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Croatia's investment in science from 2005-2011 as a percentage of GDP has dropped, singling it out in the EU, according to the 'Science, technology and innovation in Europe - 2013 edition' report published by the European Commission this month (12 April). Croatia's average annual growth rate in science investment was around minus two per cent compared with an EU average growth rate of around three per cent. (...) - Blog SciLogs "Balkan Science Beat", by MiÄo TataloviÄ, 23 April 2013
In 2011, Slovenia received the largest number of EU research grants of any Western Balkan country, with 98 projects worth a total of €32,401,000 (Turkey was just ahead of it with 158 projects worth €36,685,000). (...) - SciLogs, Blog "Balkan Science Beat", by Mico Tatalovis, 05 March, 2013
After all the scare stories of recent months, the budget settlements for the European Union’s (EU) research and innovation policy Horizon 2020 and the Erasmus for All mobility programme for 2014-20 could well have been a great deal worse. (...) - University World News, by Alan Osborn, 14 February 2013, Issue No:259
Heads of the 27 European Union governments want €8 billion in savings over 7 years. It's bad news for the massive research programme of the European Union (EU). In an acrimonious meeting of the European Council to decide the EU’s general budget for 2014–20, leaders of the union’s 27 member states slashed the €77.6 billion research budget proposed by the European Commission in November 2011 back to €69.24 billion. (...) - by Alison Abbott, Nature, 08 February 2013
A new university ranking system, U-Multirank, was officially launched by the European Union (EU) in Dublin on Wednesday, bringing a new and broader approach to the assessment of universities throughout the world.(...) - University World News, by Alan Osborn, 01 February 2013, Issue No:257
The Europa-Universität Viadrina, founded in 1991 – just a year after German reunification and long before neighbouring Poland became part of the European Union – has one of the highest proportions of foreign students in Germany, writes Christopher F Schuetze for The New York Times. (...) - University World News, The New York Times, 19 January 2013, Issue No:255
European researchers can perhaps be thankful for one thing about last week's European Union budget negotiations: The participants were unable to strike a deal. That may only delay bad news, however. The latest proposals for the innovation budget, which includes research and education funding, cut as much as 15% from the €164 billion proposed last year by the European Commission, the E.U. executive branch. And E.U. research leaders aren't optimistic they'll do much better by the time budget negotiations actually end, which may now be next year. (...) - ScienceInsider, by Gretchen Vogel on 26 November 2012
I find it intriguing that the Bologna process is not in political trouble. Some of the participants in the Bologna ministerial meeting in Bucharest last April were muttering that the process of building a European Higher Education Area was imploding after a decade. And as for those active in European politics and policy-making: they see Bologna and higher education in general as a poor relation in the European policy sphere. But as the debt crisis has hit Europe, and Greeks and Spaniards and Italians are made politically fragile by austerity under European Union (EU) rules, it may be that the European tide is on the turn, and that the qualities of Bologna-style governance in creating a common area by national consensus are more widely recognised. (...) - University World News, Anne Corbett, 18 November 2012, Issue No:248
Auditors lay blame on complexity of payment systems. Millions of euros of European research funding are being claimed in error, with potentially half of all projects funded by the European Union (EU) making mistakes in their accounts. (...) - by Daniel Cressey, Nature news, 09 November 2012
The finances of England’s universities are stronger than predicted a year ago, according to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). But, despite giving a clean bill of health for the next few years, it warns of serious questions over future student recruitment, especially in the international market. (...) - University World News, by David Jobbins, 08 November 2012, Issue No:247
This petition reflects the mobilisation of research communities, including younger scientists, the members of learned societies and of concerned citizens. It complements the open letter of 42 European Nobel Laureates and 5 Fields Medallists recently published in the major European newspapers. ERC Starting Grant holders, organised in the Young Academy of Europe, are some of the first signatories of the petition, which also stresses the importance of funding provided by the European Research Council (ERC) for the attractiveness of Europe for top researchers. The petition is coordinated by the Initiative for Science in Europe (ISE). ---- A top priority for Europe: secure the EU research and innovation budget! We, the researchers in Europe, are convinced that Europe's future depends on making optimal use of its scientific talent for the benefit of science and society;creative environments and research infrastructures are needed in which talent can flourish and innovations emerge; reliable financial support must be provided for long-term, often risky, fundamental research. Only then will the grand challenges be addressed in a sustainable way. Therefore, we strongly support the letter signed by Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners and urge you to act: cuts in the EU budget for research, innovation and education are counter-productive as they will aggravate the problems Europe faces instead of finding solutions;the European Research Council, ERC, is an undeniable success story for Europe. The ERC has demonstrated its ability to find, fund and empower the best researchers and has changed the future outlook of the younger generation. It needs to be strengthened to achieve more scientific-technological breakthroughs leading to future innovation.We urge you to provide a clear signal that investment in research, innovation and education is a top political priority, especially in times of crisis. Europe has been the cradle of modern science and the role accorded to science will shape Europe's future. Sign the petition - and invite others to join! http://www.no-cuts-on-research.eu/index.php?file=insert.php
The European Union’s (EU) Erasmus student exchange programme has run into a major budget shortfall and may not be able to fund students studying abroad from next January. “There’s a problem here and certainly something has to be done,” said Dennis Abbott, the European Commission’s education spokesperson. (...) - Alan Osborn, 4 October 2012, University World News
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Ilaria Capua, recently elected Member of the Italian Parliament, under the umbrella of the Civic Choice movement, talks to the Euroscientist about the kind of reforms that are needed to ensure a sustainable future to Italian research. Prior to her appointment, she has had a successful career as a prominent virologist involved, in particular, in research in H5N1. She is the Director of the division of comparative biomedical sciences at the Experimental Institute for the Prevention of Animal Diseases (Instituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie), Padua, as well as the Director of the International reference laboratory for animal influenza of the OIE Collaborating Centre for Diseases at the Human–Animal Interface. (...) - Euroscientist Blog, April 15th, 2013
The European Commission has set up a science advisory body that will report directly to its president, José Manuel Barroso. The Science and Technology Advisory Council will identify areas where research and innovation can contribute to Europe's growth—with a particular focus on benefits and risks of science and technology advances and how to communicate these. The group, similar to one advising President Barack Obama in the United States, held its first meeting in Brussels today. It is made up of 15 members drawn mostly from academia, including Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, an influential climate scientist from Germany; French mathematician Cédric Villani, who was a Fields medalist in 2010; and Israeli crystallographer Ada Yonath, who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2009. (...) - ScienceInsider, by Tania Rabesandratana, With Reporting by Kai Kupferschmidt on 27 February 2013
The news from last week's E.U. budget summit is decidedly mixed for scientists. On Friday, leaders of the European Union's 27 member states agreed for the first time to make cuts to the union's overall long-term budget. Leaders agreed to spend €960 billion for the 7 years from 2014 through 2020, a cut of 3.4% from the current spending period. In that light, the fact that the section of the budget called "competitiveness," which includes research spending, got a boost of roughly 37% doesn't look so bad. (...) - ScienceInsider, by Gretchen Vogel on 11 February 2013
When the Heads of State and Government meet later this week to discuss the global EU budget 2014-2020 (MFF), the Rectors of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) urge them to take the hard decisions needed to secure Europe’s future economic prosperity and competitiveness against an extremely challenging internal and external environment. (...) Press release, LERU, 03 February, 2013
Researchers have a new set of allies in the campaign to stave off possible cuts to the European Union's research budget. On 30 January, the European Research Council (ERC), which funds top basic research, issued a joint letter with the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), a group that includes several dozen chief executives of Europe's largest companies. The letter calls for European leaders to approve the proposed €80 billion budget for Horizon 2020, the research funding program slated to run from 2014 through 2020.(...) - ScienceInsider, by Gretchen Vogel on 1 February 2013
A few weeks ago the European Students' Union (ESU) celebrated its 30th anniversary. It has been an exciting history for an organisation that started in 1982 as a European information bureau for Western students: a reaction to Soviet domination of the international student movement. In 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, it opened its doors to student movements from across Europe.
Judging by the tales of some of the early heroes and heroines, there were plenty of special moments.(...) - University World News, by Anne Corbett, 06 January 2013, Issue No:253
The economic situation in Europe has hit young people very hard. A good education that prepares them for a world that is increasingly fast-moving, mobile, interdependent and multicultural is fundamental to ensuring they do not become a 'lost generation'. Over the past 25 years, the European Union's (EU) Erasmus programme has allowed nearly three million young Europeans to study abroad. More recently, Erasmus has also supported job placements in companies abroad. (...) - University World News, by Gerard Byrne, 25 November 2012, Issue No:249
Scientists made their voices heard at the highest levels in Europe today. A delegation led by two Nobel laureates held sequential meetings with the European Union's three presidents—European Parliament President Martin Schulz, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, and European Commission President JoseĢ Manuel Barroso—to lobby them to spare research funding from looming cuts in the European Union's budget. (...) - ScienceInsider, by Gretchen Vogel, 15 November 2012
A number of Nobel prize holders have failed to win a European Research Council (ERC) grant because their project proposals were not good enough, ERC President Helga Nowotny (pictured) told a conference held in Barcelona last week to mark the council’s five years of operation. The title of the conference, which took place on 5 November at the University of Pampeu Fabra, was “Enhancing the Attractiveness of European Universities as a Destination for World-Class Research”. Nowotny (pictured) remarked that she would have added the subtitle “In times of austerity”. (...) - University World News, by Jan Petter Myklebust, 11 November 2012, Issue No:247
Universities and individuals – who have been signing a petition at a rate of 4,000 a day – have called on Europe’s political leaders to protect the Horizon 2020 research and Erasmus for All exchange initiatives at an upcoming European Council budget summit. Heads of state are due to discuss the long-term budget for 2014-20 and Multi-annual Financial Framework research organisation on 22-23 November, following a call of the Cypriotic chair of the European Union (EU) to adjust budgets downwards. (...) - University World News, by Jan Petter Myklebust, 11 November 2012, Issue No:247
The main job of the European Union select committee in the House of Lords is to monitor the UK government’s handling of the multitude of proposals, programmes and directives that emanate from the European Union (EU). The Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe debate, which took place on 11 October, was about proposals published in September by the European Commission titled Supporting Growth and Jobs – an Agenda for the Modernisation of Europe’s Higher Education Systems [COM (2011) 567]. The commission’s thesis was that the potential contribution of higher education to Europe’s prosperity remains underexploited. (...) - University World News, Baroness Margaret Sharp, 21 October 2012
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