European Union News - Research & Innovation

New approaches for measuring biomarkers for diagnostics and a sophisticated system for integrating the information analytically are the achievements of a team of EU-funded researchers. This team has developed a new system, which offers researchers an objective method for measuring the patient's state of Alzheimer's disease.

The task force set up by the European Commission on the future of the European Research Council (ERC) has recommended a number of changes designed to reinforce the ERC's flexibility, efficiency and autonomy and to make it easier for researchers to apply for and manage ERC grants. Among the changes, the task force recommends from 2014 a quasi-full time role for the President of the ERC, who chairs its Scientific Council, which sets the organisation's scientific and research policy.

GREEN EMOTION is an initiative which has as main goal to get electric vehicles onto the roads in all over Europe. This is a pan-European research effort that it is funded in part with €24 million from the European Commission.

An expert group established as part of the Seventh Framework Programme's (FP7) regional calls for 2010 has published a new report which highlights cooperative nature of EU's future research policy. The philosophy behind synergy is very much one of joining up the dots to ensure that policies are aligned and don't overlap. For the solution, the team also recommends that the Structural Funds be better exploited and they advise using the European Social Fund (ESF) to promote greater synergies between education and innovation programmes. 

CORDIS, the Community Research and Development Information Service, has just launched a new Partners Service, designed to help users to promote expertise and organisations, find business or research partners, create groups, join networks and find the right components for funding bids and proposals.

A EU funded research seeks restructuring air traffic across the region to meet the challenges head on. Current systems oblige pilots and air traffic controllers to communicate verbally. With this new technology would generate digitalised information, giving multiple user groups like ground crews access to information. The upshot is that shorter flight times, fewer delays and a better flow of information between airline and airport personnel will result.

The 2010 Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) funded 42 eco-innovation projects under the 2010 call for proposals. The CIP Eco-innovation funds are designed to support new products, services and processes that use fewer natural resources and produce less waste, emissions and pollutants.

An international research partially funded with European funds has shed new light on the history of a cosmic crash - Abell 2744 - that emerged millions of years ago. The study, funded in part by the DARKMATTERDARKENERGY project, can help to reveal how structures form in the universe, and how different types of matter interact with each other when they are smashed together.

The European Commission presented thirteen photonics research projects in the field of high-speed fibre broadband networks with the aim of developing technologies to give every Europeans access to fast and ultra fast broadband by 2020.

The Council agreed on general approaches on two draft regulations implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of unitary patent protection. The Council use the enhanced cooperation to launch the procedure. It was requested by 25 out of 27 EU member states with the aim of establishing a unitary patent that will be valid across the territory of the participating member states. All member states except Italy and Spain were in favour of the use of enhanced cooperation.