Spotlight
In a conversation with Jonny Gould, Professor Zvi Gitelman of the University of Michigan highlights the Blavatnik Archive’s role in preserving Jewish wartime experiences. Founded by Len Blavatnik in 2005, the Archive supports the study of twentieth-century Jewish and world history, with a particular focus on the two world wars and Soviet Russia. Between 2006 and 2014, its interviewers filmed nearly 1,200 Jewish Red Army veterans and former partisans across eleven countries. The collection includes more than 1,500 hours of testimony, transcribed and translated into English, alongside photographs, letters, diaries, and other personal records. Gitelman explains how these testimonies preserve experiences often excluded from official Soviet accounts, conveying emotions and perspectives that written documents alone cannot capture. While acknowledging the limitations of memory, he emphasizes the value of these professionally recorded interviews, made before the rise of AI, amid growing concerns about misinformation and historical distortion.
Technology Networks highlights the research of Dr. Erin S. Calipari, a Vanderbilt University professor and 2026 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Finalist. Her team’s experiments suggest that dopamine signals how attention-grabbing an experience is, rather than reward alone. Observations that dopamine also increases in response to unpleasant and unfamiliar stimuli prompted the researchers to explore its broader role in learning. Their findings suggest that dopamine helps the brain determine which experiences deserve attention, influencing how quickly it learns and helping it filter out irrelevant information. This perspective could inform future research into addiction and psychiatric disorders, although its implications for treatment require further investigation. Calipari also reflects on how recognition through the Blavatnik Awards provides opportunities to learn from researchers across disciplines and consider new directions for her work.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has joined the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government as a Distinguished Fellow and member of its World Leaders Circle. He brings a decade of experience as prime minister, having served from 2015 to 2025. The World Leaders Circle connects former heads of government with the School’s research and teaching to help strengthen governance worldwide. Students benefit from opportunities to learn directly from leaders who have navigated the complexities of government and to discuss what makes leadership effective. Trudeau will share his experience with fellow leaders and students, with a focus on responding to global and technological change, fostering international cooperation, and strengthening public trust in democratic institutions.
Edmund Richardson has won the 2026 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for Alexander: God, King, Man. The Blavatnik Family Foundation supported the prize ceremony, held at BMA House in London on November 4. This is the first book on ancient history to receive the award since the prize was established in 1999. Drawing on more than a decade of research across four continents and new translations from twelve ancient languages, Richardson explores the life of Alexander the Great. The judges praised his combination of historical scholarship, recent archaeological discoveries, and engaging storytelling. Selected from more than 350 eligible books, the work earned Richardson his first major prize.
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The Blavatnik Archive is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving and disseminating materials that contribute to the study of 20th-century Jewish and world history, with a special emphasis on World War I, World War II, and Soviet Russia.
