MIT Statistics and Data Science Center Director Alexander (Sasha) Rakhlin shares important considerations for departments and institutions.
MIT
Seit Monaten tobt ein Kampf um lukrative Strecken im Fernverkehr. Jetzt hat ein Gericht der Deutschen Bahn einen Sieg beschert – und Italo hat das Nachsehen.
FAZ
Older women around the world face violence, exploitation and neglect, yet remain largely invisible in the laws, policies, data and services designed to protect women overall, a UN independent human rights expert said on Thursday.
UN News
How the insurance industry can help society adapt to climate change Expert comment LToremark 1 October 2026 As climate change threatens to make homes uninsurable, the insurance industry is often the bearer of bad news. But its understanding of future risks can be used to help society adapt to a warming world. There are increasingly frequent headlines about how climate change is affecting insurance coverage and affordability: homeowners in areas prone to wildfires, hurricanes or flooding discovering that their existing policies cannot be renewed, or that cover has become unaffordable or vanished altogether. The word often attached to these stories is a stark one: uninsurability.Beyond the headlines, banks worry about what declining cover means for the value of properties securing long-term mortgages. In turn, regulators worry about the systemic consequences if large numbers of properties lose value at once. Mayors worry about gaps in coverage impacting long-term investment in their cities. Governments, meanwhile, are becoming more interventionist as people are being priced out of protection, stepping in to keep cover flowing.They are right to worry. But framing the problem as insurance failure misdiagnoses what is going wrong – and lets everyone else off the hook.Uninsurability is a symptom of deeper problems Want to hear more on the path to a secure energy transition? Join us at our climate and energy summit, where policymakers and industry leaders tackle the toughest questions on climate and energy security. The term uninsurability implies that the issue lies within the insurance industry. But it is almost always a symptom of deeper problems – of which climate change is the most important, but far from the only one.California is perhaps the most famous example of climate-driven market failure. While wildfire risk has undoubtedly risen, the retreat of insurance was as much a consequence of political choices to suppress premiums as of climate change. When the true cost of risk collides with an artificial cap on what may be charged for it, cover does not just become expensive – it becomes uneconomic to offer at all. Climate change did not break the market on its own; the market failed because society was unwilling to pay the true price of the risk it faced.The pattern is repeated elsewhere. Yes, rising premiums reflect climate change. But they also reflect dysfunctional planning systems that permit construction in areas prone to climate hazards and decades of chronic underinvestment in risk reduction and resilience. Insurers are, in effect, the messengers: rising prices are among the first clear signals that risks have become intolerable. And shooting the messenger is always a tempting option.The dangers of blaming insurersThe narrative that insurance is failing carries real reputational and regulatory danger for the insurance industry. As rising premiums and thinning cover drag on property values, societies will look to place blame and insurers risk becoming scapegoats for a collective failure they did not cause. Governments may respond with more intervention, tighter constraints on pricing and more pressure to write cover at a loss.This narrative also creates danger in society at large. Insurers have built a uniquely sophisticated architecture to understand and price risk. That architecture is now increasingly signalling a stark truth: as climate change intensifies, historical decisions about where and how to build are rapidly becoming too costly – or too challenging – to maintain. When the plight of homeowners in California and elsewhere is only viewed as a failure of insurance, we miss the opportunity to have a vital public conversation not only about making today’s society resilient, but also about what structural changes and trade-offs are required for societies to thrive in a rapidly changing climate. Prominent industry voices sounding the alarm on insurability can be helpful if the result is greater government action on emissions and adaptation. But it is not enough on its own. As climate impacts intensify, insurance will find itself dragged into uncomfortable political arguments about who bears the cost of loss and damage, which places are worth defending and which will have to be abandoned. This is unavoidable; insurance will shape these outcomes by determining what gets cover, who is compensated and who pays. An industry that has cast itself only as the bearer of bad news risks becoming viewed as part of the problem.Where insurance can – and should – do more All this obscures how much agency insurance has. Arguably no other industry is better placed to help societies adapt to climate change. Insurers have the data and models to anticipate how risks are evolving – exactly the intelligence governments and developers need to decide where to build and what to adapt. Risk-based premiums, so often cast as the problem, are among the most powerful adaptation signals we have. And insurers’ risk-advisory teams can help design the defences, retrofits and hardened infrastructure that keep places insurable in the first place. Related work Europe’s summer of fires: Burnham must centre climate adaptation in policies This is not only about defending markets and preserving insurability – it is a genuine growth opportunity that also addresses a pressing societal need. A recent report from the UK Government Office for Science estimated cumulative global adaptation spending of £3.5 trillion over the next decade, with insurance highlighted among the sectors positioned to benefit. Other estimates of the market potential for adaptation goods and services are even higher. It is likely to be one of the defining market opportunities of the next 20 years.The imperative is to get off the back foot: stop being the messenger and start being a solution. There are already signals of change. Capitalizing on this momentum means three things. One, being far clearer about what is needed from national and local governments on adaptation – not vague calls for ‘better planning’, but concrete asks tied to the risks insurers can see coming. Two, putting the industry’s modelling and advisory expertise to work on adaptation, visibly and at scale. Three, making peace with increased government intervention. Historically, the industry has eyed public schemes and public–private partnerships with suspicion, concerned that they will crowd out private insurance. But the use of these schemes will grow as concerns about insurability mount. Insurers should instead help shape them so they reduce risk rather than subsidise its accumulation, and support adaptation rather than undermine it through blunted price signals.What governments should doClimate adaptation is rapidly gaining momentum but is too often focused on technical solutions to flood and heat, not the economic and social architecture required to make adaptation a reality. Governments need to build the mechanisms for insurance to engage on adaptation early and at scale. At the national level, this could include establishing country platforms to coordinate and finance adaptation strategies. Similar mechanisms could be developed at the city level. Above all, governments must start having the conversations everyone would rather avoid: about where societies should adapt and where they should retreat – and they must involve insurers in these discussions. The retreat of insurance from the climate front line is real and frightening. But it is also an opportunity. Read as a failure of the insurance industry, it will misdirect blame, encourage clumsy market interventions and delay adaptation. Read as information – and met by an industry willing to move from warning to action – it could instead prompt the urgent work and hard choices that a warming world demands. That choice, for now, is still ours.
Chatham House
New CEMS AI Insight Report: The Missing Rung: AI and the Future of Entry-Level Jobs shamasha Thu, 10/01/2026 - 10:56 Keep hiring graduates, or risk the next generation of responsible global leaders! Companies that cut entry-level hiring in favour of AI risk breaking the pipeline through which they grow responsible, innovative leaders, and eroding the culture that takes many years to build, argue contributors to a major new global report from CEMS, the Global Alliance in Management Education. News The report argues that this moment provides a rare opportunity for graduates and employers alike. AI-fluent Graduates can be advocates for new technology and evidence-based problem-solvers who can help drive change across companies, at a time when in-house experience is still scarce. The report, The Missing Rung? AI and the Future of Entry-Level Work, draws on interviews and research with students in more than 20 countries, alongside contributions from senior corporate partners (global multinational companies) and expert academics across the CEMS alliance. According to report contributors, entry-level recruitment is where companies grow the leaders they will rely on for decades to come. Graduates hired today are the senior leaders of tomorrow, developing the judgement, responsibility and independent thinking that no organisation can shortcut. Nicole de Fontaines, Executive Director of CEMS, said: “Entry-level roles are far more than a way of getting work done. They are where young people learn judgement, responsibility and how to lead across cultures, and where a company’s values are passed from one generation to the next. “Companies that continue to hire and develop graduates are not simply filling vacancies. They are investing in the people, and the culture, on which their long-term success depends. Responsible, innovative, globally minded future leaders are not hired ready-made. They are grown, through the real-world experience that entry-level roles provide. Frank Steinert, Global Head of HR Regions at Henkel, a CEMS corporate partner, writes in the report: “If you go to the extreme and say you are not hiring entry-level positions, you may have created a significant risk for future growth. A few years down the road, the natural progression of your leadership pipeline breaks down, and that also damages the company culture you built up diligently over years or decades.” Gianmarco Mazzocchi and Merthe Weusthuis, CEMS alumni at corporate partner Whiteshield, write in the report: “Many companies have been too aggressive in their plans to replace employees with AI tools, and the real cost is starting to show. Continuing to hire graduates is crucial for the leadership pipeline. Our leaders have nearly always come up through the ranks - people you can gradually build into exceptional managers and senior leaders, particularly coming straight from university.” The bottom rung of the ladder is changing, not disappearing Despite widespread global fears around graduate roles being replaced by AI, contributors to the report argue that in most cases the bottom rung of the career ladder is not missing, it is changing shape. Routine drafting, data pulls and first-pass analysis are being absorbed into AI-managed workflows, but new roles are forming around them. This supports data from CEMS’s corporate partners which contradict some of the more doom-laden predictions about AI and graduate jobs. Gartner data shows fewer than 1 percent of the 1.4 million layoffs recorded in 2025 were attributable to AI productivity gains, while Bain & Company found AI-related job postings have grown 21 percent a year since 2019. Other key findings: AI is a golden window for graduates, not a lost opportunity: nobody has a decade of experience with today’s AI tools, so motivated graduates can become a team’s go-to expert within months rather than years. Graduates must put in the work: doing the minimum is not enough to secure a graduate role, as using AI is now the baseline. Graduates who stand out will be able to prove they are a “Builder” who can stitch AI tools into something that works end-to-end, a working demo, a personal project or a mock start-up. Identity and judgement will be differentiators: a strong sense of self, built through real-world experiences with genuine stakes such as sport, travel or volunteering, is what will enable graduates to use AI ethically, develop resilience, and stand out in a job market saturated with AI-generated sameness. Business schools and universities must embrace AI: rather than restricting AI, educators should embed it firmly into teaching and assessment, whilst redesigning coursework so that each student’s own reasoning and judgement remain visible. Partnerships with industry will be vital to stay ahead of the latest technological developments, as the business world moves faster than the academic calendar. How is AI reshaping the first steps of a career? Drawing on insights from students in more than 20 countries, CEMS Corporate Partners and academics across the alliance, our new report explores what AI means for entry-level work. It looks at the risks of cutting graduate hiring, the new opportunities emerging for AI-fluent talent, and how companies and universities can prepare the next generation of responsible global leaders. Download the CEMS AI Insight Report 2026 Thumbnail Cems.org article visuals (6)_0.jpg
Bocconi University
