Something unprecedented is happening in the world of cinema this year. In less than a month, a horror film made by a relatively unknown director in his twenties, on a budget of less than $1 million, has grossed over $224 million at the time of writing. It achieved the rare feat of earning more in its second week and third weeks than its first – the first film to do so since E.T. in 1982. It’s the film on everybody’s lips: Obsession.
Without spoiling too much, Obsession follows a music store employee, played by Michael Johnston, who buys a mysterious ‘One-Wish Willow’, which he uses for a seemingly innocuous end: he wants his crush, played by the incredible Inde Navarrette, to love him “more than anyone in the f*cking world”. This wish, however, results in unexpected and horrifying consequences. What follows is an incredibly effective horror film, with plenty of uncomfortable moments and scares – it’s a film I strongly and wholeheartedly recommend everybody reading to see (but maybe not on a first date).
What makes Obsession so effective is that its supernatural premise is only a slight exaggeration of something that is recognisably human. The wish begins as a familiar romantic fantasy: to be wanted completely, unquestioningly, and above everyone else. Obsession twists this into something claustrophobic, and makes you question the ethics of what is being done. Johnston is especially good at making Bear both sympathetic and uncomfortable: he never plays him as a monster, which makes his choices more disturbing. Navarrette, the breakout star of the film, has the hard task of playing Nikki as charming, frightening, and pitiable all at once, which she does masterfully.
The film was directed by Curry Barker, a 26-year-old known for his sketch comedy on YouTube and TikTok. He made his feature-length directorial debut in Milk and Serial in 2024, an extremely underrated horror film, available to watch for free on YouTube. That it was made with a budget of only $800 is remarkable. Considering Barker’s comedy background and relative lack of experience in the director’s chair, Obsession is a surprisingly well-made horror movie, with great acting, great pacing, great cinematography, and great writing. Most mainstream horror films tend to be lacking in at least one of these departments, but Obsession succeeds at what it sets out to do – it made me uneasy, and it lingered in my head long after I watched it. So many details only made sense to me after the film had finished, and I found myself continually recognising just how clever this film was days after I had watched it. Soon, I found my Instagram Reels had been taken over by Obsession content – interviews, memes, clips, theories – and I completely fell down the rabbit hole.
I don’t seem to be the only one taken over by Obsession obsession. The film’s continual growth in popularity can be largely attributed, it seems, to word of mouth, since there was a very limited amount of promotion done for it. Everyone I’ve spoken to about it has either seen it and loved it, or heard about it and wanted to see it. It didn’t try to get a Super Bowl ad, or a brand tie-in, but instead relied on its quality to gain the interest of potential viewers. This was one of my favourite qualities about it: it is a film which inherently creates discussion, without being designed for virality. This is done through the ambiguity of some of its themes, which have left people on the internet divided. For those about to see it, I have some questions for you to consider: Is Bear a good person? What really happened to the cat? What would you wish for?
Its success also speaks to a wider hunger for original filmmaking. Obsession does not have a pre-sold cinematic universe behind it, nor any big names. It has spread because people want to talk about it. Its premise is clean, but its moral questions are not, and its ending leaves enough unresolved to send viewers back through the film for clues. That is exactly the kind of engagement Hollywood often tries to manufacture through marketing. Here, it has happened organically.
What I hope Hollywood learns from this unexpected smash hit is to take more risks on young, passionate filmmakers. Audiences have been missing original stories and fresh voices, and Obsession provides both. We do not need another $100-million-budget Star Wars or Avengers spin-off. We do not need another remake, sequel, or nostalgic cash-grab. We need creative risks, and the hope that it is possible for creative young people to break into this industry without needing to use a One-Wish Willow themselves.
Obsession is a taste of what the next generation of filmmakers looks like. Not only is it a great movie, but it is evidence that it is possible for Hollywood to change.
Twelve University of Oxford researchers have been elected as fellows to the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. They join a cohort of 90 scientific researchers elected this year from around the world who specialise in fields ranging from “astronomy and cancer research to mathematics and biotechnology”.
The election is considered “one of the highest honours in the scientific world, awarded to individuals who have made impactful contributions to knowledge”.
Sir Paul Nurse, who is the President of the Royal Society, said in an article on the organisation’s website: “I am delighted to welcome this newest group of exceptional scientists to the Fellowship …. Their contributions reflect the highest standards of scientific endeavour. Whether advancing our understanding of vaccines or exploring the transformative potential of mathematics and computation, their work exemplifies the enduring value of curiosity, creativity and rigorous inquiry.”
Tim Coulson, Professorial Fellow in Zoology and Environmental Sustainability Fellow in Jesus College, was among the Oxford researchers elected to the Royal Society. Coulson told Cherwell that his initial reaction to his election was a combination of joy and shock. He added: “I could never have got this without all the remarkable students and postdocs I have collaborated [with] … Being awarded [this honour] for doing something I enjoy seems almost unbelievable.”
Paul Riley, a Professor of Regenerative Medicine at the British Heart Foundation and Professorial Fellow in Medicine at Jesus College, echoed Coulson’s sentiment of disbelief. Riley told Cherwell that he was “initially surprised and somewhat shocked” by his election, “having gone through the application process for several rounds”. He also told Cherwell that “becoming a fellow of The Royal Society is a huge personal honour, but importantly one that recognises the quality and impact of my group’s science over the years … One agency described becoming a member of the Fellowship as the scientific equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar; so it feels like the culmination of a career in research for which I feel very humble but with a huge sense of pride and satisfaction”.
Stuart West, a Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Nicholas Kurti Senior Research Fellow at Brasenose College who researches genetic adaptation and social behaviours across various species, highlighted the significance of his team in his election. He told Cherwell: “My election reflects on the team that I have been lucky enough to work with over the years … Obviously, I cannot have all the skills needed to carry out this diversity of work, and so our progress often relies on the expertise of my group members or our collaborators.” He added that the “Department of Biology provides an exceptionally supportive and interactive environment.”
Professor of Genetics in the Department of Biochemistry at Keble College, Rob Klose, also told Cherwell that “the fellowship is a wonderful recognition of the dedication, creativity, and ingenuity of the members of my lab, who consistently amaze me with their discoveries.” Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience Masud Husain added that “it’s a wonderful recognition for 30 years of research dedicated to understanding the mechanisms that underpin human attention, memory and motivation and how it can go wrong in people with brain disorders”.
Sporting knee-length hair tied into a bun with a colourful scarf and married to a flame juggler, Jessica James isn’t your typical quant trader. A Christ Church PhD Physics alum and now Managing Director at Commerzbank, James speaks with levity and self-assuredness, a rare duality in the finance sector.
While many from my cohort are making the jump from physics to finance, it was more than unconventional for James in ‘94: “It was absolutely weird of me to do so. I was trying to write up my thesis and thinking I was unemployable, and my supervisor, Patrick Sanders, came into the office.” He had received this “funny letter”, anticipating James’ potential interest. It was from the First National Bank of Chicago, who were moving into the area of financial derivatives and looking for PhD Maths or Physics students. She was called onto the trading floor to explain her research to various traders and salespeople, before being flown to Chicago for another interview. “Business class!”, she whispers in mock awe.
Physics and finance may share certain mathematical foundations, but there are clear differences between the two worlds. “Physics is about studying the foundations of the universe. Finance is about studying a man-made system that doesn’t always behave how you think it will. I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s fun. It’s fast-moving.”
Ambiguity in jargon is another key difference. When somebody in science uses the term force, its meaning is generally agreed upon. When someone talks about yield or convexity in finance, they could be defined in very different ways, depending on the context and the speaker. “The big change is the lack of precision of the vocabulary. It’s easy to think you understand something in finance, but when terms are ill-defined, you might not. Physics is mostly a zero-bullshit zone”, she says.
“Finance tends to focus on the future and the now, and data is, fundamentally, historical. Yet it’s a gold mine – especially today, when sophisticated analysis is increasingly used to uncover trends and behaviours – however, it’s often deleted, forgotten, or ignored.” It’s always a red flag when someone says “but this time it’s different”, be it an ex-partner or a teetotal friend, James explains that this is particularly true in finance. “It’s like the climate”, she tells me. “The climate can fluctuate in unexpected ways, and so can the market, right? Just because there hasn’t been an ice age recently doesn’t mean they won’t return in their time.”
While at school, James was the only one doing Physics and Chemistry: “15 years in a convent school put me off God forever. But I understand why science and religion are often so conflated”, she says, explaining that she views both as trying to better understand the rules of the universe. As the sole woman in many rooms, including a weekend away as the Managing Director at Citibank, James has never minded being the odd one out: “I don’t care if they think I’m different. I was smarter than most of them.” I fully believe her. “It is tricky being a woman in finance. How many technical disciplines are there where you could say that women are equal? And, you shouldn’t have to be tough and immune to remarks that shouldn’t be made. But, it never really bothered me.”
While traditional routes into banking are competitive, James stresses the importance of getting into the right place and avoiding a mundane job. Her advice? Get in early via the internship-turned-graduate-scheme pathway. “Oxford and Physics give you the ability to think critically and believe in your own opinion and your own knowledge”, she says. “This helped me to thoughtfully reflect on challenges and gave me the courage to recognise that if something felt off, it probably was – and it didn’t mean I lacked ability.” This mindset has been the cornerstone of James’ career.
“But, the one thing that is the hardest, but the most important, is to understand where you fit into the organisation.” She tells me that when fixing code, processing data, or completing spreadsheets, we should be asking: why? Where is your organisation making money, and why does your job exist? It’s important to not be stuck in a bubble, James stresses, not just in finance but in any job. This understanding will push you to find originality in the way that you work, and perhaps do it better than other organisations: “Knowledge is power, and often the knowledge that is the most powerful in an organisation is who does what and why.” She believes in keeping a foot in more than one world, and, thereby, tapping into more opportunities.
“I had never seen five o’clock from the front before, only from behind.” The crazy hours in finance aren’t a recent development, although James prioritised her hours off work just as much as those she spent on the trading floor. Her secret was to not break stride and make no eye contact with anybody as she got off work. She quickly realised that “you’ve got to set boundaries, you’ve got to set limits”.
James has been a pioneer in finding probability-weighted foreign exchange market trading strategies. She has launched products based on trading signals, which she explained as buying the trading rules that came from looking at historical data. Amidst the global turmoil of the 2008 financial crisis, these instruments performed better than many others.
She also coined the term rollercoaster bonds: long-term bonds that become highly sensitive to changes in interest rates, similar to the way rollercoasters must consider forces other than velocity and acceleration. Here, rising interest rates can significantly impact the value of century (100-year) bonds, like some sold by Oxford University. While century bonds sound reliable and safe, she showed they would lose much of their value if interest rates rose out of the near-zero range of the pre-COVID world – and they did.
Penning several financial maths texts is yet another achievement of James’ career. She is quick to warn, however, against getting her confused with an author of the same name who writes, apparently, racy novels as opposed to those about the stock market.
Talking to James, it is clear that she enjoys devoting her time to finance and academia. After all, she is a pension trustee at Citibank and Commerzbank, on the Institute of Physics council and a Visiting Professor at Oxford and University College London. However, reflecting on her time as an Oxford undergraduate, she reminisces on her fun side. She recalls her first encounter with Professor Kurti: a pioneer in the art of gastronomy. He was about to give a lecture at Manchester University titled The Joy of Cooking, but was startled to realise as he entered the lecture theatre that someone had amended the title on the chalk board to The Joy of Sex. James bumped into him years later in the Clarendon laboratory and confessed, luckily being met with laughter.
She notes the same Brasenose dinner between exams and results as one of her favourite memories of Oxford, where “everything was possible. Nobody’s wave function had collapsed”. Her message to students? Love every minute of Oxford for how fantastic it is. But also: “Take pride in yourself. Take pride in your accomplishments. You got here, you stuck it [out]. Not many people can do that.”
Oxford Royale Academy and Oxford Summer Courses have been ranked among Europe’s fastest-growing companies, according to the 2026 Financial Times’ FT Top 1000: Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies. The annual ranking, which is compiled in partnership with Statista, lists the companies with the highest compound annual growth rate between 2021 and 2024. Oxford Summer Courses came in at 151st place, closely followed by Oxford Royale, which ranked 156th, securing them places in the top 16% of the fastest-growing companies on the continent, alongside companies like Bio&Me, Moneybox, Popeyes, and Healf.
Founded in 2010 by Oxford graduates Robert Phipps and Harry Horton, Oxford Summer Courses offer two-week residential courses for 12- to 18-year-olds, priced just shy of £8,000. The courses on offer range from architecture to creative writing, with small class sizes of up to 15 students advertised.
Oxford Royale Academy was founded by Oxford graduate William Humphreys in 2004, and has since attracted more than 50,000 students to its courses. Initially exclusive to Oxford, the company now offers students insight into a range of universities, including Imperial College London, Cambridge, Yale, and Columbia, and is currently gauging interest for a Dubai programme set to begin in 2027. Charging £6,995 for a two-week Oxford residential programme, Oxford Royale offers students talks from exclusive guest speakers, which have previously included Chancellor William Hague and Professor Brian Cox. The company has also launched an AI education programme this summer, which was developed by MIT’s Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative. The two-week residential course is based in Oxford, costing £9,995.
In October 2025, Oxford Royale Academy featured as one of FT’s Europe’s Long-Term Growth Champions, recognising its sustained revenue growth between 2014 and 2024.
The summer course company was previously taken to court by the University of Oxford in a ‘name battle’ in 2023. The University asserted that it had suffered substantial damage because of the word ‘Oxford’ in the company’s title and was seeking a High Court injunction which would have forced Oxford Royale to change its name.
Both companies market their programmes in part on the promise of an admissions advantage. Oxford Royale’s website tells prospective students its courses offer “a clear advantage for university applications”, while Oxford Summer Courses presents its certificate and letter of recommendation as evidence that will support future applications. The University makes no reference to external summer schools in their guidance for strong applications. The University has previously stated, regarding Varsity Education, that it does not “endorse any commercial operations or publications offering advice or training on our admissions process, nor do we guarantee the accuracy of any such company’s information”.
Candidates standing in next week’s University of Oxford Council elections have warned of growing financial pressures, rising workloads, governance challenges, and the impact of AI on admissions and assessment. Council is the University’s executive governing body with responsibilities for its administration, finance, property, academic policy, and strategic direction.
Electoral statements published in the Oxford Gazette, the University’s internal newspaper, on 21st May highlighted concerns that mounting financial and administrative pressures have made it increasingly difficult for academics and professional services staff to sustain teaching, research, and governance responsibilities.
Dr Chris Ballinger, a fellow at Exeter College and candidate for University Council, warned of “financial stress” caused by “rising costs, economic turbulence and a squeeze on both research funding and undergraduate fee income”. He also argued that Oxford must continue to make progress on “pay and conditions, and on workload”. Ballinger also pointed to the growing challenge posed by AI in higher education, writing that “the benefits of AI are tempered by its impact on evaluating prospective students and assessing those we admit”.
Other candidates focused more directly on governance and institutional structures. Professor Martin Castell, Professor of Materials and another Council candidate, described the “ever-increasing demands” placed on academics, professional services staff, and students, arguing that governance and administrative systems should be “proportionate, efficient, and designed with workloads in mind”.
Boyd Rodger, a candidate from the Nuffield Department of Population Health, criticised what he described as a lack of constructive institutional dialogue. In his statement, Rodger argued that Congregation, Oxford’s sovereign governing body, has recently only been convened “to debate and vote on adversarial motions”, calling instead for a more “inclusive” and “consultative” approach to institutional change.
Similar concerns emerged in elections to humanities faculty boards. Professor Sam Wolfe, standing for election to the Board of the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics (LPP), wrote that “it has been a challenging time for the faculty”, adding that “the humanities are vulnerable nationally and internationally”. Wolfe also highlighted “workload pressures” and advocated reform of academic career structures and stronger support for Early Career Researchers.
Professor E. Matthew Husband, another candidate for the LPP Faculty Board, referred to “interconnected challenges around governance, space, staffing, and teaching”, as well as “structural tensions” between “local, divisional, and central university priorities”.
The concerns raised by candidates come amid continuing financial pressures across the UK higher education sector, with universities facing rising costs, funding constraints, and growing debate over the role of generative AI in teaching and assessment.
The University declined to comment, as “inquiries relate to ongoing elections, which the University is respecting”.
At least nine Oxford colleges invest indirectly in Mitie Group Plc, an outsourcing company whose subsidiary runs Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, a joint investigation between Cherwell and Oxford Student Action for Refugees (STAR) can reveal.
According to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, Balliol, Exeter, Hertford, Pembroke, Queen’s, St Edmund Hall, St John’s, and Wadham invest in funds which hold shares in Mitie. Although Christ Church did not provide specific information in response to the FOI request, Cherwell and STAR found the college also invests indirectly in Mitie, based on an email circulated to Christ Church students in 2025 and shared by the Oxford Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) Coalition.
These investments are spread across ten investment funds, identified as holding shares in Mitie through analysis of their 2024-2025 annual reports. The total value of these funds’ investments in Mitie is £37.6 million, equivalent to over 1.5% of the company’s overall market capitalisation.
Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Trust, which Pembroke uses, invests the largest amount in Mitie at £11.5 million. The BlackRock Smaller Companies fund, used by Christ Church, invests £10.2 million.
Notably, these figures refer to the overall amount that these funds invest in Mitie, not just the amount from Oxford colleges. Exact estimates of how much individual colleges invested indirectly in Mitie were difficult to obtain, as colleges did not disclose the total amount they held in these funds.
Other funds used by colleges which hold shares in Mitie are Vanguard’s ESG Screened Developed World Fund, ESG Developed World All Cap Equity Index Fund, Total World Stock ETF, Global Small Cap Index Fund, and Charities UK Equities index; BlackRock’s iShares FTSE 250 Fund; Henderson Smaller Companies; and Legal & General UK Index Trust.
Mitie and Campsfield IRC
Mitie Care & Custody Limited (Mitie), a subsidiary of Mitie Group Plc, had previously run the Campsfield IRC from 2011 to its first closure in 2018. In 2025, the Home Office awarded Mitie a £140m contract to operate the centre again, with plans to more than double the facility’s capacity submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. Mitie has also operated the merged Colnbrook and Harmondsworth IRCs since 2014 and the Dungeval IRC in Scotland since 2021.
Mitie has faced repeated scrutiny over the conditions in Campsfield. In 2011, a detainee committed suicide, and there were repeated mass hunger strikes in protest over living conditions. Another detainee attempted suicide in October 2013, leading to a major fire, after which it transpired that Mitie had not installed sprinklers in the facility at the time.
Inspectors to the Harmondsworth IRC, another site run by Mitie, reported in July 2024 that the facility contained “the worst conditions they [had] ever seen in immigration detention”, although an independent progress review in July 2025 noted that “substantial improvements” had been made since.
The Coalition to Close Campsfield (CCC), a group made up of local organisations based in Oxfordshire, including STAR, has campaigned against the reopening of Campsfield and plans for its further expansion. Liz Peretz, an organiser of CCC, told Cherwell that she was “not at all surprised that colleges” are indirectly invested in Mitie.
“It’s a sound investment for them”, she added. “It’s government money, it’s taxpayers’ money, it’s not going to go away.” However, she told Cherwell that such investments in Mitie were “investing in people’s misery”.
Lack of transparency
Of the 32 undergraduate colleges that responded to the FOI requests, Cherwell and STAR could not confirm for 20 colleges whether the investment funds they used included Mitie shares in their portfolio.
For eleven colleges, at least one of the funds used did not publish information online about holdings, including funds Cambridge Associates, Rathbones Group, Cazenove Capital, Hollyport, and Adams Street Partners. The colleges in this category were Brasenose, Corpus Christi, Harris Manchester, Keble, Mansfield, New, Oriel, St Hugh’s, St Peter’s, Somerville, and Worcester.
Three colleges – St Anne’s, Trinity, and University – did not provide information on the specific funds through which they invested, although Trinity and University’s could be obtained through the colleges’ annual reports.
Five colleges – Lincoln, Lady Margaret Hall, Jesus, Oriel, and St Catherine’s – invoked legal protections which made them exempt from disclosing commercially sensitive information in cases where disclosure would constitute a breach of confidence or prejudice their commercial interests. However, Lady Margaret Hall told Cherwell and STAR that four exchange-traded funds (ETFs) made up 22.9% of its investment portfolio. Since Mitie is part of the FTSE 250 Index, the college added that it could have indirect exposure, which it estimated to be no more than “0.09% of its overall investment portfolio, which equates to c.£58k in monetary terms”. As Lady Margaret Hall did not share which funds they used, Cherwell and STAR could not confirm if the college had exposure to Mitie at present or just potential exposure.
Merton and St Hilda’s confirmed that they do not have any indirect investments in Mitie at present, although Merton noted that it held £4,698.20 in Mitie shares through an investment fund in 2022. Jesus and Magdalen confirmed that they do not invest in any relevant fund, although Magdalen previously invested through Vanguard Total World Stocks ETF.
Of the nine colleges Cherwell and STAR could confirm indirect investment in Mitie, the level of exposure varied. Exeter, for example, told Cherwell that Mitie’s exposure in the Vanguard ESG Developed World All Cap Equity Index Fund is 0.0036%, meaning the College’s “exposure to Mitie through the tracker is minimal at c.£6”.
Pembroke, which invests in the Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Trust, told Cherwell: “Any investment we have in Mitie is only through indirect legacy passive investment vehicles, and based on the information we have we understand any exposure we do have in Mitie and its subsidiaries would be a negligible part of our overall investments.” St John’s, meanwhile, which invests in the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF as part of its investment portfolio, told Cherwell that “all investments are made and monitored annually” by the college’s responsible investment policy”.
Ethical investment
Income from investment makes up a significant portion of Oxford colleges’ revenue. In 2024-2025, Oxford colleges received £448 million from their investments, constituting 60% of their overall incoming resources for that academic year.
Alongside investment managers, a large portion of the University’s and colleges’ holdings is managed by Oxford University Endowment Management (OUem), a subsidiary of the University which specialises in managing charitable endowments. According to its 2025 report, OUem has more than £7 billion in assets under management, with at least 20 colleges investing through OUem, according to FOI requests by Cherwell and STAR.
As of 2026, Oxford maintains ethical investment restrictions against companies manufacturing certain types of arms, tobacco companies, fossil fuel exploration and extraction companies, and any funds which invest in any of these types of companies. Following a report by the Ethical Investment Representations Review Subcommittee in July 2025, commissioned by Oxford University Council in May 2024, the University committed to expanding its restrictions to cover more weapon types. However, no equivalent investment restrictions in companies involved in the border industry, such as Mitie, exist.
In recent years, the University’s investments have been under scrutiny. Work from the Oxford BDS Coalition and Middle East Eye showed that, as of October 2025, the University indirectly invested in at least 49 companies flagged by human rights organisations for their ties to illegal Israeli settlements, with the total value of these holdings coming to £19 million. The coalition could not obtain any data on the value of holdings under OUem due to the company’s lack of response to FOIs. A tribunal in April 2025 upheld OUem’s refusal to disclose the value of its holdings in three companies on the BDS divestment shortlist.
While the University’s Investment Committee endorsed the EIRRS’s recommendation to work with OUem and the University to enhance investment disclosure, it is unclear what action has been taken by the University. A University spokesperson told Cherwell that the University’s Investment Committee and OUem will be publishing further information on the University’s investments, which “will be available shortly”.
Further, the University added that, as OUem invests in funds and not individual companies, “there are contractual limits” on what OUem can disclose as company positions.
Closing Campsfield
CCC has held demonstrations outside Campsfield IRC on the last Saturday of each month since December 2025, when the centre reopened. The most recent demonstration in May focused on Oxford colleges’ investments in Mitie, as well as the low pay given to detainees in the IRC for cleaning and routine labour.
Still, members of the CCC campaign remain hopeful about the impact that the University and its colleges could have. Peretz told Cherwell: “The impact could be quite strong, especially if the colleges were prepared to say why they were divesting.
“[Mitie] likes to have good PR. They like to be seen as wonderful. And this is not a good look for them.”
Balliol, Christ Church, Hertford, Queen’s, St Edmund Hall, and Wadham were contacted for comment.
The University of Oxford has ranked second behind the University of Cambridge in the Complete University Guide’s 2027 league table, marking the second consecutive year that Cambridge has claimed the top spot.
The largest discrepancies between the two institutions were in “quality of research” and “admissions standards”. While Oxford trails Cambridge marginally across several metrics, including graduate prospects and spending on academic services, the most significant gaps were in “research intensity” and “entry standards”. In both categories, Oxford scored 95%, compared to Cambridge’s 100%.
Meanwhile, Oxford exceeded Cambridge’s score in two more welfare-oriented measures: “student satisfaction” and “student-staff ratio”. Oxford received a student satisfaction score of 80%, compared to Cambridge’s 79%, while Oxford had 9.3 students per academic staff member, compared to Cambridge’s 10.7.
The Complete University Guide rankings are based on data drawn from publicly available sources. Research intensity, for instance, is calculated as “a measure of the proportion of teaching staff involved in research”. Since research intensity is measured only by reference to its relationship to teaching, the Complete University Guide recognises that the measure “can be an underestimate of the actual research intensity”.
“Entry standards” are calculated according to “the average UCAS tariff score of new undergraduate students”, equivalent to the proportion of A’s and A*’s achieved at A level. Oxford’s lower score may therefore reflect its entry requirements, which are, typically, lower than Cambridge’s. Notably, neither interview performance nor admissions tests are factored into the Complete University Guide’s data.
Students at both universities offered differing views on the ranking. Isaac, a second-year engineering student at Cambridge, told Cherwell that Oxford should use the result as motivation to improve its performance relative to leading international universities. However, Archie, a second-year psychology student at Oxford, was more sceptical of league tables, telling Cherwell: “There are loads of different university rankings and they often disagree…. I don’t think it makes sense to put too much stock in all the rankings.”
The University of Oxford was contacted for comment.
Oxford University graduation days, formally called degree ceremonies by the university, are held throughout the year. There are multiple dates, starting from Saturday 18 July 2026, to Saturday 14 November 2026.
Every single one of them is a spectacle, and as an Oxford University student, they’ll be some of the best days of your life, even if you are a bit nervous. Some of the most intelligent people graduate from the prestigious Oxford University, ready to embark on incredible careers that often change lives, and you’re soon to be one of them.
Thousands of families and guests from around the globe descend onto Oxford throughout the year to celebrate some of the most incredible achievements in academia. It can feel overwhelming, so we’ve created a guide full of tips so you can help your visiting families and guests.
The Milestone Annual Events at Oxford University
One of the two highlights of the calendar is Matriculation, which is the formal process that confers official membership of the university to a student that takes place at the end of the first week of Michaelmas Term (the start of the academic year).
The other is Encaenia, Oxford’s grandest, most historic annual ceremony, and it takes place in June at the Sheldonian Theatre, where the university awards honorary degrees to distinguished students.
The rest of the events are summer ceremonies, but they are equally as busy, and the centre of Oxford near the main grounds of the University isn’t the easiest to navigate.
How to Manage Logistics During the Annual Events
A lot of the logistics of the actual day will be planned out for you. The university will tell you well in advance what time you need to be there, where your guests need to go, and what the schedule for the day is.
You don’t need to stress so much about that, but because thousands of relatives descend upon the city simultaneously during graduation weeks, central boutique hotels fill up months in advance. For families looking for alternative accommodation options like nearby townhouses or self-catering apartments, utilising Cozycozy allows them to compare live availability and pricing across a wide variety of hospitality networks at once.
With the accommodation sorted, you really only have to relax and try to enjoy your big day.
Parking challenges in the Historic City Centre
The one thing we will say, and you probably know it yourself if you’re already in Oxford, is that the parking can be awful. You don’t want your family and guests to park too far away and have to walk into the city centre and university grounds, but it might be the case.
For the best luck, Oxford town guides recommend parking in the following locations:
Gloucester Green or Redbridge Park and Ride
Westgate car park
Oxpens car park
Oxford University car parks (but check availability and how to get a space!)
Worcester Street car park
Other than the university car parks, which we doubt you’ll be able to park on, these are your best options.
Things to Do With Your Family and Guests in Oxford Around The University Events
The day of the annual event in question, whether it be Matriculation Encaenia or one of the summer graduation events, should be purely for living in the moment and enjoying. Take in every second of the day, and then go out for a nice meal and some drinks afterwards.
Top tip: always look for reservations well in advance. It doesn’t matter where you’re going; any of the days when one of the annual events is running at Oxford University will be busy.
The day before or the day after, we recommend giving your guests a taste of the Oxford student lifestyle and taking them to the Cherwell Oxford area. You can walk down the River Cherwell, show them the tradition of punting and stroll through the University Parks or the Oxford Botanic Garden.
You could also do a family visit to your accommodation so they can see where you’ve been living (and how well you’ve kept what they might have been paying for).
Take the day slow and have some nice food, and try to process the excitement of the university event that everyone has come to see you be a part of. It’s such an honour to be part of these events, and your family and guests will love the experience, however you plan it.
Student theatre strives to be as professional as possible, but the annual garden play offers something unique: permission to have fun. In Trinity Term, as students pivot between the library and Examination Schools, another ritual takes over college quads. Outdoor productions appear across the city, transforming lawns and gardens into temporary stages. For director and producer Magdalena Lacey-Hughes, these productions represent something increasingly rare in Oxford drama: the freedom to be creative without the pressure of being perfect.
Garden plays are as much a part of Oxford life as exams when the academic year draws to a close. After watching the Queen’s College garden play’s performance of Guys & Dolls on its closing night, I met with its director, Lacey-Hughes, expecting to discuss the challenges of outdoor theatre. Instead, our conversation turned to a bigger question: why does Oxford drama take itself so seriously?
After arriving at Oxford eager to throw herself into student theatre, Lacey-Hughes found the Oxford drama scene surprisingly difficult to navigate. “I never really got my foot in the door until Trinity of first-year,” where she choreographed Fiddler on the Roof, the Queen’s garden play that year. “I think I just really didn’t understand how student drama worked here. It was very confusing because it is super decentralised.” It was through subsequent productions inspired by this one that Lacey-Hughes met George Robson, and the pair collaborated to launch Crazy Child Productions in Michaelmas.
Though her passion for the innumerable opportunities offered by Oxford’s extensive drama scene is tangible when she talks about her projects, she is candid about the anxiety which surrounds the field. Students are deeply invested in producing high-quality work, but that ambition can create its own culture: feedback from Oxbridge Onstage last term noted that “Oxford’s drama is very serious and often quite dark.”
For Lacey-Hughes, part of the issue lies in Oxford’s fixation with professionalism. “I think it comes with the slight pretentious air that everything here has,” she reflects. “There is this real emphasis on putting on plays that have huge legacies so that they can reinterpret themselves.” Over the past year, she has noticed the same impulse when people discuss production companies. “People ask ‘what do you do?’ and you would respond ‘we try to make student drama as professional as possible’. In reality, that is not achievable.”
It’s rather ironic here as Lacey-Hughes is hardly arguing from the sidelines: Guys & Dolls operated on a budget comparable to some Oxford Playhouse productions, complete with a live orchestra and professional technical support. Yet what stood out most was not the scale of the production but its atmosphere, as audience members were pulled onstage, handed props, heckled, and encouraged to become part of the performance. The result was collective enjoyment shared by the case and audience alike.
She attributes her talent for generating fun to her own experience and familiarity with different aspects of productions. “You want to expect a lot from people, but you also have to respect that they have a lot to do alongside rehearsals.” Cast members balanced the production with choirs, rowing, journalism, and exams. Drawing on her role as Welfare Officer for Oxford University Drama Society (OUDS), she believes that “respecting time and making people feel valued in the space is very important.”
What, then, prevents student theatre from embracing that same sense of playfulness? For Lacey-Hughes, the problem is a culture: “I do think that there is a slight lack of understanding and appreciation for things that are just inherently creative.” Looking at the prevalence of tragedies and dramatic reinterpretations of established classics, she argues that Oxford often mistakes seriousness for artistic value. “We think things are only impressive when people are able to cry onstage,” she says, “rather than when they are able to make you laugh.”
Part of this seriousness stems from the structure of Oxford drama itself. For newcomers, success is often less dependent on talent or funding than understanding an unusually decentralised system. Pressure mounts when there is, in fact, a ‘right way’ to produce student drama. “It’s very confusing – you have to know it to be a part of it,” Lacey-Hughes explains. Production companies sit at the centre of that system. Prior to each term they bid for venues, apply for funding, and build reputations over time. The official OUDS advice makes one thing clear: without a Student Production Company, you cannot apply for funding. In theory, anyone can establish one, but the reality is that the necessary experience, contacts, and institutional knowledge often accumulate within established groups, making it easier for some productions to succeed over others.
It is partly this culture which inspired Crazy Child Productions, the company that Lacey-Hughes runs alongside George Robson. Far from the rigidity of other production companies, their company is characterised by an intention rather than a theme. “We are just kind of doing everything really,” she laughs. Their productions range from canonical student dramas such as The Glass Menagerie to student-written and translated work. Lacey-Hughes grins as she tells me about a recent production, Stories From an Abandoned Warehouse, “it was actually the first time Stories has ever been staged in the UK.”
Reflecting on their company’s purpose, she emphasises accessibility: Crazy Child Productions work with students who want to stage a single project without building an entire production company around it. Recent productions have included “some friends who wanted to do one thing and not set up a whole production company,” while Stories was organised by a postgraduate student who did not have the time to establish a whole brand. “We don’t intend to take it out of Oxford,” she says. “We want people to use it and the resources which we have built up.”
The playful nature of garden plays offer escape from these pressures of Oxford theatre. “The pressure is off a bit more,” Lacey-Hughes believes. Freed from some of the expectations attached to studio-based productions, gardens provide space for experimentation: earlier this term, Lady Margaret Hall hosted an unrehearsed performance of Twelfth Night, while St Edmund Hall staged The Harrowing of Hell.26 in a crypt.
The freedom of garden plays stems partly from their refusal to behave like conventional theatre. “You aren’t going to feel as immersed when it is seven o’clock outside, the sun is setting, there’s a bird over there and you can hear the ambulance on the road.” Rather than undermining the experience, she believes these interruptions create a different relationship between audience and performance. “It is a whole different type of world-building,” she explains, “because the immersion is pretty much shattered.”
That freedom comes at a cost. Outdoor productions are technically demanding. Lacey-Hughes explains the difficulties of hiring an external professional in sound design while the weather itself became a concern. “On the first night our orchestra tent was breaking due to the rain,” she recalls. Such a small team meant that “a lot of that fell to me; I was holding up the tent for around two hours on the Wednesday.”
College regulations can limit staging decisions as well, particularly around audience movement and health-and-safety policies. Yet Lacey-Hughes maintains that these restrictions often produce better creative solutions. “One thing I changed this year was bringing the orchestra into view. I wanted them to be there, and it worked for the show itself having them be appreciated.”
“In some ways, you are allowed more creativity because you have a completely different space to work with, but also colleges are much stricter.” In Guys & Dolls, Queen’s itself becomes part of the performance. “The window is a feature each year – it is the thing to look out for,” she says. This year, she reorientated the stage so that the window was on display the whole time; when actors were not using it as part of the set, residents were using it as, well, a window. “Initially I was annoyed,” she laughs. “Then I was like, ‘fine’. We should have started charging them for a ticket.”
The same elements which make garden plays less immersive also make them creatively exciting. “Even a black-box theatre is limited in certain ways,” she argues. “That is what makes creativity really powerful, when you use it well and when you have limitations. You cannot be creative when you have all the opportunities available to you.”
Perfectionism and professionalism are factoring pressures in student societies beyond theatre. In an urge to create portfolios and eagerness to enter industries immediately upon graduation, the rush to seem accomplished appears to overshadow the earnest and crucial learning experience of student societies. In a busy Michaelmas ahead, Crazy Child Productions does not seem to be slowing down: they are bidding for the Oxford Playhouse an O’Reilly show as you read, meanwhile two first-year students have already booked the Burton Taylor Studio. So what do they want their production company to be known for, for their audiences to take away? After a moment’s consideration, Lacey-Hughes responds, “‘You can’t be everything before your time’ is a really cringe answer, but that is definitely part of it.”
Protesters clashed outside the Oxford Union this evening during a panel discussion on the 2024 Bangladeshi July Revolution, entitled “The Student-Led Uprising and the Future of Post-Revolutionary Bangladesh”. The panel began at 6.30pm and features several prominent figures from the revolution, including Shadik Kayem, described as a key coordinator of the July uprising and vice president of the Dhaka University Central Student Union, and Hasnat Abdullah, an MP with the National Citizen Party, one of the central organisers of the Students Against Discrimination movement.
Approximately 400 people attended the protest and counter-protest. Four police vans and two police cars could be seen at the scene, with Brasenose College deploying a porter to guard nearby college accommodation. The protesters and counter-protesters on St Michael’s Street were separated by a line of police. Throughout the evening, the division between the groups moved up and down the street as the groups clashed.
The event was organised by the Oxford Union in collaboration with the Oxford Bangla Society. The organisation of the event has become the topic of significant public debate in Bangladesh, with some critics incorrectly alleging that it had been privately organised by associates of the speakers who had hired the chamber and then presented it as an Oxford Union event. The Union clarified to Cherwell that while collaborative events involve partner societies receiving “a small number of free tickets for their members” and “joint advertising of the event in question”, “the actual organisation of such collaborative events, still falls solely on the Oxford Union team”.
The July Revolution was a mass uprising in Bangladesh in 2024, which saw Prime Minister Sheikh Hasna and the Awami League Government ousted after 15 years in power. Human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, blamed the government for the deaths of “students, journalists and bystanders” in a violent crackdown on the protests.
Counter-protesters included supporters of Hasnat Abdullah and Shadik Kayem. One couter-protester told Cherwell that three groups were leading the counter-protest: Jamaat-e-Islami, a right-wing Bangladeshi Islamist political party; the National Citizen Party (NCP), a youth-led political party founded following the July Uprising; and Inqilab Moncho, a political platform and student group inspired by the July Uprising.
An organiser from Inqilab Moncho (a political platform and student group inspired by the July Uprising) described those inside the chamber to Cherwell as “our July heroes”, adding that the purpose of their attendance was to “welcome” the speakers, and make sure that “everyone hears the voice of the students”. Counter-protesters chanted “Inquilab Zindabad”, roughly translated to “Long live the revolution”, and a chant which essentially translates to “fake, fake, fake”.
Protesters described themselves to Cherwell as a “mix of people”, with many from the UK Awami League, the UK branch of the former governing party in Bangladesh – they reportedly arrived in Oxford from London aboard a double-decker bus. The group is the UK branch of the Bangladeshi Awami League, which dominated the country’s political system from 2009 to 2024, before being ousted from power in the July Uprising. Under Sheikh Hasna’s rule, Bangladesh was reported by Human Rights Watch to have experienced “democratic backsliding” and “authoritarian crackdown”. All activity by the party has been banned in Bangladesh since May 2025.
One Protester told Cherwell that “those people who are suffering in our country… we came to protest for them here”, another added that they were here “fighting for my country… we want our country back”. Protesters chanted “Joy Bangla”, which roughly translates as “Victory to Bengal” or “Hail Bengal”, and “Joy Bangabandhu”, referring to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first President of Bangladesh. Rahman’s photo featured on multiple large signs held by the protesters.
In a leaflet being distributed by protesters from Mission Badam, they explained that they were protesting “because Oxford Union is providing a prestigious platform to speakers whose public conduct raises serious concerns about violence, intimidation, democratic exclusion and attacks on free expression in Bangladesh”. The leaflet adds that they are protesting “to inform the public”; “to call for proper scrutiny before prestigious UK platforms legitimse such speakers”; and “to defend democractic balance, free expression, and accountability”.
As the protest came to a conclusion around 8.30pm, police followed protesters away from St Michael’s Street towards their coach. Cherwell understands there was a brief altercation once the group reached the Ashmolean Museum with protesters chanting “Razakhar”, a slur equated to “traitor”, at two students who’d been in attendance, and attempted to punch them before the police intervened.
The Oxford Union described the event as “a timely and powerful discussion on the seismic July Revolution and the transition back to democracy in Bangladesh”. The panel discussed “the prospects for a long-term return to democracy” in the country and how the uprising “redefined national trajectories”.
In a statement to Cherwell, the Union added that it was “honoured to invite and host several prominent Bangladeshi figures, from across academia, activism and politics”, and that the event’s primary objective was “to provide an analytical, forward-looking exploration of the 2024 Revolution”. According to the Union, the panel was intended to combine “first-hand accounts and rigorous intellectual analysis” of Bangladesh’s post-revolutionary future.
The scenes outside the Union this evening come just days before Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, otherwise known as Tommy Robinson, is due to speak at the Union, alongside other controversial figures including Laurence Fox, on Wednesday. Robinson’s appearance has already drawn significant opposition from student groups and activists, and today’s protest is likely to heighten tensions further, ahead of what is expected to be a deeply contested event.
