European Union News - Research & Innovation

The European Space Agency (ESA) welcomed the Council decision to secure the Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme (GMES) EU funding through 2020. Within the new multiannual financial framework, €3786 million was allocated for GMES. ESA highlights that this amount covers GMES Services, In-Situ Component (a network of sensors on the ground, at sea and in the air) and the Space Component, securing funding for the programme’s long-term operational phase.

The Council held a policy debate on open access to scientific information of public-funded research projects. Member states agreed on the need to promote common implementation standards and criteria, including interoperable infrastructures, in order to achieve the maximum benefit from the open access in a sustainable way within a digital European Research Area.

The Joint Research Centre has conducted a series of measurements to check the efficiency of pedestrian dummies in testing autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems in conventional cars. Conclusions show that results of the 2 frequency bands do not show significant differences. However, in the higher frequency bands, the height of the pedestrian has a clearer effect on the RCS averages observed.

The European Commission announced the launching of an observatory that will gather data to follow the evolution of markets, to map EU, national and regional bioeconomy policies, research and innovation capacities, and the scale of related public and private investments.

The European Commission presented the OMEGA research project, that uses light to help achieve higher broadband speeds. According to the Commission, the technology developed by the OMEGA project could ensure that every office and household has enough bandwidth to connect a range of "smart" objects to each other like phones, cars and domestic appliances.

The European Research Council (ERC) published the outcome of the latest round of its top-up funding scheme 'Proof of Concept'. A total of 60 grants, worth €150,000 each, have now been awarded to researchers who are already ERC grantees in order to bridge the gap between their work and marketable innovation.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission strongly supports the development of a harmonised cancer information system for Europe and the improvement of breast cancer services and screening guidelines. This announcement was made on the World Cancer Day 2013 which intends to raise collective awareness and improve general knowledge around and about cancer.