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Anyone who has spent time inside a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) knows it’s intense.

For the tiny babies cared for in these wards, any infection could prove fatal. Great care is taken to prevent the spread of pathogens, but outbreaks still occur.

Traditionally, detecting outbreaks within a NICU has been reactive – only after multiple babies fall ill at the same time.

Our research is advancing the use of whole-genome sequencing technologies to detect outbreaks early and stamp out bacteria before they threaten more babies.

From reactive to proactive

NICU outbreak surveillance usually involves monitoring rates of illness and identifying spikes and long-term trends that may point to a pathogen circulating on the ward.

When a potential outbreak is identified, bacteria may be cultured and retrospectively sequenced to determine if they can be linked to a shared source or transmission on the ward.

Wellington Regional Hospital has changed its approach to infection surveillance in the NICU. Rather than waiting for infants to fall ill, they are using the same sequencing technology we developed at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) for genomic contact tracking during the COVID pandemic.

Infants in the unit have diagnostic swab samples taken as part of routine practice. If any key bacteria are cultured from these samples, they are sequenced promptly to identify possible transmission events in near real time. This allows us to monitor the situation closely and respond quickly to emerging outbreaks.

Genome sequencing allows NICU teams to monitor infectious bacteria before babies fall ill.
Getty Images

Because not all infants carrying a particular bacterial strain will experience a severe infection, this proactive approach can detect an outbreak before any babies fall ill.

And because whole-genome sequencing decodes the entire genetic makeup of bacteria, it also provides the NICU team with information on how pathogens are related to each other. This allows them to differentiate one-off cases imported to the unit from any circulating within it.

This level of detail allows for precise infection monitoring and fast, informed decisions on outbreak control.

A case study

This shift was recently tested when proactive genomic surveillance showed two infants in the NICU had eye infections caused by the same organism, an uncommon strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

MRSA is notorious for its resistance to common antibiotics, making it particularly dangerous in hospitals.

The onsite sequencing showed the two cases were likely linked. The priorities were to establish whether other infants were affected and limit the pathogen’s spread as quickly as possible. Screening of infants in the NICU found six more carrying the same strain of MRSA (though none with serious illness).

This meant these infants could be isolated rapidly and the outbreak contained before any others developed a significant infection. ESR’s experience as genomic contact tracers helped establish how these infections spread in the unit.

An outbreak response takes up resources and involves multiple steps, from the initial confirmation of the infection and its transmission route to communication with parents.

This proactive approach to infection surveillance provides an early-warning system. It means the NICU team can be confident an outbreak is underway and act quickly to contain it.

MRSA in New Zealand

The power of genome sequencing extends beyond immediate outbreak control.

By comparing the genomic data generated in the lab to that collected in national surveillance projects, our team was able to show the strain that caused the eye infections may have emerged in the early 1990s.

This strain has slowly accumulated the genes required to evade first-choice antibiotics, underpinning the risk of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in Aotearoa New Zealand.

We also highlighted the power of genomics to reveal connections when we found the MRSA strain causing illness in the NICU was related to bacteria collected from cattle. This discovery underscores the concept of “One Health” – the idea that human health, animal health and environmental health are inextricably linked.

The data suggest bacteria from a cow milk tank and from babies in a hospital may have shared a common ancestor at some point.

Future focus

As we continue to unravel the complex world of microbes, tools like whole-genome sequencing offer hope in the ongoing battle against infectious diseases. The work at Wellington Regional Hospital’s NICU is just the beginning.

From protecting our most vulnerable newborns to uncovering unlikely connections between farm animals and hospital patients, genomic technology is changing how we combat infectious diseases.

As this technology continues to evolve, it promises to play an increasingly crucial role in safeguarding public health, one DNA sequence at a time.

In the face of growing antibiotic resistance and emerging pathogens, this proactive, genomics-based approach to infection control may well be our best defence.

We would like to acknowledge the contributions by Max Bloomfield and the teams at Awanui Labs, and Emma Voss and team at Livestock Improvement Corporation. Läs mer…

Neurodevelopmental conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism affect about one in ten children. These conditions impact learning, behaviour and development.

Executive function delays are core to challenges people with neurodevelopmental conditions experience. This includes skills such as paying attention, switching attention, controlling impulses, planning, organising and problem-solving.

These skills are important for learning and long-term development. They have been linked with future occupational, social, academic and mental health outcomes. Children with improved executive function skills and supports for these skills do better long term.

Decades of studies have described how difficulties in attention and impulse control underpin ADHD. Meanwhile, difficulties with switching attention and flexibility of thinking have been proposed to underpin autism.

As a result, different supports and interventions developed for different neurodevelopmental conditions target these skills. It sets up a system where a diagnosis is made first, then a set of supports is provided based on that diagnosis.

But our recent study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, shows executive function problems are similar across all neurodevelopmental conditions. Understanding these common needs could lead to better access to supports before waiting for a specific diagnosis.

Our study found more similarities than differences

We looked at 180 studies, over 45 years, that compared executive function skills across two or more neurodevelopmental conditions.

We brought the research together for all neurodevelopmental conditions that have been defined by diagnostic manuals, including ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, communication disorders and intellectual disabilities.

Surprisingly, we found most neurodevelopmental conditions showed very similar delays in their executive skills.

Children with ADHD showed difficulties with attention and impulse control, for example, but so did children with autism, communication and specific learning conditions.

There were very few differences between each neurodevelopmental condition and the type of executive function delay.

This suggests executive function delay is best considered as a common difficulty for all children with neurodevelopmental conditions. All of these children could benefit from similar supports to improve executive skills.

But supports have become siloed

For decades, research has failed to integrate findings across conditions. This has led to siloed research and practices across the education, health and disability sectors.

Our data showed a gradual shift in the type of conditions that have been studied since 1980. In the earlier days, as a percentage, there were a far greater proportion of studies conducted on tic disorders, such as Tourette’s syndrome. In the past ten years, autism has been of greater focus.

This means research and practice is also siloed, based on the focus on funding and interest in the community. Some groups miss out from good science and practice when they become less visible in the political landscape.

This has led to a skewed support system where only children with a specific diagnosis can be offered certain interventions. It also reduces access to supports if families can’t access diagnostic services, which can be particularly difficult in regional and rural communities.

Due to these diagnosis-driven research practices, there are now assessment services, guidelines and treatments that are recommended for autism. These are usually independent from and not offered to children with ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, communication disorders or intellectual disabilities despite a significant overlap in children’s needs.

How does this affect access to support

Families often find it hard to get the help they need. They often describe the assessment and support process as confusing, with long wait times and lots of barriers.

We have previously shown caregivers often attend assessment and support services with a broad range of needs, but leave with many needs unaddressed.

Recent national child mental health, autism and ADHD guidelines call for more integrated supports for children. But most services are not well set up to do this. It will take time to drive such system change if this is to be achieved.

Why we need integrated research

More integrated research will lead to more cohesive support systems across education, health and disability for all children in need.

Studies show, for example, that many risk factors (genetic and environmental) are common to all neurodevelopmental conditions. These include a broad overlap of risk genes that are the same between conditions, and common environmental factors that influence development in the womb, such as the use of certain drugs, stress and a significant immune response.

Other studies show how most children diagnosed with one neurodevelopmental condition will also be diagnosed with others.

But gaps remain. While we know certain stimulant medications can work well for ADHD, for example, we have less information about how they might help children with other neurodevelopmental conditions who have attention difficulties.

Unlike our knowledge about social supports for children with autism, we don’t have much research on how we can help children with ADHD with their social needs.

We should take a wider view of children’s needs

It’s important for families to be aware that if their child meets criteria for one neurodevelopmental condition, it is very likely that they will meet criteria for other neurodvelopmental conditions. They will likely have many needs relevant to other conditions.

It is worth asking clinical services about broader needs beyond a diagnosis. This should include developmental, mental and physical health needs.

It is also important to consider that many common interventions may have potential to support all children with neurodevelopmental conditions.

This is an important issue for government. Reviews are under way for supporting the needs of people with autism, intellectual disability and ADHD.

It’s time to establish more integrated systems, supports and strategies for all people with neurodevelopmental conditions for their home, school, play and work. Läs mer…

A Queensland tribunal has ruled it is not discriminatory for a school to require girls to wear a skirt at formal events.

The private high school said girls needed to wear skirts for occasions including excursions, ceremonies and class photographs.

A female student had complained to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal about different treatment for boys and girls.

While the tribunal acknowledged there was “different treatment between the sexes”, it found there was not enough evidence to show this was “unfavourable”.

Why are female students still made to wear skirts and dresses? And why is this a problem?

Who decides?

In Australia, uniform rules are largely determined by individual schools.

Schools have some obligations to their communities, governing bodies (such as state education departments and independent school peak bodies) and anti-discrimination legislation.

For example, Victoria’s Education Department requires policies to include an exemption process and “support inclusion”.

But ultimately, it’s up to the school to decide how their uniform looks, who can access different items, where and when items may be worn, and what non-uniform items are regulated.

School uniforms are ultimately decided by the school.
Monkey Business Images/ Shutterstock

Read more:
No mullets, no mohawks, no ’awkwardly contrasting colours’: what are school policies on hair and why do they matter so much?

The pants question

Pants occupy an odd space here. For public schools, most state education departments require girls to have the option of pants (which can include shorts or trousers), for both sport and regular uniforms.

This is a relatively new standard. For example, Queensland introduced this in 2019 and New South Wales allowed it from mid-2018.

Often, these changes were prompted by sustained campaigning by families and lobby groups.

But private schools do not have the same obligations. Some are starting to update their policies and allow girls to wear shorts or pants if they choose.

Others, however, have been met with conservative backlash when they do.

Public schools are starting to give girls the option of wearing pants.
Caiaimages/Robert Daly/ Getty Images

So, when can girls wear pants?

Girls’ access to pants is not as straightforward as a school including them within the uniform policy.

As researchers note, simply allowing girls to wear pants may not be enough. If school cultures are not welcoming, or if the design is uncomfortable, girls may still avoid them.

Or, as can be the case with private schools, a school may offer pants on a limited basis, such as only during winter. Alternatively, there may be a special order process for pants, making them difficult to obtain.

Or schools may permit their use, except on special occasions such as photo days or excursions, like the Queensland case.

Why does it matter?

The skirt itself isn’t the issue. The element of choice is.

As researchers note, skirts and dresses are linked to outdated expectations of modesty and femininity. They can be targets of fetish and harassment, and entrench binary ideals of gender.

Flexible policies support gender-diverse youth and enable all students to select uniform items based on their body rather than their gender. Research shows offering students pants or shorts can also promote physical activity.

These school uniform debates are also taking place amid concerns about misogyny and harassment of female students and teachers in schools and concern for queer young people’s wellbeing.

The longer gender-normativity is baked into school policies, the longer students are denied their right to equitable education. And the longer that schools promote the idea of “girl” and “boy” as opposite and concrete categories, the harder it will be to combat schoolyard misogyny and queerphobia. Läs mer…

Statements have been circulating online, including leading news platforms, that battery electric cars will greatly increase the average mass of the on-road fleet. This claim is used as an argument against these cars.

Even the Australian motoring organisation NRMA has posed the question: “EVs are heavy. Are they safe on our roads and carparks?” (It does say the answer is yes.)

The stated reason for such concerns is generally that electric car batteries are heavy and increase overall vehicle mass. A heavier vehicle needs more energy to drive it and so will typically increase emissions. A greater mass also reduces traffic safety and could have damaging impacts on parking spaces and roads.

A critical review released yesterday took a closer look at these claims to see if they hold true in Australia. It finds these claims don’t stack up in a country where sales of fossil-fuelled (petrol, diesel, LPG) vehicles skew towards large and heavy utes and SUVs.

When adjusted for actual top 10 vehicles sold and using realistic mass values, the average mass of battery electric and fossil-fuelled cars differs by just 68 kilograms. That difference is not significant, especially because electric cars are much more energy-efficient.

Oversimplifying a complex topic

The claims being made often oversimplify a complex reality. They tell only part of the story, which can be misleading.

For instance, internal combustion engine cars have consistently increased in mass over time. Known as car obesity, this fact is often unfairly ignored in comparisons.

Similarly, these statements pretend to know how complex consumer behaviour will respond to future availability of battery electric cars and their fast-changing and improving features. Often, the results of overseas studies cannot be directly applied to different Australian conditions.

4 points of contention

Our report identifies and unpacks four main points of contention.

First, there are different ways to define and compare the mass of battery electric and combustion engine cars. In practice, the choice is rather arbitrary. Depending on the method, the comparison may be neither adequate nor accurate.

Often the comparison is made between similar or similarly sized battery electric and combustion engine cars. Or electric cars can be compared only to an equivalent non-electric version of models such as the VW Golf. Another variation is to simply compare the average mass of a large range of cars currently on sale, without considering the impact of sales volumes.

Second, a common argument is that batteries are heavy, so electric cars are heavier than fossil-fuelled cars. But this is simplistic – it’s not only the battery that matters.

Offsetting the extra battery mass, other parts of the electric car such as their motors are smaller and lighter. They can cut its mass by up to 50%.

And actual extra battery mass itself depends on a range of factors. Battery chemistry, battery size and energy storage capacity (which determines how often a car needs recharging) all affect the mass. Indeed, battery mass varies between 100 and 900 kilograms for cars.

Third, car obesity has greatly and consistently increased fossil-fuelled car mass. Unless we include this rise in car obesity, the comparison with battery electric cars tells only half the story.

Finally, it is challenging to accurately predict the mass impacts of electric cars. A common assumption is that future vehicle buyers’ behaviour does not change when switching to battery electric cars. This assumption seems unlikely and again oversimplifies the comparison.

For instance, market availability, marketing focus, purchase price and performance characteristics will largely guide buyers’ decisions. These considerations are all highly dynamic. They are changing significantly and fast.

So how do they compare in Australia?

A proper comparison needs, at least, to include realistic vehicle mass and sales data. Our study compares the differences in vehicle mass between the top ten best-selling cars for both battery electric and fossil-fuelled vehicles in Australia in 2022, as shown below.

Masses of the top 10 most popular new battery electric (top) and fossil-fuelled (bottom) passenger cars sold in Australia in 2022. Circle sizes represent sales volumes. The top-selling internal combustion engine car is the Toyota Hilux (64,391 sold). For pure battery electric cars it’s the Tesla Model 3 (10,877 sold). Vehicle mass is defined as ‘mass in running order’, adjusted for average vehicle occupancy.
Author provided, Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER)

Currently sold top 10 models of battery electric cars cluster more at the heavy end, but the most popular cars are relatively light. The top 10 models of fossil-fuelled cars have a larger spread in mass. Yet, when it comes to sales, most are relatively heavy SUVs or utes.

When ranked by popularity and compared, battery electric cars are not always heavier. They can be almost 300kg (12%) lighter to almost 800kg (55%) heavier than the corresponding fossil-fuelled car. Importantly, the overall difference in the average mass of the two categories when adjusted for sales is just 68kg (about 3% of total vehicle mass).

This small difference is insignificant in terms of energy and emission impacts. A more important factor here is the superior energy efficiency of battery electric vehicles.

How will they compare in future?

Clearly, future sales profiles may differ from current sales profiles. The current profile may be largely defined by a certain type of customer (such as a high-income early adopter). They might not be typical of mainstream consumers in coming years.

Buyers’ future behaviour is uncertain and hard to predict. It would depend on the effectiveness of (new) policy measures such as Australia’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, the actual vehicles offered for sale, marketing efforts by car suppliers and possibly also cultural changes.

Any shifts in buyer behaviour could greatly influence the car fleet’s average mass. They could continue the current trend towards larger and heavier vehicles, or shift to smaller and lighter vehicles.

But this is the point: the impacts of electrification of passenger vehicles on average mass are highly uncertain. Statements on the matter are often speculative and can be unfairly biased by the methods used.

In markets where heavy petrol and diesel vehicles dominate car sales, such as Australia and New Zealand, current evidence suggests increased electric car sales are unlikely to greatly increase average vehicle mass. In fact, average mass could actually go down as cheaper and lighter electric cars go on sale here.

As cheaper and lighter electric cars like the BYD Atto 3 become more widely available, buyer behaviour could change.
Matthias Schrader/AP/AAP

Vehicle mass remains important

Importantly, the report is not downplaying the importance of vehicle mass for transport emission abatement.

In previous research it was estimated that only a passenger vehicle fleet dominated by small and light battery electric vehicles may get Australia close to achieving the net-zero emissions target in 2050.

To meet the target, it is thus important to reverse the trend of increasing car obesity, for all cars. But vehicle mass should not be used as an argument against electrification. Läs mer…

For anyone who has been online in Australia longer than a decade or so, the discussion around current proposals to set a minimum age for social media use might trigger a touch of déjà vu.

Between 2007 and 2012, the Rudd–Gillard government’s efforts to implement a “Clean Feed” internet filter sparked very similar debates.

Beset by technical problems and facing fierce opposition, the Clean Feed was eventually abandoned in favour of laws that already existed. Will the proposed social media ban face a similar fate?

How to regulate cyberspace

The question of how to regulate a cyberspace occupied by both adults and children has puzzled governments for a long time. Traditional controls on physical media are difficult to apply to online spaces, particularly when so much online media comes from overseas.

As early as 1998, an Australian Broadcasting Authority report noted a key difficulty in online regulation. Namely, balancing adults’ access to legal online spaces and content with restrictions on childrens’ access to age-inappropriate material and bans on illegal content.

The Clean Feed proposal attempted to address parental concerns about age-inappropriate websites. First raised in 2006 by Labor in opposition, it became a campaign promise at the 2007 election.

Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party promised a ‘clean feed’ internet filter in their campaign at the 2007 federal election.
Alan Porritt / AAP

The proposal aimed to solve the issue of overseas content. Australian authorities could already require website owners in Australia to take down illegal content, but they had no power over international sites.

To address this, the Clean Feed would require internet service providers to run a government-created filter blocking all material given a “Refused” classification by the Australian Classification Board, which meant it was illegal. Labor argued the filter would protect children from “harmful and inappropriate” content, including child pornography and X-rated media. The Australian Communications and Media Authority created a “blacklist” of websites that the filter would block.

Technical trouble

The Clean Feed was plagued by technical issues. Trials in 2008 revealed it might slow internet speeds by up to 87%, block access to legal websites, and wouldn’t block all illegal content.

While the effect on speeds was improved, the 2008 trials and others in 2009 revealed another problem: determined users could bypass the filter.

There were also fears the blacklist would be used to block legal websites. While the government maintained the filter would only target illegal content, some questioned whether this was true.

Internet service providers were already required to prevent access to content that had been given a Refused classification. This, along with unclear government statements about removing age-inappropriate material, led many to believe the blacklist could be more far-reaching.

The government also planned to keep the list secret, on the grounds that a published list could become a guide for finding illegal material.

The blacklist

In 2009, the whistleblowing website Wikileaks published a list of sites blacklisted in Denmark. The government banned those pages of Wikileaks, and in response Wikileaks published what it said was the Australian government blacklist. (The government denied it was the actual blacklist.)

Newspapers noted that around half the websites on the published list were not related to child pornography.

Wikileaks published what it claimed was the government’s planned ‘blacklist’ of websites, along with a rationale for publishing the list.
Wikileaks

The alleged blacklist also contained legal content, including Wikipedia pages, YouTube links, and even the website of a Queensland dentist. This lent weight to fears the filter would block more than just illegal websites.

More debates emerged surrounding how the Refused classification category was applied offline as well as on the internet.

In January 2010, the Australian Sex Party reported claims from pornography studios that customs officials had confiscated material featuring female ejaculation (as an “abhorrent depiction” or form of urination) and small-breasted adult women (who might appear to be minors). Many questioned whether these should be banned, and if such depictions would be added to the blacklist – including members of hacker-activist group Anonymous.

Operation Titstorm and the end of the Clean Feed

While Anonymous members had already protested the Clean Feed, this new information sparked a new protest action dubbed Operation Titstorm.

On February 10 2010, activists targeted several government websites. The Australian Parliament site was down for three days. Protesters also mass-emailed politicians and their staff the kinds of pornography set to be blocked by the filter.

While Operation Titstorm gained media attention, other digital activists (such as Electronic Frontiers Australia and other members of Anonymous) criticised its illegal tactics. Many dismissed the protest as juvenile.

In February 2010, hacker-activists from Anonymous launched denial-of-service attacks and email campaigns in protest of proposed internet filters.
WIkipedia

However, one participant argued that many protesters were children, who had used these methods because “kids and teenagers don’t really get the chance to voice their opinions”. The protesters may have been the very people the Clean Feed was supposed to protect.

The government abandoned the Clean Feed in 2012 and used existing legislation to require internet service providers to block INTERPOL’s “worst of” child abuse list. It remains to be seen whether the social media minimum age will similarly crumble under the weight of controversy and be rendered redundant by existing legislation.

The same, but different

The Clean Feed tried to balance the rights of adults to access legal material with protecting children from age-inappropriate content and making cyberspace safer for them. In a sense, it did this by regulating adults.

The filter limited the material adults could access. Given it was government-created and mandatory, it also decided for parents what content was age-appropriate for their children.

The current proposal to set a minimum age for social media flips this solution by determining what online spaces children can occupy. Similar to the filter, it also makes this decision on parents’ behalf.

The Clean Feed saga reveals some of the difficulties of policing the internet. It also reminds us that anxiety about what Australian youth can interact with online is nothing new – and is unlikely to go away. Läs mer…

Later this week the government will receive the report of the year-long independent inquiry into its handling of the COVID pandemic.

Among the issues it will have to contend with is air quality, in particular the air quality in high occupancy public buildings such as schools, aged-care facilities, shops, pubs and clubs.

Many already have high quality air. High-fitration air conditioning (so-called mechanical ventilation) is standard in offices, hospitals and shopping centres.

But not in schools. Almost all of our schools (98% in NSW) use windows.

In Australia’s national construction code, this is called “natural ventilation” and it is allowed so long as the window, opening or door has a ventilating area of not less than 5% of the floor area, a requirement research suggests is insufficient.

Windows, but no requirement to keep them open

There’s no requirement to actually open the windows. School windows are often shut to keep in the heat in (or to keep out the heat in summer).

The result can be very, very stuffy classrooms, far stuffier than we would tolerate in shopping centres. This matters for learning. Study after study has found that when air circulation gets low, people can’t concentrate well or learn well.

And they get sick. Diseases such as flu, COVID and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) spread when viruses get recirculated instead of diluted with fresh air.

The costs of the resulting sickness are borne by students, parents, teachers and education systems that need to find replacement staff to cover for teachers who are sick and parents who need to look after sick children at home.

A pilot study prepared for the Australian Research Council Centre for Advanced Building Systems Against Airborne Infection (known as “Thrive”), suggests the entire cost of installing high-filtration air conditioning in every Australian school would be offset by the savings in reduced sickness.

What classroom air is like

ARINA put CO2 meters in classrooms.
Geogif/Shutterstock

The study carried out by the education architecture firm ARINA compared the ventilation of 60 so-called naturally ventilated schools in southern NSW and the Australian Capital Territory to that of a school in Sydney that happened to have been fitted with a Standards Australia-compliant air conditioning system to control aircraft noise.

It used carbon dioxide levels to measure ventilation. Carbon dioxide is a good proxy for ventilation because its levels are determined by both the number of people breathing out concentrated carbon dioxide and the clean air available to dilute it.

Under a normal load, defined as 26 students, one teacher and one assistant, measured levels of carbon dioxide in the air-conditioned school stayed below 750 parts per million (ppm) and were typically between 500 and 600 ppm.

A reading of 700 ppm is particularly good. It means the people in the room breathe in less than 0.5% of air breathed out by others.

But in “naturally ventilated” classrooms the reading often climbed to 2,500 ppm and sometimes more, within an hour of a class commencing.

At 2,500 parts per million, people in the room are breathing in 5.5% of the air breathed out by others. This is also high enough to affect cognition, learning and behaviour, something that begins when carbon dioxide climbs above 1,200 ppm.

Research suggests using ventilation to cut carbon dioxide to 700 ppm can cut the risk of airborne transmission of disease by a factor of two and up to five.

The economic case for healthy air

In 2023, Australia had 9,629 schools with 4,086,998 students.

ARINA has previously estimated the cost of ensuring all of these schools are mechanically ventilated at A$2 billion per year over five years.

Offsetting that cost would be less sickness. Documents released under freedom of information laws show Victoria spent $360.8 million on casual relief teachers between May 2023 and May 2024, 54% more than before COVID in 2019.

The figures for other states are harder to get, but if Victoria (with 26% of Australia’s population) is spending $234 million more per year on casual relief teachers than before COVID, it is likely that Australia is spending $900 million per year more.

Add in the teachers in non-government schools (37% of Australia’s total) and the potential saving from air conditioning schools exceeds $1 billion per year.

Add in the other non-COVID viruses that would no longer be concentrated and circulated in classrooms and the potential savings grow higher still.

Worth more than $1 billion per year

And, in any event, the cost of replacement teachers is a woefully incomplete measure of the cost of illness in schools. Many ill teachers can’t be replaced because replacements aren’t available, making schools cancel lessons and combine classes, costing days, weeks and sometimes months of lost education.

Also, the bacteria and viruses spread by recirculated air infect students as well as teachers, keeping students (and often their parents) at home as well.

This suggests the costs per year of not air conditioning schools exceed $1 billion and may well approach or exceed $2 billion, which is the estimated cost per year over five years of air conditioning every Australian school.

Natural ventilation was never a good idea for classrooms: it was cheap at the time, but not cheap at all when the costs are considered. Those costs happen to extend beyond disease to thermal comfort, energy use and the ability of students to concentrate.

It’s time we gave students and teachers the kind of protections we demand for ourselves in our offices, our shopping centres and often our homes. It would soon pay for itself. Läs mer…

Welcome to our ‘Light and health’ series. Over six articles, we look at how light affects our physical and mental health in sometimes surprising ways.

For most of our evolutionary history, human activity has been linked to daylight. Technology has liberated us from these ancient sleep-wake cycles, but there is evidence sunlight has left and continues to leave its mark.

Not only do we still tend to be awake in the daytime and sleep at night, we can thank light for many other aspects of our biology.

Light may have driven our ancestors to walk upright on two legs. Light helps explain the evolution of our skin colour, why some of us have curly hair, and even the size of our eyes.

As we’ll explore in future articles in this series, light helps shape our mood, our immune system, how our gut works, and much more. Light can make us sick, tell us why we’re sick, then treat us.

Million of years of evolutionary history means humans are still very much creatures of the light.

We stood up, then walked out of Africa

The first modern humans evolved in warm African climates. And reducing exposure to the harsh sunlight is one explanation for why humans began to walk upright on two legs. When we stand up and the Sun is directly overhead, far less sunshine hits our body.

Curly hair may have also protected us from the hot Sun. The idea is that it provides a thicker layer of insulation than straight hair to shield the scalp.

Early Homo sapiens had extra Sun protection in the form of strongly pigmented skin. Sunlight breaks down folate (vitamin B9), accelerates ageing and damages DNA. In our bright ancestral climates, dark skin protected against this. But this dark skin still admitted enough UV light to stimulate vital production of vitamin D.

However, when people colonised temperate zones, with weaker light, they repeatedly evolved lighter skin, via different genes in different populations. This happened rapidly, probably within the past 40,000 years.

With reduced UV radiation nearer the poles, less pigmentation was needed to protect sunlight from breaking down our folate. A lighter complexion also let in more of the scarce light so the body could make vitamin D. But there was one big drawback: less pigmentation meant less protection against Sun damage.

How our skin pigmentation adapted with migration patterns and changing light.

This evolutionary background contributes to Australia having among the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.

Our colonial history means more than 50% of Australians are of Anglo-Celtic descent, with light skin, transplanted into a high-UV environment. Little wonder we’re described as “a sunburnt country”.

Sunlight has also contributed to variation in human eyes. Humans from high latitudes have less protective pigment in their irises. They also have larger eye sockets (and presumably eyeballs), maybe to admit more precious light.

Again, these features make Australians of European descent especially vulnerable to our harsh light. So it’s no surprise Australia has unusually high rates of eye cancers.

We cannot shake our body clock

Our circadian rhythm – the wake-sleep cycle driven by our brains and hormones – is another piece of heavy evolutionary baggage triggered by light.

Humans are adapted to daylight. In bright light, humans can see well and have refined colour vision. But we see poorly in dim light, and we lack senses such as sharp hearing or acute smell, to make up for it.

Our nearest relatives (chimps, gorillas and orangutans) are also active during daylight and sleep at night, reinforcing the view that the earliest humans had similar diurnal behaviours.

This lifestyle likely stretches further back into our evolutionary history, before the great apes, to the very dawn of primates.

The earliest mammals were generally nocturnal, using their small size and the cover of darkness to hide from dinosaurs. However, the meteorite impact that wiped out these fearsome reptiles allowed some mammalian survivors, notably primates, to evolve largely diurnal lifestyles.

If we inherited our daylight activity pattern directly from these early primates, then this rhythm would have been part of our lineage’s evolutionary history for nearly 66 million years.

This explains why our 24-hour clock is very difficult to shake; it’s so deeply ingrained in our evolutionary history.

Successive improvements in lighting technology have increasingly liberated us from dependence on daylight: fire, candles, oil and gas lamps, and finally electric lighting. So we can theoretically work and play at any time.

However, our cognitive and physical performance deteriorates when our intrinsic daily cycles are disturbed, for instance through sleep deprivation, shift work or jet lag.

Futurists have already considered the circadian rhythms required for life on Mars. Luckily, a day on Mars is around 24.7 hours, so similar to our own. This slight difference should be the least of the worries for the first intrepid martian colonists.

How would humans cope on Mars? At least they wouldn’t have to worry too much about their body clocks.
NikoNomad/NASA/Shutterstock

Light is still changing us

In the past 200 years or so, artificial lighting has helped to (partly) decouple us from our ancestral circadian rhythms. But in recent decades, this has come at a cost to our eyesight.

Many genes associated with short-sightedness (myopia) have become more common in just 25 years, a striking example of rapid evolutionary change in the human gene pool.

And if you have some genetic predisposition to myopia, reduced exposure to natural light (and spending more time in artificial light) makes it more likely. These noticeable changes have occurred within many people’s lifetimes.

Light will no doubt continue to shape our biology over the coming millennia, but those longer-term effects might be difficult to predict. Läs mer…

The British Columbia election has turned out to be a nail-biter. Throughout the four-week campaign, the polls predicted a very close race between the incumbent NDP led by David Eby and a newly rejuvenated Conservative Party under the leadership of John Rustad. Those polls turned out to be accurate as no clear winner has emerged in the hours after British Columbians cast their ballots.

The B.C. Liberal Party, a right-of-centre amalgam of Liberal and Conservative voters federally that had ruled the province between 2001-2017, disappeared from the scene, resulting in a political realignment — New Democrats vs. Conservatives — and matching what has become the norm in Canada’s three other western provinces.

As I write this, the NDP leads or is elected in 46 seats, the Conservatives in 45, with the Green Party’s two elected members holding the balance of power. The results are so close in several ridings that it may be at least another week for outstanding mail ballots to come in and recounts to occur before knowing the definitive result.

Parallels to previous elections

In one way, the 2024 election is a repeat of the 2017 vote, when the B.C. Liberals and the NDP were just two seats apart. The Greens threw their three seats behind the NDP to pave the way for an NDP government. The same may well prove to be the case this time around once the dust has settled.

In another way, this election is reminiscent of 1952, when a newly led Social Credit party under W.A.C. Bennett came out of nowhere to topple the old-line Liberal and Conservative parties, edge out the CCF (the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) — predecessor to today’s NDP — by a single seat and go on to rule the province for a full 20 years.

Read more:
How the British Columbia election is being haunted by the ghosts of 1952

In 1951, Bennett had broken with his party, the Conservatives, to sit as an Independent MLA. Rustad had been turfed out of his party, the B.C. Liberals, to sit as an Independent MLA, before assuming the leadership of a B.C.’s dormant Conservative Party. The Conservatives had not held a seat in the provincial legislature for almost 50 years, and had last won a provincial election in 1928.

Yet in 2024, with 43.5 per cent of the popular vote compared to the NDP’s 44.5 per cent, Rustad’s party is a major contender for power.

In this two-photograph panel, B.C. NDP Leader David Eby, left, and B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad, right, pause while addressing supporters on election night in Vancouver on Oct. 19, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck, Ethan Cairns

Geographical and ideological divides

What the election results ultimately show is that there are two British Columbias. The NDP tends to dominate on the coast, with a clear majority of the seats in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island. The Conservatives dominate the B.C. Interior of the province, with a fair sprinkling of suburban seats in the Lower Mainland as well.

Beyond the geographical divide lies a deeper ideological one. In some ways it parallels the old divide between a more free-enterprise oriented party and one with a stronger commitment to the welfare state. Rustad said as much in his speech on election night. But there is more to the story than that.

Dave Barrett is honoured at a state memorial service in March 2018 after his death at 87 in Victoria.
(The Province of British Columbia)

The NDP, after all, has become much more of a centrist party than it was previously, in particular when it governed the province under Dave Barrett between 1972 and 1975.

It’s no accident that in the 2024 election, no small number of federal Liberal supporters voiced their support for the NDP rather than the Conservatives. With respect to issues like gun control, protection of the environment, reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples or vaccine mandates during pandemics, their views align more closely with the NDP than the Conservatives.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, spoke to the frustrations many British Columbians feel in terms of the housing affordability crisis, the serious shortcomings in the province’s health-care system and the toxic drug crisis in B.C. cities. Eby admitted as much in his own election night speech.

The B.C. Conservatives’ call for change echoed what federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been saying at the federal level. Not surprisingly, support for the Conservatives provincially closely matches for support for the federal Conservatives in the province.

Governing from the centre

British Columbia is clearly polarized politically, a phenomenon we’re seeing even more distinctly south of the border and in various European countries.

The task of governing from the centre — on the assumption that the NDP and Greens reach a confidence-and-supply agreement — may therefore prove a more challenging one than before due to a much empowered Conservative opposition.

But had the Conservatives won a clear mandate to govern, they would have faced significant opposition from the more liberal-minded sections of the population given some of the party’s hard-line positions on unabashed resource development, Indigenous reconciliation and the role of private versus public providers in the health-care system.

Such is the state of play in Canada’s westernmost province. Läs mer…

Outsiders may find it disconcerting to hear the religious references, whether sincere or opportunistic, that have been working their way into U.S. political discourse since the Reagan years, including some by certain religious leaders.

Despite this, the role of religious identities in American elections cannot be decoded by simply pitting the faithful against secularized progressives. Even quite far on the left, it’s not rare to hear male and female politicians referring to their faith.

Although the leaders of the Christian right are united in their goal of gaining privileged access to the Oval Office, the different religious populations in the U.S. are politically quite divided.

Trained as a geographer, historian and religiologist, I have been studying the evolution of ethnoreligious diversity in Québec as a whole, as well as in certain specific religious universes, for twenty years. My analyses are based on both Canadian census data and field surveys. Since 2016, I have examined different elections at various levels of government (Montréal, Québec, Canada, United States), particularly from the angle of geography and culture.

Ethnic realities

The meaning of the partisan leanings of faith-based groups will escape us unless we take into account how the ethnic or racial groups that form these groups express strong socio-political differences due to their historical experiences, sociology and sensibilities.

Through surveys, specialized research institutions such as the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) have been able to identify and highlight ethnoconfessional subsets.

Three main Protestant blocs

According to the PRRI census, in 2022, 41 per cent of the U.S. population associated itself with one of the many churches that make up the Protestant world. These churches can be opposed in terms of theology and certain social positions.

Mainline churches are more liberal and sensitive to social justice causes. Evangelical churches have a reputation for being conservative to different degrees. That said, there are some liberal evangelical churches.

By combining the liberal/conservative dynamic with the ethnic dimension, we can distinguish, under umbrella names, three major ethnoconfessional blocs.

Attendees at a party organized by Democrats from Miami’s Haitian-American community gather for a group photo.
(The Associated Press, Rebecca Blackwell)

The first two blocs are made up of the Euro-descendant fringe of the mainline and evangelical churches. Each bloc represents a third of the American Protestant universe, or 14 per cent of the total population.

The third bloc is made up of the third of Protestants who come from other origins (Afro-descendant, Latino, etc.). More than half of these are African Americans, representing eight per cent of the country’s population. Two out of three Protestant African Americans are members of congregations associated with “Black churches” of various denominations. Evangelical Latinos are often overlooked in analyses.

According to a Pew study published in 2014, congregants of Black churches are closer to white evangelicals in their theological beliefs, but closer to the liberal positions of mainline white congregants on social issues such as abortion. In contrast to white evangelicals and mainline Protestants, Black Protestants look positively on government intervention to help the poor.

LaTosha Brown, of Black Voters Matter, speaks during a press conference at the State Capitol on April 1, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn.
(The Associated Press, George Walker IV)

Generally speaking, the Republican Party wins, hands down, among white evangelicals. The mainline white vote is more divided between the two major parties, although the majority leans Republican.

Black Protestants, for their part, have leaned overwhelmingly towards the Democratic Party, especially since the heyday of the civil rights movement.

With their conservative values, particularly on the abortion issue, Latinos are closer to Republican Euro-descendant evangelicals.

Supporters hold up a sign before Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, arrives to speak at a campaign event at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall in Tucson, Ariz. on Sept. 12, 2024.
(The Associated Press, Alex Brandon)

Catholics: United but diverse

Catholics, meanwhile, make up 23 per cent of the U.S. population according to the 2022 PRRI census. While their universe is united in terms of religious denomination, it is ethnoculturally highly diverse.

More than half (55 per cent) are of European origin (Irish, French, Italian, Polish, etc.). Four out of 10 (37 per cent) are of “Latino” or “Hispanic” origin (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadorian, etc.). These two groups represent 13 per cent and nine per cent of the U.S. population, respectively.

Although this dynamic plays out inside a single church, there is still polarization between conservatives and liberals within it.

For the past 25 years, Euro-descendants have favoured the Republican Party. The propensity of Latino Catholics to vote Democrat is significant, although allegiances are now diversifying. Anti-socialists of Cuban and Venezuelan origin are inclined to vote Republican.

The other communities

The Christian panorama also includes three per cent of members of other churches, including Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Orthodox Christians. While Mormons largely favour the Republican Party, this margin of support is eroding.

Non-Christian Americans (Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.) make up six per cent of the population. As different as they may be, members of these religious universes mostly support Democrats.

Changing the political landscape

In spite of what the context seems to suggest, the trend of secularization in western societies is affecting the United States, as well. The different Protestant churches and the Catholic Church have been losing members for decades now, despite the contribution of Christian immigration.

According to PRRI, between 2006 and 2022, the share of white mainline Protestants in the U.S. population fell from 18 per cent to 14 per cent. The proportion of white Catholics slipped from 16 per cent to 13 per cent. A little known fact: white evangelicals, who used to dominate the religious landscape of the U.S. with a share of 23 per cent, are now down to 14 per cent.

Conversely, the proportion of people with no religious affiliation has climbed from 16 per cent to 27 per cent. The latter are either affiliated with “no religion in particular,” or are atheist or agnostic. This segment is more naturally inclined towards supporting the Democratic Party, in a ratio that ranges from two-thirds to three-quarters.

Fluctuating partisan leanings from Bush to Biden

According to Pew exit polls, between the presidential elections of 2000 and 2012, Protestant support for Republican candidates fluctuated little. It reached 59 per cent in 2004, a year when international political issues helped George W. Bush to be elected. It dipped to 54 per cent in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected for the first time.

Since 2004, three-quarters of white evangelicals have supported Republican candidates. The Republican preference of white mainline Protestants remains very stable at around 53-55 per cent. Black Protestants’ support for Democratic candidates, although massive, can also fluctuate. It dipped to 86 per cent in 2004 and rose to 95 per cent in 2012, during Obama’s second election. Black voter turnout then exceeded that of whites.

Between 2000 and 2012, the majority of Catholics preferred Democratic candidates, except in 2004 (47 per cent). However, the majority of white Catholics preferred Republican candidates, with rates rising from 52 per cent to 59 per cent. Latino Catholics lined up clearly behind Democrats by a margin of two to one, peaking at 75 per cent in 2012.

A supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris (left) discusses abortion rights with supporters of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, Sept. 3, 2024, in Boynton Beach, Fla.
(The Associated Press, Rebecca Blackwell)

In 2016, the leaders of the Christian Right found, in Donald Trump, the right candidate to accomplish their goal of restoring the role of the Christian religion to governance and society more broadly, with the immediate aim of opposing abortion rights. The religious right is a coalition that brings together mainly evangelicals, but also other Protestants and fundamentalist Catholics.

While Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, the small number of her white evangelical supporters slipped further in favour of the Republican Party. Trump won not only the majority of Protestants (56 per cent), but also of Catholics (52 per cent).

In 2020, 59 per cent of Protestants supported Trump thanks to the mobilization of white evangelicals, of whom 84 per cent voted for him. Compared with 2016, the white mainline Protestant vote was unchanged (57 per cent). Joe Biden, a practising Catholic, managed to save the day by rallying 49 per cent of Catholics, just short of the 50 per cent who were pro-Trump. Biden also retained 40 per cent of Protestants, of whom African Americans are a significant proportion.

It was actually the religiously unaffiliated voters who changed the game, with 71 per cent voting for Biden. That’s six points more than for Clinton. The Democratic victory was made up of more diversified support.

What’s changing

Religious issues are not usually at the forefront of presidential campaigns. The cost of living, health care, access to affordable housing and safety are currently the most frequently raised concerns.

However, the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 turned abortion rights into an election issue. While Trump has won the loyalty of the religious right, the Republican Party has been weakened electorally since, according to surveys PRRI and Pew published in May 2024, the majority of religious populations, both Christian and non-Christian, say they are in favour of preserving this right. The only exceptions are the majority of white evangelicals and a few other groups.

Abortion rights activists and Women’s March leaders demonstrate as part of a national day of strike action outside the Supreme Court on June 24, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
(The Associated Press, Alex Brandon)

In terms of the political sensibilities of ethnoreligious groups, the numerical decline of evangelicals, the rise of the unaffiliated and the demographic growth of Hispanics create challenges for political strategists and researchers — especially as individual choices appear to be less automatic than before.

For some time now, certain Mormons have been distancing themselves from Trump. Biden lost support in some ethnic communities (African Americans, Latinos, Indigenous people). Some Hispanics have turned to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Traditionally polarized in favour of the Republican Party, white evangelicals remain a political force, aided by their high-profile leaders. At the same time, African-American Protestants and a host of small non-Christian groups are equally polarized in favour of the Democratic Party. And that’s not counting the religiously unaffiliated.

By contrast, although Republican presidential candidates have been supported by the majority of white mainline Protestants as well as by the majority of Catholics since 2016, these two worlds remain the most politically divided. This is increasingly the case for Hispanics. This makes these voters strategic.

Also, the Muslim, Jewish or Indigenous vote could create local surprises. All these elements are liable to rupture the usual dividing line between partisan identities.

At the moment

After the Biden-Trump rematch was cancelled, followed by a handover from Biden to Harris and a rallying of Kennedy to Trump, will this campaign result in a reshuffling of ethnoreligious cards?

Against a backdrop of polarized male and female voting, the recent Pew poll shows that the political leanings of ethnoreligious groups have moved very little since the spring, when Biden emerged weakened. Harris has won back a solid number of Black Protestants and especially Hispanic Catholics. The majority (52 per cent) of Catholics remains pro-Trump, with the gap narrowing. On the other hand, the EWTN News/Real Clear poll indicates that half (50 per cent) of Catholics are now leaning towards Harris.

At a time when every vote counts, the slightest changes in partisan leanings, or in voter mobilization rates of different ethnic and religious groups, could play an unexpected role in several key states. Läs mer…

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT or Dall-E are changing how creative work is done, particularly in industries that rely on innovation.

However, AI use in the innovation process requires careful considerations. Our research shows that the key to success is understanding and leveraging the distinct but complementary roles that both humans and AI play.

Innovation is vital for any business that wants to succeed today. In fact, 83 per cent of companies see innovation as a top priority, yet only three per cent are ready to turn this priority into action. This shows how much companies need to improve their approach to innovation.

Innovation is about solving complex problems that result in real improvement. It’s not just about coming up with good ideas — it also involves knowledge work, which is the process of using information to create something valuable.

Generative AI can help businesses get ready to innovate by making knowledge work easier, but its full potential in this area is still not fully understood.

AI use in the innovation process requires careful considerations.
(Shutterstock)

Design sprints

Our team, which includes academic researchers with expertise in emerging digital technologies and a practitioner experienced in leading human-centred innovation projects, conducted a detailed study of how generative AI was used in design sprints at three organizations. (The study is available as a pre-print and has been submitted to a journal for peer review).

A design sprint is a fast, structured process for solving important problems that helps teams test if a product, service or strategy will work. Sprints are useful because they reduce the risks and costs of traditional product development

During a design sprint, a small team of five to seven employees from different areas works together intensely for a few days to solve a problem. Their work is co-ordinated by a facilitator, who organizes activities, guides the team, keeps track of progress, makes sure the goals are clear and that time is used efficiently.

The first stage of a design sprint focuses on understanding and defining the problem, while the second stage is about creating and testing a solution. Both stages require teams to use two key types of thinking:

Divergent thinking, which means coming up with many different ideas and possibilities.
Convergent thinking, which means narrowing those ideas down to identify priorities or solutions.

Our study examined how the facilitator used generative AI tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E 3 or Uizard to help the team engage effectively in both divergence and convergence.

The design sprint process that was used in the three innovation projects.
(Cédric Martineau, Carverinno Conseil)

AI and humans working together

In divergent thinking activities, we found two main benefits of using generative AI. First, it encouraged teams to explore more possibilities by providing baseline ideas as a starting point. Second, it helped to rephrase and synthesize unclear ideas from team members, ultimately leading to better communication within the teams.

One participant told us:

“Sometimes we had a lot of ideas, and the AI summarized them into a concise text. This allowed us to wrap our head around it. It gave us a base, there were many fragmented ideas that everyone had contributed, and now we had a text we all agreed on. This way, we started from the same base which served as a springboard to move forward.”

The real value of generative AI was thus not in contributing brilliant new ideas itself, but in the valuable synergies that emerged from the process. Team members used their contextual knowledge and stayed in charge of the process while the AI helped to better convey their ideas, expand exploration and address possible blind spots.

The real value of generative AI was not in generating groundbreaking ideas itself, but in fostering productive synergies between team members and AI.
(Shutterstock)

Making better informed decisions

We noticed different dynamics in convergence activities where teams had to make decisions after demanding sessions of idea generation. By that point, team members were usually mentally exhausted. Generative AI was especially helpful for doing the heavy lifting during this part.

The AI helped manage the information-intensive tasks necessary for team alignment like reformulating, summarizing, organizing, comparing and ranking options. This reduced the mental strain on team members, allowing them to focus on important tasks like evaluating ideas. In this process, the team was responsible for:

Checking AI’s outputs to make sure the content was accurate and useful. For example, ChatGPT and Uizard helped create draft scenarios and prototype drafts to validate their concept, but the team still had to refine them to meet project goals.

Adding their own insights and contextual nuances to guide final decisions, considering factors like feasibility, ethics and long-term strategic impact.

One participant said:

“Sometimes, the AI would focus onto details that were insignificant to us…Sometimes we needed less general synthesis and more personalized input.”

Overall, this form of human-AI collaboration in convergent activities helped the team make better informed and more confident decisions about which problem to focus on and which solution to pursue. This made them feel in control of the sprint’s final outcomes.

One participant said:

“For pivotal phases like making decisions or voting on something important like a success factor, if we relied solely on AI to determine what is important, there would be rejection. We are better positioned to know. We are the employees who will execute the final solution.”

Challenges and opportunities

Consistent with research on cognitive automation and intelligent automation, we found that generative AI was of great help in handling cognitively demanding tasks like reformulating poorly articulated ideas, summarizing information and recognizing patterns in team members’ contributions.

A key challenge with using Generative AI in innovation is ensuring it complements, rather than replaces, human involvement. While AI can act as a useful companion, there’s a risk it could reduce team engagement or ownership of the project if overused.

The design sprint facilitator told us:

“Feasibility needs to be balanced with desirability. You could technically automate most of the process but that would kill the need for pleasure, interaction, and humans’ doubts won’t be addressed; plus humans need to own the problem — all these are essential elements in a human-centred innovation process.”

Consequently, regularly assessing AI’s impact within this process is crucial in order to maintain a healthy balance. Automation should enhance creativity and decision-making without undermining the human insights that are central to innovation.

As AI continues to develop, its role in innovation will grow. Companies that integrate AI into their workflows will be better equipped to handle the fast-paced demands of modern innovation. But it’s important to understand both the strengths and limits of AI and humans to ensure this collaboration is effective.

This article was co-authored by Cédric Martineau, CEO and innovation management consultant at Carverinno Consulting. Läs mer…