Study of  WHITE SUPREMACIST Tommy Robinson’s social media reveals how online influencers mobilise supporters without direct calls to action

Analysis shows how influencers shape public behaviour and legitimise violence through narratives, not instructions

University of Bath

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New research from the University of Bath reveals that online influencers can mobilise followers and legitimise harmful behaviours without ever issuing explicit instructions, offering fresh insight into how digital platforms shape public attitudes, emotions and decision‑making.

The researchers found that far‑right influencer Tommy Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) used his Telegram channel to comment on ongoing events and legitimise violence during the anti-immigration protests and riots of 30 July to 7 August 2024 without ever giving direct instructions, allowing him to maintain plausible deniability.

The researchers, publishing in the British Journal of Social Psychology, show that Robinson acted not as an organiser issuing commands, but as an online opinion leader who shaped how followers interpreted events.

Dr Darja Wischerath, from the University’s Institute of Digital Security and Behaviour (IDSB), said: “We found no direct orders to riot. Instead, Robinson used emotional appeals and conspiracy narratives to set up a worldview where violence felt like a natural, even necessary response. There was a consistent pattern of messages that heightened anger, fear and mistrust.

“This research shines a light on the subtle but extremely powerful ways online figures can mobilise unrest. As digital platforms evolve, understanding these mechanisms is crucial for protecting public safety and democratic discourse.”

The study, which analysed more than 230 messages and 156 multimedia posts from Robinson’s public Telegram channel over the ten days surrounding the riots, provides the first in‑depth look at how online personalities can inflame real‑world unrest through subtle narrative framing rather than direct instructions.

The researchers identified several key tactics used to frame events and normalise participating in protests: reframing protesters as “the concerned British public”; amplifying emotions around child safety and national pride; portraying the government, police and media as betrayers; and blaming government inaction for the riots, claiming authorities had “pushed the British too far.”

The researchers describe this as ‘indirect mobilisation’: influencers create the emotional and moral conditions that make violent action appear justified, without ever instructing anyone to carry it out.

Telegram’s one‑way broadcast feature means subscribers see a steady stream of posts without debate or correction. The researchers say this creates an environment in which a single narrative can dominate.

“When there’s no challenge or discussion, messages and their impact accumulate,” said co-author Dr Olivia Brown, Associate Professor in Digital Futures and Deputy Director of the IDSB. “It becomes easier for a particular interpretation of events to feel obvious, shared, urgent and requiring of action.

“Much of the content is what’s referred to as ‘lawful but awful’. None of Robinson’s posts individually breach current UK speech laws or platform rules. It’s the cumulative effect of dozens of messages, videos, and conspiracy theories that build a narrative that engenders violence.”

The study urges officials and platforms to pay more attention to the broader narrative environment surrounding major events, not just explicit instructions.

The researchers also warn that influencers like Robinson are part of a wider “alternative influence network”, where dozens of far‑right personalities reinforce one another’s messaging across different platforms.

Influencers can leverage parasocial relationships, the sense that followers “know” them personally, to build trust and authority far more effectively than traditional political leaders.

This, they argue, creates a challenge for regulators attempting to balance free expression with public safety, particularly as people consume more information through personalised feeds and broadcast‑style channels.

Indirect Mobilisation and Violence Legitimation through Influencers on Alternative Platforms, is published at: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.70079

 

Ends

Notes to editors

• For more information please contact the University of Bath Press office at press@bath.ac.uk  or call +(44)1225 386319

 

University of Bath

The University of Bath is one of the UK's leading universities, recognised for high-impact research, excellence in education, an outstanding student experience and strong graduate prospects. 

• We are ranked in the top 10 in all of the UK’s major university guides.
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• We are also ranked among the top 10% of universities globally, placing 132nd in the QS World University Rankings 2026.

 

Research from Bath is helping to change the world for the better. Across the University’s three Faculties and School of Management, our research is making an impact in society, leading to low-carbon living, positive digital futures, and improved health and wellbeing. Find out all about our Research with Impact: https://www.bath.ac.uk/campaigns/research-with-impact/

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Journal

British Journal of Social Psychology

DOI

10.1111/bjso.70079 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Indirect Mobilisation and Violence Legitimation through Influencers on Alternative Platforms

Article Publication Date

10 Apr-2026

 

No motors? No gears? No problem.

A soft robot only uses electric current to move

Princeton University, Engineering School

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Researchers combined their expertise in materials science and and origami to create durable, programmable robot that moves without a motor. (The image’s speed is increased 40 times from the original.)

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Credit: Princeton University

With their ability to shapeshift and manipulate delicate objects, soft robots could work as medical implants, deliver drugs inside the body and help explore dangerous environments. But the squishy machines are often limited by rigid mechanical parts or external systems that provide power or help them move.

Now, engineers at Princeton have designed and built soft-rigid hybrid robots that move and shift without the need for motors or external pneumatic controls. To do this, the team combined a printable polymer, called a liquid crystal elastomer, with flexible electronics and folding techniques based on the art of origami.

In an article published March 20 in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, a research team led by professors Emily Davidson and Glaucio Paulino reported that they had used a 3D printer to create a reconfigurable soft robot that was able to repeatedly move without noticeable degradation.

As a demonstration, the researchers built a soft robot in the shape of a crane, a classic origami figure, that flaps its wings when powered with electricity. The crane moves without a motor. Instead, the robot’s motion relies on targeted heating in the polymer to control the wing flapping. The experiment also demonstrated that the Princeton soft robot can precisely and repeatedly move and return to its original shape without wear or distortion with real time programmable sequences, a key feature for future applications.

Construction begins with a 3D printer and a special polymer

The system starts with a molten polymer printed into patterned zones using Davidson’s customized 3D printer. Despite its flexible nature, the polymer the researchers use is a liquid crystal elastomer, which means its internal molecules have an ordered structure. Davidson’s group are experts in controlling the structure of liquid crystal elastomers through molecular design, and controlling the nanostructure (in this case, the orientation) of polymers through printing, both of which were crucial to this project. The researchers programmed the printer to vary the internal orientation of the molecular structure of the polymer as it prints. Each of the patterned zones in the printed material features consistent molecular alignment. By stacking these zones and joining them in different ways, the researchers were able to create hinges in the material that bend in pre-programmed ways when the material is heated.

As part of the printing, the researchers also added flexible electronics into the hinges in the material. The printed circuit boards’ flexible structure allowed the researchers to embed them directly in the printing material rather than apply the circuits in a separate step. This simplifies fabrication and allows for greater consistency and functional integration of the circuit into the robot.

Davidson noted that a critical advance in the current work was the integration of 3D printed liquid crystal elastomers with printed circuit boards that could be commercially manufactured. The ability to co-design the liquid crystal elastomer hinges and the flexible printed circuit boards to drive actuation made the fabrication and control of these soft-rigid soft robots feasible.

Printed circuit boards control the heating that drives motion

Once embedded, these circuit boards allow the researchers to heat extremely specific areas of the polymer structure and perform closed loop control using embedded temperature sensors. This heating takes advantage of the carefully structured polymer, causing the material to contract in ways that the engineers program into the polymer printing. These contractions trigger folding along hinges. To ensure the material folds only at the hinges, the researchers added light fiberglass panels to the flexible printed circuit boards in between the polymer hinges.

The researchers used mathematics derived from origami patterns to control the robots’ motion based on systems of folding and unfolding. Paulino’s research team has pioneered the use of origami to design medical implants, construction components and robotics. Recent projects include segmented soft robots that use origami systems to navigate complex paths, robots that can transform their shapes and adaptively reconfigure in a magnetic field, and programmable systems that can encrypt information and function as mechanical computers.

Paulino said an important feature of the design is that the software used to control the robot uses embedded temperature sensors in the origami to compensate for small errors that creep into the system as the robot repeatedly changes shape. Paulino said that the ability to correct these errors is key to soft robots’ durability.

The work began as an undergraduate project

The development of the new robotic system began as David Bershadsky’s undergraduate thesis project at Princeton. Bershadsky, now in graduate school at the University of Texas, Austin, received his degree in electrical engineering in 2024 from Princeton.

Bershadsky said he has been interested in robotics since he pursued a project in high school developing swarm robotics that deployed individual robotic units that changed size. When he arrived at Princeton, he was interested in advancing the work.

“I was looking for a way to easily and repeatedly create unit cells that could transform based on volume,” he said.

Bershadsky thought that liquid crystal elastomers could serve as a vehicle to create that type of robotic system and approached Professor Davidson, an expert in the material, for advice. Davidson thought it was an intriguing idea.

“She said you should probably take Paulino’s origami engineering class to get a more formal background,” Bershadsky said. One of the TAs in the class was Tuo Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher in Paulino’s lab who helped develop the research and is one of paper’s co-authors.

Researchers designed technology for manufacture

Bershadsky said the work is primarily an “integration of material science with robotics with a focus on manufacturability”

“I think the big contribution is we showed integration of a complex system where we have local heating control,” he said. “We can control activation depending on where we heat.”

Besides demonstrating the viability of the robotic system, Bershadsky created a software tool that designers can use to create their own robots. The tool is available on the lab’s github and included with the paper’s dataset.

The most challenging part of the work?

“Honestly, people talk about system integration being the hard part,” Bershadsky said. “This entire project was the integration of a bunch of different technologies.”

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The article, Digital Actuation Control of Soft Robotic Origami With Self-Folding Liquid Crystal Elastomer Hinges, was published online on March 21 in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. Authors are Bershadsky, Davidson, Paulino, and Zhao. Support for the project was provided in part by Princeton’s Kamran Rafieyan ‘89 Fund for Undergraduate Research, Princeton University Project X Innovation funds, Princeton Catalysis Initiative funds, Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science Senior Thesis Funding, and the National Science Foundation.

Researchers combined their expertise in materials science and and origami to create durable, programmable robot that moves without a motor. (The image’s speed is increased 40 times from the original.)

Credit

Princeton University

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Journal

Advanced Functional Materials

DOI

10.1002/adfm.202525150 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Digital Actuation Control of Soft Robotic Origami With Self-Folding Liquid Crystal Elastomer Hinges

 

First light for PoET: shining (sun)light on exoplanet research

ESO

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The Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope (PoET) will collect sunlight and redirect it to ESO’s ESPRESSO instrument, which will obtain highly detailed spectra of both the entire Sun and specific regions such as sunspots. These observations will be key to understanding the ‘noise’ that similar features in other stars introduce in observations aimed at detecting exoplanets around them.

PoET’s main telescope, seen here being lowered into its dome, has a 60-cm mirror. PoET also has a second smaller telescope that collects light from the entire disc of the Sun.

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Credit: ESO

The Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope (PoET), installed at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) Paranal site in Chile, has made its first observations. The telescope will work with ESO's ESPRESSO instrument to study the Sun in detail. Described as a solar telescope for planet hunters, PoET aims to understand how the variation in the light from stars like the Sun can mask the presence of planets orbiting them, helping us in our search for worlds outside the Solar System.

"One of the greatest challenges for the detection of other Earths orbiting other Suns is the astrophysical ‘noise’ coming from the host stars," explains Nuno Santos, the Principal Investigator for PoET, based at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço [IA])) and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, Portugal. “PoET observations could be key to the discovery and characterisation of exoplanets, which may currently be hidden in the noise."

Exoplanets — worlds outside our Solar System — are mostly detected and studied by looking at the light from their host star, often by looking at small changes in the star’s spectrum (the light split into its component colours or frequencies). But stellar activity can produce signals that drown out, or even mimic, those expected from an orbiting planet. Much like sunspots alter sunlight, surface activity on other stars distorts their spectrum in a way that can be measured, as ‘noise’, with current exoplanet-hunting instrumentation. But removing this noise from the spectra of distant stars is challenging, because we don’t fully understand how stellar activity changes the light we observe. The solution: learn from our nearest star, the Sun.

PoET's design makes it uniquely capable of using the Sun to understand the spectra of distant stars. It has a telescope, with a mirror 60-centimetre in diameter, that gathers light from specific areas of the Sun, such as individual sunspots, probing the signatures of stellar activity. PoET also includes a smaller telescope that collects light from the entire visible surface of the Sun (the solar disc).

“We will be able to analyse very specific areas of the Sun, with a very high resolution, in a way never done before,” says Alexandre Cabral, PoET co-Principal Investigator and a researcher at IA and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. By observing simultaneously both the solar disc and individual surface features, astronomers can determine exactly how stellar activity changes the solar spectrum. This can then be used as a guide to precisely remove "noise” from distant stars that may be harbouring exoplanets.

To ensure the Sun can be compared to distant solar-type stars, the team needed a precise instrument designed for exoplanet research. "ESPRESSO is the top instrument in the field, so the choice was obvious," says Santos. Because ESPRESSO is an extremely precise, high-resolution spectrograph, it is capable of detecting tiny changes in the spectra of stars, typically to find or characterise planets orbiting them. An exoplanet instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) targeting distant stars by night, ESPRESSO will now also be used with PoET during the day to analyse solar spectra.

“It is a great advantage to have ESPRESSO working in this way. By switching from the VLT at night to PoET during the day, we maximise the usage of this instrument to help us find and characterise exoplanets,” says ESO’s Alain Smette, VLT Operations Staff Astronomer and ESO contact person for PoET. “Thanks to the exceptional location of the Paranal Observatory, the number of available days when weather conditions are suitable for observations of the Sun is expected to be very similar to that for nighttime observations.”

PoET successfully completed its test observations, a process known as first light, in early April at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert. The first observations show that the system is working within the requirements and is able to acquire spectra of both the entire solar disc and specific areas of it. During the next weeks the team will test and optimise the system, before starting scientific observations.

PoET was designed and developed in Portugal, with funds from the European Research Council [1], and a team of 12 Portuguese researchers were present at the installation and testing of the solar telescope. Some components of PoET, including the main telescope, were built in Italy while the telescope dome was built by a Chilean company.

The project is now being operated remotely from the Centre for Astrophysics of the University of Porto, Portugal. The PoET data analysed by ESPRESSO will be made available to other scientists via the ESO Science Archive Facility.

Notes

[1] The PoET telescope is funded by the European Union (ERC, FIERCE, 101052347).

More information

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal, ESO will host and operate the south array of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

Links

• Photos of Paranal
• More information on PoET
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• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

 

Improving the energy and cost efficiency of hydrogen production – Hitachi Energy and the University of Vaasa begin research collaboration in Finland

The research focuses on developing transformer efficiency and heat recovery

University of Vaasa

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Pictured from Hitachi Energy Oy are Toni Koskinen, Head of the Transformer Business, and CEO Matti Vaattovaara, together with the University of Vaasa’s Vice‑Rector Mika Grundström, Professor Maciej Mikulski and Dean Raine Hermans.

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Credit: Photo: University of Vaasa

Hitachi Energy and the University of Vaasa have signed an agreement on research collaboration aimed at developing transformer efficiency and heat recovery to improve the energy and cost efficiency of hydrogen production.

Electricity is the most important raw material in hydrogen production and the foundation of the entire production process. The electrolyser, together with the required rectifiers, rectifier transformers and power supply system, forms an electrical entity that constitutes the core of green hydrogen production. When the power supply and rectifier transformers are properly designed, electrolysis operates reliably, efficiently and in a grid-friendly manner.

Electricity accounts for around 70 percent of a hydrogen plant’s operating costs. With current technologies, roughly one-third of the electricity supplied to a hydrogen plant is lost as heat and electrical losses. This share can be significantly reduced through careful design of the electrification system and by utilising waste heat from transformers, rectifiers, electrolysers and compressors.

The goal of the research project Optimized Electric Power Chain for Electrolyser Systems (OEPCES) is to improve the efficiency of transformers – and thus the entire system – by capturing waste heat and using it either for district heating or in the hydrogen plant’s own processes.

The rectifier transformers used in hydrogen plant electrical systems are high‑technology special transformers that supply electricity to rectifiers, which convert alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC) for electrolysis. From a power supply perspective, electrolysis has a very demanding load profile. The transformer needs to deal with high peak power demand, with rapid power transients, under stringent power quality requirements requiring active integration with the electrical grid. This creates a very challenging constraints for optimizing the efficiency and operating range of the rectifier. 

At present, the heat generated in the power supply and transformers is removed through cooling systems and not utilised in hydrogen plant processes. The first phase of the project will focus on developing the electro-thermal model of transformers – to enable efficiency optimization of the device and it’s integration with waste heat recovery system.

– In industrial-scale green hydrogen production, electrolysis and its associated power supply represent rapidly developing new technology, and we want to be at the forefront of this development. We are delighted to have the University of Vaasa joining us in developing world-class solutions that improve energy efficiency, reduce costs and accelerate the adoption of clean energy. This development work marks a concrete step toward more sustainable and competitive hydrogen production, says Matti Vaattovaara, Managing Director of Hitachi Energy.

– The energy transition and the new opportunities it brings across different sectors make research projects more important than ever and are essential for understanding the overall system. Modelling and the ability to reliably analyse complex systems and explore alternative models are key objectives that enable the creation of new knowledge and the development of competitive solutions to these emerging needs. Green hydrogen production and the new solutions related to it are a central part of systems research, where the multidisciplinary expertise of the University of Vaasa’s research groups can be fully utilised, says Mika Grundström, Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Vaasa.

OEPCES is carried out as part of the HEROES (Heat and Energy Recovery Of Electrolyser Systems) research and development project by VTT and the University of Vaasa. The aim of the project is to revolutionise the energy efficiency of hydrogen production by fully utilising waste heat from electrolyser systems. The main goal of the HEROES project is to develop and demonstrate a hydrogen production system that can reduce electricity consumption by up to 35 percent and increase net efficiency to as much as 85 percent, whereas current systems typically range between 50 and 70 percent. The project directly supports the climate and hydrogen strategies of Finland and the EU, as well as the emergence of new low‑carbon industry. The OEPCES project includes the Efficient Powertrain Solutions (EPS) research group from the University of Vaasa.

Hitachi Energy acts as a partner from the investment phase to the implementation and maintenance of the hydrogen plant’s electrical system, covering pre‑engineering, execution, management and lifecycle optimisation of the power system. The company has delivered the main electrical system for Finland’s first industrial‑scale hydrogen production plant, built for P2X Solutions in Harjavalta.

 

Embryo model ethics beyond box-checking

Proposal for embedded ethics, based on dynamic dialogue, to facilitate ethically responsible research with stem-cell-based embryo models.

Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG)

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A direct comparison of an embryo (left) and a stem-cell based embryo model representing the embryonic trunk (right). While the example shows a mouse embryo and embryo model, similar embryo models can be generated from human stem cells.

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Credit: Jesse Veenvliet, MPI-CBG

To the point:
Embedded ethics in human stem-cell-based embryo model research: An interdisciplinary and international team of ethicists, lawyers, and scientists, including Jesse Veenvliet from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, proposes an embedded ethics framework to facilitate responsible research and governance with human stem-cell-based embryo models. In that way, the field could move forward while maintaining public trust.

Continuous dialogue: Fast scientific developments in the field of human stem-cell-based embryo models pose a challenge to the slower, traditional approaches of ethics evaluation. Embedded ethics constitutes a dynamic, iterative, and integrative approach where scientists, ethicists, and regulators engage in continuous dialogue to ethically assess ongoing research. This could help ethical oversight to keep up with scientific progress.

Building trust and responsibility: An embedded ethics approach can build trust and serve as a public policy tool to ensure that research with human stem-cell-based embryo models serves both scientific and societal values. It can turn ethical reasoning into a shared, evolving tool that guides innovation while maintaining public trust in science, especially in sensitive areas.

In science, ethical guidelines ensure that research takes place in a way that respects public trust and is conducted responsibly. Traditional ethics approval procedures work well for projects following established practices, but they offer little flexibility when unexpected challenges, novel approaches, unanticipated research directions, or unforeseen results arise. For research exploring uncharted ethical ground, such as studies with human stem-cell-based embryo models (hSCBEMs), conventional ethical approval approaches are therefore no longer suitable. 
 
Human stem-cell-based embryo models (hSCBEMs) generated from pluripotent stem cells are a powerful new tool for studying early human development and advancing biomedical research. These models are becoming more complex with increasing similarity to real human embryos. The rapid advances in this field challenge the speed with which traditional ethical oversight bodies typically act and how fast law and regulation might adapt.

The key challenge is one central to all emerging pioneering technologies: that long-term societal impacts are still unknown, because we can’t anticipate all applications and consequences. For hSCBEM research, public trust is at stake if certain developments are perceived as ethically troubling, while premature or unnecessary strict regulation driven by speculative fears or concerns could put a hold on promising scientific progress before its biomedical benefits are realized. Finding the right balance by supporting innovation while being thoughtful about ethics and public trust is therefore essential.
 
In a recent article published in Nature Cell Biology, an international group of leading experts in stem-cell-based embryo models and their ethical and legal implications propose a new framework for integrating ethical evaluation directly into hSCBEM research. The publication was spearheaded by a European Innovation Council-supported Engineered Living Materials consortium including scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany, and the University of Oslo, Norway. Rather than treating ethical assessment as a ‘box-checking’ exercise or as an external judgment, the authors advocate for an embedded ethics approach. This ethics model takes the form of active society-facing discussions among researchers, ethicists, policymakers, and the public throughout the research process. Such embedded ethics approaches have been established for research fields of comparable high societal relevance and ethical sensitivity, such as Artificial intelligence (AI).

One of the lead and corresponding authors of the current article is Jesse Veenvliet, research group leader at the MPI-CBG, whose “Stembryogenesis” research group reconstructs development in a dish to understand how embryos build themselves. “Our embedded ethics framework benefits everyone involved. It helps ethicists and legal experts to learn about the science firsthand and understand the promises and limitations of the research. It helps researchers to navigate ethical questions and contribute their voice to policy and societal debates. For society, it ensures that pioneering research is conducted responsibly, building public trust while supporting an innovative and competitive, yet responsible, research ecosystem,” explains Jesse Veenvliet.

To foster scientifically strong and ethically responsible research with hSCBEMs, embedded ethics provides a flexible, ongoing framework for scientists, ethicists, and legal experts. Unlike traditional ethics approval procedures, it encourages early and open dialogue, helping to anticipate challenges, guide decision-making, and balance innovation with caution. Importantly, the proposed framework provides a practical way to operationalize the iterative, responsive oversight and approval process recommended in the newest International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) hSCBEM guidelines. By integrating continuous ethical reflection into the design and conduct of experiments, embedded ethics makes ethical reasoning transparent and shared to support responsible research, build public trust, and ensure that science can advance in line with societal values.

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Journal

Nature Cell Biology

DOI

10.1038/s41556-026-01909-9 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

A guide to using embedded ethics in human stem-cell-based embryo model research.

Article Publication Date

8-Apr-2026

COI Statement

Competing interests The KU Leuven, Belgium has filed a patent application (PCT/EP2023/073949). V.P. is one of the inventors on this patent. N.M. is an inventor on patents PCT/GB2019/052670 and PCT/GB2019/052668 owned by Cambridge Enterprise. N.R. is an inventor on the patents ‘Blastoid, cell line based artificial blastocyst’ (EP2986711) and ‘Blastocyst-like cell aggregate and methods’ (EP21151455.9). The remaining authors declare no competing interests.