Insights

The lustre of carbon-free nuclear energy was tarnished after the highly publicised and impactful human-error-related accident at Ukraine’s Chornobyl No. 4 reactor in 1986 and more recently in Japan after a tsunami cut power from critical backup generators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011. In Europe, the current dependence on Russian oil and natural gas exports is…

“Onshoring” chip production is a red herring: the UK should double down on its competitive advantage in R&D and IP to create a secure semiconductor supply chain, new report finds.

As part of their efforts to tackle climate change, businesses are increasingly relying on the buying and selling of credits to offset emissions. This approach was developed at COP26 last year to create new market mechanisms underpinning Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Amid rising concerns that the lack of transparency and oversight of offsets might lead to greenwashing,…

On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron won a second term in the French elections. But his victory is complicated by the record showing of his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen. With legislative elections looming in June and the intensifying Russia-Ukraine war threatening European cooperation, what did Sunday night tell us about the future of France?

The first meeting of an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) for an international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, was held on 24th February 2022. The first of its kind, the instrument will be rooted in the World Health Organization (WHO) Constitution, thereby offering high-level mandates to its signatories. While strengthening global…

The last year has seen intellectual property (IP) play an increasingly central role in several policy areas, including the BEIS’s Innovation Strategy and DIT’s post-Brexit trade strategy.

As the world’s biggest international finance institutions, the IMF and World Bank, gathered for their annual Spring Meetings, Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, warned of the compounding crises affecting the world. Africa, Georgieva said, was “particularly vulnerable” to the economic upheaval following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

It was the must-have accessory for the chattering classes through the early days of the pandemic, but Peloton, the producer of pricey exercise bikes and the poster child of the connected fitness industry, has suffered a post-lockdown fall from grace. 

States set to reap the benefits from federal PFAS infrastructure bill funding 

‘Top in tech’ is a monthly episode from the GC tech policy team. Each month, the team lift the lid on the latest in Europe’s ‘techlash’, identifying where the debate is heading in London and Brussels, the politics behind it, and what this might mean for the apps and online services we use every day. 

As the Biden administration inches towards a revived deal with Iran, it is worth reflecting on what the difficult history of this agreement should remind us about US foreign policy. Both the architects in the White House and their counterparts in Tehran in 2015 failed in a vital task: ensuring the agreement’s sustainability beyond the Obama administration. Because of the…

UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries’ announcement that the government will proceed with plans to privatise Channel 4 has reignited the smouldering debate around the role of Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs) in the UK. Her assertion that privatisation is necessary to ensure Channel 4’s long-term viability against Video-on-Demand (VoD) streaming platforms, like Netflix,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the fragility of the public health systems that we take for granted. As the virulence of the pandemic begins to abate across much of the world, how exposed – or prepared – are counties for the impact of war, economic sanctions, political isolation and new migratory patterns on existing health structures and systems? 

Last month, Chinese technology company Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) was added to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) provisional watchlist, the latest development in a longstanding clash between the U.S. and China around audit oversight of foreign companies. The purview of the SEC and other regulatory bodies such as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the…

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been ramping up scrutiny of Big Tech companies ever since Chair Lina Khan – an avowed critic of Big Tech – arrived in June 2021. To date, the FTC has struggled to find ways to combat the rising influence of the technology industry using its limited set of enforcement tools. However, a recent new settlement with WW International,…

This year’s Amsterdam Drone Week and EASA High Level Conference wrapped up last week, bringing together the annual gathering of policymakers and industry to discuss unmanned aircraft regulation and the technology’s roll-out in Europe. It has been a number of years since the last one was held, due to covid, so the conference was a flurry of activity. The conference hall…

You might not have heard of Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) before reading this article. In global terms it is not a major player in the semiconductors sector, but the south Wales-located manufacturer now finds itself at the heart of a heated political debate about the UK’s technological competitiveness, openness to foreign investment and relationship with China.

The Russia-Ukraine war was the elephant in the room at the inaugural Tashkent International Investment Forum in late March. While not mentioned directly by the speakers, it was clear to anyone that the conflict will impact Uzbekistan as it tries to position itself as a gateway for foreign corporates and investors to the rest of Central Asia.