Photo by noaa on Unsplash The European Parliament has approved the appointment of Iliana Ivanova (Bulgaria) as Commissioner for innovation, research, culture, education and youth. She was voted in by 522 MEPs voting in favour with 27 against and 51 abstained. On 5 September, the Industry, Research and Energy Committee and the Culture and Education…
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the awarding of 400 Starting Grants to young scientists and scholars across Europe. The grants – totalling €628 million – support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from medicine and physics to social sciences and humanities. They will help researchers at the…
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash Last year the UK National Health Service (NHS) booked some 122 million patient appointments, with outpatients making up 80% of the total. With e-mail and SMS messaging apparently regarded as unproven technologies, patients were generally notified by letter costing over £112 million – despite a pledge by Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary…
Photo by Adriana Lorena Benavides Estrada on Unsplash The Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium (Classe des Sciences) has announced that it has selected Alain Hubert, Founder and President of the International Polar Foundation one of the two Belgica Medals the body plans to award for the prize. The Belgica Medal is awarded every…
Photo by Andrea Ferrario on Unsplash A senior European Space Agency official has called for improvement in the space industry’s relationship with citizens. The call came at the “Making Space Matter” summit in Brussels on Tuesday. Frederic Nordlund, Head of the External Relations Department at the European Space Agency (ESA), told the event, “We need to work effectively with…
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash Today there are rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence, changing the way we work. With an increasing population and a warming climate, technology is also potentially helping how the world feeds itself. Selective breeding of crop varieties as practised in the past can now be accelerated by planned genetic enhancements, replacing the…
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash The UK Government loves catchy slogans. From “Getting Brexit Done”, through the Covid campaign of “Hands, Face, Space” and now the latest asylum plan of “Stop the Boats”, slogans are a great substitute for action. As the Conservatives struggle in the polls the slogans are getting longer, such as the objective of…
The Commission and EU High Rep have unveiled for the first time a Joint Communication on a European Space Strategy for Security and Defence. Space systems and services in the European Union are,they say, “crucial” for the functioning of society and economy, as well as for security and defence. As such, the EU has identified…
Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash A coalition of over 50 organisations in 17 EU member states have delivered a petition to the European Commission demanding to keep the new generation of genetically modified organisms ‘regulated and labelled’. The petition ran from April to November 2022 and received 420.000 signatures. European Commission-president Ursula Von der Leyen announced…
A senior Belgian MP has told a conference that the Arctic has, until recently, been a “black hole” for his country. The frank admission was made by Jasper Pillen, a federal deputy in the Belgian House of Representatives, who was addressing a conference on the Arctic. Pillen told the meeting that it was “common to have…
