I will be advertising a funded PhD studentship shortly, for a project on adding psychological theory (social identity) to modelling of epidemics ( @leverhulme.ac.uk funded, with Marijn Stok). The studentship will start in January 2027. Get in touch now for informal enquiries.

I’m recruiting two new PhD students to start in 2027, working with me on my program of research in quantitative psychopathology. I’ve put some information for interested students on my website: miriamkforbes.academic.ws Please share with anyone you know who might be interested!

Doing something about climate change is the cheaper option here www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminst...

June heatwave cost UK economy more than £1 billion, study finds - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment

The heatwave in June 2026 led to 24 million lost hours of working and a £1.15 billion hit to the UK economy, according to new research by the Institute and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Cha...

lse.ac.uk

As Ed Miliband leaves his post as energy and net-zero secretary, a final tally: There have been an incredible 251 newspaper editorials attacking him and his approach to net-zero since the start of 2024 That amounts to two editorials a week, mainly in the Sun, Daily Mail, Times and Daily Telegraph.

The anatomy of an AI-supported academic article is becoming more apparent. I desk reviewed ~70 manuscripts this week for our journal. Reckon 20ish had significant AI assistance. On top of hundreds of others recently I'm starting to see patterns. Are other editors are seeing the same or similar? 1/

💚 First, we tend to our own feelings, so we can hold theirs. Talk to others who get it, in a dedicated online space with trained facilitators. Next circle for parents, carers and guardians: Wednesday 22 July, 10-11.30am BST. Free/pay what you can. bit.ly/3SHvKhz

Across all taxes, small businesses fail to pay between £30 billion and £48 billion of tax. These figures are massive. Enough to fund significant tax cuts or additional expenditure

I have to say, it's making me feel a little insane hearing commentators say Ed Miliband shouldn't be chancellor because of his "ideological zeal" for Net Zero, in a week where temperatures are so extreme that my kids are being sent home early every day and it's regularly 30 degrees inside my house

Want to share some thoughts. I know the rioting in Belfast has had lots of coverage. But I still think more needs to be said. This was so incredibly shocking. *people burned out of their homes because of the colour of their skin*.

Everyone on X and elsewhere who called for a violent response should be charged with incitement. Everyone involved in the pogrom should be locked up with exemplary sentences. Govt should make it clear that will be the response in future anywhere else. Enough.

"The prime minister is not afraid about taking on the tech companies ​and their bosses to protect young people." A ban is by far the weakest form of taking on big tech. As @margaritap.bsky.social just wrote a few days back:

Reuters@reuters.com · 2mo ago

UK PM Starmer set to ban 'harmful' social media for under-16s reut.rs/4g13ksk

Higgledy piggledy – that's how young people describe the complex mental health support system that's failing them. Young people are turning to AI, family, friends, schools and everywhere but a system that clearly isn't meeting their needs.

Great bit of research looking at the impact of Starmer's "Island of Strangers" speech (shifted perceptions of Labour to more hostile to immigration ... only succeeded in hurting support for Labour / helping Reform in the group Labour were targeting).

Jack Bailey@jack-bailey.co.uk · 2mo ago

To top it all off, we also present evidence that the speech benefitted Reform, especially amongst those who did not vote Labour in the past: exactly the group that Labour was attempting to target with its intervention.

Equality is not conditional. Dignity at work is not negotiable. The EHRC Code of Practice has been published. UCU is examining it urgently. This is a significant and unsettling moment and we will not leave branches to navigate it alone. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1451...

There we have it - you have to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces (so maybe avoid having them if you can). A bathroom ban from people who recognise that they’re doing a bathroom ban, and feel guilty about it. Shameful. www.gov.uk/government/p...

Toilets. We're running out of fuel, we're not running out of fascists. But sure, let's talk about toilets.

A lot of our discourse seems to assume that 1) these wrong beliefs somehow arise naturally and 2) politicians have a duty to behave as if these wrong beliefs are true. It saves asking questions about old and new media, or doing anything brave, but it’s rotting our society and economy.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Most of Britain thinks net migration is still rising — when it has actually fallen by more than three-quarters From our new 2026 @britishfuture.bsky.social study of public attitudes to immigration, published online here www.britishfuture.org/britain-thin...

The govt seem to be doing everything wrong on oil, poor economics, poor politics. They should be encouraging energy and travel saving, pushing on policies that help that, increasing benefits to help poor families cope with higher food and energy prices, being clear that Trump is to blame.

The last three years of marking in particular make me extremely concerned about what this means not just for (higher) education but for democracy more generally as the work required for developing critical skills and learning become increasingly shunned and/or the guarded domain of the privilege few

I built some ecological inference modelling, and found by far the largest swing is abstention -> Ref. Lab -> Ref is relatively small bsky.app/profile/oska...

Oliver Skånberg-Tippen@oskanberg.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Frustrated with the election pundits talking as if votes only 'swing' from one party to another. I did some analysis of the results, and my modelling (based on votes only, not polls) suggests that the largest movement since 2024 local elections (by a long way) is from 'Did Not Vote' -> Reform

Thank you for calling. Please listen closely, as our menu options have changed. If the old world is dying, please, press 1. For new world is struggling to be born, press 2. If now is the time of- Ok. You selected "Monsters." If it is the time of monsters please have your reservation code ready.

Are we still posting our raw datasets now that they're being farmed for genAI-written papers? I'm starting to feel differently now sharing data before I'm totally done with my own research questions...

'A report published on 28 April identifies domestic political fragmentation as one of several “drivers of change” for the UK research system over the next 20 years.' Like it or not, science is political. 1/2

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Political fragmentation ‘could threaten stability of UK R&D. Campaign for Science and Engineering calls for “structural and cultural changes” to secure sector’s future. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-i...

New paper— everyone is collecting intensive longitudinal data but recent review studies report that less than half of studies consider measurement/psychometrics. The paper covers a few foundational psychometric methods for ILD and provides a shiny app to apply them link.springer.com/article/10.3...

A primer on intensive longitudinal psychometrics - Behavior Research Methods

Many intensive longitudinal studies are interested in topics that are not always amenable to direct physical measurement and instead are often theorized as latent constructs (e.g., affect, emotion, mo...

link.springer.com

Statement from UK Biobank - 'Listings offering access to UK Biobank data (which did not contain any personally identifying information) were found on a Chinese consumer website. These listings were swiftly removed before any purchases were made.' www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/news/a-messa...

A message to our participants: UK Biobank data security update

We would like to inform you about an incident involving UK Biobank data. We apologise to our participants for the concern this will cause, and we hope to provide reassurance by outlining the serious a...

ukbiobank.ac.uk

It is obvious - as a revealed preference - that a 33% rise in crossings is treated as x10 or x100 as newsworthy as a 33% fall in crossings. When this is most salient issue, BBC and public service broadcasters [if not the newspapers] should be checking that skew: it feeds a big public misperception

It's a bit of a myth that rents are constantly increasing faster than earnings or overall inflation - on average, they're not. So what *is* the problem of unaffordability in the private rented sector? And what does this mean for how we go about fixing it? Our take 🧵⬇️

I learnt a heck of a lot working on this piece, now out in American Psychologist. Big thanks to all collaborators particularly the mentorship of @omidvebrahimi.bsky.social and @ludvigdb.bsky.social. And of course the amazing resource that is the UKHLS @usociety.bsky.social

Omid V. Ebrahimi@omidvebrahimi.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Our new article on socioeconomic disadvantage, mental distress & functional impairment is out #OpenAccess in American Psychologist. Led by the brilliant @emkbridger.bsky.social, with J. Maltby, @eikofried.bsky.social, co-supervised by me & @ludvigdb.bsky.social. 🧵 psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

🔴 MAPPED: The Reform-Orbán Network Ahead of elections in both countries, DeSmog has catalogued the connections between Hungary’s autocratic government and Farage’s operation. 📝 @adambarnett.bsky.social

Mapped: The Reform-Orbán Network

“Viktor Orbán is the strongest leader in Europe and the EU’s biggest nightmare.” These were the words posted on Twitter by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage about the prime minister of Hungary in April 20...

desmog.com

🚨New preprint and our results are rather concerning.. We find the "boiling frog" equivalent of AI use. Using large-scale RCTs, we provide *casual* evidence that AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance. And these effects emerge after just 10–15 minutes of AI use! 1/