Is talented youth nurtured the wrong way? New study shows: top performers develop differently than assumed
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 20-Dec-2025 04:11 ET (20-Dec-2025 09:11 GMT/UTC)
Exceptional performers drive innovation and help solve humanity's most pressing problems. Societies have a vital interest in the development of top performers in various fields. A recent review in the journal Science suggests that gifted education and talent programs have been based on false premises. For the first time, an international, interdisciplinary research team has collated the development of world-class performers in science, classical music, chess, and sports.
The University of Texas at San Antonio has received a $7 million gift commitment from longtime philanthropic supporter and former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre and his wife Linda Whitacre to advance research, student success and athletics.
The Whitacres have made a transformational $5 million commitment to honor the late William L. Henrich, MD, former president of UT Health San Antonio, whose visionary leadership and unwavering compassion shaped the university for more than a decade.
The gift will advance the institution’s nationally recognized expertise in metabolic health — an area of research and clinical care that includes diabetes, obesity and related conditions that profoundly affect longevity and quality of life. This investment will fuel groundbreaking discovery aimed at confronting the region’s diabetes crisis, where one in six South Texans lives with the disease, and will further strengthen UT Health San Antonio’s role as a leader in improving health outcomes for the communities it serves.
An additional $2 million commitment from the Whitacres will support the Margie and Bill Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design and UTSA Athletics.
Speakers highlighted the GCC’s resilience and reforms as key factors in maintaining an advantage amid uneven global growth; Leaders agreed that while technology is advancing rapidly, judgment, capital allocation and governance are increasingly determining who pulls ahead and who falls behind in a K-shaped global economy; Discussions explored how compressed decision cycles are reshaping organisations and investment models, with direct implications for talent pipelines, junior roles and the future structure of work; Family offices emerged as a focal point, as intergenerational transitions drive a shift from wealth preservation toward private assets, direct ownership and venture building.
Although laptops and tablets have flooded into schools over the past decade, a new study published online on March 1, 2024, in ECNU Review of Education warns that the real “digital divide” has not disappeared but has become more hidden. The study points out that in the “post-digital era,” digital inequality has shifted from a lack of hardware to how technology is used, and school leaders play a critical role in this.