University of Oxford

12 September 2026 - 13 September 2026 Blavatnik School of Government Drop in - no registration required We are delighted to be taking part in this year’s Oxford Open Doors on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September 2026. Join us at the Blavatnik School of Government for a self-guided tour of our award-winning building, designed by renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron. The building will be open to visitors from 10:00 to 15:00 on both days.

An urban climatologist by training, Professor Khosla works at the intersection of science and policy, focused on extreme heat and the rapidly growing global demand for cooling, particularly in the fast-urbanising cities of the Global South. Alongside her role at the Oxford Smith School, Professor Khosla is Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development and Programme Leader in Zero Carbon Energy Use at Oxford’s ZERO Institute.

Reversing wildlife trade rules so that species can only be traded when this has been shown to be sustainable would not, on its own, solve many of the problems facing current regulation according to new research from the Oxford Martin Programme on Wildlife Trade. Globally, people use and trade at least 50,000 wild species for food, medicinal products, construction materials, and to support their livelihoods, among many other purposes.

Dr Dan Challender and Dr Amy Hinsley discuss a new paper in which they evaluate the potential of ‘reverse listing’ to regulate international wildlife trade, highlighting that this approach is not a panacea. Globally, people use and trade at least 50,000 wild species for food, medicinal products, construction materials, and to support their livelihoods, among many other purposes.

Mon, 10 August 2026 Published ‘Why do our systems undervalue female founders?’, a white paper by Pinar Ozcan, Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, analyses barriers facing women founders. It’s no secret that it’s hard for female founders to get funding. Globally, it’s estimated that female-only founding teams receive about 2.3% of venture capital, compared to 83.6% that goes to male-only founding teams. The inequity is clear.

By Catia Nicodemo and Joan Madia, Health Economics Research Group, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences Ask most people to name the winter viruses that fill our hospital wards and they will reach for two: flu and COVID. Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, rarely makes the list. Many still think of it as a childhood illness – something that gives babies a nasty cough and then fades away.

Published in Nature Medicine, the study introduces SIM-VAIL, a clinically validated framework for auditing AI chatbots in mental-health conversations. The work was led by researchers at the University of Oxford, University College London (UCL), and the UK AI Security Institute.

Abstract: Many technologies grow along S-curves: diffusion is slow, then rapid, then levels off. Forecasting this growth is vital for renewable energy, AI and other technology transitions, but it has been unclear whether technologies follow a single universal process, and past forecasts have proved unreliable. We assemble a database of 120 mature technologies, from canals to mobile phones, and show their S-curve shapes are remarkably universal.

06 August 2026 Nature Food Liu, B., Behrens, P., Sun, Z. et al. High-resolution carbon and biodiversity mapping shows correlated losses across space and agricultural products. Nat Food (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-026-01387-0 Carbon storage and biodiversity are heavily impacted by food systems. Here we map and trace long-term carbon storage and biodiversity loss from land use in global agricultural supply chains at a high spatial and product resolution.

Beef and dairy production accounts for 41% of the biodiversity damage caused by the world's farmland, according to an international study involving researchers from the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. Published in Nature Food, the research also shows that the environmental impacts of farming are concentrated in relatively few places.