European Union News - Research & Innovation

Fusion for Energy has released its fourth annual report, detailing the the activities carried out over year 2011. The report highlights the main construction works carried out over the year which have boosted the projects, as well as the agreements put in place with other projects, the budgetary and administrative elements of its functioning and the improvements in F4E's governance.

By establishing this network the European Commission aims to facilitate the exchange of information between science and practice in the field of agriculture, and to create a space for exchanging experience and knowledge. The European Commission has launches a public tender on the technical assistance contract for the creation and development of the network.

According to the results of this study urgent action must be taken to reduce emissions in order to avoid a global catastrophe by 2050. Researchers working in different projects funded by European research programmes have analyser for the first time all five major air pollutants that have harmful effects on human health and have concluded that air quality could reach dangerous levels in less than 35 years.

The European mission Mars Express developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) welcomed to the Red Planet the Curiosity rover sent by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ESA’s New Norcia tracking station also picked up signals directly from the NASA mission, 248 million km away at Mars.

Spanish and German researchers funded by EU programs in support to research and technological development have gone a step further in determining the chemical nature of materials at the nanometer scale. The results of this research may be applied to the chemical identification of of virtually any infrared-active material on the nanometer scale.

The European Commission presented the measures to improve open access to scientific information produced in Europe. According to the Commission, broader and more rapid access to scientific papers and data will make it easier for researchers and businesses to build on the findings of public-funded research.

The European Commission proposed to reform the European rules to speed up and simplify the authorisation and reporting procedures, while maintaining the highest standards of patient safety and robustness and reliability of data.

The new measures proposed by the European Commission have as main goal to enable researchers, research institutions and businesses to better move, compete and co-operate across borders. Almost 80% of the research community indicated that lack of open and transparent recruitment hinders international mobility.

Scientists from Imperial College London in the United Kingdom and the University of Vigo in Spain has made a technological breakthrough with its development of an ultra-sensitive test with the capacity to detect signs of a disease in its earliest stages.