What went right this week: ‘scientific asylum’ in Europe, plus more

European universities are offering ‘scientific asylum’ to US-based researchers fleeing Donald Trump’s crackdown on academia.

The White House administration’s attack on ‘wokeism’ has left research projects that are seen to involve ‘taboo topics’ such as diversity and the climate crisis out in the cold, while sweeping cuts to spending mean researchers at renowned institutions such as Nasa are facing redundancy.

But America’s loss could be a boon for Europe as its universities seek to mop up some of the transatlantic brain drain – and allow the experts to continue their valuable work.

Belgium’s Vrije Universiteit Brussel has opened 12 postdoctoral positions for international researchers, focusing on Americans, while the Pasteur Institute in Paris is headhunting infectious disease researchers.

France’s Aix-Marseille University has established a €15m (£12.55m) ‘safe place for science’ programme, which will fund 15 US researchers working in climate, environment, health and human sciences.

The Netherlands recently followed suit with the announcement of a similar fund to attract leading scientists in a number of fields. Meanwhile, the UK-based University of York is in its second year of welcoming persecuted researchers from across the world, via its sanctuary fund. 

Yasmine Belkaid, president of the Pasteur Institute, told Positive News: “We encourage governments to fund ambitious attractiveness and mobility schemes to attract and welcome scientists based in the United States, particularly in the life sciences – thereby supporting those who, by defending science, are protecting our societies.

“At this troubled time, when values and ideals are threatened, Louis Pasteur’s motto ‘science belongs to humanity’, must be defended more than ever.”

Image: Éléa Ropiot, Aix-Marseille Université

Budding eco warriors look set to get a classroom deep dive into natural history with the announcement of plans for a new GCSE on the topic. 

Environmentalist Mary Colwell, director of the charity Curlew Action, has been on a mission to rewild the British school curriculum since 2011.

This week she was celebrating a resounding victory after plans for the new qualification – which is taken by students at the end of their secondary school years – were unveiled by UK education minister Catherine McKinnell.

The Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North told parliamentary peers it would help kids to “understand and respect the natural world and contribute to the protection and conservation of the environment locally, nationally and internationally”.

The government plans to consult on course content later this year, ahead of the GCSE’s introduction in schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Colwell said on social media that the news had moved her to tears, and told Positive News that she was ‘delighted’ with the result after so many years of perseverance. 

“Only through knowing and understanding the natural world will we be able to live in harmony with nature, which is crucial for our future,” she said. “This is one step towards creating that nature-literate society. Suddenly, the future seems a little brighter.”

Read more about the move to bring nature into the classroom here.

Image: students examine the undergrowth in woodlands near Rothbury, Northumberland. Credit: SolStock

‘Radical’, ‘poignant’, ‘vast and strange’: just a few of the words used to describe The Stimming Pool, the first ever feature-length film made by autistic directors.

Sam Chown-Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles and Lucy Walker make up the Neurocultures Collective of autistic creators. They partnered with Steven Eastwood, professor of film practice at London’s Queen Mary University, on the Wellcome Trust-backed feature, which was shot over just 12 days.

The 70-minute film blurs the lines between fiction and documentary, and deploys what its co-directors describe as an ‘autistic camera’, as the cast of neurodivergent characters search for a sense of belonging in a neurotypical world.

Writing for the British Film Industry website, culture journalist Sophie Monks Kaufman said the film “presents a manifesto for a new kind of cinematic language”.

Chown-Ahern told Positive News: “Neurodivergency brings a huge bonus to film-making – you see patterns and sequences that other people might not think of. That, in its own right, is quite lovely.”

The Stimming Pool is in UK cinemas from Friday (28 March).

Image: Gregory Oke

Some of the world’s biggest companies are backing regenerative farming in a major new drive for nature positivity in the food and drinks industry. 

McDonalds and Barclays are just two of the firms signed up to the Routes to Regen project, which launched this week as part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI).

The SMI was founded by King Charles and brings together business leaders, governments and other stakeholders to drive sustainability changes across industry.

The pilot programme will focus on the east of England and aims to bolster sustainability in food production by helping farmers make the leap to regenerative methods. This includes practices such as no-till farming, planting flowering cover crops to coax pollinators, and silvopasture, where livestock and trees are integrated on the same land.

Farmers will benefit from financial, technical and peer-to-peer support over the course of 2025, with the end goal to restore soil health and boost biodiversity.

In other conservation news, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is calling on some of England’s biggest landowners to come up with action plans to restore nature on their estates.

Meanwhile, the government has announced a new action plan to safeguard bees and other pollinators by reducing the use of pesticides on farms by 10% by 2030.

Image: Veronica White

Twenty million trees by 2050: that’s the ambitious aim for the creation of a new forest that is set to cover a vast patch of west England.

The Western Forest – the first new national forest in three decades – will see 2,500 hectares (6,200 acres), from the Cotswolds to the Mendips, planted with woodland.

The project also aims to revitalise existing woodland while integrating trees into the region’s farmed landscape to boost soil health and protect against floods.

Defra is ploughing up to £7.5m into the vision, which is being led by community forest initiative, the Forest of Avon (FOA).

It will help to meet government targets of 30,000 hectares (74,100 acres) of new woodland a year, which some environmental groups say the country is not on track to meet. 

FOA chief executive Alex Stone said: “The Forest of Avon is thrilled to have led a wonderfully diverse and engaged partnership to bring the Western Forest to life.

“This is about resource, funding and expertise coming directly to landowners, partners and communities, planting millions of trees in the right places. Together, we will enhance landscapes for all to enjoy, improving the lives of our 2.5 million residents and visitors to the region.”

Image: the first trees are planted in the Western Forest. Credit: First Avenue Photography

Man’s best friend is lending a nose to medics managing cystic fibrosis patients, as hounds get the green light to sniff out infectious bacteria.

A study by Imperial College London in partnership with the charity Medical Detection Dogs had previously proved pooches were able to pinpoint the tiniest whiff of the pseudomonas bacteria.

The microbe can trigger pneumonia, urinary infections and potentially deadly septicaemia in cystic fibrosis patients.

Specially trained sniffer dogs were able to detect it on patients’ clothes, meaning those with the condition could potentially self-screen for infection at home by sending in samples. Imperial College has now received funding from medical charities Life Arc and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust to put its research into practice.

The technique should lead to faster, more targeted antibiotic treatment, and it’s hoped the method can be expanded to root out bacteria in other patients.

Image: Medical Detection Dogs

Buddying up with high earners boosts social mobility in the UK, according to the authors of new research that examined how friendships can bridge economic divides.

It was inspired by work in the US that found that children from disadvantaged backgrounds fared better where friendships between low and high earners were commonplace.

The new work drew on economic mobility data from England to study how social ties impact outcomes later in life.

It reveals that low-income children who grow up in the top 10% of economically- connected local authorities – those where friendships and interactions cross socioeconomic lines – earn 38% more as adults compared to peers raised in the least-connected 10%.

The study also found that people with more high-income pals, or a close-knit social circle, reported more happiness, life satisfaction and feelings of belonging.

“While our findings do not establish causality, they suggest that bringing people from different socioeconomic backgrounds together – through more inclusive schools, workplaces, and community initiatives – may help to grow the cross-class friendships associated with better economic and social outcomes,” the authors concluded.

Image: Saeed Karimi

Cars are set to be banned on hundreds more roads in the French capital after a referendum voted to turn them into green pedestrian zones.

Around 220 streets in Paris are already car-free. Now, 500 more will now be closed to cars, which also means the removal of some 10,000 parking spots in the city.

Two-thirds of voters backed the ‘garden road’ schemes, although the referendum recorded a historically low turnout: only 4% of Paris’ 1.4m registered voters took part.

The move follows other measures tackling traffic and ‘auto-besity’ in Paris, which include tripling parking fees for SUVs and banning rented e-scooters, which are thought to be disruptive and sometimes unsafe. 

“This vote reinforces our commitment to continue sharing public space for pedestrians and to make Paris greener,” Christophe Najdovski, deputy mayor in charge of green spaces, told French news agency AFP.

Image: Jeff Frenette

Ambitious climate action could boost global growth equivalent to the output of Sweden, according to economic watchdog the OECD.

The analysis by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) rebuffs oft-repeated claims that green policies stifle economic growth. 

The OECD found that meeting the climate crisis head-on with more robust net zero action would stimulate a 0.2% uplift in global GDP by 2040, compared to sticking to existing policies.

The report was revealed this week in Berlin, where delegates from 40 countries met to shape the upcoming COP30 summit that will be held in Brazil later this year. 

It also revealed that if governments invested in cutting emissions now, 175 million people in developing countries could be lifted out of poverty by the end of the decade. 

Achim Steiner, executive secretary of the UNDP, told delegates: “The overwhelming evidence that we now have is that we are not regressing if we invest in climate transitions. We actually see a modest increase in GDP growth, that may look small at first … but quickly grows.”

Image: Mika Baumeister

The transformative power of Martha’s rule was revealed in UK parliament this week, where MPs heard that thousands of patients or their loved ones have sought a second opinion on their care. 

The patient safety scheme was introduced in May 2024 after teenager Martha Mills died of sepsis in 2021, aged 13. 

Her mother Merope had tried to raise the alarm and later campaigned for patients and their loved ones to be given the right to request an urgent care review. In 2023, a coroner found that Martha would likely have survived had she been moved to intensive care in time. Since then, 143 English hospitals have signed up to a pilot.

The House of Commons health and social care committee heard this week that the initiative had received more than 2,000 calls. 

Dr Henrietta Hughes, patient safety commissioner for England, said 300 patients had had an improvement in their care as a result, with 100 moved to intensive care ‘or equivalent’.

“This shows that patients and families have really valuable information that we can listen to, and if we act on that, we improve safety and reduce harm to patients,” she said.

Image: National Cancer Institute

Main image: BraunS