Insights

The world is in crisis. Simple, short-term survival is everyone’s top priority, whether that’s as a nation, a government, a business, a family or a lonely and forgotten self-isolating individual. But the overwhelming necessity to endure has always been the mother of invention. Where will the crisis lead us? 

Consumer choice has been a guiding retail principle for decades, but recently much of the world has had no choice but to buy online for everything except supermarket essentials...

The focus on automation has sharpened in recent months, following global disruption of supply chains and labour. But what can be done now to speed the delivery of such vital solutions to help in the aftershock of the pandemic? 

‘WFH’ is an acronym now universally recognised. But even before the pandemic, remote working had been slowly increasing, with around 5% of UK employees primarily working from home in 2019 and 30% having experience of it. The benefits can include more productive working time, fewer office distractions and more flexibility, to name a few...

The emerging field of biodesign has famously led to apples that do not go brown, meat burgers that don’t require livestock and spider-less silk. Biodesign is also widely harnessed to develop life-changing drugs, create...

Synthetic biology remains nascent, yet full of promise. The idea of using rational engineering approaches to design biology has the potential to solve some of humanity’s biggest challenges, such as securing food supplies...