For many families, sitting down to watch a Christmas Special is as much a part of the holiday season as the Queen’s Speech, a carol service in the parish church, or a trip to the pantomime.But when did the tradition of a holiday-themed premiere start? Professor Paul Raffield of Warwick Law School argues that the Christmas special can be traced back to the creative mind of William Shakespeare, and specifically the premiere of The Comedy of Errors at Gray’s Inn on 28 December 1594.

Four Warwick students have been recognised as champions of social mobility at the inaugural Student Social Mobility Awards, hosted by Baroness Helena Kennedy in the House of Lords on December 13. The Awards were organised by upReach, supported by the Social Mobility Commission, to showcase the achievements of students and 2018 graduates from less advantaged backgrounds.

The University of Warwick has been ranked among the best universities in the world for politics and international studies and sociology, business and economics, education and law, according to the Times Higher Education’s 2019 World Reputation Rankings released this week. Warwick is one of just 7 UK universities to be listed in the top 100 in all four subject groups and scored particularly highly for business and economics, placing 33^rd in the world.

Matt Western MP and West Midlands finance and industry leaders joined Dr Stephen Connelly and Dr Andreas Kokkinis from Warwick Law School at the first University of Warwick Business Forum, a new initiative aiming to connect the University’s experts with the region's business community.

The fourth in a new series of briefs bringing current legal thinking to bear on public policy issues has been published by GLOBE, a research centre within the University of Warwick’s Law School. The Risks of Using Blended Finance in Development, by Dr Celine Tan, Associate Professor at Warwick Law School, highlights the risks posted by the increasing reliance on new forms of private and innovative finance for funding development projects, calls for action to address the regulatory challenges that blended finance presents, and warns that the use of blended finance should not be intensified without adequate safeguards in place.

Research by Professor Ann Stewart of Warwick Law School, supported by Dr Jennifer Lander (now at De Montfort University) into the interaction between gender and ageing in rural Kenya underpins a new discussion paper published in conjunction with HelpAge International as a resource for policymakers, international NGOs, national and local governments, and older people themselves.