European Union News - Research & Innovation

European Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) contribute 50 billion Euro to the EU economy, according to a new study published on October 27. The report, put together by European research organisation the Technopolis Group, reveals that in addition to boosting economic growth, RTOs help tackle key challenges facing Europe, such as the need to develop innovative renewable energy supplies.

Time consuming and expensive cervical cancer screening will become a thing of the past thanks to breakthrough technology developed by EU-funded researchers. Their discovery will allow large-range screening by non-medical personnel with almost immediate results and at a much lower cost than is possible with existing technology.

The European Commission is marking the tenth anniversary of GÉANT, the EU-funded high-speed research network. GÉANT has made it possible for scientists both across Europe and globally to work together in real time on ground-breaking research. This communication network has enabled scientists from across Europe and the world to work together in real time in pioneering research projects, improving the chances of outcomes in research projects in many different research fields.

EU-funded researchers have kick-started an innovative project that aims to resolve semantic interoperability issues currently impacting cloud platforms and introduce a user-centric approach for applications that are built upon and deployed using cloud resources.

An international group of environmental experts is waving another red flag as new research from the Arctic region shows that the area is not getting any relief from climate change, which is impacting not only the ecosystems and the lives of creatures living there but also the weather patterns in the most populated parts of the northern Hemisphere. The findings are presented in the 'Arctic Report Card', an annual review of the conditions up north.

The role of innovation is pivotal in tackling the economic, social and environmental challenges facing Europe, according to the recent Second European Innovation Summit held at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. But getting ideas to market is a road often hampered by administrative bottlenecks and red tape. The causality is European competiveness and research in the global economy.

The power of open access (OA) publishing to enhance the impacts of research is highlighted by a new study carried out by scientists in Canada and the UK and published in the journal PLoS ONE. The researchers hope their findings will encourage more universities, research institutions and research funders to adopt OA self-archiving mandates, in which all research published under their auspices is made freely available to other researchers.

The European Commission is investing in a research project to develop new systemic risk indicators for “early warning systems” that could alert governments and bankers to impending financial crises in the earliest stages and take early action to stop them from spreading. Researchers from universities in Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, experts at Yahoo! and the European Central Bank will investigate how financial institutions are exposed to systemic risk as a result of complex, highly inter-connected digital information and transaction systems.

In a bid to investigate how the climate has changed over time, scientists have often turned to ice cores, lake sediments and tree rings. But now researchers from France and the United Kingdom have discovered another, albeit unusual resource, that is shedding new light on climate change, especially in drier areas: ancient animal urine. The team received a grant from the European Research Council for their study.

The Council held on 12 October a policy debate in public deliberation about the draft regulation aimed at establishing translation arrangements for a future EU patent system. The political orientation highlights that a European patent will be an important instrument for European business whose innovation capacity depends on the existence of a reliable and accessible system of patent protection throughout the internal market.

The Competitiveness Council, held in Luxembourg on 12 October addressed a series of questions regarding the attractiveness of EU Research and Innovation programmes and the challenge involved in their simplification. Ministers agreed that simplification of the research and innovation programmes is a crucial and urgent necessity to overcome the current complexity of funding.