News & articles

The Open University is proud to announce its inclusion in the National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) consortium as part of NBIC’s sixth accession round.

We live in a very exciting time: answers to some of the oldest questions humanity has conceived are within our grasp. One of these is whether Earth is the only place that harbours life.

The Floodplain Meadows Partnership, led by The Open University, has been awarded a further three years of funding from the Foundation for the Third Millennium.

The government has recently released its national youth strategy, which promises better career advice for young people in England.

Dr Ilias Kounatidis, from the School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences, has been awarded a prestigious fellowship grant from the UK’s national synchrotron facility, Diamond Light Source.

The government is proposing a change in the law on parental child abduction. The crime and policing bill, under consideration in parliament, would make it a crime for a parent to take their child on holiday and then not return them at the end of the agreed holiday period.

The Open University hosted its second lecture in its Global Development Annual Lecture series on 20 November 2025.

Professor Bart Rienties, a long-standing champion of transplant sport and a leading Open University researcher on physical activity among transplant recipients, has been honoured for saving a fellow athlete from drowning during the World Transplant Games triathlon this year.

This month’s research image of the month (November 2025) captures Professor Natalia Szablewska’s research, which explores how global laws and governance systems can hold businesses and other non-state actors responsible for respecting human rights, especially for vulnerable communities.

PolicyWISE, The Open University’s innovative cross-nation policy research initiative, has been Highly Commended in the ‘One to Watch’ category at the Smart Thinking Awards 2025.