European Union News - Research & Innovation

A team of Spanish scientific has successfully defined translators that permit understanding between contents in both protocols by means of a technology called NAT64 and DNS64, which is the standard used by the major manufacturers of routers, such as Cisco or Juniper, and the major sellers of the Domain Name System (DNS), such as Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) or Microsoft.

A report published by the European Commission shows that EU research funding reaches 15% target for SMEs. The last months of 2011 saw a significant increase in the budget share allocated to SMEs. The goal set by the European Parliament and European Council for FP7 has been surpassed according to the report. The Commission also highlighted that Horizon 2020, will continue to support the competitiveness of SMEs.

The Joint Research Centre is supporting the Italian authorities in monitoring the movements of the cruise ship that grounded off in Tuscany with an innovative radar system. Data on the ship movements have been of fundamental importance during the search and rescue operations and will remain crucial when the fuel is pumped off the ship's tanks.

The Commission published the main results of a consultation on the European Research Area (ERA). The researcher community agreed on the need to attract and retain more leading researchers in Europe and to provide researchers with better and especially business-relevant skills, according to one of the major findings of the survey.

A EU-funded research has identified the so-called 'nourishing gene', which in charge of transferring nutrients from plants to seeds. This new discovery could help increase global food production while it also has implications for food security.

The European Research Council (ERC) supports with a budget of €660 million 294 senior top researchers in Europe. These established scientists will perform ground-breaking 'blue sky' research over the coming five years across Europe. The projects selected cover a wide array of topics.

The Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) from the European Commission has launched a new service which unlocks EU-funded projects information. This new service will be a comprehensive reference point for project participants, coordinators and stakeholders.

The European Parliament approved a resolution on "EU space strategy" in which MEPs agreed that the GMES earth observation programme should be officially included in the EU's multi-annual financial plans and the EU Galileo satellite navigation programme should also get proper long-term funding.

EU-funded researchers have developed a robot able to help neurosurgeons in performing keyhole brain surgery. The robot has already been tested for its accurate performance during keyhole surgery tests on dummies. The researchers believe this robot can be used to help physicians treat their patients for epilepsy, Tourette's syndrome and Parkinson's disease.

According to a study published by Science and co-authored by the Joint Research Centre, a limited number of air quality measures can substantially mitigate global warming and have significant benefits for human health and agriculture. In particular, the scientists identified 14 emission control measures that, according to the study, can best help to limit global warming and improve health and food security in the coming decades.

The European Medicines Agency launches a public consultation aimed at evaluating the revised guideline which provide advices and information on all stages of clinical drug development for the treatment of malignancies, including drug resistance modifiers or normal tissue protective compounds.