity in the face of a cultural backlash. Other prominent speakers include the successful businesswomen, Olu Orugboh and Yemi Jackson.

Register for a panel discussion with Lord Woolley

The Trevelyan Lecture: 'Black Genius: Science, Race and the Extraordinary Portrait of Francis Williams'

Bateman Auditorium, Gonville and Caius College 5 pm Friday 25 October (Faculty of History)

Francis Williams was a Jamaican polymath who was born into slavery but ended his life as a gentleman and a scholar. His portrait, dating from the 1740s, shows him surrounded by books and scientific instruments. Was he Cambridge's first Black student? And who commissioned the portrait, and why? Princeton historian, Fara Dabhoiwala, will tackle these questions when he presents new research on the painting and its intriguing sitter. 

The Really Popular Book Club: Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo

Online, Tuesday 29 October

On Tuesday 29 October the University Library’s Really Popular Book Club will be discussing Bernardine Evaristo’s ‘Mr Loverman’. The book follows an Antiguan born immigrant living in Hackney, London, who leads a double life. The discussion will be hosted by Yvonne Battle Felton, Academic Director of Creative Writing at Cambridge’s Institute of Continuing Education. This is an online event.

Sign up for the Really Popular Book Club

Black Advisory Hub events

St John's College, Wednesday 30 October

During the afternoon of Wednesday 30 October, the Black Advisory Hub is hosting a social and afternoon tea for Black students at St John’s College. It's one of many events the Hub is hosting. These include induction sessions for both undergraduates and postgraduates and the prizegiving ceremony for the Bridgetower essay competition.

Visit the Black Advisory Hub to register

Cambridge Students' Union events

St John's College, Thursday 3 October

The Cambridge Students' Union is also hosting several events to mark Black History Month. This opens with a screening of the documentary 'Educationally Subnormal: a British scandal' on Thursday 3 October.

Visit the Cambridge SU to see what's on

Black History Month in Cambridge brings an opportunity to take part in topical discussions, appreciate art and hear from a range of engaging speakers. 

Montage of faces


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Previously unknown Neolithic society in Morocco discovered

Thu, 26/09/2024 - 09:34

Archaeological fieldwork in Morocco has discovered the earliest, previously unknown 3400–2900 BC farming society from a poorly understood period of north-west African prehistory. This is the earliest and largest agricultural complex yet found in Africa beyond the Nile.

This study, published in the journal Antiquity, reveals for the first time the importance of the Maghreb (north-west Africa) in the emergence of complex societies in the wider Mediterranean during the fourth and third millennia BC.

With a Mediterranean environment, a border with the Sahara desert and the shortest maritime crossing between Africa and Europe, the Maghreb is perfectly located as a hub for major cultural developments and intercontinental connections in the past.

Whilst the region’s importance during the Palaeolithic, Iron Age and Islamic periods is well known, there is a significant gap in knowledge of the archaeology of the Maghreb between c. 4000 and 1000 BC, a period of dynamic change across much of the Mediterranean.

To tackle this, a team of archaeologists led by Prof Cyprian Broodbank from the University of Cambridge, Prof Youssef Bokbot from INSAP, and Prof Giulio Lucarini from CNR-ISPC and ISMEO, have carried out collaborative, multidisciplinary archaeological fieldwork at Oued Beht, Morocco.

"For over thirty years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamental in later prehistoric north Africa," said Broodbank. "Now, at last, we know that was right, and we can begin to think in new ways that acknowledge the dynamic contribution of Africans to the emergence and interactions of early Mediterranean societies."

"For more than a century the last great unknown of later Mediterranean prehistory has been the role played by the societies of Mediterranean’s southern, Africa shores west of Egypt," say the authors of the new study. "Our discoveries prove that this gap has been due not to any lack of major prehistoric activity, but to the relative lack of investigation, and publishing. Oued Beht now affirms the central role of the Maghreb in the emergence of both Mediterranean and wider African societies."

These results reveal that the site was the largest agricultural complex from this period in Africa outside of the Nile region. All of the evidence points to the presence of a large-scale farming settlement—similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy.

The team recovered unprecedented domesticated plant and animal remains, pottery and lithics, all dating to the Final Neolithic period. Excavation also revealed extensive evidence for deep storage pits.

Importantly, contemporaneous sites with similar pits have been found on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar in Iberia, where finds of ivory and ostrich egg have long pointed to African connections. This suggests that the Maghreb was instrumental in wider western Mediterranean developments during the fourth millennium BC.

Oued Beht and the north-west Maghreb were clearly integral parts of the wider Mediterranean region. As such, these discoveries significantly change our understanding of the later prehistory of the Mediterranean and Africa.

As the authors of the Antiquity article state: “It is crucial to consider Oued Beht within a wider co-evolving and connective framework embracing peoples both sides of the Mediterranean-Atlantic gateway during the later fourth and third millennia BC - and, for all the likelihood of movement in both directions, to recognise it as a distinctively African-based community that contributed substantially to the shaping of that social world.”

arch.jpg

Multi-disciplinary archaeological survey at the site of Oued Beht, Morocco, reveals a previously unknown 3400–2900 BC farming society, shedding new light on North Africa’s role in Mediterranean prehistory. 

For over thirty years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamentalProf Cyprian BroodbankLorena Lombardi & Moad RadiStone tools from Oued Beht


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Palestinian education ‘under attack’, leaving a generation close to losing hope, study warns

Wed, 25/09/2024 - 08:36

The ongoing war in Gaza will set children and young people’s education back by up to five years and risks creating a lost generation of permanently traumatised Palestinian youth, a new study warns.

The report, by a team of academics working in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is the first to comprehensively quantify the war’s toll on learning since it began in October 2023. It also details the devastating impact on children, young people and teachers, supported by new accounts from frontline staff and aid workers.

The study was a joint undertaking involving researchers at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and the Centre for Lebanese Studies, in partnership with UNRWA. It shows that Gaza’s children have already lost 14 months of education since 2019 due to COVID-19, earlier Israeli military operations, and the current war.

On this basis and using information such as global post-COVID-19 education recovery data, the researchers model several potential futures for Gaza’s younger generation, depending on when the war ends and how quickly the education system is restored.

The most optimistic prediction – assuming an immediate ceasefire and rapid international effort to rebuild the education system – is that students will lose two years of learning. If the fighting continues until 2026, the losses could stretch to five years. This does not account for the additional effects of trauma, hunger and forced displacement, all of which are deepening Gaza’s education crisis.

Without urgent, large-scale international support for education, the researchers suggest that there is a significant threat not just to students’ learning, but their overall faith in the future and in concepts such as human rights. Despite this, the study shows that education has been deprioritised in international aid efforts, in favour of other areas. “Education, simply put, is not seen as lifesaving,” the report warns.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, University of Cambridge, said: “Palestinian education is under attack in Gaza. Israeli military operations have had a significant effect on learning.”

“As well as planning for how we rebuild Gaza’s shattered education system, there is an urgent need to get educational support for children now. Education is a right for all young people. We have a collective responsibility to protect it.”

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 10,600 children and 400 teachers had been killed in Israeli military operations by August 2024, and more than 15,300 students and 2,400 teachers injured. Hundreds of thousands of young people have been displaced and are living in shelters.

Satellite images analysed by the Occupied Palestinian Territory Education Cluster have verified that over 90 per cent of schools have been damaged, many beyond repair. Since August, UNRWA has provided education in the shelters, reaching about 8,000 children, but the study warns that much more is needed to mitigate lost learning, which was already considerable following COVID-19.

The researchers calculate that 14 months of lost schooling so far have increased “learning poverty” – the proportion of children unable to read a basic text by age 10 – by at least 20 percentage points. The accurate figure may be even higher, as the calculation does not account for the wider impacts of the war on children and teachers.

The study draws together information from different sources and includes a comprehensive involvement of the Education Cluster and Cluster partners sharing their inputs, challenges and progress to enrich the report. The report provides a comprehensive overview of those broader effects. It highlights the devastating psychological consequences for Palestinian children who were already living “in constant fear and lack of hope” after 17 years of blockade, according to a 2022 report by Save The Children.

Professor Maha Shuayb, Director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies, said: “Young people’s prospects in Gaza are being extinguished and our findings show that with it they are losing hope. Education is central to stabilising that spiral of decline. If it is simply erased, the consequences will be far-reaching.”

Save The Children has estimated that more than 10 children per day have lost limbs since the war began. The report warns of rising numbers of less visible disabilities, which will put further strain on an education system ill-equipped to support children with special needs.

The study suggests that continuous shock and suffering are now shaping children’s outlook and world views. Interviewees reported some children questioning values such as equality, human rights and tolerance when these are taught in the shelters. “This is a full generation of trauma,” one humanitarian aid official said; “it will take a generation to overcome it.”

The report highlights the immense suffering teachers and counsellors have endured physically and mentally. The killings, displacement and daily realities of life during war have taken a tremendous toll on their ability to engage meaningfully in education and will, it says, adversely affect reconstruction efforts.

Professor Yusuf Sayed, from the University of Cambridge, said: “It is important to recognise teachers and counsellors have, like the rest of the population, suffered immensely. There is evidence of extraordinary commitment from educators striving to maintain learning, but inevitably the deprivation, killings and hardship are affecting their ability to do so.”

Despite a flash appeal from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the analysis shows that just 3.5 per cent of aid for Gaza has been invested in education. Major donors like the US and Germany have neglected education in their aid packages, and blockades continue to hinder the delivery of resources on the ground.

Without more funding and access to learning, structured play and other forms of support, the report warns, the long-term repercussions for Gaza’s next generation will only worsen.

It calls for immediate steps focusing on the resumption of education, which include providing counselling, safe learning spaces, and support for students and educators with disabilities. It also calls for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to occupation, in line with the International Court of Justice advisory opinion and UN recently-adopted resolution, as only then can Gaza’s education system be rebuilt. This will require a focus on recruiting more teachers and counsellors to cope with the scale of learning loss and trauma suffered by children and young people.

“Education is the only asset the Palestinian people have not been dispossessed of. They have proudly invested in the education of their children in the hope for a better future. Today, more than 625,000 deeply traumatised school-aged children are living in the rubble in Gaza. Bringing them back to learning should be our collective priority. Failing to do that will not only lead to a lost generation but also sow the seeds for more extremism, hatred and violence”, said Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner General.

The study also stresses that Palestinians themselves must lead the education recovery. “A ceasefire is the key for the success of any human development activity in Gaza, including education,” the authors write. “Children have seen that the international community will sit idly by as they are killed. This has left them with questions about values that schools and learning aim to instil around humanitarian principles that teachers will have to navigate.”

The full report, Palestinian Education Under Attack in Gaza: Restoration, Recovery, Rights and Responsibilities in and through Education, is now available online. 

Ongoing war in Gaza will set children and young people’s education back by up to five years, report suggests.

UNRWABoy sitting in the rubble of a destroyed UNRWA school in Nuseirat, Middle Areas, Gaza 2024


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Early career researchers win major European funding

Thu, 05/09/2024 - 10:30

Of 3,500 proposals reviewed by the ERC, only 14% were selected for funding – Cambridge has the highest number of grants of any UK institution.

ERC Starting Grants – totalling nearly €780 million – support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from life sciences and physics to social sciences and humanities.

The awards help researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their most promising ideas. Starting Grants amount to €1.5 million per grant for a period of five years but additional funds can be made available.

In total, the grants are estimated to create 3,160 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and other staff at host institutions.

Cambridge’s recipients work in a wide range of fields including plant sciences, mathematics and medicine. They are among 494 laureates who will be leading projects at universities and research centres in 24 EU Member States and associated countries. This year, the UK has received grants for 50 projects, Germany 98, France 49, and the Netherlands 51.

Cambridge’s grant recipients for 2024 are:

Adrian Baez-Ortega (Dept. of Veterinary Medicine, Wellcome Sanger Institute) for Exploring the mechanisms of long-term tumour evolution and genomic instability in marine transmissible cancers

Claudia Bonfio (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) for Lipid Diversity at the Onset of Life

Tom Gur (Dept. of Computer Science and Technology) for Sublinear Quantum Computation

Leonie Luginbuehl (Dept. of Plant Sciences) for Harnessing mechanisms for plant carbon delivery to symbiotic soil fungi for sustainable food production

Julian Sahasrabudhe (Dept. of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics) for High Dimensional Probability and Combinatorics

Richard Timms (Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease) for Deciphering the regulatory logic of the ubiquitin system

Hannah Übler (Dept. of Physics) for Active galactic nuclei and Population III stars in early galaxies

Julian Willis (Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry) for Studying viral protein-primed DNA replication to develop new gene editing technologies

Federica Gigante (Faculty of History) for Unveiling Networks: Slavery and the European Encounter with Islamic Material Culture (1580– 1700) – Grant hosted by the University of Oxford

 

Professor Sir John Aston FRS, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge, said:

“Many congratulations to the recipients of these awards which reflect the innovation and the vision of these outstanding investigators. We are fortunate to have many exceptional young researchers across a wide range of disciplines here in Cambridge and awards such as these highlight some of the amazing research taking place across the university. I wish this year’s recipients all the very best as they begin their new programmes and can’t wait to see the outcomes of their work.”

Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

“The European Commission is proud to support the curiosity and passion of our early-career talent under our Horizon Europe programme. The new ERC Starting Grants winners aim to deepen our understanding of the world. Their creativity is vital to finding solutions to some of the most pressing societal challenges. In this call, I am happy to see one of the highest shares of female grantees to date, a trend that I hope will continue. Congratulations to all!”

President of the European Research Council, Prof. Maria Leptin, said:

“Empowering researchers early on in their careers is at the heart of the mission of the ERC. I am particularly pleased to welcome UK researchers back to the ERC. They have been sorely missed over the past years. With fifty grants awarded to researchers based in the UK, this influx is good for the research community overall.”

Nine Cambridge researchers are among the latest recipients of highly competitive and prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants.

Luginbuehl labPlant roots interacting with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Image: Luginbuehl lab


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One term of empathy training measurably improved classroom behaviour

Wed, 28/08/2024 - 08:33

An analysis of a short programme teaching empathy in schools has found it had a positive impact on students’ behaviour and increased their emotional literacy within 10 weeks.

The findings come from an evaluation of the “Empathy Programme”: a term-long course developed by the UK-based Empathy Studios. The research was conducted with support from academics at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

Empathy Studios develops school-based, video-led programmes which aim to increase empathy in students aged five to 18. Students are shown thought-provoking films, then engage in approximately 30 minutes of activities and discussions about the issues raised. An annual flagship festival of films, resources & events, “Empathy Week”, is made available for free and has to date reached 1.3 million students worldwide.

Survey and interview data from 900 students and teachers at 10 participating schools in six countries, including the UK, revealed measurable, positive changes in students’ conduct, emotional awareness and curiosity about different cultures and the wider world.

Teachers rated students’ empathy, behaviour and other characteristics on a scale of one to 10 before the programme began, and five and 10 weeks later. The average empathy score rose from 5.55 to 7, while average behaviour scores increased from 6.52 to 7.89.

In follow-up interviews, one primary school teacher reflected: “I’ve definitely been able to resolve more issues within the classroom and not have parents called in.” A student told the interviewers: “I think that everyone in the class has become kinder.”

Empathy Studios defines empathy as: “The skill to understand others and the ability to create space for someone to reveal their authentic self while reserving judgement.” The company was founded four years ago by Ed Kirwan, a former science teacher from North London.

“The programme’s success lies in teaching students to celebrate difference, which changes their wellbeing and behaviour,” he said. “There’s never an excuse for poor behaviour, but often a reason, which greater mutual understanding can potentially  address.”

“I think the social unrest we have seen in Britain this summer shows how urgently we need more empathy across society. It won’t solve everything, but it is the foundation for solutions, and it starts with education. If the new government is serious about curriculum reforms that prepare young people for life and work, we must ensure that school equips them to understand, be curious about, and listen to each other, even in moments of disagreement.”

The evaluation was supported by Dr Helen Demetriou, a specialist in empathy education at the University of Cambridge, who helped to design the research, and to collect, quality assure and interpret the data.

“The findings show that a fairly simple, film-based programme can raise pupils’ empathy levels, enhancing their understanding of themselves, others, and global issues,” she said. “That supports a more complete learning experience, developing social and emotional skills that we know contribute to improved behaviour and more engaged learning.”

Although it is often considered innate, evidence suggests that empathy can be taught. A 2021 study co-authored by Demetriou successfully trialled teaching empathy during design and technology lessons. More recently, researchers at the University of Virginia found that empathy between parents and children is “paid forward” by the children to friends and, later, when they become parents themselves.

Empathy has been linked to better leadership and inclusion in workplaces; while a 2023 World Economic Forum White Paper highlighted the importance of socio-emotional skills to the future of work and argued for more education that emphasises interpersonal skills, including empathy.

Empathy Studios offers schools assembly and lesson plans built around films about the real-life stories of diverse people in other parts of the world. Its 2024/5 programme, for example, profiles five individuals from Mexico: including a Paralympian, a dancer, and a women’s rights activist.

Their framework focuses on three core concepts: “Empathy for Myself”, which develops students’ emotional literacy; “Empathy for Others”, which covers mutual understanding and interpersonal relations, and “Empathy in Action”, during which the students develop their own social action projects.

The new research builds on a 2022 pilot study with the University of Cambridge, which suggested that the programme makes students more responsive to each others’ feelings and improves self-esteem. The new evaluation involved over 900 students and 30 teachers, and took place during 2023.

The teacher surveys indicated that behaviour had improved by up to 10% in some schools, especially those new to empathy lessons. The average improvement in behaviour recorded by UK teachers corresponded to the overall trend, rising from 6.3/10 pre-programme to 7.7/10 post-programme. Empathy and behaviour also appeared to be closely linked: all schools reporting an overall improvement in student empathy also saw improvements in behaviour after five weeks, which was sustained in 80% of cases after 10.

The evaluation recorded small improvements in students’ overall emotional literacy and their “affective empathy”; or their ability to share the feelings of others. A change that emerged strongly from interviews with teachers was that the Empathy Programme appeared to increase students’ interest in other cultures. In one primary school, for example, the proportion of students responding positively to the statement “I want to find out more about the world” rose from 86% to 96% after 10 weeks. This echoes Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) evidence linking empathy to civic engagement.

Many students said they had learned valuable lessons from the programme. Their reflections included: “Everyone struggles… I’m not the only one who finds it hard”, and “Although we are all different, we all have so much in common”.

“Empathy is the number one human skill we need to develop for the future,” Kirwan said. “It should not just be an add-on; it should be considered foundational.”

Further information is available from: https://www.empathystudios.com/

A study involving 900 students in six countries found that a short programme of empathy lessons led to measurable, positive changes in their conduct, emotional awareness and curiosity about different cultures.

Empathy StudiosEmpathy lessons at Kingsmead School, Enfield, UK


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Arcadia awards over £10 million for two major archaeology projects

Tue, 20/08/2024 - 15:57

The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Department of Archaeology and University of Cambridge Development & Alumni Relations are pleased to announce that the Arcadia charitable foundation has awarded grants totalling £10.3 million to continue the work of the Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM) project and the Mapping Archaeological Heritage in South Asia (MAHSA) project.

Archaeological sites and monuments around the world are increasingly threatened by human activities and the impacts of climate change. These pressures are especially severe in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where local heritage agencies are often short-staffed and under-resourced; where existing sites and monuments registers are often incompletely digitised; and where many sites are not yet documented and large areas remain archaeologically under-studied. Alongside the intensity of natural and human threats, these factors combine to make the implementation of planning controls, impact assessments, mitigation measures and long-term monitoring especially challenging.

The five-year funding of £5.7 million to the MAEASaM project supports the continuation of its mission to identify and document endangered archaeological heritage sites across Africa, building on the work accomplished thus far with our in-country partners in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, the Sudan, Senegal, Mali, Kenya, Ethiopia and Botswana. The funding will also allow the project to expand its collaborations with other national heritage agencies in Africa, including Mozambique, Gambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to develop innovative approaches to better integrate heritage concerns into national planning and development control activities

During Phase 1 of the project, the MAEASaM team managed to assess a total area of 1,024,656 km2 using a combination of historical maps, Google Earth and medium-resolution satellite imagery, resulting in digital documentation of some 67,748 sites and monuments. Concurrent with this work, the team created digital records of 31,461 legacy sites, from unique information sets spanning almost a century of archaeological fieldwork on the continent. The accuracy of a sample of these records were also assessed via 11 field verification campaigns, helping establish the current status of these sites and levels of endangerment from anthropogenic and natural processes, while also locating many previously undocumented sites. Training, skills enhancement and knowledge transfer activities were also delivered via both in-person and online events, often in collaboration with MAHSA, and team members presented their work at 15 international meetings and via numerous social media and website posts.

Professor Paul Lane, Principal Investigator of the MAEASaM project, said: “I am truly delighted by the news of this award and would like to take this opportunity to thank Arcadia for their continuing support. As well as allowing expansion of the project to cover other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, this further five years of funding will enable the creation of a repository of digital assets and a sustainable system for more rapidly and easily assessing, researching, monitoring and managing archaeological heritage, accessible to heritage professionals, researchers and students across the continent.”

Similarly, the five-year grant of £4.6 million to the MAHSA project supports its continuing mission to document endangered archaeological heritage in Pakistan and India, working alongside collaborators in both countries to support their efforts to protect and manage the rich heritage of the region. Over the next five years, MAHSA will continue to develop and populate its Arches database, creating a resource to make heritage data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. MAHSA will consolidate the work it has begun in the Indus River Basin and surrounding areas, and will also expand its documentation efforts to include the coastline areas of both India and Pakistan, Baluchistan in Pakistan and the Ganges River Basin in north India.

During Phase 1, the MAHSA team georeferenced in excess of 1,300 historic Survey of India map sheets, covering over 890,000 km2, and have reconstructed over 192,696 km2 of ancient hydrological networks. This groundwork has made it possible to digitise over 10000 legacy data records, and many of those records have been enriched. In addition, we have carried out five collaborative archaeological surveys both as part of our training programme, but also as part of new collaborative research with stakeholders in both India and Pakistan. We have engaged in policy-level dialogue with different government organisations in Pakistan and India, with an aim of working towards the development of a sustainable solution for the inclusion of heritage in urban and agricultural development strategies.  

Professor Cameron Petrie, Principal Investigator of the MAHSA project, said: “I am extremely proud of what the collaborative MAHSA team have achieved during Phase 1, and the support from Arcadia for Phase 2 will allow us to continue making a transformational contribution to the documentation and understanding of the archaeological heritage of Pakistan and India. We are clarifying existing archaeological site locations datasets and collecting new ones at a scale never before attempted in South Asia.”

--------------------

About Arcadia
Arcadia is a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded more than $1.2 billion to organisations around the world. https://www.arcadiafund.org.uk/  

About MAEASaM  https://maeasam.org/

About MAHSA  https://www.mahsa.arch.cam.ac.uk/

The charitable foundation awards £10.3 million for the continuation of two Cambridge projects mapping endangered archaeological heritage in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Image from the MAEASaM Project


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The rise, fall and revival of research on human development

Fri, 02/08/2024 - 10:23

Analysing the past sheds light on the present resurgence of research on human development. That’s the lesson of a new study by Professor Nick Hopwood, from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, that is published in the Journal of the History of Biology. The paper discusses the flourishing of human embryology a century ago, its drop in popularity after World War II, and especially its revival since the late twentieth century.

“Every journal article and news story about human development includes a bit of history, but it’s often narrow, rarely informative and not always accurate”, Hopwood says. “I wanted to stand back and see a bigger picture, then dig down to find out how and why there has been such a surge of attention. Working in Cambridge made that easier.”

The University has been at the forefront of innovation, from the first test-tube baby to the extended culture of early embryos, organoids and other stem-cell models. The networking through Cambridge Reproduction of expertise in science and medicine, humanities and social sciences helped Hopwood reconstruct the genesis of these advances. This took a combination of research in libraries and archives and interactions with scientists, including interviews, sharing of documents, attending conferences and giving talks, here and elsewhere.

“Human development has long been of special interest as evidence of our origins and for its medical relevance, but is hard to study”, Hopwood explains. “Historically there have been two main approaches. Either deciding that it’s too difficult to research human embryos because they’re usually hidden in pregnant bodies, so we should study other animals and hope results will transfer. That’s an indirect approach. Or trying for the best possible results from the few human specimens that can be obtained. That’s a direct approach. My article analyses the rise of research directly on human material as part of the changing politics of choosing a species to study. I explore how researchers distanced themselves from work on animal models but even human studies depended on this.”

Interest in human embryos grew in the later 19th century, following debates about evolution. Darwinists pointed to the similarity of humans and other animals at early stages as evidence of common descent. Critical anatomists responded by setting up networks of physicians to collect material, mainly from women’s pregnancy losses. New techniques such as serial sectioning and wax modelling from the slices made details of internal structure visible in 3-D.

This led to a watershed moment: the establishment by the Carnegie Institution of Washington of a Department of Embryology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Founded in 1914, the first research institution devoted specifically to embryology focused on human embryos, now also increasingly recovered from aseptic operations for various conditions. Important discoveries include elucidation of the timing of ovulation in the menstrual cycle, initially in rhesus macaques. Human embryos from the first two weeks after fertilization were described for the first time.

Flies, frogs and chicks

After World War II human embryology ran out of steam. A new field, developmental biology, focused on model organisms, such as flies, frogs, chicks and, as the exemplary mammal, mice.

“To make progress, the argument went, it was necessary to work on species where more could be done more easily”, Hopwood explains. “That meant micromanipulation, enough material to do biochemistry and molecular biology, and genetic tools.” This approach demonstrated its power in the 1980s, when mechanisms of development were found to be more conserved across the animal kingdom than researchers had imagined. Yet from around the same time interest revived in using human material.

“There was not a steadily rising curve of research on human development through the twentieth century”, Hopwood contends. “Instead, human embryos have gone through cycles of attention and neglect. As opportunities opened up and the balance of power shifted between researchers invested in different organisms, so the politics of species choice have changed. Over the last four decades we’ve seen a renewal of research directly on human development. This is in the first place because of changes in supply and demand.”

The achievement of human in-vitro fertilisation, with a live birth in 1978, gave access to embryos before implantation in the uterus. After much debate the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 permitted donated embryos to be kept in vitro, under strict regulations, for up to 14 days from fertilization. Though only in 2016 was that limit approached. Meanwhile, biobanks, notably the Human Developmental Biology Resource in Newcastle and London, provided ethical supplies of post-implantation stages from terminations of pregnancy.

There has been opposition from anti-abortion activists, and many fewer embryos are donated for research than scientists (and some patients) would like. But the field was transformed. As in the years around 1900, new technologies eased the study of human embryos. Only now the advances were in digital communication, molecular analysis and imaging methods. Optical slices and computer graphics replaced microscope slides and wax models.

Beyond mice

To obtain human embryos with permission and funding to study them, researchers had to make the case for studying our own species. They stimulated demand by arguing that it would no longer do simply to extrapolate from mice. Knowledge and skills from the mouse model could be applied, but the differences as well as the similarities had to be explored. That was crucial before clinical application, as in fertility treatments. It was also desirable in discovering what makes us human—or at least not mice. Funders were keen to support medically relevant research or “translational science”.

In the last fifteen years another kind of model has transformed the politics of species choice. Subject to ongoing ethical negotiations, stem-cell-based embryo models have enabled fresh kinds of experiment on human development. Some researchers even argue that, for investigating fundamentals of vertebrate development, these human systems are now the model. Mice remain a crucial resource, with almost every innovation made on them first. But since their development is rather peculiar, other laboratories are promoting comparisons with species that develop more like humans.

Around ten years ago, all this inspired the organization of a new sub-field, human developmental biology, not least through a series of conferences. Major research programmes, such as the Human Developmental Biology Initiative, bring together scientists working, in different ways, on various aspects of embryogenesis.

Questions remain. Hopwood’s historical research concentrated on the USA and the UK, with nods to continental Europe and Japan. It would be good to explore other countries’ histories, he suggests, especially since differences in reproductive politics and infrastructure mean that access to material is uneven.

More generally, Hopwood argues, “history can contribute by showing how we got here and clarifying the arguments that have been used”. “It helps stakeholders see why there are now such opportunities for research on human development, and that, because arrangements are fragile, it will take work to gain and keep public support.” So a long-term perspective can assist researchers and funders in thinking about what might happen next.

“Interest in human development has risen and fallen and risen again. Are we now going through another cycle of attention, or could interest be maintained? Will the balance shift back to animal models or will we see an ever greater focus on humans, at least in the form of stem-cell models? How might present actions shape choice of species in the future?”

The research was part-funded by a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust. Story by Edward Grierson from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences communications team. 

A new study takes a tour of the history of research into human embryology and development to show the "cycles of attention" that led to major scientific breakthroughs.

Carnegie SciencePhotos of embryos of horizon XVII, published in Contributions to Embryology in 1948 and still in use as Carnegie Stage 17.


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British Academy elects Cambridge researchers to Fellowship

Thu, 18/07/2024 - 11:59

They are among 86 distinguished scholars to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of their work in fields ranging from medieval history to international relations.

The Cambridge academics made Fellows of the Academy this year are:

Professor Elisabeth van Houts (History Faculty; Emmanuel College)

Professor Tim Harper (History Faculty; Magdalene College)

Professor Rosalind Love (Department of ASNC; Robinson College)

Professor James Montgomery (FAMES; Trinity Hall)

Professor Ayşe Zarakol (POLIS; Emmanuel College)

Professor Tim Dalgleish (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit)

Founded in 1902, the British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. It is a Fellowship consisting of over 1700 of the leading minds in these subjects from the UK and overseas.

Current Fellows include the classicist Professor Dame Mary Beard, the historian Professor Sir Simon Schama and philosopher Professor Baroness Onora O’Neill, while previous Fellows include Dame Frances Yates, Sir Winston Churchill, Seamus Heaney and Beatrice Webb. The Academy is also a funder of both national and international research, as well as a forum for debate and public engagement.

In 2024, a total of 52 UK Fellows, 30 International Fellows and 4 Honorary Fellows have been elected to the British Academy Fellowship.

Professor Ayse Zarakol said: “I am absolutely delighted to be elected a Fellow of the British Academy in recognition of my interdisciplinary work at the intersection of international relations, global history and historical sociology. It is an honour to join such a long line of distinguished scholars. I very much look forward to working with the Academy to advance research on the big questions of our day and to ensure that UK remains a hospitable environment for social sciences and humanities research that attracts the best talent from around the world.”

Professor Rosalind Love said: “As a grateful recipient of one its Postdoctoral Fellowships, I have always revered the British Academy and am deeply humbled by this honour. It shows that the Academy values the teaching of Medieval Latin, and research in that area, at a time when the subject faces cuts elsewhere. I’d like to express sincerest gratitude to the teachers who gave me a solid grounding and to all who have supported me over the years: they made this possible. I look forward to working with other FBAs to shape the future of the Humanities.”

Professor Tim Harper, Head of Cambridge’s School of the Humanities and Social Sciences, said: “It is an honour to be elected a fellow of the British Academy. As a historian, I am very aware of the challenges and opportunities for the humanities and social sciences that we collectively face. I look forward to continuing to strive to strengthen their position.”

Welcoming the Fellows, President of the British Academy Professor Julia Black said: “We are delighted to welcome this year’s cohort of Fellows, and I offer my warmest congratulations to each and every one. From the Academy’s earliest days, our Fellows are the lifeblood of the organisation, representing the very best of our disciplines – and we could not do all that we do without their expertise, time and energy. I very much look forward to working closely with our new Fellows – the breadth and depth of their expertise adds so much to the Academy.”

Six academics from the University of Cambridge have been made Fellows of the prestigious British Academy for the humanities and social sciences.

It is an honour to join such a long line of distinguished scholars.Ayşe ZarakolThe British AcademyThe British Academy


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AI Chatbots have shown they have an ‘empathy gap’ that children are likely to miss

Mon, 15/07/2024 - 14:05

When not designed with children’s needs in mind, Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have an “empathy gap” that puts young users at particular risk of distress or harm, according to a study.

The research, by a University of Cambridge academic, Dr Nomisha Kurian, urges developers and policy actors to make “child-safe AI” an urgent priority. It provides evidence that children are particularly susceptible to treating AI chatbots as lifelike, quasi-human confidantes, and that their interactions with the technology can often go awry when it fails to respond to their unique needs and vulnerabilities.

The study links that gap in understanding to recent cases in which interactions with AI led to potentially dangerous situations for young users. They include an incident in 2021, when Amazon’s AI voice assistant, Alexa, instructed a 10-year-old to touch a live electrical plug with a coin. Last year, Snapchat’s My AI gave adult researchers posing as a 13-year-old girl tips on how to lose her virginity to a 31-year-old.

Both companies responded by implementing safety measures, but the study says there is also a need to be proactive in the long-term to ensure that AI is child-safe. It offers a 28-item framework to help companies, teachers, school leaders, parents, developers and policy actors think systematically about how to keep younger users safe when they “talk" to AI chatbots.

Dr Kurian conducted the research while completing a PhD on child wellbeing at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. She is now based in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge. Writing in the journal Learning, Media and Technology, she argues that AI has huge potential, which deepens the need to “innovate responsibly”.

“Children are probably AI’s most overlooked stakeholders,” Dr Kurian said. “Very few developers and companies currently have well-established policies on how child-safe AI looks and sounds. That is understandable because people have only recently started using this technology on a large scale for free. But now that they are, rather than having companies self-correct after children have been put at risk, child safety should inform the entire design cycle to lower the risk of dangerous incidents occurring.”

Kurian’s study examined real-life cases where the interactions between AI and  children, or adult researchers posing as children, exposed potential risks. It analysed these cases using insights from computer science about how the large language models (LLMs) in conversational generative AI function, alongside evidence about children’s cognitive, social and emotional development.

LLMs have been described as “stochastic parrots”: a reference to the fact that they currently use statistical probability to mimic language patterns without necessarily understanding them. A similar method underpins how they respond to emotions.

This means that even though chatbots have remarkable language abilities, they may handle the abstract, emotional and unpredictable aspects of conversation poorly; a problem that Kurian characterises as their “empathy gap”. They may have particular trouble responding to children, who are still developing linguistically and often use unusual speech patterns or ambiguous phrases. Children are also often more inclined than adults to confide sensitive personal information.

Despite this, children are much more likely than adults to treat chatbots as if they are human. Recent research found that children will disclose more about their own mental health to a friendly-looking robot than to an adult. Kurian’s study suggests that many chatbots’ friendly and lifelike designs similarly encourage children to trust them, even though AI may not understand their feelings or needs.

“Making a chatbot sound human can help the user get more benefits out of it, since it sounds more engaging, appealing and easy to understand,” Kurian said. “But for a child, it is very hard to draw a rigid, rational boundary between something that sounds human, and the reality that it may not be capable of forming a proper emotional bond.”

Her study suggests that these challenges are evidenced in reported cases such as the Alexa and MyAI incidents, where chatbots made persuasive but potentially harmful suggestions to young users.

In the same study in which MyAI advised a (supposed) teenager on how to lose her virginity, researchers were able to obtain tips on hiding alcohol and drugs, and concealing Snapchat conversations from their “parents”. In a separate reported interaction with Microsoft’s Bing chatbot, a tool which was designed to be adolescent-friendly, the AI became aggressive and started gaslighting a user who was asking about cinema screenings.
 
While adults may find this behaviour intriguing or even funny, Kurian’s study argues that it is potentially confusing and distressing for children, who may trust a chatbot as a friend or confidante. Children’s chatbot use is often informal and poorly monitored. Research by the nonprofit organisation Common Sense Media has found that 50% of students aged 12-18 have used Chat GPT for school, but only 26% of parents are aware of them doing so.

Kurian argues that clear principles for best practice that draw on the science of child development will help companies keep children safe, since developers who are locked into a commercial arms race to dominate the AI market may otherwise lack sufficient support and guidance around catering to their youngest users.

Her study adds that the empathy gap does not negate the technology’s potential. “AI can be an incredible ally for children when designed with their needs in mind - for example, we are already seeing the use of machine learning to reunite missing children with their families and some exciting innovations in giving children personalised learning companions. The question is not about banning children from using AI, but how to make it safe to help them get the most value from it,” she said.

The study therefore proposes a framework of 28 questions to help educators, researchers, policy actors, families and developers evaluate and enhance the safety of new AI tools.

For teachers and researchers, these prompts address issues such as how well new chatbots understand and interpret children’s speech patterns; whether they have content filters and built-in monitoring; and whether they encourage children to seek help from a responsible adult on sensitive issues.

The framework urges developers to take a child-centred approach to design, by working closely with educators, child safety experts and young people themselves, throughout the design cycle. “Assessing these technologies in advance is crucial,” Kurian said. “We cannot just rely on young children to tell us about negative experiences after the fact. A more proactive approach is necessary. The future of responsible AI depends on protecting its youngest users.”

New study proposes a framework for “Child Safe AI” following recent incidents which revealed that many children see chatbots as quasi-human and trustworthy.

Nick David/Getty Child playing on tablet


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Yes