Tag: Science

SPECIAL REPORT / More than a decade after it was established, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) still struggles to persuade consumers that it is a credible risk assessor working for the public good and not unduly influenced by corporate lobbyists.

The EU’s chief scientific advisor has said that evidence allows the go-ahead for extracting shale gas, the energy source at the centre of a European policy tug-of-war.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced on Wednesday (27 February) the creation of an advisory group on science and technology, 13 months after the appointment of the Commission’s first scientific advisor.

Europe needs to boost its innovation capacity if it wants to keep its seat at the global innovation table. Although this is a call to all European countries, it holds especially for large yet low-innovating countries such as Italy, writes Reinhilde Veugelers.

Research institutions must realise that there are smarter ways to use the funds they have. The entire focus of the European Gender Summit is to highlight gender as a tool for making research more effective and for achieving results of a higher quality, says Curt Rice.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has called for a further strengthening of the EU's risk assessment capacity at a high-level scientific conference in Parma to mark the agency's 10th anniversary.

Politicians sometimes shy away from science, but they should be clear about why they reject scientific evidence in future, the European Commission’s first chief scientific advisor told EurActiv. In an interview, she says GMOs are a good example of where policy has trumped science.

A huge pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean is expanding and could lower Europe’s temperature by causing a mild ocean current to slow down, British scientists say.

Helga Nowotny of the European Research Council analyses the future of research, innovation and development in Europe, particularly in light of the upcoming determination of the EU's long-term budget for the period 2014-2020.

Europe risks being left behind by its global competitors as a shortage of engineers and scientists feed into lower productivity and a loss of domestic and international trade, delegates at this year's European Business Summit will hear.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday (10 March) that a group of national science academies would review UN climate science to restore trust after a 2007 global warming report was found to have errors.

Researchers have sought to speed up the ongoing Copenhagen climate talks by gathering evidence of the catastrophic impacts of accelerating global warming. But climate science has been disputed by sceptics who say such claims are unfounded.

The newly-elected director-general of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, presented to EurActiv in an interview her ambitious plans for the organisation, responsible for promoting education, science and culture throughout the world. She attached special importance to francophony. 

37 national projects have joined forces to set up a European Grid Initiative - a distributed computing network - that will enable laboratories to collaborate via thousands of computers merged into one supercomputer.

Analysis of blood, tissue, urine or hair samples to detect the presence of certain substances in the human body, known as human biomonitoring (HBM), can provide a useful link between environmental pollution and health, but the interpretation of data is still controversial, panellists agreed during a Green Week debate.

In a debate on "Communicating science-based debates with stakeholders", speakers from NGOs, industry and the media agreed that a more pro-active approach was needed to create credibility for science-based policy making.

In a meeting of research ethics committees from across Europe, EU politicians emphasised the importance of scientific freedom and called for tolerant dialogue on ethics in research.

Results of the Commission consultation on nanotechnology reveal strong stakeholder consensus that nanotechnology will have a significant impact on European industry and its competitiveness within ten years from now.

A smoother regulatory process and faster market access for new drugs would counter the decrease in innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, indicates a recent EU report.

A large majority of Swiss voters have approved a law allowing the extraction of stem cells from human embryos up to seven days old to be used for research. Only the use of cells left over from in-vitro fertilisation is allowed.

GÉANT-2, an upgraded version of the current GÉANT will give researchers their own 'wavelengths' across the continent.