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The European Commission is making a big push to reform research assessment, but Germany's university leaders are not convinced the call for change from above is the right way to deliver it.
In a landmark decision this week, the European Research Council (ERC) announced changes to its application forms and evaluation procedures that will be implemented starting with the 2024 calls for proposals.
Of 174 UK-based ERC grant winners 23, or around one in eight, have decided to relocate, while only four of 66 researchers based in Switzerland did so.
The European Parliament is facing a reputation crisis after Eva Kaili, one of the its 14 vice presidents, was arrested over corruption charges last Friday. Kaili was one of four people arrested following 16 police searches in Brussels, during which €600,000 cash was seized. Following the arrest, Parliament president Roberta Metsola warned that "European democracy is under attack."
The EU is working on defining a new agenda for science diplomacy in the face of increasing geopolitical instability on the continent.
In recent weeks, the European Commission outlined its health strategy and the steps needed to be in a better position to tackle future health emergencies.
The EU and US have set out a joint roadmap to find common ways to define and evaluate artificial intelligence (AI), though critics say they are still not going far enough to make sure AI protects democracy and human rights.
The European Commission's acknowledgement that research and innovation have the potential to generate environmental harms can be viewed as a landmark in the history of research policy.
Along with New Zealand, Canada will soon be the first country to join Horizon Europe under new rules that allow "like minded" democracies with strong science systems to associate, regardless of where they are in the world.
The European Parliament has launched a permanent forum to debate new policies and laws to protect academics in the EU against interference from government or other sources, after experts raised the alarm over the erosion of academic freedom in Europe.
Increasing investments, transforming research culture and boosting talent attraction - these are the recommendations for a more equal European R&I landscape outlined in a new paper by Science Europe.
For years, big advances in science and technology have propelled economic growth world-wide. Now, as geopolitical tensions mount, leaders of the US scientific community fret that rising government security measures may kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Ukrainian researchers are planning for a brighter future for their country, despite ongoing bombing and electricity shortages. A delegation from Ukraine's research community, led by first deputy minister for education and science, Andrii Vitrenko, came to Brussels last week for the first joint meeting on research and innovation with the European Commission.
Arctic scientists are scrambling to modify projects that had involved Russian researchers as the war in Ukraine wears on, leaving questions about whether a data gap from such a key partner might be harmful to the ongoing body of scientific knowledge in the region.
EU policymakers have reached a deal on the budget for next year, and with the focus squarely on tackling the fallout from the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis, research and innovation do not feature at the top of the policy priorities.
The EU moved to exclude the UK from Horizon Europe calls on sensitive quantum projects in October due to doubts over the country's willingness to provide EU researchers with reciprocal access to UK programmes and to comply with intellectual property rules. The move reverses the EU's previous decision to accept UK participation in more mature quantum projects with high 'technology readiness levels'.
Ukraine urgently needs new doctoral schools to train its next generation of academics, according to a senior Ukrainian science administrator. He warned that, without that and other measures to stop "internal brain drain", many researchers are fleeing universities for better paid IT jobs in order to make ends meet. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, European countries have launched countless schemes and scholarships to help displaced Ukrainian students and academics.
The QuantERA programme is designed to accelerate the development of quantum technologies (QT) in Europe, amid global competition. A member of the QuantERA Strategic Advisory Board - a scientific body with a broad range of perspectives in the QT field - has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Prof. Alain Aspect, along with Prof. John. F. Cluster and Prof. Anton Zelilinger received the prize "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science".
US voters are expected to go to the polls in record numbers on November 8, driven by concerns about inflation, the economy and abortion rights. Layered on top of that are low approval ratings for President Joe Biden and ongoing polarisation among voters and politicians stirred by former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The EU has been pushing for convergence in the university sector for several decades, but when it comes to collaborating transnationally, universities struggle to deal with the patchwork of national regulations governing higher education. The European University Association (EUA) has taken stock and listed the biggest barriers to transnational collaboration in a briefing paper last week.
The European Innovation Council's (EIC) future will involve more horizon scanning, intelligence and strategy, according to a programme manager responsible for scoping the potential for technological and innovation breakthroughs and for directing EIC health-related projects, to ensure there is a coherent plan that will support development of a competitive sector.
George Freeman has been reappointed as UK science minister four months after he resigned from the post when former prime minister Boris Johnson lost power. Jan Palmowski, secretary general at The Guild of European Research Intensive universities welcomed the news, telling Science|Business, Freeman knows the science sector and "gets the importance of Europe."
The impact of the war in Ukraine is reverberating through research infrastructures, with rising energy costs and shortages of equipment manufactured abroad hitting these important shared facilities and forcing some to temporarily close their doors.
US and EU officials agreed to expand R&D collaboration on cancer, climate change, green aviation and other fields, signaling a further warming of transatlantic science relations.
New Zealand and the European Commission announced they will enter formal negotiations on joining Horizon Europe, the EU's €95.5 billion research and innovation programme. Along with Canada, New Zealand was the first highly industrialised country to start exploratory talks with the EU on becoming an associated country in Horizon Europe. In the previous research programme, Horizon 2020, New Zealand participated as a 'third country' a status that does not offer the full benefits of association.
The European Research Area (ERA) Forum is about to enter its implementation phase, after mapping out priorities across twenty R&I policy actions proposed by the European Commission.
The European Commission is about to embark on assessments of the EU's research programmes, guided by a joint consultation with stakeholders opening in November. Three tasks on the agenda are a new strategic plan for the current €95.5 billion Horizon Europe research framework; evaluation of the first half of Horizon Europe; and the final assessment of the previous research programme, Horizon 2020.
Fundamental science is a gamble. Scientists set out on projects in pursuit of knowledge, hoping to answer questions that no one has answered before. But in 2007 the EU decided it would give billions to the pursuit. Fifteen years on, the European Research Council (ERC) can justly claim to be doing well. Last week, three scientists who have received ERC funding won Nobel prizes.
