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Raphael Hernandes, a PhD student at Cambridge Digital Humanities and Selwyn College, is a researcher and data journalist specializing in AI, journalism, and society.

Viktor Orbán has been swept from power after 16 years as Hungarian Prime Minister in a landslide victory for Péter Magyar's Tisza party. Four Cambridge researchers specialising in Hungarian history and politics give their reaction.

A Cambridge-led study, published in Environmental Policy and Governance, traces the evolution of British energy policy support since World War II up to reforms announced in 2025. It highlights a clear shift away from broad-based and preventive approaches, such as large-scale energy efficiency programmes, towards narrowly targeted measures that compensate households only after energy costs increase.

“The key question is not just who receives support, but why policy so often reacts rather than prevents,” says Tijn Croon, a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge’s Department of Architecture from TU Delft. “We find that this is not accidental: it reflects deeper political and institutional dynamics that consistently favour short-term, visible interventions over long-term investment.”

Recent decades reveal a recurring pattern, the researchers argue. During crises, governments introduce broad, often universal support and promise large-scale green investment, but this is typically short-lived. As pressures ease, policy shifts back towards narrowly targeted schemes, largely delivered through energy supplier obligations, leaving many households outside support despite ongoing energy affordability challenges.

The study suggests that this pattern is driven by political economy factors. Preventive policies such as home insulation require upfront investment and deliver benefits over longer time horizons, making them less attractive within short electoral cycles. In contrast, compensatory measures like energy bill support provide immediate, visible relief.

“What we see is a system that increasingly responds to crises rather than reducing vulnerability in advance,” says Minna Sunikka-Blank, Professor of Architecture and Environmental Policy at Cambridge and a Fellow of Churchill College. “This means support often arrives too late and mostly functions as a stopgap.”

The study points out that in the 1970s and 1980s, the UK was a global leader in energy efficiency, launching the world's first dedicated Energy Efficiency Office, nationwide awareness campaigns, and coordinated government support for households and industry. In stark contrast, it argues, the UK today “is one of the few high-income European countries without a comprehensive, universally accessible scheme for retrofitting grants or loans that goes beyond heating system replacement.

“Instead, it relies on a fragmented patchwork of policies, mostly financed through consumer levies and limited to low-income households, despite an ageing and relatively inefficient housing stock and the pressing challenges of climate change and the cost-of-living crisis.”

Dr Ray Galvin, from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) says: “Without stronger investment in preventive measures like energy efficiency, on-site renewables, and low-carbon heating systems, governments risk repeatedly facing the same affordability crises. Short-term relief may be necessary, but it cannot substitute for structural solutions.”

The findings are particularly relevant in the current context of rising energy prices, where governments once again face pressure to intervene quickly. The authors warn that relying primarily on compensation risks entrenching a recurring cycle of crisis response.

While recent government commitments, such as the expansion of the Warm Homes Programme, signal a renewed focus on energy efficiency, the study argues that current plans remain insufficient in scale and ambition to fundamentally shift this trajectory.

To break this pattern, the authors call for a rethinking of how energy policy is evaluated and funded. They also suggest that framing energy affordability as a social right, such as a right to a warm and comfortable home, could help anchor more long-term policy approaches.

Reference

T. M. Croon, M. G. Elsinga, J. S. C. M. Hoekstra, M. Sunikka-Blank, R. Galvin, ‘For the Few, Not the Many: Tracing the Residualist and Compensatory Nature of British Energy Support’, Environmental Policy and Governance (2026). DOI: 10.1002/eet.70067

As prices rise and the UK Government considers energy bill help once again, a new study warns that the country’s approach to energy support is structurally geared towards short-term crisis response rather than long-term solutions.

support often arrives too late and mostly functions as a stopgapMinna Sunikka-BlankImage by ri from Pixabaywhite radiator

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Students from every background belong at Cambridge. Discover how the skills you gain here open doors to exciting careers. Learn about the financial support available. Hear what makes Cambridge unique. Find out how to apply.

Cambridge University was recently ranked best in the UK 2026 for "producing the most employable graduates", as judged by recruiters at top companies around the world. We spoke to Graham Philpott, Cambridge’s Head of Careers, about the key factors that shape employability for Cambridge students.

The exhibition, curated by Cambridge art historian Dr Christina J Faraday features works by eleven contemporary artists working across painting, digital media, video and photography, animatronics, ceramics, jewellery and silversmithing, set alongside rarely seen objects from historical collections in Cambridge.

“The Tudor period brought the advent of many ‘modern’ ideas in the realms of politics, religion, and society,” Dr Faraday says. “It also witnessed the first two English Queens Regnant, and the rise of England’s imperial and colonial ambitions abroad.

“Above all, it produced some of the most exciting and iconic images and objects in British art of any period. Many artists today are interrogating similar themes, making the era fertile ground for exploring issues of power, identity and artifice.”

The free-to-enter exhibition explores themes such as the representation of power; bodily presentation and bodily regulation; artistic responses to gender, race and ‘otherness’ within British and imperial histories; magic, technology and hidden forces, and the question of artistic artifice and art’s (in)ability to give access to ‘real’ historical subjects.

Dr Faraday says: “Artists of every age have been drawn to the Tudor period – each one finding something relevant to their own time. For the Victorians it was the first glimmerings of England’s Protestant Empire and the first strong English queen. For artists now, gender and empire are still to the fore, but complicated by more recent reassessments of themes such as identity, power and politics.” 

“In this exhibition, artists revel in the look of the Tudor period – the sumptuous materials, the jewels and costumes, but also the inventive and charismatic everyday objects. At the same time, they engage with the period's reputation for cruelty and violence - Machiavellian politics and executions at home, and the origins of colonial and imperial atrocities abroad.

“Several of the artists are fascinated by what Tudor portraits can tell us about representations of power, and how that interacts with ideas about gender for a monarch like Elizabeth I, who was the most powerful person in the country, yet viewed as physically 'inferior' to the men of her court due to her sex.”

The centrepiece of the exhibition is Mat Collishaw’s Mask of Youth, an animatronic re-imagining of Elizabeth I’s ‘real’ features, seen here for only the third time in the UK since it was commissioned for an exhibition at the Queen’s House, Greenwich in 2018.

Stephen Farthing RA’s Elizabeth I: In a Field of Stars, a work made specially for this exhibition, is shown alongside works by The Singh Twins, Linder Sterling, Chan-Hyo Bae, Peter Brathwaite, Eleanor Breeze, Natasja Kensmil, Serena Korda, and Jane Partner, all of which deploy Tudor art and imagery in ways that speak urgently to contemporary audiences.

The exhibition will present the contemporary artworks alongside loans of historical works, creating conversations across time and media. Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is lending some charismatic Bellarmine jugs – bottles with grimacing bearded faces at the necks which were later recycled as witch bottles to ward off evil. The artist Serena Korda makes her own contemporary versions of these objects that explore themes of violence and ritual.

The Old Schools is lending their portrait of Elizabeth I, painted at a fraught moment in her reign when the question of whether she should marry had its last, acute airing. It speaks to contemporary works in the show which use Elizabeth’s own image to explore ideas about gender, power, race and empire.

Dr Christina Faraday is a historian of art and ideas specialising in the Tudor period. She is an Affiliated Lecturer in the History of Art Department at Cambridge. Her first book, Tudor Liveliness: Vivid Art in Post-Reformation England, was published in 2023. Her latest, The Story of Tudor Art, was published in 2025.

She says: “I have been struck by the similarities between artists’ practices today and the experiences of Tudor artists. Artists now are often multidisciplinary, working across lots of different media and incorporating performance as well as physical objects into their works. This was also true for someone like Hans Holbein the Younger - famous now for his portraits of Henry VIII and his courtiers, but who spent most of his time designing ephemeral scenery and banners for one-off court entertainments.

“Many of the artists here reject the idea of the 'lone genius' artist who creates an entirely original composition; many of the artists work in collaboration with others, or incorporate elements of collage and bricolage using pre-existing materials to create new compositions - much closer to Tudor ideas about creativity, which favoured the imaginative reuse of pre-existing forms, quotations and ideas.”

The Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge, CB2 1DQ

Open (free): Wednesday to Sunday, 12PM to 5PM

A programme of exhibition-related events runs alongside the Cambridge Festival.

‘Tudor Contemporary’, the first multidisciplinary exhibition to focus on the legacies of Tudor history and art in contemporary artistic practice is on display at The Heong Gallery at Downing College, Cambridge, from 20th February – 19th April 2026.

Artists of every age have been drawn to the Tudor periodChristina Faraday© Mat Collishaw; © The Singh Twins: www.singhtwins.co.ukLeft: © Mat Collishaw, Mask of Youth, 2018; Right: © The Singh Twins: www.singhtwins.co.uk,Trade Wars: Elizabeth I (Slaves of Fashion series), 2018.

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Anna Korhonen, a Professor of Natural Language Processing at the University, will be part of a panel of 40 members from across the world.

The Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence will bring together leading experts to assess how the technology is transforming our lives. One of its main duties will be to produce an annual report with evidence-based scientific assessments related to the opportunities, risks and impacts of AI, which will be presented at the United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

Based in the School of Arts and Humanities, Anna is Co-Director of the Institute for Technology and Humanity (ITH), Director of the Centre for Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence (CHIA), and Co-Director of the Language Technology Lab (LTL) in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. She is also a Senior Research Fellow of Churchill College. 

“I am honoured to be appointed to this panel, which serves as the first global scientific body on Artificial Intelligence,” Anna said.

“The appointment aligns closely with my research on developing responsible, human-centred AI and applying it to support global sustainable development.

“I am looking forward to taking up my place on the panel at its first meeting”.

Professor Sir John Aston, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge, congratulated Anna on her appointment.

“This appointment is recognition of Anna’s research focus around how to harness this incredible technology – Artificial Intelligence - for human good,” he said.

“She will be a fantastic representative not just for Cambridge but for UK research as a whole.”
 

A University of Cambridge academic has been appointed to a new United Nations panel on Artificial Intelligence.

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YesRelated Links: United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on AI

The joint Early Career Researcher winner for 2025 is Imad Ahmed (Faculty of Divinity, School of Arts and Humanities) 

Meet the winners of the Cambridge Awards 2025 for Research Impact and Engagement and learn more about their projects.