I. Background In December of last year, the Alberta legislature passed a major overhaul of Alberta’s access and privacy legislation. Upon proclamation, Bill 33 and Bill 34 will split the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP Act) into the new Access to Information Act (AIA)1 and Protection of Privacy Act (PPA).2 The AIA will come into force at a time when public bodies in Alberta and across…
When companies embark on transformations, they naturally focus on the big picture: how a transformation will allow them to perform better through cost-out measures or how they can implement high-impact growth strategies to become bigger, leaner, and better. In companies’ rush toward change, however, they often end up overlooking or deprioritizing the impact that improving their net working capital can have as they begin the transformation journey, potentially thwarting early…
On January 23, 2025, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and Russia’s policy in the South Caucasus. The discussion was moderated by Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club. Nikolay Silaev, Leading Researcher at the Institute for International Studies at MGIMO University, called for the media agenda to be separated from the diplomatic one and for focus to not be fixated on intermittent…
Almost 58 years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech on poverty and racism, “The Other America,” at Stanford. This month – on King’s actual birthday, Jan. 15 – the Stanford community commemorated the event with a screening and discussion of King’s speech. Projected on a 16-foot-wide movie screen constructed on stage in Memorial Church, the black-and-white film made the slain civil rights leader feel present to the…
A highpoint of India’s G20 was the “Voice of Global South Summit (VOGSS)” held in virtual format. The first online VOGSS held in January 2023 with over 100 Global South nations participation helped India to get their views, some of which were incorporated in the Delhi Declaration released at the G20 summit in September 2023. This incentivized India to get the African Union included as the 21st member of G20.…
The judge described the executive order as “blatantly unconstitutional.” The executive order limiting birthright citizenship asserts that children born in the United States on or after February 19, 2025, who do not have at least one lawful permanent resident or U.S. citizen parent, will not have a claim to birthright citizenship. Quick Hits A federal judge in Washington recently granted four states a temporary restraining order halting enforcement of President…
The deadline for meeting reporting requirements of the Notice with respect to certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances issued by Environment Canada and Climate Change (ECCC) is Jan. 29, 2025 (the Notice). The reporting obligations and other details about the Notice can be found in our other article found here. With the deadline to respond around the corner, companies captured under the Notice such as users, importers, and manufacturers, as well…
When you’ve discovered a valuable resource or service that could benefit your organization, getting buy-in from leadership is critical. Use this email template to propose Civility Partners’ services to your boss. Simply customize the placeholders with your own insights and ideas. Email Template Dear [Boss’s Name], Recently, I participated in a webinar hosted by Civility Partners, titled _______________. During the session, I gained valuable insights, including insert profound nugget(s)…
On February 4-5, the Valdai Discussion Club, in collaboration with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, will hold its fourteenth Middle East Conference. The theme of the conference is “The Middle East – 2025: Learning Lessons from the Past, Surviving the Present, and Designing the Future” The event will take place at the Club’s headquarters in Moscow, located at Tsvetnoy Boulevard, 16/1.The conference will bring…
US auto retailers have embraced multiple new technologies over the past decade, from next-generation core systems to AI and digital sales platforms. Yet, despite sometimes significant investments, dealer productivity has remained stuck in a rut, with vehicle sales per employee averaging between 14 and 16 each year. To boost technology’s impact, a new playbook is required—one that shifts the focus away from point solutions and toward collaboration and deeper tech…
Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Thanks to the deafening buzz around data science and AI, enterprise leaders no longer doubt the transformative potential of this powerful duo. Yet, a striking statistic reveals a bigger leadership challenge: More than 57% of companies struggle to build a…
Quick Hits Expanding business into the Middle East may require global employers to navigate unique challenges such as establishing a physical office presence, adhering to distinct workweek structures, and understanding regional tax policies. Employers must comply with requirements around hiring local nationals, employing public relations officers (PROs) for government interactions, and providing specific statutory benefits like reduced Ramadan hours and end-of-service gratuity. Additionally, the process of discharging expat employees involves…
On Dec. 16, 2024, the Government of Canada released its long-awaited 2024 Fall Economic Statement. The Statement reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to combatting modern slavery in global supply chains, currently given effect by the existing import ban on goods made with forced or child labour and the mandatory supply chain reporting requirement for certain businesses and government entities. The Statement further announced the Government’s intention to introduce four new measures…
This commentary originally appeared in Time. President Donald Trump revealed on his first day that he may be closer to delivering on a campaign promise than skeptics believed. As we show in our new, original economic analysis, Trump has the levers to force Vladimir Putin to end the Russia-Ukraine war promptly if he dispenses with the Biden Administration’s tepid, inconsistent economic pressure. On Trump’s first day in office, he publicly…
For Robert Hormats, two of the biggest geopolitical stories of the past decade are the retrenchment of globalization and the rise of a multi-polar world. He is well positioned to make that judgment. Hormats has been a senior official in the administrations of five different American presidents, including most recently as the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment from 2009 to 2013. He is also…
Harlan Krumholz: Welcome to Health & Veritas. I’m Harlan Krumholz. Howard Forman: And I’m Howie Forman. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University and we’re trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare. Our guest today is Dr. Susan Mayne, but first we’re always checking in on the hot topics in health and healthcare. What do you have for us today, Harlan? Harlan Krumholz: Hey, Howie, you…
Jane A. Lauder, a former senior executive of the Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) and a current member of its board of directors, has been elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees. Her five-year term begins Feb. 1.“It’s an honor to join the board,” Lauder said. “Stanford has played such an important role in my life and shaped me. I am thrilled to be able to contribute to its continued…
As part of a £69 million funding programme supported by the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), Professor George Malliaras from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering will co-lead a project that uses small clusters of brain cells called midbrain organoids to develop a new type of brain implant, which will be tested in animal models of Parkinson’s disease.The project led by Malliaras and Professor Roger Barker from the Department of Clinical…
Case Summary - Québec (Attorney General) v. Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan, 2024 SCC 39 In Québec (Attorney General) v. Pekuakamiulnuatsh Takuhikan (Pekuakamiulnuatsh), the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruled that Québec’s refusal to renegotiate funding terms violated the principles of good faith and the honour of the Crown. The SCC ordered Québec to pay damages in line with reconciliatory justice to restore the relationship between the parties. I. Background This case concerns…
Our results indicate that it is more likely that plants will behave deceptively toward their neighbours, rather than altruistically...Plants can gain a benefit from dishonest signalling because it harms their local competitors, by tricking them into investing in costly herbivore defence mechanisms.Lead author Dr Thomas Scott, (Department of Biology, University of Oxford)Land plants can be connected to a complex, underground fungal network known popularly as ‘the wood wide web.’ Networks emerge…
The study will lead to new guidance encouraging both the comics industry and enthusiasts to make comics communities better places for neurodivergent fans and artists. It is being led by academics at the University’s Faculty of Education and will begin this month with an open, online survey aimed at autistic comics fans.Research by the Comics Cultural Impact Collective (CCIC) – which will also be part of the collaboration – indicates…
SHRM’s Civility Index Research shows that U.S. workers collectively experience 223 million acts of incivility per day and U.S. organizations collectively lose about $2 billion per day in reduced productivity and absenteeism because of it. You’ve probably seen it firsthand: disagreements turn personal, tempers flare, and teams fracture. When a tense moment happens, you’re often brought in as the referee. You’re handed complaints that aren’t fully formed—“They’re difficult to work…
Data powers AI solutions, but developing the capabilities to gather, structure, and deploy the right data is a daunting challenge. For the real estate industry, the task becomes a lot easier when leaders know which questions they are trying to answer. Katy McLaughlin: Let’s say a real estate leader wants to take advantage of some of the new AI tools. How do they approach working with data to get started?…
Topics How to Maximize the Business Value of Generative AI The promise of generative AI is value — higher revenue, streamlined efficiencies, and more innovative decision-making. Achieving this value isn’t easy. Maximizing it is even harder. This MIT SMR Executive Guide offers expert insights into the strategies needed to get the most out of GenAI. Brought to you by: More in this series Neil Webb Less than two years ago,…
Quick Hits The Fourth Bureaucracy Reduction Act, effective January 1, 2025, simplifies requirements for giving written evidence of employment contracts, allowing now digital agreements for open-ended contracts while maintaining written form for fixed-term contracts. The EU’s AI Act, effective from August 2024, introduces regulations on AI systems, with initial provisions on unauthorized AI use starting February 2, 2025, and further regulations on general-purpose AI models and sanctions taking effect on…
Introduction The Liberal government’s Fall Economic Statement arrived last month in the midst of an increasingly uncertain political landscape. Among its many offerings, in the trade sphere, the Statement presents a commitment to use the full range of Canada’s “toolkit” to protect its economic security against unfair conduct from trading partners and to promote reciprocity across Canada’s trading partnerships. This represents a departure from Canada’s traditional approach to international trade…
Economic uncertainty is on the rise due to widespread geopolitical changes. While global growth remains mostly stable for now, businesses and investors are closely monitoring these developments for potential disruptions to the economic landscape (Exhibit 1). With President Trump taking office in January, businesses and analysts are seeking clarity on what his second term might bring in terms of economic policies. The US Federal Reserve and other leading central banks…
Young people are already adopting new ways of interacting with AI, and without a solid framework for collaboration between stakeholders, evidence-based policy on AI will lag behind, as it did for social media. Dr. Karen Mansfield, postdoctoral researcher at OIIIn a new paper published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, the research team calls for a critical re-evaluation of how researchers study the impact of internet-based technologies on youth mental health, and outlines…
Enzymes are crucial to life. They are nature’s little catalysts. In the gut, they help us digest food. They can enhance perfumes or get laundry cleaner with less energy. Enzymes also make potent drugs to treat disease. Scientists naturally are eager to create new enzymes. They imagine them doing everything from drawing greenhouse gases out of the skies to degrading harmful toxins in the environment.That age-old quest for new enzymes…
The world is dramatically ill from another point of view, the famines caused by climate change especially in areas affected by water shortages. Agriculture is a victim of these changes, which lead to hunger for millions of families. This drama is aggravated by the fact that it occurs in many cases in countries already previously afflicted by severe poverty. The limit of the Green Deal in the forms developed in…
Quick Hits The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights (DCR) issued guidance that explains how an employer’s use of automated decision-making tools can lead to algorithmic discrimination that violates the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD). The guidance does not impose any new obligations on employers but reinforces the importance of NJLAD compliance and instructs that the NJLAD “draws no distinctions based on the mechanism of discrimination.” Given the increasing…
Following an initial round of consultation held during the summer of 2024, the Competition Bureau (the Bureau) has published its proposed guidelines (the Proposed Guidelines) concerning environmental claims. The Bureau has launched a public consultation to solicit feedback from Canadians on the Proposed Guidelines – the deadline is February 28, 2025. The Proposed Guidelines respond to recent amendments to the Competition Act, which added new explicit provisions targeting misleading environmental benefits claims (greenwashing). Visit…
In this month’s research picks, INSEAD faculty offer insights on improving asset pricing models and sales forecasting models, as well as how the extent of differences among banks affects financial stability. On the organisational front, they examine how artificial intelligence (AI) could impact strategic decision-making processes in firms and ways to prevent relational overload in organisations where employees can easily access colleagues and information. 1. The effects of bank heterogeneity on…
After agreeing to turn himself in to avoid “bloodshed”, the president was remanded in custody for 48 hours – a first in South Korean political history, and is still detiained. Tension has ratcheted up between two broad groupings: on the one hand, a presidential security service determined to protect Yoon at all costs, together with Yoon’s supporters, who see him as a hero who has fallen victim to North Korean…
The Cancer Data-Driven Detection programme will be led by Antonis Antoniou, Professor of Cancer Risk Prediction at the University of Cambridge. It is funded by Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.The programme aims to access and link data from different sources - including health records, genomics, family history, demographics, and behavioural data - to develop statistical models…
Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Let me ask you some questions to get this discussion started. In the past week or two at work, did you see anyone: Tell someone that their thoughts or feelings are stupid? Insult others in public meetings to humiliate or…
Investors use estimates of a stock’s future price, set by finance industry analysts, as one tool to assess the asset’s value in coming months and decide whether to buy or sell. At first blush, very high “consensus” analyst target prices—that is, the average of financial analysts’ individual target prices—may look appealing to investors and tempt them to buy. But hidden in the widely available numbers is a cautionary tale, according…
The study, led by researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Exeter, identified several drugs already licensed and in use that have the potential to be repurposed to treat dementia.Dementia is a leading cause of death in the UK and can lead to profound distress in the individual and among those caring for them. It has been estimated to have a worldwide economic cost in excess of US$1 trillion dollars.…
A fundamental shift is occurring in digital asset markets, evident in the relentless rise of bitcoin and crypto ETFs as well as the proliferation of meme coins, most recently $TRUMP, backed by the new US President himself. The appointment of Paul Atkins, known for favouring market-driven solutions over heavy-handed enforcement, as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has fuelled optimism that crypto can finally balance innovation with regulation.But…
Closing the women’s health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies, published in 2024 by the World Economic Forum (the Forum) in collaboration with the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI), reported that the women’s health gap correlates with women living in poor health for 25 percent more of their lives than men do. Closing the women’s health gap could yield 75 million disability-adjusted life years annually—the equivalent of…