Young people who believe they come from poorer backgrounds than their friends are more likely to have lower self-esteem and be victims of bullying than those who feel financially equal to the rest of their peer group, according to a new study from psychologists at the University of Cambridge.

The team also found that those who think themselves poorer and those who believe they are richer were both more likely to perpetrate bullying. Overall, feeling a sense of economic equality among your friends had the best outcomes for mental health and social behaviour.

While economic disadvantage on a society-wide spectrum has long been linked to mental health and social problems in young people, the new study is one of the first to show that just feeling poorer compared to those in your immediate social sphere may be related to negative psychological outcomes.

According to researchers, judgments we make about ourselves via “social comparison” in early adolescence – how popular or attractive we think we are, compared to others – are central to our burgeoning sense of self, and perceived economic status may contribute to this development.

“Adolescence is an age of transitions, when we use social comparisons to make self-judgments and develop our sense of self,” said study lead author Blanca Piera Pi-Sunyer, a Cambridge Gates Scholar and PhD candidate in the University’s Department of Psychology.

“A sense of our economic position not just in wider society, but in our immediate environment, might be problematic for our sense of belonging,” said Piera Pi-Sunyer. “Belonging is particularly important for well-being and psychosocial functioning during adolescence.”

“Our research suggests that wealth comparisons with those around us might contribute to a sense of social and personal self-worth when we are young.”

The latest study, published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, was co-led by Piera Pi-Sunyer and Dr Jack Andrews of the University of New South Wales, as part of a research project conducted by Cambridge psychologist Prof Sarah-Jayne Blakemore.

The researchers analysed perceived economic inequality within friendship groups among 12,995 children in the UK at age 11.

Eleven-year-olds who believed themselves poorer than their friends scored 6-8% lower for self-esteem, and 11% lower in terms of wellbeing, than those who saw themselves as economically equal to friends.

Those who considered themselves less wealthy were also more likely to have ‘internalising difficulties’ such as anxiety, as well as behavioural problems eg anger issues or hyperactivity.

Adolescents who see themselves as poorer than their friends were 17% more likely to report being bullied or picked on compared to those who feel financially the same as friends at age 11.

While reported levels of victimisation fell across the board by the time young people reached 14 years old, those who considered themselves poorer were still 8% more likely to be victimised than those who felt economically similar to friends.

Feeling both richer or poorer than peers was related to 3-5% higher rates of actually perpetrating bullying. “It may be that feeling different in any way at a time when belonging is important increases the risk of interpersonal difficulties such as bullying,” said Piera Pi-Sunyer.

Part of Piera Pi-Sunyer’s PhD research looks at the cognitive processes behind how we view ourselves. This includes how memorising and internalising self-judgements in our earlier years can guide how we come to think of ourselves – sometimes known as ‘self-schema’.

“Negative judgments about ourselves can bias us to pay attention to information that reinforces a lack of self-worth, which has implications for mental health. We see this may well include economic perceptions among some of our peer and friendship groups during adolescence,” said Piera Pi-Sunyer.

The researchers used data collected as part of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), conducted with thousands of young people born between the years 2000 and 2002. The surveys gauged an array of mental states and social behaviours, and included questions on perceived economic status.

The majority of children felt they were as wealthy as their friends, but 4% and 8% perceived themselves as poorer or richer, respectively, than their friends (16% said they didn’t know).

The MCS also gathered data on ‘objective family income’, including a measure of weekly family disposable income, allowing researchers to discount the effects of actual parental wealth.

“Many studies suggest that, objectively, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds have more mental health difficulties. Our findings show that the subjective experience of disadvantage is also relevant,” added Piera Pi-Sunyer.

“You do not have to be rich or poor to feel richer or poorer than your friends, and we can see this affects the mental health of young adolescents.”

The team found that the end of 2020 was the time when young people faced the most difficulties and that the mental health of those young people without access to a computer tended to deteriorate to a greater extent than that of their peers who did have access.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant effect on young people’s mental health, with evidence of rising levels of anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. Adolescence is a period when people are particularly vulnerable to developing mental health disorders, which can have long-lasting consequences into adulthood. In the UK, the mental health of children and adolescents was already deteriorating before the pandemic, but the proportion of people in this age group likely to be experiencing a mental health disorder increased from 11% in 2017 to 16% in July 2020.

The pandemic led to the closure of schools and an increase in online schooling, the impacts of which were not felt equally. Those adolescents without access to a computer faced the greatest disruption: in one study 30% of school students from middle-class homes reported taking part in live or recorded school lessons daily, while only 16% of students from working-class homes reported doing so.

In addition to school closures, lockdown often meant that young people could not meet their friends in person. During these periods, online and digital forms of interaction with peers, such as through video games and social media, are likely to have helped reduce the impact of these social disruptions.

Tom Metherell, who at the time of the study was an undergraduate student at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, said: “Access to computers meant that many young people were still able to ‘attend’ school virtually, carry on with their education to an extent and keep up with friends. But anyone who didn’t have access to a computer would have been at a significant disadvantage, which would only risk increasing their sense of isolation.”

To examine in detail the impact of digital exclusion on the mental health of young people, Metherell and colleagues examined data from 1,387 10–15-year-olds collected as part of Understanding Society, a large UK-wide longitudinal survey. They focused on access to computers rather than smartphones, as schoolwork is largely possible only on a computer while at this age most social interactions occur in person at school.

The results of their study are published in Scientific Reports.

Participants completed a questionnaire that assesses common childhood psychological difficulties, which allowed the Understanding Society team to score them on five areas: hyperactivity/inattention, prosocial behaviour, emotional, conduct and peer relationship problems. From this, they derived a ‘Total Difficulties’ score for each individual.

Over the course of the pandemic, the researchers noted small changes in overall mental health of the group, with average Total Difficulties scores increasing form pre-pandemic levels of 10.7 (out of a maximum 40), peaking at 11.4 at the end of 2020 before declining to 11.1 by March 2021.

Those young people who had no access to a computer saw the largest increase in their Total Difficulties scores. While both groups of young people had similar scores at the start of the pandemic, when modelled with adjustment for sociodemographic factors, those without computer access saw their average scores increase to 17.8, compared to their peers, whose scores increased to 11.2. Almost one in four (24%) young people in the group without computer access had Total Difficulties scores classed as ‘high’ or ‘very high’ compared to one in seven (14%) in the group with computer access.

Metherell, now a PhD student at UCL, added: “Young people’s mental health tended to suffer most during the strictest periods of lockdown, when they were less likely to be able go to school or see friends. But those without access to a computer were the worst hit – their mental health suffered much more than their peers and the change was more dramatic.”

Dr Amy Orben from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences at the University of Cambridge, the study’s senior author, added: “Rather than always focusing on the downsides of digital technology on young people’s mental health, we need to recognise that it can have important benefits and may act as a buffer for their mental health during times of acute social isolation, such as the lockdown.

“We don’t know if and when a future lockdown will occur, but our research shows that we need to start thinking urgently how we can tackle digital inequalities and help protect the mental health of our young people in times when their regular in-person social networks are disrupted.”

The researchers argue that policymakers and public health officials need to recognise the risks of ‘digital exclusion’ to young people’s mental health and prioritise ensuring equitable digital access.

Dr Amy Orben is a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

Tom Metherell was supported by was supported by the British Psychological Society Undergraduate Research Assistantship Scheme. The research was largely funded by the Medical Research Council.

Reference
Metherell, T et al. Digital access constraints predict worse mental health among adolescents during COVID-19. Scientific Reports; 9 Nov 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-23899-y

Nine Sigma 12 battery electric buses will run on an extended route commencing at Girton College and then linking Eddington with West Cambridge, the city centre, the train station and onwards to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, after the University – which subsidises the Universal buses – agreed to electrify the service from July 2023 as part of its commitment to sustainability.

Route U, ‘the University bus for everyone’, carries around 16,000 people per week, including staff, students and members of the public.

Bus company Whippet, part of the Ascendal Group, will operate the new electric service. This week they hosted a public event at the West Hub, JJ Thomson Avenue, where one of the fully electric Sigma vehicles was on display – albeit the shorter Sigma 10 model. After hearing about some of the features of the buses – the first of their kind to be used in the UK – attendees were given the opportunity to travel on one of the vehicles.

Professor Ian Leslie, Senior Adviser to the Vice-Chancellor with special responsibility for Environmental Sustainability, said: “Cambridge is an institution which prides itself on innovation, and has an appreciation of innovation that can help address the biggest issues facing society.

“We are committed to reducing our carbon emissions across all scopes, and the introduction of these new zero-emission vehicles is part of a wide programme of work the University is undertaking to achieve outstanding environmental sustainability. It will be a big day when the newly electrified Universal fleet rolls out into service next July.”

Jonathan Ziebart, Group Business Development Director at Ascendal, said: “We remain incredibly excited to be the University of Cambridge’s partner in introducing its first zero-emission bus network, operating along the world’s longest guided busway.”

The new Universal contract will provide a ‘split service’, with half of the buses serving Girton College at the northern end of the route, and half routed along Grange Road and into Barton Road and Newnham Road to better serve Wolfson College, with some buses returning to Hills Road to connect with Homerton College and the Faculty of Education.

More than three in five UK adults are overweight or obese, increasing their risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cancer. A major factor that contributes to this is excess energy intake – in other words, eating too many calories. Measures that can help reduce energy intake could help tackle the obesity problem.

In the UK, adults eat as many as a third of their meals out of home, including in workplace cafeterias, and these meals are often much higher in calories than meals eaten at home. Since April 2022 calorie labelling is now required on food and drink served out of the home in businesses employing 250 or more people. While many people welcome this information, evidence for its effectiveness in reducing calories purchased or consumed is limited in quantity and quality. For example, two previous studies conducted by the authors in nine worksite cafeterias found no evidence for  an effect of simple calorie labelling (kcal) on calories purchased.

Another option is to show the amount of exercise required to burn off these calories – so-called PACE (physical activity calorie-equivalent) labels – for example, a 1014kcal ‘large battered haddock’ portion would take upwards of five hours walking (278 minutes) to burn off. A recent systematic review – a type of study that brings together existing evidence – concluded that PACE labels may reduce energy selected from menus and decrease the energy consumed when compared with simple calorie labels or no labels, but only one of the 15 studies reviewed was in a ‘real world’ setting.

To explore whether PACE levels can make a difference in real world settings, researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Behaviour and Health Research Unit carried out an experiment across 10 workplace cafeterias in England over a 12 week period in 2021. Their results are published today in PLOS Medicine.

The team collected baseline sales data for a period of business-as-usual for the cafeterias ahead of the experiment. During this period, most labels and menus featured only the product name and price, though some products included standardised front-of-pack nutrition labels on branded and in-house products.  During the intervention period the ten cafeterias included calorie information and PACE labels alongside food and drinks items and on items including hot meals, sandwiches, cold drinks and desserts. These labels displayed the minutes of walking that would be needed to burn off the calories in the product.

The team found no evidence that including PACE labels resulted in an overall change in energy purchased from labelled items. However, there was a great deal of variability, with one cafeteria reporting a fall per transaction of 161kcal and another an increase of 69kcal, while five of the cafeterias reported no significant change.

First author Dr James Reynolds from the School of Psychology, Aston University, who carried out the research while at Cambridge, said: “Although we found that showing the amount of exercise required to burn off calories made little difference to the number of calories purchased – and, we can assume, eaten and drunk – there was considerable variability between cafeterias. This suggests that other factors may have influenced the effectiveness of these labels, such as the type of food sold in the cafeteria or the characteristics of those using them.”

The number of calories purchased from items that did not feature the PACE labels did not change and the labels made little difference to the revenue for the cafeterias – just a small increase of 3p per transaction.

Senior author Professor Dame Theresa Marteau, Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit and Bye-Fellow of Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, said: “This is the largest study in a real world setting to look at the impact of PACE labels on food and drink purchases, examining 250,000 transactions across 10 worksite cafeterias. The findings suggest that PACE labels, contrary to expectations, may have little or no impact on the food people buy in worksite cafeterias.”

Reference
Reynolds, JP et al. Evaluation of physical activity calorie equivalent (PACE) labels’ impact on energy purchased in cafeterias: a stepped-wedge randomised controlled trial. PLOS Med; 8 Nov 2022; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004116

The manufactured blood cells were grown from stem cells from donors. The red cells were then transfused into volunteers in the RESTORE randomised controlled clinical trial.

This is the first time in the world that red blood cells that have been grown in a laboratory have been given to another person as part of a trial into blood transfusion.

If proved safe and effective, manufactured blood cells could in time revolutionise treatments for people with blood disorders such as sickle cell and rare blood types. It can be difficult to find enough well-matched donated blood for some people with these disorders.

Chief Investigator Professor Cedric Ghevaert, Professor in Transfusion Medicine and Consultant Haematologist at the University of Cambridge and NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “We hope our lab grown red blood cells will last longer than those that come from blood donors. If our trial, the first such in the world, is successful, it will mean that patients who currently require regular long-term blood transfusions will need fewer transfusions in future, helping transform their care.”

The RESTORE trial is a joint research initiative by NHS Blood and Transplant and the University of Bristol, working with the University of Cambridge, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, NIHR Cambridge Clinical Research Facility, and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It is part-funded by a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) grant.

Professor Ashley Toye, Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Bristol and Director of the NIHR Blood and Transplant Unit in red cell products, said: “This challenging and exciting trial is a huge stepping stone for manufacturing blood from stem cells. This is the first-time lab grown blood from an allogeneic donor has been transfused and we are excited to see how well the cells perform at the end of the clinical trial.”

The trial is studying the lifespan of the lab grown cells compared with infusions of standard red blood cells from the same donor. The lab-grown blood cells are all fresh, so the trial team expect them to perform better than a similar transfusion of standard donated red cells, which contains cells of varying ages.

Additionally, if manufactured cells last longer in the body, patients who regularly need blood may not need transfusions as often. That would reduce iron overload from frequent blood transfusions, which can lead to serious complications.

The trial is the first step towards making lab grown red blood cells available as a future clinical product. For the foreseeable future, manufactured cells could only be used for a very small number of patients with very complex transfusions needs. NHSBT continues to rely on the generosity of donors.

Co-Chief Investigator Dr Rebecca Cardigan, Head of Component Development NHS Blood and Transplant and Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, said: “It’s really fantastic that we are now able to grow enough red cells to medical grade to allow this trial to commence. We are really looking forward to seeing the results and whether they perform better than standard red cells.”

Two people have so far been transfused with the lab grown red cells. They were closely monitored and no untoward side effects were reported. They are well and healthy. The identities of participants infused so far are not currently being released, to help keep the trial ‘blinded’.

The amount of lab grown cells being infused varies but is around 5-10mls – about one to two teaspoons.

Donors were recruited from NHSBT’s blood donor base. They donated blood to the trial and stem cells were separated out from their blood. These stem cells were then grown to produce red blood cells in a laboratory at NHS Blood and Transplant’s Advanced Therapies Unit in Bristol. The recipients of the blood were recruited from healthy members of the NIHR BioResource.

A minimum of 10 participants will receive two mini transfusions at least four months apart, one of standard donated red cells and one of lab grown red cells, to find out if the young red blood cells made in the laboratory last longer than cells made in the body.

Further trials are needed before clinical use, but this research marks a significant step in using lab grown red blood cells to improve treatment for patients with rare blood types or people with complex transfusion needs.

John James OBE, Chief Executive of the Sickle Cell Society, said: “This research offers real hope for those difficult to transfuse sickle cell patients who have developed antibodies against most donor blood types. However, we should remember that the NHS still needs 250 blood donations every day to treat people with sickle cell and the figure is rising. The need for normal blood donations to provide the vast majority of blood transfusions will remain. We strongly encourage people with African and Caribbean heritage to keep registering as blood donors and start giving blood regularly.”

Dr Farrukh Shah, Medical Director of Transfusion for NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “Patients who need regular or intermittent blood transfusions may result develop antibodies against minor blood groups which makes it harder to find donor blood which can be transfused without the risk of a potentially life-threatening reaction. This world leading research lays the groundwork for the manufacture of red blood cells that can safely be used to transfuse people with disorders like sickle cell.  The need for normal blood donations to provide the vast majority of blood will remain. But the potential for this work to benefit hard to transfuse patients is very significant.”

Adapted from a press release from NHS Blood and Transplant

ACE has awarded renewed National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status to the consortium of seven museums (£617,534) and to Kettle’s Yard, the University’s contemporary art gallery (£296,107).

The University cares for the country’s highest concentration of internationally important collections outside London, with more than five million works of art, artefacts and specimens.

Together, they form an international tourist attraction and the largest cultural provider in the East of England, one of the country’s most rapidly growing regions.

The University museums work closely together with the University’s Botanic Garden, Library and other collections, and Cambridge’s independent museums and cultural organisations, providing vital sector support across Cambridgeshire and the region.

“University collections have a unique power to bring people together from across the world to explore today’s big questions, looking at the past and present to help determine our future,” said Kamal Munir, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for University Community & Engagement.

“This is a difficult funding landscape and we know that ACE were faced with hard decisions during an investment round that received more applications than ever before. In that context, we’re especially pleased to have received further investment in the University collections.

“While this grant represents a reduction of 40% from current funding levels, it is heartening to see this continued recognition of the important role the collections play within our local communities,” Munir said.

Driven by research and shaped by communities, the work of the museums is grounded in the University’s commitment to contribute to society through education, learning and research at the highest levels of excellence, and encompasses collaboration with world-renowned contemporary artists, game-changing research-led exhibitions and wide-ranging inclusion and learning programmes, promoting wellbeing, creativity and connectivity.

“While there is no doubt that this significant reduction to our current level of Arts Council England funding represents a major challenge, we’re grateful for the support announced today, especially given the difficult times that many people are facing,” said Luke Syson, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, lead partner of the museums NPO.

“As we look ahead to our future, we remain committed to continuing to engage the widest possible audience, both in the enormously unequal region of Cambridgeshire and beyond, and look forward to working with ACE and other partners and funders to deliver our ambitious programmes.”

The museums are undertaking a long-term investigation into the legacies of empire and enslavement, and are currently sharing findings and inviting challenge and conversation with audiences and communities through a major public programme, Power and Memory. An upcoming collaborative programme will also inspire action to mitigate the climate crisis through engaging audiences with innovative environmental research.

Andrew Nairne, Director of Kettle’s Yard said: “We are proud to continue to be an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation. This core funding supports our work making outstanding exhibitions, conserving and animating the house and collection, engaging with diverse community groups and providing a learning programme – so contributing powerfully to the Let’s Create strategy.”

Jo McPhee, Head of Partnerships, added: “Cambridge is frequently ranked as the most unequal city in the country. Our communities and the sector are facing increasingly challenging times. Despite a reduction in our funding, we will continue to work with delivery partners, including the City and County Councils, and cultural sector colleagues to support our communities and create a flourishing cultural offer that’s open and accessible to everyone.”

The University of Cambridge Museums are

• Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
• Museum of Classical Archaeology
• Fitzwilliam Museum
• Kettle’s Yard
• Polar Museum
• Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
• Whipple Museum of the History of Science
• Museum of Zoology

The astrophysicists, from the University of Cambridge, the University of Trento, and Harvard University, say that there is a clear, unambiguous signal in the cosmos which could eliminate inflation as a possibility. Their paper, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, argues that this signal – known as the cosmic graviton background (CGB) – can feasibly be detected, although it will be a massive technical and scientific challenge.

“Inflation was theorised to explain various fine-tuning challenges of the so-called hot Big Bang model,” said the paper’s first author Dr Sunny Vagnozzi, from Cambridge’s Kavli Institute for Cosmology, and who is now based at the University of Trento. “It also explains the origin of structure in our Universe as a result of quantum fluctuations.

“However, the large flexibility displayed by possible models for cosmic inflation which span an unlimited landscape of cosmological outcomes raises concerns that cosmic inflation is not falsifiable, even if individual inflationary models can be ruled out. Is it possible in principle to test cosmic inflation in a model-independent way?”

Some scientists raised concerns about cosmic inflation in 2013, when the Planck satellite released its first measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the universe’s oldest light.

“When the results from the Planck satellite were announced, they were held up as a confirmation of cosmic inflation,” said Professor Avi Loeb from Harvard University, Vagnozzi’s co-author on the current paper. “However, some of us argued that the results might be showing just the opposite.”

Along with Anna Ijjas and Paul Steinhardt, Loeb was one of those who argued that results from Planck showed that inflation posed more puzzles than it solved, and that it was time to consider new ideas about the beginnings of the universe, which, for instance, may have begun not with a bang but with a bounce from a previously contracting cosmos.

The maps of the CMB released by Planck represent the earliest time in the universe we can ‘see’, 100 million years before the first stars formed. We cannot see farther.

“The actual edge of the observable universe is at the distance that any signal could have travelled at the speed-of-light limit over the 13.8 billion years that elapsed since the birth of the Universe,” said Loeb. “As a result of the expansion of the universe, this edge is currently located 46.5 billion light years away. The spherical volume within this boundary is like an archaeological dig centred on us: the deeper we probe into it, the earlier is the layer of cosmic history that we uncover, all the way back to the Big Bang which represents our ultimate horizon. What lies beyond the horizon is unknown.”

In could be possible to dig even further into the universe’s beginnings by studying near-weightless particles known as neutrinos, which are the most abundant particles that have mass in the universe. The Universe allows neutrinos to travel freely without scattering from approximately a second after the Big Bang, when the temperature was ten billion degrees. “The present-day universe must be filled with relic neutrinos from that time,” said Vagnozzi.

Vagnozzi and Loeb say we can go even further back, however, by tracing gravitons, particles that mediate the force of gravity.

“The Universe was transparent to gravitons all the way back to the earliest instant traced by known physics, the Planck time: 10 to the power of -43 seconds, when the temperature was the highest conceivable: 10 to the power of 32 degrees,” said Loeb. “A proper understanding of what came before that requires a predictive theory of quantum gravity, which we do not possess.”

Vagnozzi and Loeb say that once the Universe allowed gravitons to travel freely without scattering, a relic background of thermal gravitational radiation with a temperature of slightly less than one degree above absolute zero should have been generated: the cosmic graviton background (CGB).

However, the Big Bang theory does not allow for the existence of the CGB, as it suggests that the exponential inflation of the newborn universe diluted relics such as the CGB to a point that they are undetectable. This can be turned into a test: if the CGB were detected, clearly this would rule out cosmic inflation, which does not allow for its existence.

Vagnozzi and Loeb argue that such a test is possible, and the CGB could in principle be detected in future. The CGB adds to the cosmic radiation budget, which otherwise includes microwave and neutrino backgrounds. It therefore affects the cosmic expansion rate of the early Universe at a level that is detectable by next-generation cosmological probes, which could provide the first indirect detection of the CGB.

However, to claim a definitive detection of the CGB, the ‘smoking gun’ would be the detection of a background of high-frequency gravitational waves peaking at frequencies around 100 GHz. This would be very hard to detect, and would require tremendous technological advances in gyrotron and superconducting magnets technology. Nevertheless, say the researchers, this signal may be within our reach in future.

Reference:
Sunny Vagnozzi and Abraham Loeb. ‘The Challenge of Ruling Out Inflation via the Primordial Graviton Background.’ The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2022). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac9b0e

Adapted in part from a piece on Medium by Avi Loeb.

The stereotype of a family firm is one where nepotism is rife and talent goes unrewarded. Yet according to a new study co-authored by a Cambridge researcher, having a family CEO in charge can actually boost positive emotions in employees and lower voluntary turnover.

“Research suggests that firms with family CEOs differ from other types of businesses, yet surprisingly little is known about how employees in these firms feel and behave compared to those working in other firms,” says the study by Jochen Menges who teaches at both the University of Zurich and Cambridge Judge Business School and colleagues from the Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of St. Gallen.

Family businesses: the advantages when it comes to CEOs

The research fills in this knowledge gap, busting some old myths about family firms by finding that family CEOs are better at creating an emotional connection to the business than hired professional CEOs.

“There has long been a conundrum in family business research: why do many such firms thrive despite anachronistic management structures and low investment in employees?” says Menges. “This study helps unlock that paradox by focusing on the positive role of emotions tied to family CEOs.”

Based on data from 41,200 employees and 2,246 direct reports of CEOs in 497 firms in Germany with and without family CEOs, the research finds that family-managed firms seem better able to “leverage the power of emotions for the benefit of organisational survival and success.”

“Family CEOs, because of their emotion-evoking double role as family members and business leaders, are, on average, more likely to infuse employees with positive emotions, such as enthusiasm and excitement, than hired professional CEOs.”

“These firms, especially when they are relatively small and less formalised, provide a workplace characterised by high-energy positive emotions – not despite but rather because of their seemingly outdated hereditary leadership structures that reserve the CEO role for family members. We conclude that family-managed firms are not relics of the past. Instead, they are here to stay, thriving on the positive feelings that their employees share.”

How the CEO plays a key role

The study finds the role of the CEO is crucial in explaining employees’ feelings and behaviours. By integrating family science with management research, it centres on emotions rather than strategic or cognitive factors.

The researchers compare the impact of a CEO who is a family member of the ownership family with a hired professional CEO (whether a firm is family-owned or not), and finds these family CEOs pass on their high-energy, positive emotions to non-family members. This may partly be because where firms have been held in family hands for generations, family CEOs often perceive such firms as their “babies” – allowing for an emotional bond to develop over an extended period. An indirect effect of a family CEO is that if employees collectively feel better at work, they should also be less likely to leave their jobs.

Emotional contagion: spreading positive feelings

Family CEOs are shown not only to be more likely to experience positive emotions, but also to express them at work, while suppressing potential negative emotions.

“We suggest that these emotions spread through firms by way of emotional contagion during interactions with employees, thereby setting the organisational affective tone,” the research says.

In family-managed firms, this spread of emotions is likely to be facilitated by the frequent interactions that these CEOs have with their employees, often forging stable, long-term relationships with those who report directly to them. This process then trickles down through the firm, by staff mimicking each other’s emotional expression, and determining how to feel by watching others express their feelings.

“Because of their hereditary claim to power, family CEOs are considered to be more powerful than their professionally appointed counterparts who can be more easily removed from the CEO position,” the study says. “Thus, family CEOs should hold greater sway over the emotions their employees feel.”

This sway is limited, however, by certain aspects of organisational structure:

Size: The larger the organisation, the weaker the relationship between the family CEO and the positive affective tone of the firm because the emotional contagion process, which relies on social interaction, is easily interrupted.

Centralisation: The more that authority and decision-making is diluted from the CEO, the weaker their effect because it fosters horizontal communication patterns rather than vertical, limiting opportunities for family CEOs to transmit their emotions.

Formalisation: Rules, procedures, instructions, and communications being formalised or written down are likely to stifle the emotional contagion effect of the family CEO because things become more regulated, less spontaneous, and are less affected by emotion.

The authors suggest this study could be used by human resources managers to demonstrate the potential benefits of working for these businesses. It could also provide insight for firms needing to appoint a new family or hired CEO.

“The research has implications for managers even outside of family firms,” says Menges. “Managers can benefit from the research by seeking creative ways to bring aspects of their own family into the workplace as a way to tap into and pass on positive emotions to others in the firm.”

Reference
Nadine Kammerlander, Jochen Menges, Dennis Herhausen, Petra Kipfelsberger, Heike Bruch: ‘How family CEOs affect employees’ feelings and behaviors: A study on positive emotions’, Long Range Planning (2022)

Adapted from an article published by Cambridge Judge Business School

In the study, led by researchers at the Autism Research Centre, 524 non-autistic people and 417 autistic people completed an online survey about their experience of pregnancy. Anyone who was pregnant at the time of responding or had previously given birth was eligible to take part.

The study revealed that autistic parents were around three times more likely than non-autistic parents to report having experienced prenatal depression (9% of non-autistic parents and 24% of autistic parents) and anxiety (14% of non-autistic parents and 48% of autistic parents).

Autistic respondents also experienced lower satisfaction with pregnancy healthcare. Autistic respondents were less likely to trust professionals, feel that professionals took their questions and concerns seriously, feel that professionals treated them respectfully, and be satisfied with how information was presented to them in appointments. Furthermore, autistic respondents were more likely to experience sensory issues during pregnancy and more likely to feel overwhelmed by the sensory environment of prenatal appointments.

Dr Sarah Hampton, lead researcher on the study, said: “This study suggests that autistic people are more vulnerable to mental health difficulties during pregnancy. It is imperative that effective mental health screening and support is available for autistic people during pregnancy.”

Dr Rosie Holt, a member of the research team, added: “The results also suggest that autistic people may benefit from accommodations to prenatal healthcare. These may include adjustments to the sensory environment of healthcare settings, as well as adjustments to how information is communicated during prenatal appointments.”

Dr Carrie Allison, Deputy Director of the Autism Research Centre and a member of the team, said: “We are grateful to members of the autistic community for providing feedback when we designed this research. It is vital that autistic people with lived experience help shape the research we do, and we keep their priorities as a clear focus.”

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre and a member of the research team, said: “It is important that more research is conducted looking at the experiences of autistic new parents, who have been neglected in research. It is also important that this research is translated into health and social care policy and practice to ensure these parents receive the support and adaptations they need in a timely manner.”

Reference
Hampton, S., Allison, C., Baron-Cohen, S., & Holt, R. (2022). Autistic People’s Perinatal Experiences I: A Survey of Pregnancy Experiences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

A team from the University of Cambridge, working with colleagues from Austria, found a new way to make a possible replacement for rare-earth magnets: tetrataenite, a ‘cosmic magnet’ that takes millions of years to develop naturally in meteorites.

Previous attempts to make tetrataenite in the laboratory have relied on impractical, extreme methods. But the addition of a common element – phosphorus – could mean that it’s possible to make tetrataenite artificially and at scale, without any specialised treatment or expensive techniques.

The results are reported in the journal Advanced Science. A patent application on the technology has been filed by Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation arm, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

High-performance magnets are a vital technology for building a zero-carbon economy, and the best permanent magnets currently available contain rare earth elements. Despite their name, rare earths are plentiful in Earth’s crust. However, China has a near monopoly on global production: in 2017, 81% of rare earths worldwide were sourced from China. Other countries, such as Australia, also mine these elements, but as geopolitical tensions with China increase, there are concerns that rare earth supply could be at risk.

“Rare earth deposits exist elsewhere, but the mining operations are highly disruptive: you have to extract a huge amount of material to get a small volume of rare earths,” said Professor Lindsay Greer from Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, who led the research. “Between the environmental impacts, and the heavy reliance on China, there’s been an urgent search for alternative materials that do not require rare earths.”

Tetrataenite, an iron-nickel alloy with a particular ordered atomic structure, is one of the most promising of those alternatives. Tetrataenite forms over millions of years as a meteorite slowly cools, giving the iron and nickel atoms enough time to order themselves into a particular stacking sequence within the crystalline structure, ultimately resulting in a material with magnetic properties approaching those of rare-earth magnets.

In the 1960s, scientists were able to artificially form tetrataenite by bombarding iron-nickel alloys with neutrons, enabling the atoms to form the desired ordered stacking, but this technique is not suitable for mass production.

“Since then, scientists have been fascinated with getting that ordered structure, but it’s always felt like something that was very far away,” said Greer. Despite many attempts over the years, it has not yet been possible to make tetrataenite on anything approaching an industrial scale.

Now, Greer and his colleagues from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Montanuniversität in Leoben, have found a possible alternative that doesn’t require millions of years of cooling or neutron irradiation.

The team was studying the mechanical properties of iron-nickel alloys containing small amounts of phosphorus, an element that is also present in meteorites. The pattern of phases inside these materials showed the expected tree-like growth structure called dendrites.

“For most people, it would have ended there: nothing interesting to see in the dendrites, but when I looked closer, I saw an interesting diffraction pattern indicating an ordered atomic structure,” said first author Dr Yurii Ivanov, who completed the work while at Cambridge and is now based at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa.

At first glance, the diffraction pattern of tetrataenite looks like that of the structure expected for iron-nickel alloys, namely a disordered crystal not of interest as a high-performance magnet. It took Ivanov’s closer look to identify the tetrataenite, but even so, Greer says it’s strange that no one noticed it before.

The researchers say that phosphorus, which is present in meteorites, allows the iron and nickel atoms to move faster, enabling them to form the necessary ordered stacking without waiting for millions of years. By mixing iron, nickel and phosphorus in the right quantities, they were able to speed up tetrataenite formation by between 11 and 15 orders of magnitude, such that it forms over a few seconds in simple casting.

“What was so astonishing was that no special treatment was needed: we just melted the alloy, poured it into a mould, and we had tetrataenite,” said Greer. “The previous view in the field was that you couldn’t get tetrataenite unless you did something extreme, because otherwise, you’d have to wait millions of years for it to form. This result represents a total change in how we think about this material.”

While the researchers have found a promising method to produce tetrataenite, more work is needed to determine whether it will be suitable for high-performance magnets. The team are hoping to work on this with major magnet manufacturers.

The work may also force a revision of views on whether the formation of tetrataenite in meteorites really does take millions of years.

The research was supported in part by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and Seventh Framework Programme, and the Austrian Science Fund.

Reference:
Yurii P. Ivanov et al. ‘Direct formation of hard-magnetic tetrataenite in bulk alloy castings.’ Advanced Science (2022). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202204315

The latest findings, from researchers from the University of Cambridge in collaboration with researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science and Newcastle University, are published today in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

After analysing all new autism cases across England using NHS health service boundaries for possible hotspots, some areas stand out. For example, 45.5% of the NHS Rotherham catchment area had higher-than-average new autism diagnoses clusters. For NHS Heywood, this amounted to 38.8% of its catchment area and 36.9% for NHS Liverpool, pointing at a possible health service effect towards who receives an autism diagnosis.

The research team used four years’ worth of data from the Summer School Census, which collected data from individuals aged 1-18 years old in state-funded schools in England. Of the 32 million pupils studied, more than 102,000 new autism diagnoses were identified between 2014 and 2017.

After adjusting for age and sex, the researchers found that one in 234 children were given a new autism diagnosis during that four-year period. New diagnoses tended to happen when children were transitioning to a new school, whether that was into nursery (1-3 years), primary school (4-6), and secondary school (10-12 years).

Particular communities appeared to have different rates, varying by ethnicity and deprivation.

Lead researcher Dr Andres Roman-Urrestarazu from the Department of Psychiatry and Cambridge Public Health at the University of Cambridge said: “Autism diagnoses are more common among Black students and other minority ethnic groups. Why this is the case is not clear and so we need to explore the role played by social factors such as ethnicity and area deprivation as well as the nature of local services.”

The likelihood of receiving an autism diagnosis more than tripled among girls depending on their ethnicity and social and financial situation compared to white girls without financial disadvantages who speak English as their first language.

In contrast, boys’ likelihood of receiving an autism diagnosis increased more than five-fold depending on their ethnicity and social and financial situation compared to white boys without financial disadvantages who speak English as their first language.

Boys and young men are already known to be more likely to receive autism diagnoses, but the social determinants that could affect a diagnosis remained an open question.

Dr Robin van Kessel, co-lead researcher from the Department of Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science said: “These new findings show how social determinants interact and can combine to significantly increase the likelihood of an autism diagnosis. As a result, individuals from a minority ethnic background experiencing economic hardship may be significantly more likely to receive an autism diagnosis than their peers.”

Professor Carol Brayne from Cambridge Public Health said: “There are clear inequalities in an individual’s likelihood of receiving an autism diagnosis, whether they are socioeconomic factors, ethnicity or even which NHS region or local authority someone lives in.”

This work was supported by the Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellowship, Institute for Data Valorization, Fonds de recherche du Québec—Santé, Calcul Quebec, Digital Research Alliance of Canada, Wellcome Trust, Innovative Medicines Initiative, Autism Centre of Excellence at Cambridge, Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, Templeton World Charitable Fund, Medical Research Council, NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration East of England—Population Evidence and Data Science.

Reference
Roman-Urrestarazu, A et al. Autism incidence and spatial analysis in more than 7 million pupils in English schools: a retrospective, longitudinal, school registry study. Lancet Child & Adolescent Health; 25 Oct 2022; DOI: 10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00247-4

The consortium has received £2 million from the Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council and the Medical Research Council, both part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). It is led by the Pirbright Institute and the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research.

Researchers will work closely with experts at government agencies – the Animal and Plant Health Agency, UK Health Security Agency, and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – to study the current outbreak and inform the public health response in the UK and internationally.

Cambridge scientists Professor Geoffrey Smith from the Department of Pathology and Professor Mike Weekes from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Department of Medicine are among the key scientists involved in the consortium.

Professor Weekes said: “Monkeypox has become a really important global pathogen, reaching more than 50 countries worldwide in a matter of months. Although we have an effective vaccine and treatment, global roll-out has so far proved challenging, emphasising the importance of a comprehensive understanding of this virus. The UK consortium includes researchers from multiple different disciplines, and I anticipate the data we generate will rapidly help understand how the virus can be targeted in new ways to prevent disease.”

Professor Smith said: “Few would have predicted that monkeypox virus would be causing a global epidemic in 2022. The ability to respond quickly to this new challenge has been helped greatly not just by the swift and welcome response of UKRI, but also by decades of support for the study of orthopoxviruses from UKRI and the Wellcome Trust. The information gained from those studies is valuable in the fight against monkeypox virus.”

The monkeypox virus outbreak originated in West Africa. The current worldwide outbreak of cases spreading outside this area was first identified in May 2022. This is the first time that many monkeypox cases and clusters have been reported in non-endemic areas.

In the UK there have been more than 3,400 confirmed cases since May, although case numbers are currently falling. Internationally, WHO reports it has spread to 106 countries and territories with 25 confirmed deaths.

Professor Melanie Welham, Executive Chair of BBSRC, said: “One of the real strengths of the UK’s scientific response to disease outbreaks is the way that we can draw on leading researchers from all over the country, who can pool their expertise to deliver results, fast. Long-term support for animal and human virus research has ensured we have the capability to respond with agility.

“This new national consortium will study the unprecedented monkeypox outbreak to better understand how to tackle it. This will feed rapidly into global public health strategies, developing new diagnostic tests and identifying potential therapies.”

The consortium will focus on building our understanding in a number of key areas, including:

Developing new tests and identifying potential control measures:

• Developing sensitive point-of-care tests to speed up diagnosis, such as lateral flow tests or LAMP* tests. The lateral flow test development will be conducted with Global Access Diagnostics (GADx) to develop a product which could later be manufactured at scale and used clinically worldwide, including in low/middle income countries.
• Screening potential drugs to treat monkeypox in human cells in the lab to determine which ones could be developed for further testing.
• Studying the virus, how it infects humans and its susceptibility to the immune response to identify targets for future therapies.

Studying the virus:

• Characterising the genome of the virus and studying how it is evolving, and how this is linked to changes in the transmission and pathology of the virus.
• Understanding the human immune response to the virus and the vaccine, including studying samples from infected individuals.
• Identifying animal reservoirs and potential spill-over routes of transmission between animals and humans.

Learning from the vaccine roll-out:

• Studying the effectiveness of the smallpox vaccine by tracking the immune responses after primary and secondary vaccination of up to 200 individuals.

Professor Bryan Charleston, co-lead from The Pirbright Institute, said: “The implications of the current monkeypox outbreak are huge. As well as tackling the current outbreak, we also need to be fully prepared for next outbreak, because worldwide there’s a huge reservoir of infection. One of the key ways we can do this is to develop rapid tests, which are very important to help clinicians on the front line to manage the disease.”

Professor Massimo Palmarini, co-lead from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, said: “Monkeypox is public health challenge, so taking decisive, collective action to better understand this virus is paramount. By bringing together research expertise in different areas, we will harness the UK’s world-leading knowledge to learn more about how the virus works and spreads and provide the foundations for the development of potential new treatments.”

Adapted from a press release from UKRI

The team, led by the University of Cambridge, tracked the movement of lithium ions inside a promising new battery material in real time.

It had been assumed that the mechanism by which lithium ions are stored in battery materials is uniform across the individual active particles. However, the Cambridge-led team found that during the charge-discharge cycle, lithium storage is anything but uniform.

When the battery is near the end of its discharge cycle, the surfaces of the active particles become saturated by lithium while their cores are lithium deficient. This results in the loss of reusable lithium and a reduced capacity.

The research, funded by the Faraday Institution, could help improve existing battery materials and could accelerate the development of next-generation batteries. The results are published in Joule.

Electrical vehicles (EVs) are vital in the transition to a zero-carbon economy. Most electric vehicles on the road today are powered by lithium-ion batteries, due in part to their high energy density.

However, as EV use becomes more widespread, the push for longer ranges and faster charging times means that current battery materials need to be improved, and new materials need to be identified.

Some of the most promising of these materials are state-of-the-art positive electrode materials known as layered lithium nickel-rich oxides, which are widely used in premium EVs. However, their working mechanisms, particularly lithium-ion transport under practical operating conditions, and how this is linked to their electrochemical performance, are not fully understood, so we cannot yet obtain maximum performance from these materials.

By tracking how light interacts with active particles during battery operation under a microscope, the researchers observed distinct differences in lithium storage during the charge-discharge cycle in nickel-rich manganese cobalt oxide (NMC).

“This is the first time that this non-uniformity in lithium storage has been directly observed in individual particles,” said co-first author Alice Merryweather, from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry. “Real time techniques like ours are essential to capture this while the battery is cycling.”

Combining the experimental observations with computer modelling, the researchers found that the non-uniformity originates from drastic changes to the rate of lithium-ion diffusion in NMC during the charge-discharge cycle. Specifically, lithium ions diffuse slowly in fully lithiated NMC particles, but the diffusion is significantly enhanced once some lithium ions are extracted from these particles.

“Our model provides insights into the range over which lithium-ion diffusion in NMC varies during the early stages of charging,” said co-first author Dr Shrinidhi Pandurangi from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “Our model predicted lithium distributions accurately and captured the degree of heterogeneity observed in experiments. These predictions are key to understanding other battery degradation mechanisms such as particle fracture.”

Importantly, the lithium heterogeneity seen at the end of discharge establishes one reason why nickel-rich cathode materials typically lose around ten percent of their capacity after the first charge-discharge cycle.

“This is significant, considering one industrial standard that is used to determine whether a battery should be retired or not is when it has lost 20 percent of its capacity,” said co-first author Dr Chao Xu, from ShanghaiTech University, who completed the research while based at Cambridge.

The researchers are now seeking new approaches to increase the practical energy density and lifetime of these promising battery materials.

The research was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Alice Merryweather is jointly supervised by Professor Dame Clare Grey and Dr Akshay Rao, who are both co-authors on the current paper.

Reference:
Chao Xu et al. ‘Operando visualization of kinetically induced lithium heterogeneities in single-particle layered Ni-rich cathodes.’ Joule (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2022.09.008

In research published today in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, the team analysed data from the UK Biobank and found impairment in several areas, such as problem solving and number recall, across a range of conditions.

The findings raise the possibility that in the future, at-risk patients could be screened to help select those who would benefit from interventions to reduce their risk of developing one of the conditions, or to help identify patients suitable for recruitment to clinical trials for new treatments.

There are currently very few effective treatments for dementia or other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. In part, this is because these conditions are often only diagnosed once symptoms appear, whereas the underlying neurodegeneration may have begun years – even decades – earlier. This means that by the time patients take part in clinical trials, it may already be too late in the disease process to alter its course.

Until now, it has been unclear whether it might be possible to detect changes in brain function before the onset of symptoms. To help answer this question, researchers at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust turned to UK Biobank, a biomedical database and research resource containing anonymised genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants aged 40-69.

As well as collecting information on participants’ health and disease diagnoses, UK Biobank collected data from a battery of tests including problem solving, memory, reaction times and grip strength, as well as data on weight loss and gain and on the number of falls. This allowed them to look back to see whether any signs were present at baseline – that is, when measurements were first collected from participants (between five and nine years prior to diagnosis).

People who went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease scored more poorly compared to healthy individuals when it came to problem solving tasks, reaction times, remembering lists of numbers, prospective memory (our ability to remember to do something later on) and pair matching. This was also the case for people who developed a rarer form of dementia known as frontotemporal dementia.

People who went on to develop Alzheimer’s were more likely than healthy adults to have had a fall in the previous 12 months. Those patients who went on to develop a rare neurological condition known as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), which affects balance, were more than twice as likely as healthy individuals to have had a fall.

For every condition studied – including Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies – patients reported poorer overall health at baseline.

First author Nol Swaddiwudhipong, a junior doctor at the University of Cambridge, said: “When we looked back at patients’ histories, it became clear that they were showing some cognitive impairment several years before their symptoms became obvious enough to prompt a diagnosis. The impairments were often subtle, but across a number of aspects of cognition.

“This is a step towards us being able to screen people who are at greatest risk – for example, people over 50 or those who have high blood pressure or do not do enough exercise – and intervene at an earlier stage to help them reduce their risk.”

Senior author Dr Tim Rittman from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge added: “People should not be unduly worried if, for example, they are not good at recalling numbers. Even some healthy individuals will naturally score better or worse than their peers. But we would encourage anyone who has any concerns or notices that their memory or recall is getting worse to speak to their GP.”

Dr Rittman said the findings could also help identify people who can participate in clinical trials for potential new treatments. “The problem with clinical trials is that by necessity they often recruit patients with a diagnosis, but we know that by this point they are already some way down the road and their condition cannot be stopped. If we can find these individuals early enough, we’ll have a better chance of seeing if the drugs are effective.”

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference
Swaddiwudhipong, N, et al. Pre-Diagnostic Cognitive and Functional Impairment in Multiple Sporadic Neurodegenerative Diseases. Alzheimer’s & Dementia; 13 Oct 2022; DOI: 10.1002/alz.12802

In a newly-published study of almost 500 children from high-poverty, urban communities in the United States, researchers found that a widely-used assessment, which measures the development of thinking skills called ‘executive functions’, did not fully and accurately evaluate students’ progress. The study links this to probable cultural bias in the assessment design and suggests that this may be replicated in other, similar tools.

Any such design flaw may have influenced a growing body of research which suggests that children from poorer backgrounds tend to start school with less well-developed executive functions.  ‘Executive functions’ is a collective term for a set of essential thinking skills needed to carry out everyday tasks, and learning. They include working memory, self-control, the ability to ignore distractions and easily switch between tasks. Children with good executive functions tend to have better test scores, better mental health and greater employment potential.

One common method for measuring the healthy development of these skills involves asking teachers to complete questionnaires about children’s observed behaviours. The results can potentially help pinpoint children – or entire groups – who need extra support. They also provide a rich source of data for research on how executive functions develop.

In the new study, researchers found that one of these teacher rating scales, which has been widely used in the United States, was of limited value when assessing poorer, urban students. Specifically, they found that the executive function screener of a version of the Behaviour Assessment System for Children (BASC), called the BASC-2, “is not a good representation of everyday executive function behaviours by children from schools in high-poverty communities”.

The team, from the University of Cambridge (UK) and Virginia Commonweath University (US) suggest that the likely cause is that both this scale, and others like it, have been developed using an unrepresentative sample of children.

Researchers have previously pointed out that these assessments tend to be modelled on children who are mostly from comfortable socio-economic settings. By mapping their observed behaviours on to executive functions, they may falsely assume that these behaviours are ‘normal’ markers for any child of the same age. In reality, children’s different backgrounds and lived experiences may mean that executive functions express themselves differently across different groups.

Annie Zonneveld, from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and the study’s first author, said: “There is a big question around how we measure executive functions: are we actually using the right tools? If they are based on white, middle-class students, we cannot be sure that they would actually work for the whole population. We may be seeing evidence of that here.”

Michelle Ellefson, Professor of Cognitive Science at the Faculty of Education, said: “Teachers can provide us with really valuable data about children’s executive functions because they can monitor development in ways we could not possibly replicate in a lab, but they need effective measures to do this. This means the assessments must draw on information about children from different backgrounds.”

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, about 14% of children in the United States live in poverty. While nearly 50% of all children are from ethnic minority families, 71% of those in poverty are from these backgrounds. Most psychometric research on executive functions, however, focuses on white, middle-income, or affluent families. It has never been clear how far its findings can be generalised.

The new study examined the executive function components of two versions of the BASC: the BASC-2 and BASC-3. These ask teachers to observe children’s everyday behaviours and rate, on a scale of ‘never’ to ‘always’, how far they agree with statements such as “acts without thinking”, “is easily distracted”, “cannot wait to take turn”, “is a self-starter” and “argues when denied own way”. They then extrapolate information about the children’s executive functions based on the responses.

The researchers analysed two sample groups of children, aged around nine or 10, all from state schools in high-poverty, urban areas in the United States. In total, 472 children took part. The first sample was assessed using the BASC-2; the other using the BASC-3.

Both groups also completed six computer-based tasks which psychologists and neuroscientists use in lab-based tasks to measure specific executive functions. The researchers looked at how far the scores from these computerised tasks – which are accurate but difficult to run with large groups – corresponded to the measures from the teacher-administered surveys.

The findings indicated that while the BASC-2 provides a reasonable overview of students’ general executive functioning, it does not capture accurate details about specific functions like working memory and self-control. The BASC-3 was far more effective, probably because it uses a different and more focused set of questions.

“The BASC-2 has been used extensively in archived datasets and contributes to academic research about how executive functions develop,” Ellefson said. “It is really important to recognise that without modification, it is not an appropriate basis for making judgements about certain groups of children.”

The assessment is just one of many surveys that measure children’s cognitive development in different countries. “It is important that we know how these tools are establishing their baseline understanding of ‘typical’ development,” Zonneveld said. “If they are based on mostly white populations from affluent suburbs, they won’t necessarily be as representative as we might hope.”

The study is published in Developmental Science.

As part of its commitment to sustainability and sustainable business travel, the University of Cambridge has agreed to award an eight-year contract to Whippet, to provide a fleet of new electric buses from July 2023.

The new contract will provide a ‘split service’, with half of Universal buses serving Girton College at the northern end of the route, and half routed along Grange Road and Newnham Road to better serve Wolfson College, with some returning to Hills Road to connect with Homerton College and the Faculty of Education.

Route U, the University bus for everyone, is subsidised by the University of Cambridge, and carries around 60,000 people per week, linking Eddington with West Cambridge, the city centre, the train station and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. University staff and students use the service, as well as Eddington residents, sixth-form students, shoppers, tourists and key workers.

The University’s Planning and Resources Committee approved the introduction of the electric service, replacing the existing diesel service, and the route extension. The £1 fare for University Card holders will be retained despite the significant additional investment from the University in the new bus service.

Professor David Cardwell, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Strategy and Planning, said: “We are delighted to announce that the Universal bus service will operate with a fleet of new electric buses from next year, and that students, staff and members of the public will soon be able to also use the service at Girton College, Homerton College and Wolfson College.

“Colleagues, in particular the University’s Sustainability Team, have worked hard on what are significant enhancements to the existing service, and have welcomed the positive working relationship they have had with student representatives, and their perspective on the service.

“The Universal bus is a pioneering initiative, and this new contract will support the University’s commitment to environmental sustainability, in particular sustainable business travel, as well as its work to meet the access requirements of all students.”

Universal Bus – The University bus for everyone

Recent years have seen the emergence of AI tools marketed as an answer to lack of diversity in the workforce, from use of chatbots and CV scrapers to line up prospective candidates, through to analysis software for video interviews.

Those behind the technology claim it cancels out human biases against gender and ethnicity during recruitment, instead using algorithms that read vocabulary, speech patterns and even facial micro-expressions to assess huge pools of job applicants for the right personality type and “culture fit”.

However, in a new report published in Philosophy and Technology, researchers from Cambridge’s Centre for Gender Studies argue these claims make some uses of AI in hiring little better than an “automated pseudoscience” reminiscent of physiognomy or phrenology: the discredited beliefs that personality can be deduced from facial features or skull shape.

They say it is a dangerous example of “technosolutionism”: turning to technology to provide quick fixes for deep-rooted discrimination issues that require investment and changes to company culture.

In fact, the researchers have worked with a team of Cambridge computer science undergraduates to debunk these new hiring techniques by building an AI tool modelled on the technology, available at: https://personal-ambiguator-frontend.vercel.app/ 

The ‘Personality Machine’ demonstrates how arbitrary changes in facial expression, clothing, lighting and background can give radically different personality readings – and so could make the difference between rejection and progression for a generation of job seekers vying for graduate positions.

The Cambridge team say that use of AI to narrow candidate pools may ultimately increase uniformity rather than diversity in the workforce, as the technology is calibrated to search for the employer’s fantasy “ideal candidate”.

This could see those with the right training and background “win over the algorithms” by replicating behaviours the AI is programmed to identify, and taking those attitudes into the workplace, say the researchers.

Additionally, as algorithms are honed using past data, they argue that candidates considered the best fit are likely to end up those that most closely resembling the current workforce.

“We are concerned that some vendors are wrapping ‘snake oil’ products in a shiny package and selling them to unsuspecting customers,” said co-author Dr Eleanor Drage.

“By claiming that racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination can be stripped away from the hiring process using artificial intelligence, these companies reduce race and gender down to insignificant data points, rather than systems of power that shape how we move through the world.”

The researchers point out that these AI recruitment tools are often proprietary – or “black box” – so how they work is a mystery.

“While companies may not be acting in bad faith, there is little accountability for how these products are built or tested,” said Drage. “As such, this technology, and the way it is marketed, could end up as dangerous sources of misinformation about how recruitment can be ‘de-biased’ and made fairer.”

Despite some pushback – the EU’s proposed AI Act classifies AI-powered hiring software as “high risk”, for example – researchers say that tools made by companies such as Retorio and HIreVue are deployed with little regulation, and point to surveys suggesting use of AI in hiring is snowballing.

A 2020 study of 500 organisations across various industries in five countries found 24% of businesses have implemented AI for recruitment purposes and 56% of hiring managers planned to adopt it in the next year.

Another poll of 334 leaders in human resources, conducted in April 2020, as the pandemic took hold, found that 86% of organisations were incorporating new virtual technology into hiring practices.

“This trend was in already in place as the pandemic began, and the accelerated shift to online working caused by COVID-19 is likely to see greater deployment of AI tools by HR departments in future,” said co-author Dr Kerry Mackereth, who presents the Good Robot podcast with Drage, in which the duo explore the ethics of technology.

Covid-19 is not the only factor, according to HR operatives the researchers have interviewed. “Volume recruitment is increasingly untenable for human resources teams that are desperate for software to cut costs as well as numbers of applicants needing personal attention,” said Mackereth.

Drage and Mackereth say many companies now use AI to analyse videos of candidates, interpreting personality by assessing regions of a face – similar to lie-detection AI – and scoring for the “big five” personality tropes: extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.

The undergraduates behind the ‘Personality Machine’, which uses a similar technique to expose its flaws, say that while their tool may not help users beat the algorithm, it will give job seekers a flavour of the kinds of AI scrutiny they might be under – perhaps even without their knowledge.

“All too often, the hiring process is oblique and confusing,” said Euan Ong, one of the student developers. “We want to give people a visceral demonstration of the sorts of judgements that are now being made about them automatically.

“These tools are trained to predict personality based on common patterns in images of people they’ve previously seen, and often end up finding spurious correlations between personality and apparently unrelated properties of the image, like brightness. We made a toy version of the sorts of models we believe are used in practice, in order to experiment with it ourselves,” Ong said.

Ever since the pandemic forced schools around the world to close, analysts, academics and teachers have been warning that many students in poorer countries might not return. According to some estimates, more than 10 million school-age students are at risk of dropping out worldwide. There have been particular concerns about marginalised groups such as the very poorest children and girls.

The new study, which used enrolment data from 358 Rwandan secondary schools, collected both before and after the closures, found that rather than undergoing a sharp fall, student numbers actually rose when schools reopened. The cause appears to have been a combination of existing students returning, and the enrolment of other pupils who were out of school before the pandemic began.

Researchers say that this may represent an emerging trend, because as-yet unpublished results from other sub-Saharan countries, such as Ethiopia and Malawi, similarly show no steep fall in numbers.

Despite this, a more gradual, long-term decline in the numbers of children in school may be underway. The research tracked enrolment past the point where schools reopened in Rwanda, and up to May 2021. By that stage, some students did appear to be dropping out of the system. This was particularly true of those from marginalised groups.

The research was undertaken by a team from the University of Cambridge and the East African research and data collection firm, Laterite, and was carried out for the Mastercard Foundation’s Leaders in Teaching Initiative.

Professor Pauline Rose, Director of the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said: “Given the seriousness of the impact of COVID-19, I wouldn’t have been surprised if enrolment rates had halved when schools reopened. We are still developing a comprehensive picture of the situation across Sub-Saharan Africa, but the impact on drop-outs appears far less extreme than initially feared.”

“It is important we continue to monitor the situation. There was clearly real enthusiasm for schools to reopen at first, but there are now signs that some children may potentially be disappearing from the system.”

Schools in Rwanda closed in March 2020 and did not reopen until November, when they did so on a staggered basis. The research collected aggregate enrolment data from before the pandemic, in February 2020, and a year later, in February 2021.

This showed that after schools reopened, enrolment rates rose in the Secondary 1 and Secondary 4 year groups: natural entry points into the Rwandan system because they mark the start of lower and upper secondary school respectively. Enrolment rose by 7% at the Secondary 1 level, and 11% at Secondary 4, in February 2021. Numbers remained steady in the other year groups.

Crucially, the Rwanda Basic Education Board decided to make all students return to the year group that they were previously in when schools reopened. This means that the Secondary 1 and 4 year groups comprised the same cohorts across 2020 and 2021. The rise in numbers was therefore almost certainly due to students who had previously dropped out re-joining their cohort in February 2021.

The study also gathered both enrolment and assessment data from a sample of 2,800 students in the Secondary 3 year group, which it followed up to May 2021.

By that stage, researchers found, some students had started to drop out. About 89% of the entire sample group were still in school by May 2021, but the figure was lower among girls, and particularly among students who were over the ‘expected’ cohort age because they had been kept back an additional year or more. The overage group were also disproportionately likely to come from less-wealthy backgrounds.

“Keeping track of these children is really important,” Mico Rudasingwa, Research Associate at Laterite said. “By the time they reach adolescence, those from the poorest backgrounds in particular are in danger of dropping out early to support with income generating activities for the household.”

The sample group of students also took a learning assessment, in the form of a numeracy test, in February 2020, and again in May 2021 – two terms after their return to school. The results were measured using a ‘latent ability score’ – given as a figure between 0 and 1 – which takes into account not only how many questions they got right, but how difficult those questions were. The average score rose from 0.47 in the first test to 0.52 in the second. Over 90% of the schools in the sample group recorded an average improvement in numeracy scores.

Although positive, these results should be treated with caution, as there is no counterfactual evidence available about how much their test results might have improved had the school closures never occurred. The learning levels of some groups also improved more than others. Boys generally outperformed girls by about 0.02 points on the latent ability scale, while overage students again lagged behind their peers, by about 0.03 points.

The study also collected teacher retention data by tracking 1,700 teachers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects before and after the closures. Around 94% of STEM teachers returned to their classes in early 2021, and almost half the schools surveyed saw an overall increase in STEM teachers through new recruitment. The report describes this low turnover rate as ‘encouraging’.

The full report is available on the REAL Centre website.

According to the Office of National Statistics, in July this year an estimated 2 million people in the UK were living with self-reported long COVID – that is, symptoms continuing for more than four weeks after their first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) infection. Patients report symptoms including fatigue, muscle aches, memory problems and shortness of breath more than six months post-acute COVID-19, and a significant number of patients have not fully recovered two years since the initial infection.

Two recent studies have suggested that vaccination strongly reduced long COVID symptoms one-to-three months after infection, but another study using a cohort of US Army Veterans suggested a more modest, 15% reduction at six months.

In May 2020, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), set up a long COVID clinic, with patients referred to the clinic based on a number of criteria, one of which is symptoms duration of at least five months. These patients tend to be those on the severe end of the symptom spectrum, having been referred following assessment by a team that includes a GP, mental health practitioners, physio and occupational therapists amongst other specialists.

Researchers at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease (CITIID) at the University of Cambridge and CUH, analysed data from the clinic and found a 79% drop in the number of patients being referred to the clinic from August 2021 to June 2022, compared to August 2020 to July 2021. The decrease began five months after people started receiving second doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

Six-month moving averages fell from around 10 referrals per month to just one or two referrals per month. This effect has so far been sustained until at least June 2022, despite four times more cases per month of acute COVID-19 in England across the same time periods.

Dr Ben Krishna from the University of Cambridge said: “Long COVID can have a significant impact on an individual’s life, and the large number of patients still experiencing symptoms many months after infection is placing additional strain on our healthcare services.

“We know that rollout of the vaccines has had a major impact on the number and severity of COVID infections, and evidence from our clinic suggests that it has also played an important role in reducing the rates of the most severe long COVID cases.”

The researchers say that it is possible – but unlikely – that the emergence of the Delta variant may also have affected long COVID rates. However, the observed reduction in long COVID rates in August 2021 was from patients experiencing symptoms for five months, which they say would suggest a change beginning in March 2021. This correlates well with the second doses of vaccination in the UK, but the Delta wave did not begin until April 2021.

The team say they also cannot rule out prior infections providing immunity that protects against long COVID from reinfections; however, primary infections were more common than reinfections around March-April 2021.

The team observed no changes in symptoms between those referred for long COVID before or after vaccination for any of the major symptoms such as fatigue (73% pre-vaccination vs 76% post vaccination) and shortness of breath (18% pre-vaccination vs 23% post-vaccination).

It is not yet clear what level of immunity is required to protect against long COVID, say the researchers. As immunity wanes over time, booster shots – including variant-specific booster shots – may be necessary to minimise long COVID risk.

Dr Nyaradzai Sithole from CUH said: “As the virus continues to circulate and infect – and in many cases, re-infect – people, it’s important that everyone is up-to-date with their vaccinations. This will not only help prevent, or at least lessen, their primary COVID infection, but should reduce their risk of long COVID. But whether with the emergence of new variants we will begin to see an uptick in the number of cases of long COVID remains to be seen.”

The study is published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The research as funded by the Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference
Krishna, B et al. Reduced incidence of Long COVID referrals to the Cambridge University Teaching Hospital Long COVID clinic. Clinical Infectious Diseases; 1 Aug 2022; DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciac630

In a study published today in Nature, researchers at the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London show that mitochondrial DNA also appears in some cancer DNA, suggesting that it acts as a sticking plaster to try and repair damage to our genetic code.

Mitochondria are tiny ‘organelles’ that sit within our cells, where they act like batteries, providing energy in the form of the molecule ATP to power the cells. Each mitochondrion has its own DNA – mitochondrial DNA – that is distinct to the rest of the human genome, which is comprised of nuclear DNA.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed down the maternal line – that is, we inherit it from our mothers, not our fathers. However, a study published in PNAS in 2018 from researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in the USA reported evidence that suggested some mitochondrial DNA had been passed down the paternal line.

To investigate these claims, the Cambridge team looked at the DNA from over 11,000 families recruited to Genomics England’s 100,000 Genomes Project, searching for patterns that looked like paternal inheritance. The Cambridge team found mitochondrial DNA ‘inserts’ in the nuclear DNA of some children that were not present in that of their parents. This meant that the US team had probably reached the wrong conclusions: what they had observed were not paternally-inherited mitochondrial DNA, but rather these inserts.

Now, extending this work to over 66,000 people, the team showed that the new inserts are actually happening all the time, showing a new way our genome evolves.

Professor Patrick Chinnery, from the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit and Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge, explained: “Billions of years ago, a primitive animal cell took in a bacterium that became what we now call mitochondria. These supply energy to the cell to allow it to function normally, while removing oxygen, which is toxic at high levels. Over time, bits of these primitive mitochondria have passed into the cell nucleus, allowing their genomes to talk to each other.

“This was all thought to have happened a very long time ago, mostly before we had even formed as a species, but what we’ve discovered is that that’s not true. We can see this happening right now, with bits of our mitochondrial genetic code transferring into the nuclear genome in a measurable way.”

The team estimate that mitochondrial DNA transfers to nuclear DNA in around one in every 4,000 births. If that individual has children of their own, they will pass these inserts on – the team found that most of us carry five of the new inserts, and one in seven of us (14%) carry very recent ones. Once in place, the inserts can occasionally lead to very rare diseases, including a rare genetic form of cancer.

It isn’t clear exactly how the mitochondrial DNA inserts itself – whether it does so directly or via an intermediary, such as RNA – but Professor Chinnery says it is likely to occur within the mother’s egg cells.

When the team looked at sequences taken from 12,500 tumour samples, they found that mitochondrial DNA was even more common in tumour DNA, arising in around one in 1,000 cancers, and in some cases, the mitochondrial DNA inserts actually causes the cancer.

“Our nuclear genetic code is breaking and being repaired all the time,” said Professor Chinnery. “Mitochondrial DNA appears to act almost like a Band-Aid, a sticking plaster to help the nuclear genetic code repair itself. And sometimes this works, but on rare occasions if might make things worse or even trigger the development of tumours.”

More than half (58%) of the insertions were in regions of the genome that code for proteins. In the majority of cases, the body recognises the invading mitochondrial DNA and silences it in a process known as methylation, whereby a molecule attaches itself to the insert and switches it off. A similar process occurs when viruses manage to insert themselves into our DNA. However, this method of silencing is not perfect, as some of the mitochondrial DNA inserts go on to be copied and move around the nucleus itself.

The team looked for evidence that the reverse might happen – that mitochondrial DNA absorbs parts of our nuclear DNA – but found none. There are likely to be several reasons why this should be the case.

Firstly, cells only have two copies of nuclear DNA, but thousands of copies of mitochondrial DNA, so the chances of mitochondrial DNA being broken and passing into the nucleus are much greater than the other way around.

Secondly, the DNA in mitochondria is packaged inside two membranes and there are no holes in the membrane, so it would be difficult for nuclear DNA to get in. By contrast, if mitochondrial DNA manages to get out, holes in the membrane surrounding nuclear DNA would allow it pass through with relative ease.

Professor Sir Mark Caulfield, Vice Principal for Health at Queen Mary University of London, said: “I am so delighted that the 100,000 Genomes Project has unlocked the dynamic interplay between mitochondrial DNA and our genome in the cell’s nucleus. This defines a new role in DNA repair, but also one that could occasionally trigger rare disease, or even malignancy.”

The research was mainly funded by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome, and the National Institute for Health Research.

Reference
Wei, E et al. Nuclear-embedded mitochondrial DNA sequences in 66,083 human genomes. Nature; 5 Oct 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05288-7

Events taking place at Cambridge include:

Throughout October

Downing’s Early Black Cantabs
Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge

Archive exhibition celebrating Downing College’s early black students, dating back more than 100 years. This exhibition shares research carried out in support of the Black Cantabs Research Society by the College Archivist and new profiles added over the past year.

View the online exhibition

The exhibition in the Maitland Robinson Library, Regent Street, is still available by appointment. Please contact the College Archivist, Jenny Ulph, for more information or to arrange to see the exhibition.

Dr Maggie Semple OBE and Jane Oremosu will speak at Wolfson College1 of 7

• Prev
• Next

Saturday 1 October and Monday 31 October

St Catharine’s College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge

St Catharine’s College will again fly the flag of the Bahamas to commemorate its first Black student, Alfred F. Adderley CBE.

Flying the flag of the Bahamas to mark Black History Month

Thursday, 13 October

Black Women in Business with Dr Maggie Semple OBE and Jane Oremosu, 6.30pm to 8pm
Combination Room, Wolfson College, Barton Road, Cambridge

Wolfson student Annoa Abekah-Mensah chats with Dr Maggie Semple OBE and Jane Oremosu, two black women with extensive business acumen, about their work and experiences in the corporate space, and their professional services company I-Cubed Group which offers diversity and inclusion training.

Register for Black Women in Business with Dr Maggie Semple OBE and Jane Oremosu

Thursday, 13 October

Legal Profession, Public Office and Race – My Personal Journey, with Busola Johnson, 6-7pm
Lucy Cavendish College, Lady Margaret Road, Cambridge

Lucy Cavendish alumna Busola Johnson, a specialist prosecutor in the Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division at the Crown Prosecution Service, will share her journey as a lawyer, discussing the legal professions, public office and race.

The event is free and open to all and will take place in the Wood-legh Room, in the Strathaird Building. There is no need to register.

Thursday, 20 October

Dreams from my Mother with Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, 6.30-8pm
Wolfson College, online event

Wolfson student Annoa Abekah-Mensah speaks with Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, a nurse, lecturer, professor and author, about her life – as detailed in her new autobiography Dreams from my Mother – discussing her time as a young child in care, her experience in nursing and journey into sickle-cell and thalassemia research, and her work in Black activism.

Register for Dreams from my Mother with Dame Elizabeth Anionwu event

Saturday, 22 October

Adderley Dinner
St Catharine’s College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge

The Adderley Dinner, named in memory of St Catharine’s first Black student and supported by the Master’s Fund, will celebrate the achievements of the College’s Black community and foster connections between current students and alumni. Invited guests will be welcomed by Lady Welland (2020) at a reception in the Master’s Lodge Dining Room. This event is primarily for members of the College community who identify as Black and mixed Black.

Sunday, 23 October

Choral Evensong
St Catharine’s College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge

Choral Evensong service live-streamed from the Chapel, with The Revd Shana Maloney preaching on the Magnificat and empowerment, and the work of Black composers featured among the musical performances.

Thursday, 27 October

How Can We Educate Children About Anti-Racism? with Laura Henry Allain MBE, 6.30-10pm
Combination Room, Wolfson College, Barton Road, Cambridge

Wolfson student Annoa Abekah-Mensah sits down with Laura Henry Allain MBE to discuss her work in education and race. Laura Henry-Allain MBE is an award-winning international writer, motivational and keynote speaker and consultant. She is the creator of the well-loved CBeebies show JoJo and Gran, of which she is the associate producer.

Register for How Can We Educate Children About Anti-Racism? with Laura Henry Allain MBE

Wednesday, 2 November

2022 Annual Race Equality Lecture, 5.30-6.30pm

The University’s 2022 Annual Race Equality Lecture will be given by sociologist Professor Ruha Benjamin, at the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.

More details to follow.

Professor Deborah Prentice, currently Provost of Princeton in the United States, has been nominated for the role. Dr Freeling, formerly President of Hughes Hall, is the first acting vice-chancellor in the University’s history. In his speech he used the analogy of running a relay race and said it was his role to ensure the baton was passed smoothly to his successor. He paid a heartfelt tribute to Professor Toope for steering Cambridge through some its most challenging times ever and making the University even more open to diverse talent, more financially transparent, and more collegial. He noted that the University “is about to begin an exciting new partnership to bring more than 1,000 young African scholars to Cambridge.”

Dr Freeling also stressed the importance of the University’s mission, describing academic excellence as the touchstone: “Whether addressing climate change, the cost of living or student wellbeing, the central University, the academic departments, and the colleges must work more closely than ever, and we must collaborate more effectively than ever. In short, working collaboratively to enhance Cambridge’s academic excellence will be the guiding principle of my time in office, and my unrelenting focus, before handing over the baton to my successor.”

He acknowledged that the months ahead will be challenging, “not least as we make the necessary adjustments to help our communities cope with the country’s cost of living crisis”, but vowed to “work across collegiate Cambridge to help us pull together and achieve this shared purpose.”

The University, he said, could only achieve its aims by working together: “We are united in our aspirations, and in our collective enterprise. Together, we form an extraordinary community who come together for the greater benefit of the whole.”

Dr Freeling emphasised the University’s commitment to freedom of speech: “We take great pride in being a self-governing community of scholars. We place great stock in protecting academic freedom. And we make great efforts to embed freedom of expression.” “The University’s governance”, he added, “relies ultimately on members of its Regent House engaging, discussing and voting on the issues that matter most to them.”

He ended his Address by urging members of the Regent House – the University’s governing body – to fully participate in the decision-making processes of the University saying it was “a democratic right, and democratic duty”.

The report – the 2022 Lancet Neurology Commission – has been produced by world-leading experts, including co-lead author Professor David Menon from the Division of Anaesthesia at the University of Cambridge.

The Commission documents traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a global public health problem, which afflicts 55 million people worldwide, costs over US$400 billion per year, and is a leading cause of injury-related death and disability.

TBI is not only an acute condition but also a chronic disease with long-term consequences, including an increased risk of late-onset neurodegeneration, such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Road traffic incidents and falls are the main causes, but while in low- and middle-income countries, road traffic accidents account for almost three times the number of TBIs as falls, in high-income countries falls cause twice the number of TBIs compared to road traffic accidents. These data have clear consequences for prevention.

Over 90% of TBIs are categorized as ‘mild’, but over half of such patients do not fully recover by six months after injury. Improving outcome in these patients would be a huge public health benefit. A multidimensional approach to outcome assessment is advocated, including a focus on mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder. Outcome after TBI is poorer in females compared with males, but reasons for this are not clear.

Professor Menon said: “Traumatic brain injury remains a major global health problem, with substantial impact on patients, families and society.  Over the last decade, large international collaborations have provided important information to improve understanding and care of TBI.  However, significant problems remain, especially in low and middle income countries.  Continued collaborative efforts are needed to continue to improve patient outcomes and reduce the societal impact of TBI.”

The Commission identified substantial disparities in care, including lower treatment intensity for patients injured by low-energy mechanisms, deficiencies in access to rehabilitation and insufficient follow-up in patients with ‘mild’ TBI. In low- and middle-income countries, both pre-hospital and post-acute care are largely deficient.

The Commission presents substantial advances in diagnostics and treatment approaches. Blood-based biomarkers perform as well – or perhaps even better – than clinical decision rules for selecting patients with mild TBI for CT scanning, and can thus help reduce unnecessary radiation risks. They also have prognostic value for outcome. Genomic analyses suggests that 26% of outcome variance in TBI might be heritable, emphasizing the relevance of host response, which is modifiable. Advanced monitoring of the brain in patients with severe injuries in the intensive care setting provides better insight into derangements of brain function and metabolism, providing a basis for individualizing management to the needs of a patient. These advances have, however, not yet led to improved outcome. Mortality in patients with moderate to severe injuries appears to have decreased, but a greater number of survivors may have substantial disability.

Emeritus Professor Andrew Maas from the Antwerp University Hospital and University of Antwerp, Belgium, said: “Improving care pathways and removing current disparities in care for patients with TBI will require close collaboration between policymakers, clinicians and researchers, with input from patients and patient representatives.”

Professor Geoffrey Manley from the University of California, San Francisco and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, USA, said: “This Commission represents true team science, involving over 300 authors and contributors from around the globe working closely with the team at Lancet Neurology. Much of the data reported come from large-scale collaborative studies, illustrating the strength of longer-term observational research. There can be no doubt that multidisciplinary international collaboration is the way forward”.

Reference
Lancet Neurology Commission. Lancet Neurology; 30 Sept 2022; DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(22)00309-X

Adapted form a press release from SMC Media