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Oxford researchers launch £11 million programme to tackle chronic pain

News Matt Donnelly -
Researchers at the University of Oxford are leading a new six-year programme to develop brain implants and other cutting-edge solutions to treat chronic pain, which affects roughly 28 million people in the UK. The £11 million Effective Pain Interventions with Neural Engineering (EPIONE) programme is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, bringing together world-leading experts to create "smart" therapies that aim to transform the management of chronic pain. EPIONE will target the brain's pain networks using a systems...

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Features

How to build a ball

Mair Andrews -
Students have started reaching out to Oxfess to solve the annual dilemma: which colleges are hosting balls, and which are the best to go to?  Within weeks of unpacking in Michaelmas, inboxes fill with calls...

Study influencers and Oxford: Rose-tinted computer screens

Angelina Wu -
Searching ‘Oxford’ on YouTube brings up what you might expect. One thumbnail invites the viewer to “Study With Me”, the title superimposed over the Radcliffe Camera. Another recounts “a week in my life at...

What’s in a name? The donors written on Oxford’s streets

Lilly Law -
Walking down Broad Street can sometimes resemble a school register. It would, admittedly, be a strange class that comprised Thomas Bodley, the Weston family, the first Earl of Clarendon, and Gilbert Sheldon. But Oxford’s...

‘A dangerous moment of repression’: How is the US higher education crisis affecting the UK?

Mary Huan -
Over the last year, universities have become flashpoints of protest and backlash. Student protest is nothing new, but the heavy-handed government response is notable. In the US, President Donald Trump’s administration has utilised the federal government’s power against higher education institutions, particularly those in the Ivy League. Spending cuts,...

The Oxford offer holders trapped in Gaza

Stanley Smith -
Samah and Loay have scholarships to study at Oxford. After succeeding against the odds, they are unable to travel to begin their courses.

‘A constant negative spiral’: Students on Britain’s economic future

Subhan Aslam -
Four Oxford students sat down to share how they feel about the state of the UK. From pensions to the NHS and Brexit, their answers were frank, frustrated, and sometimes surprisingly hopeful about how Britain could change direction.

Profiles

In Conversation with Cherry Vann, Archbishop of Wales

Magdalena Lacey-Hughes -
“I have a strongly-rooted faith that my gender and my sexuality is part of who I am and part of what God created, and that therefore is part of what I bring to my ministry.” The recent election of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullaly, was front-page news,...

In Conversation with Sathnam Sanghera

Hattie Simpson -
Sathnam Sanghera doesn’t believe in tidy or easy stories. Whether writing about empire in his award-winning books Empireland and Empireworld, or his own family in his 2009 memoir, The Boy With The Topknot, he seems most at home in the uncomfortable space where opposite things can be true at...

M N Rosen on AI, impact businesses, and the importance of mindfulness

Maddie Gillett -
In August, I had the pleasure of interviewing M.N. Rosen, author of The Consciousness Company, a recent debut novel which explores the impact of AI on identity and autonomy. Rosen works in the finance sector in North London and has worked with early-stage technology and impact businesses.  I asked Rosen...

James Vowles: Rebuilding the ‘Sleeping Giant’ of Williams F1

Sophie Price -
James Vowles doesn’t believe in “bad luck”. It’s a surprising stance from the leader of a Formula 1 team with nine constructors’ and seven drivers’ titles to its name, that spent the last two decades treading water behind the new top dogs. However, just down the road from Oxford...

Culture

Erotic suspense and trickery: ‘Twelfth Night’ at St Hugh’s 

Mary Stillman -
Lovers mismatched, siblings detached, and plans of trickery hatched: it is the time of year for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (otherwise known as What you will), performed in St Hugh’s College by the Oxford Rep Company. Jazzy live music greeted audience members coming in as we were faced with two...

Sin and nectar: Behind the scenes of ‘Women Beware Women’

Tomas Overton -
I arrived at a rehearsal of Women Beware Women and found Hippolito (Kit Parsons) and Isabella (Céline Mathilda), uncle and niece, embracing and sharing an incestous kiss flavoured by the punnet of grapes sat between them. “‘Tis beyond sorcery, this, drugs or love-powders; / Some art that has no...

Well-managed complexity: ‘In Praise of Love’ 

Charlie Bailey -
In Praise of Love by Terence Rattigan was a play well-chosen in today’s political context – it uses the unhappy relationships between Estonian immigrant Lydia (Nicole Palka), English former intelligence officer Sebastian (Sam Gosmore) and their son Joey (Ali Khan) to comment on wartime trauma, the gap between actions...

Fashion around Oxford – Iggy Clarke

Antonia Rogers -
Iggy Clarke, the president of the 2025 Oxford Fashion Gala, shares her style secrets and where she’s shopping right now.

Life

Hyperactive brain, hypoactive thyroid

Olivia-Mae Butterfield -
Many Oxford narratives have been told time and again, but the story of the chronically-ill overachieving student is one which has more fruit to bear. The experience of such an intense, fast-paced university inside a slow, self-destructive body is a poetic oxymoron worthy of exploration. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s...

Grilling the Parsonage: Oxford’s ‘best’ restaurant?

Benjamin Naylor -
Sometimes you want more than just a meal, to celebrate a birthday, an anniversary, a graduation. You want somewhere that feels like it appreciates the occasion, with delicious food, unrushed service – a restaurant with atmosphere. I was chatting with my college dad about the best restaurant in Oxford,...

Why I no longer trust ‘male feminists’

Maya Rybin -
Over the past year, I’ve spent more time in male-dominated spaces than I ever had before. Growing up with a sister, attending an all-girls’ school, and moving in the art, theatre, and music scenes of South London, my world was shaped mostly by women.  My first year of university brought...

Chivalry in the age of automatic doors

Matt Donnelly -
The waiter has just brought the bill, irritatingly diplomatic in his placement – middle of the table. You both glance at it, then at each other, caught in that peculiar modern standoff where nobody's quite sure what the right move is any more. Will they think I’m old-fashioned and...

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