26th February 2026
Different Memories, Shared Futures: Why Inclusive Remembrance Matters for Serbia and the Region
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
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22nd December 2025
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17th December 2025
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20th May 2016 Houston, USA
FUNDING: Longitude Prize Discovery Awards
Longitude Prize is a five-year challenge with a £10 million prize fund. Launched in November 2014 it aims to conserve antibiotics for future generations, revolutionising global healthcare. It commemorates the 300th anniversary of the Longitude Act of 1714, the first British challenge prize, to determine longitude at sea. The prize is looking for a quick and […]
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20th May 2016 Los Angeles, USA
Hyperloop: Just a Pipe Dream?
In July 2012, Elon Musk touted a proposal that would place the Jetsons within the realm of possibility. He proposed a solar-powered tunnel which could transport people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in an unbelievable 30 minutes. You would think we were discussing the future, but this idea has been floating around for over a […]
20th May 2016 London, England
DRC: The future still can be bright…..but not on the current trajectory
When I last blogged about DRC, I set out why the UK/DRC relationship mattered, the importance of democracy as the bedrock of stability and my strong hope that the government would reaffirm its commitment to respecting the constitution and to delivering Presidential elections within the mandated timeframe. Last week I was in Kinshasa. Following my […]
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20th May 2016 London, UK
Digital training and capability at FCO: a new strategic approach
Digital training at the FCO has reached toddler-hood. Claire Collins blogged in November about its one year birthday and now, just like a toddler, it’s good at attracting attention and charming all who meet it! FCO staff who’ve taken up the Digital Transformation Unit (DTU) global training offer have been overwhelmingly positive about the quality […]
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19th May 2016 Los Angeles, USA
Trust Your Gut: Scientists Want to Study your Microbiome
It’s easy to forget that there are trillions of microbes that call us home. We tend to only think about our inhabitants when they’re causing us harm, but science suggests there’s much more to our microscopic squatters. Currently hailed as “the holy grail of health and wellness,” the microbiome is the ecosystem that lives in, […]
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19th May 2016 Los Angeles, USA
Funding: Global Challenges Research Fund
Agriculture and Food Systems call (~£15M) The challenge of ensuring access to a safe, sufficient and nutritious diet for a healthy life – whilst maintaining a healthy agri-environment – will intensify as demand for food rises with an increasing global population, urbanisation and changing diets. At the same time as ensuring a sustainable food supply […]
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19th May 2016 Skopje, North Macedonia
Sporting Diversity
I was on Facebook yesterday evening and I saw something that shocked me. It was a post which said that the World Health Organisation only took homosexuality off the list of mental disorders in 1990. I found it hard to believe that anyone over 25 years old has lived in a time when a global […]
19th May 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Making the Case for Tolerance
This afternoon I will attend a memorial service in the City of London’s Guildhall to celebrate the long, eventful life of Sir Nicholas Winton, who died last year aged 106. As a young man, Sir Nicholas travelled briefly to Prague in 1938 to help a friend facilitating urgent evacuation of refugees from the looming Nazi […]
18th May 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Pontifical Diplomacy
The international activism and high profile of Pope Francis has generated renewed interest in the nature and practice of the Holy See’s diplomacy. Just in the last week, the Pope visited the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy – the papal diplomatic college – to meet the young priests preparing there to take up their role as a […]
18th May 2016
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Arctic Convoys: UK veteran leaves his medals to a school in Murmansk
Russia celebrated Victory Day on 9 May. Commemorative events took place across the country. In St Petersburg, I joined the Governor and thousands of St Petersburg residents to lay flowers at Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, where half a million of the victims of the Leningrad Siege are buried. The following day I was in Murmansk, another […]
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