The first national randomized trial of public Montessori preschool students showed stronger long-term outcomes by kindergarten, including elevated reading, memory, and executive function as compared to non-Montessori preschoolers. The research also appears highly actionable for policymakers, because the results found the Montessori programs delivered better outcomes at sharply lower costs. The study of 588 children across two dozen programs nationwide shows an imperative to follow and study these outcomes through graduation and beyond.

An accountable care organization based at the University of Michigan reports results for financial savings and quality improvement in the care of older Michiganders with traditional Medicare. 

For decades, the world has ranked nations by how competitive their industries are, but the measure used may be flawed. A new research project led by the University of Surrey suggests that the standard United Nations index used to judge countries’ manufacturing power can produce misleading results, with its simplistic weighting system masking true performance and unfairly favouring some economies over others. 

New research published by Wiley online in CANCER reveals that the number and complexity of cancer clinical trials since 2001 have varied across low- and middle-income countries, with economic growth contributing to disparities, but only to a certain extent.

New research demonstrates that China's Green Credit Guidelines significantly strengthen the peer effect in ESG compliance among brown firms. Using a natural experiment approach, the study reveals how environmental regulations create behavioural convergence in corporate sustainability practices, though with asymmetric effects across different market contexts.

In a Policy Forum, David Victor and colleagues outline a framework for incentivizing meaningful investments into high-risk, transformative clean technologies in the aviation industry. While massive reductions in global emissions are needed to combat climate change, most current clean investments focus on low-risk, mature technologies such as renewable energy, batteries, and electric vehicles. However, many sectors, including aviation, which accounts for about 3% of global emissions, face steep technological and economic barriers to decarbonization, making formative solutions risky and unattractive to investors. These industries are also highly competitive, leaving little room for bold, costly experimentation. According to Victor et al., building a low-carbon aviation industry requires tackling two core issues: the lack of breakthrough clean technologies and weak incentives for investors to take risks on them. In a competitive, capital-intensive sector, the authors note that few will innovate without stronger support and rewards for risk-taking. Although vast sums of money flow into aviation each year, almost none is directed toward sustainability, as investors favor low-risk, high-return projects. To address this, the authors propose an “aviation sustainability index” (ASI), which assigns measurable scores to projects, like adopting efficient aircraft or sustainable fuels, based on their emissions impact. This could help guide investment decisions by providing a credible framework linking financial rewards to verified climate benefits. This could allow investors to distinguish genuine progress from greenwashing and steer capital toward high-impact projects. “In many respects, the challenges in this sector are shared across other “hard to abate” sectors such as ship- ping, heavy freight, steel, and others,” write Victor et al. “All face the common challenge that there are many ideas for new technologies and business models, but none gets sufficient traction because investors don’t know which vision is most credible; there are few rewards for taking bigger risks.”

Cutting planet-warming pollution to near-zero will take more than inventing new clean technologies—it will require changing how the world invests in them. That’s especially true for industries like aviation, where developing and adopting greener solutions is risky and expensive, according to a University of California San Diego commentary piece in Science.