Shining a light on the reality of night work inequalities
UCL Social & Historical Sciences

About a quarter of London’s 5.3 million member workforce are typically working between 6pm to 6am. These 1.3 million workers – which include bus drivers, nurses, cleaners, food service workers and delivery drivers – face particular challenges challenges such as pay inequality, safety concerns, transport difficulties, health problems and a lack of workplace dignity, according to a new UCL study. 

The UCL Social Data Institute and UCL Urban Laboratory lead the Data after Dark project, combining spatial analysis of cell phone data, worker surveys and in-depth interviews with workers across varying sectors to gain a better understanding of their working patterns, conditions and experiences. The researchers also set out a series of policy recommendations to improve the position of night workers through reforms of UK employment law. 

Key findings reveal that 29% of night workers earn below the London Living Wage and 26% work multiple jobs. Additionally, they are at a higher risk of food insecurity with 63% reporting limited access to healthy food and 47% with no access to affordable food during work. The commute times were often longer, with many workers in general not feeling safe commuting in the dark.  

Proposed reforms from the researchers include fair wages and conditions, supportive employer practices, a review of transport infrastructure, health support and pilot night-worker hubs to provide rest and welfare spaces for night workers.

Read the full story: Night workers face inequalities in pay, health, safety and dignity

Measuring Holocaust misconceptions among English school pupils
UCL Institute of Education

New research from the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education has found that English secondary school students’ knowledge of the basic facts of the Holocaust is lacking, showing a need for a more robust and thorough curriculum on the subject.  

Established in 2008 by a founding grant from the Pears Foundation and the Department for Education, the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education is a world leader for research-informed teacher and student education. 

The study, which surveyed 2,778 secondary students across England, showed some serious lapses in the general knowledge of the subject. While there was an increase in knowledge of certain facts, such as 73.0% correctly identifying that six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust and 83.3% knew that this occurred during the 1940s, other facts were less well-known among the students. For example, 90% of students did not know that less than 1% of the German population was Jewish in 1933, while 52.1% were unaware that the epicentre of the killings occurred in Nazi-occupied Poland. 

The researchers drew attention to the fact that the National Curriculum does not provide clear guidance on numerous aspects of Holocaust education, such as why it should be taught, the aims of Holocaust education and how it should be taught.  

The researchers conclude that now is the time to revitalise Holocaust education to promote better understanding of this atrocity, to prevent the rise of antisemitism and combat the proliferation of misinformation about the Holocaust online. 

Read the full story: Misconceptions about the Holocaust persist among England's teenagers

2026: Expect abundant fruit and a mild autumn, according to newly discovered medieval text
UCL Arts & Humanities

What can a tenth-century text tell us about the forecasts of 2026?

UCL Research Fellow Dr Abigail Pearson identified the first known Syriac version of the Revelation of Ezra, a prognostic text that predicted elements of incoming years. 

Often found in medieval almanacs from the ninth century onward, Revelation of Ezra texts would base the fortune and outcomes of things such as harvests, births and war on what day of the week the year began on. Dr Pearson gives the example of: “If the first day of January comes on the Lord’s Day, it makes a warm winter […] (But) young men will die […] (and) something new will be heard about kings and rulers.”  

Previous versions in other languages such as Latin, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Greek had already been discovered, and yet, despite its wide circulation, no Syriac version had been identified.  

While searching through the British Museum catalogue of Syriac manuscripts for documents relating to calendars, Dr Pearson investigated a reference to the manuscript Add. 17149. Despite its slightly damaged conditions, she was able to confirm that it was indeed a Syriac version of the Revelation of Ezra. As for what it means for the coming year, she says that some of the predictions for 2026, which began on a Thursday, are a scarcity of cattle, an abundance of fruit and a temperate autumn.  

Read the full story: A newly discovered Syriac version of the ‘Revelation of Ezra’

UCL Laws professor appointed Specialist Advisor to House of Commons committee
UCL Laws

As the UK’s Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee conducts pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, Nick Hopkins, Professor of Land Laws at UCL, has been appointed as a Specialist Advisor.

The bill’s draft proposes a major development to flat ownership as the Government moves towards replacing the default tenure for purchased flats from leasehold to commonhold. It also reforms leasehold to improve the position of existing leaseholders. This would include measures such as capping ground rents at £250 a year and abolish the threat of forfeiture. The Bill would give homeowners increased security and control over their homes by modernising commonhold ownership.

If passed, the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill would mark an important step to ending the feudal leasehold system by reinvigorating commonhold tenure and even banning leasehold for new flats, thus empowering future homeowners.

Professor Hopkins said: “The draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill brings a significant reset in what it means to own a flat in England and Wales. I am delighted to be advising the Committee in its vital work in scrutinising the Bill ahead of its introduction into Parliament.”

Read the full story: Professor Nick Hopkins appointed Specialist Advisor to House of Commons select committee

Research shows coinfection of HIV and HBV does not worsen immune response
UCL Medical Sciences

A new study led by researchers from the UCL Institute of Immunity and Transplantation shows that patients diagnosed with both HIV and hepatitis B (HBV) can have a stronger immune response with antivirals than patients who singularly have HBV.

One in ten people living with HIV are also diagnosed with HBV, a far higher and disproportionate amount than the general population. The researchers focused on CD8+ T cells, which are white blood cells that are crucial to recognising and killing virus-infected blood cells. Because chronic HBV can wear down CD8+ T cells, doctors worried that this would be more severe with patients who also had HIV.

Examining the CD8+ T cell responses in 61 participants on suppressive antiviral therapy, the researchers found that people coinfected with both HIV and HBV had a higher proportion of CD8+ T cells that retain their ability to respond and renew themselves. This is great news for understanding responses against HBV and designing targeted immunotherapies to address the condition.

This is the first study to comprehensively examine immune responses in people with HBV/HIV coinfection in the current antiretroviral therapy era, and the findings challenge long-held assumptions in the field.

Read the full story: HBV/HIV co-infection linked to stronger immune responses than HBV alone

A tale of two cities: understanding disconnected urban communities
UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment

Newly published research conducted by Andrew Renniger, a PhD candidate of the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), examines patterns of limited socioeconomic mixing in US cities. Together with the UCL co-authors, Professor Elsa Arcaute and Professor Neave O’Clery, he identified patterns of segregation utilising GPS data tracking daily movements across 383 US cities from January 2019 to December 2022.

The researchers analysed anonymised data that tracked the actions of millions of US residents as they travelled between homes, businesses, restaurants and other accessible locations. After combining this data with census data on demographics and income, two distinct patterns emerged across the 383 cities.

Wealthier suburban neighbourhoods, which were often majority-white, had fewer visitors from other socioeconomic backgrounds and were isolated from other communities. In city centres, downtown areas contained distinct pockets of residents from other socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. However, these were also isolated and segregated, revealing a lack of interaction with people from different backgrounds.

This study is the first to examine this kind of data in a city-wide scale and has the potential to impact policy-making in the future to encourage more social mixing. These policies can better foster community connection and move towards reducing inequality.

Read the full story: CASA Research in Nature Cities Journal Reveals Urban Segregation Patterns in 383 US Cities