INRIA / News

Surveillance du net : l'article 13 de la LPM déséquilibre les pouvoirs ... - Les Échos

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 11:27:26 +0000

Surveillance du net : l'article 13 de la LPM déséquilibre les pouvoirs ...
Les Échos
Michel Cosnard (PDG de l'INRIA) prévenait récemment : « Ne soyons pas naïvement confiants dans la technologie. Elle est peut-être neutre, mais son utilisation ne l'est jamais ». Les conséquences des dispositions de l'article 13 de la LPM pourraient en ...

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Incubateur PACA Est : Patrick Valverde élu à la présidence - Webtimemedias.com

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 08:53:43 +0000

Webtimemedias.com

Incubateur PACA Est : Patrick Valverde élu à la présidence
Webtimemedias.com
Directeur d'Inria Sophia Antipolis-Méditerranée, Gérard Giraudon, qui assurait la présidence de l'Incubateur PACA Est depuis 2007, a passé le relais à Patrick Valverde, directeur général de TVT (Toulon Var Technologies) et président national de RETIS.
PACA. Patrick Valverde élu à la présidence de l'incubateur Paca-Est Le Journal des Entreprises

4 autres articles »

Des capteurs pour tout, partout, tout le temps - Les Échos

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 05:10:06 +0000

Les Échos

Des capteurs pour tout, partout, tout le temps
Les Échos
Les chercheurs du Los Alamos National Laboratory ou du MIT, aux Etats-Unis, de l'université Christian-Albrechts de Kiel, en Allemagne, du Leti (Grenoble), de Polytechnique ou de l'Inria, en France, pour ne citer que quelques noms, travaillent sur des ...

Integrating Smart Robots Into Society - Science World Report

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 22:18:57 +0000

Science World Report

Integrating Smart Robots Into Society
Science World Report
The robot must figure out what is going on and how it should respond,' said Dr Horaud, a research director at France's INRIA institute of computational sciences. HUMAVIPS used the opening of an art exhibition as a test, challenging a robot made by ...

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Les réactions des responsables de Bouygues, Orange, Aigle Azur et ... - TSA - Tout Sur l'Algérie

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 19:49:41 +0000

Les réactions des responsables de Bouygues, Orange, Aigle Azur et ...
TSA - Tout Sur l'Algérie
Nous considérons qu'un groupe comme Bouygues a un personnel très qualifié lui permettant de revenir en Algérie, faire du transfert de technologie et former des Algériens aux méthodes modernes », a ajouté Martin Bouygues. Il rappelle que son groupe est ...

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Espace: pourquoi la Chine tenait absolument à conquérir la Lune - BFMTV.COM

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:44:47 +0000

BFMTV.COM

Espace: pourquoi la Chine tenait absolument à conquérir la Lune
BFMTV.COM
Gérard Fledzer indique que la Chine avait "tendu la main" pour participer au projet de la Station spatiale internationale (ISS), mais que les Américains avaient refusé, dénonçant le risque stratégique d'un "transfert de technologie". L'exploit du ...

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Selon l'économiste Abdelhak Lamiri La France peut reconquérir des ... - TSA - Tout Sur l'Algérie

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 13:45:24 +0000

Selon l'économiste Abdelhak Lamiri La France peut reconquérir des ...
TSA - Tout Sur l'Algérie
L'Algérie veut aller vers des investissements plus technologiques où il y a un transfert de technologie et de savoir faire. Elle veut aller notamment vers la construction d'infrastructures de production comme les usines », explique-t-il. « Auparavant ...

Les moteurs électriques, botte secrète de Renault - Les Échos

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 12:07:44 +0000

Les Échos

Les moteurs électriques, botte secrète de Renault
Les Échos
... sous marque Renault ou sous une marque chinoise créée de toutes pièces, il s'agit bien « d'assembler un tel véhicule et d'en produire les batteries en Chine », explique-t-il en s'empressant de minimiser les risques liés à ce transfert de ...
Automobile La marque au losange était le seul grand constructeur ... L'Alsace.fr

139 autres articles »

L'article 13 de la LPM déséquilibre les pouvoirs de contrôle d'Internet - Les Échos

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 10:39:22 +0000

L'article 13 de la LPM déséquilibre les pouvoirs de contrôle d'Internet
Les Échos
Michel Cosnard (PDG de l'INRIA) prévenait récemment : « Ne soyons pas naïvement confiants dans la technologie. Elle est peut-être neutre, mais son utilisation ne l'est jamais ». Les conséquences des dispositions de l'article 13 de la LPM pourraient en ...

Canceropole – 10 ans – Quiz Numérique en duplex entre Marseille ... - serious games et du ludo-éducatif

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 10:35:52 +0000

serious games et du ludo-éducatif

Canceropole – 10 ans – Quiz Numérique en duplex entre Marseille ...
serious games et du ludo-éducatif
Rejoignez-nous pour ce dernier RDV Grand Public 10 ans du Cancéropôle PACA, en présence des chercheurs de notre région, le 18 Décembre, à Villa Méditerranée à Marseille ou à l'INRIA à Sophia Antipolis; Cet évènement grand public, réalisé en ...

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L'Armée Reste un Maillon Essentiel de l'Economie Israélienne. - IsraelValley

Sat, 14 Dec 2013 11:42:28 +0000

L'Armée Reste un Maillon Essentiel de l'Economie Israélienne.
IsraelValley
La start-up Check Point Software est un autre exemple de transfert de technologie « à l'israélienne » du militaire vers le civil. Créée en 1993 par des jeunes gens de moins de 30 ans issus de la même unité de renseignements de Tsahal – Gil Shwed ...

MoU signed for technology transfer - Indian Express

Sat, 14 Dec 2013 04:52:42 +0000

MoU signed for technology transfer
Indian Express
In a first, Bicycle Research and Development Orgnisation (BRADO) President Manjinder Singh Sachdeva signed an MOU with China Bicycle Association (CBA) President Ma Zhong Chau for technology transfer of High End Bicycle and Alloy Parts of Bicycle.

"Nouvelle donne "pour la recherche technologique - L'Etudiant Educpros

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 23:13:21 +0000

"Nouvelle donne "pour la recherche technologique
L'Etudiant Educpros
Avec une question à la clef : cette mise en avant se fera-t-elle au détriment des autres structures existantes que sont les Carnot, les Centres techniques industriels (CTI), les Centres régionaux d'innovation et de transfert de technologie (CRITT) et ...

French president pledges 100% technology transfer to back Dassault F-X2 bid - IHS Jane's 360

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 17:41:50 +0000

French president pledges 100% technology transfer to back Dassault F-X2 bid
IHS Jane's 360
French president pledges 100% technology transfer to back Dassault F-X2 bid. Janet Tappin Coelho, Correspondent, Rio de Janeiro - IHS Jane's Defence Industry. 12 December 2013. French President François Hollande took advantage of an official visit to ...

CaFFEET'13 : "How can Big Data boost our Society's Resilience?" - bulletins-electroniques.com

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 12:07:41 +0000

CaFFEET'13 : "How can Big Data boost our Society's Resilience?"
bulletins-electroniques.com
Outre la participation d'entreprises comme EDF, Oracle, IBM ou HP, et de centre de recherche tels que l'INRIA, Stanford ou l'EPRI, CaFFEET'13 a également mis à l'honneur des instances publiques telles que la ville de Palo Alto ou le gouvernement ...

Defence chief: 'Cyber is becoming a priority'

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 08:09:00 +0000

Europe's member states have various levels of preparedness against cyber attacks, warns the director of the EU agency dealing with cooperation in defence issues.

Peter Round is Director of Capabilities at the European Defence Agency. He spoke to EurActiv’s Jeremy Fleming.

How do you assess the preparedness of the EU for cyber?

I think there will always be a prioritisation game going on. Every activity needs more resources. But looking across the whole spectrum of capability cyber is getting more resources, and it is well up the EU agenda. It is getting a great deal of attention. Work is being agreed and we are moving forward.

Some EU member states have been developing aggressive cyber security capabilities and may therefore be less keen to participate in EDA efforts to map out the readiness for cyber attacks in Europe, is that a problem?

Member states make their own decisions. There is variation across the member states: from those doing nothing, to those that see this as part of warfare and are accordingly developing their own capabilities. We are the catalyst or the glue that brings together the capabilities of the member states. Some have more capabilities than others and they share what they want to share. Member states are sovereign states and are free to pursue their own strategies. We can work with between two to an unlimited numbers of nations, including those outside the EU, so our role is to work with those who want to take part, not to break down the doors of those who take a different view.

Are there are any common areas of unpreparedness for cyber attacks?

Our member states are not at a common level, they are not using common methodologies to protect themselves and there are not set standards for sharing the information, though these are coming. But the nature of the attack in some ways is not changing. I think that we have to take the view that cyber is another military capability and another requirement to defend against.

It is new but it is not unusual to have to deal with new threats, and today it is cyber. So we deal with it much as we might have had to deal with improvised explosive devices or anything else. We are under permanent attack, which is why it the issue is being taken up by governments quite speedily.

Who would win a cyber war if one broke out?

Cyber is just the latest but no different from other dimensions of warfare, most of the others already existed, so in a sense it is good news everyone is working together from the beginning. Cyber is another element of warfare so if there was a war, it would not be limited to one strand such a cyber, but would involve other elements. I do not think Europe is lagging behind other countries. In political terms we are making very quick progress, I would suggest we are even ahead.

You recently completed a type of 'stress test' across 17 member states. What, if any, ‘wake-up call’ would you take from that?

It is further evidence that you need to keep reminding people of how important cyber security is. That piece of work supported our capability development plan. The end game with our plan is that we are looking at future work patterns and from that we derive a list of defence priorities upon which the EDA operates. That comes out later next year. I would be surprised if Cyber was not a priority if not at the top of the list.

Has the NSA/Prism scandal had any bearing on your priorities?

Intelligence gathering and cyber security may get mixed up but that is not something that we have any involvement with. The point is that any government or group of governments work under some form of rule of law, whether national or international. The enemy does not, and that is our difficulty. Scandals such as Prism concern sovereign states and it would be wrong for me to comment. But it is a problem with any form of warfare that an enemy might not act within a moral, legal or thinking framework.

Brookings Paper Calls for Technology Transfer Model Based on University Start ... - Patent Docs

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 05:17:13 +0000

Brookings Paper Calls for Technology Transfer Model Based on University Start ...
Patent Docs
A paper released by the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution asserts that by relying on a technology transfer model based on patent licensing, only a few universities have been able to generate significant revenues, and in fact ...

NASA Langley Technology Transfer Opportunity: Subsurface Imaging of ... - Space Ref (press release)

Fri, 13 Dec 2013 02:33:57 +0000

NASA Langley Technology Transfer Opportunity: Subsurface Imaging of ...
Space Ref (press release)
NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA solicits inquiries from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis ...

CWI joins Sino-European research network LIAMA - Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 16:16:14 +0000

CWI joins Sino-European research network LIAMA
Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI)
LIAMA was founded in 1997 by French research institute Inria and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In 2008 the lab was opened for other European research institutes. Also in 2008, LIAMA became a National Centre for International Research of the ...

EU nations developing cyber 'capabilities' to infiltrate government, private targets

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 07:57:48 +0000

European countries have entered a global race to develop aggressive cyber attack capabilities, according to the latest threat landscape analysis published by the European cyber security Agency ENISA yesterday (11 December).

ENISA analysed 250 reports and sources for its annual report, revealing that “maturity in cyber activities is not a matter of a handful of nation states”.

Rather, “multiple nation states have now developed capabilities that can be used to infiltrate all kinds of targets both governmental and private ones in order to achieve their objectives,” the report claims.

The report comes as a further indication that cyber warfare may have definitely left the realm of fiction.

Peter Round, the capability director with the European Defence Agency – which promotes European defence cooperation – told EurActiv in an interview that he would be prioritising cyber warfare in the agency’s next strategic review.

UK, Netherlands developing aggressive capabilities

Although EU member states and other countries maintain secrecy over their cyber warfare capabilities both the UK and the Netherlands have publicly called for stronger aggressive capabilities in cyber warfare.

UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond told delegates at his Conservative Party’s annual conference (29 September) that Britain was spending increasing amounts of its defence budget, the fourth largest in the world, on cyber intelligence and surveillance.

“Simply building cyber defences is not enough: as in other domains of warfare, we also have to deter. Britain will build a dedicated capability to counterattack in cyberspace and if necessary to strike in cyberspace,” Hammond told delegates.

The Netherlands’ Minister of Security and Justice Ivo Opstelten asked the Dutch parliament in October last year to pass a law that would allow the Dutch authorities to hack into computers both at home and abroad in an effort to fight crime.

No common level amongst EU member states

In asking the Lower House of the Dutch Parliament for a “possible expansion of powers”, Opstelten sought permission for government agencies to conduct remote searches on both local and foreign computers, render some data inaccessible and remotely install “technical resources” – which could include malware – on computers they are targeting.

“Our member states are not at a common level, they are not using common methodologies to protect themselves and there are not set standards for sharing the information, though these are coming,” Round said.

The ENISA report claimed that cyber attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and frequent, that “attack patterns and tools that targeted PCs a few years ago, have migrated to the mobile ecosystem” and that “two new digital battlefields have emerged: big data and the Internet of Things”.

Asked by EurActiv if those EU member states which have been developing aggressive cyber security capabilities are less keen to participate in EDA efforts to map out the readiness for cyber attacks in Europe, Round said: “We are the catalyst or the glue that brings together the capabilities of the member states. Some have more capabilities than others and they share what they want to share. Member states are sovereign states and are free to pursue their own strategies.”

However, he said that the issue was racing up the agenda in political and defence circles. “I do not think Europe is lagging behind other countries. In political terms we are making very quick progress, I would suggest we are even ahead,” he said.

Cyber becoming a strategic priority

He added that a capability plan is being finalised by EDA next year to determine strategic priorities. “I would be surprised if cyber was not a priority if not at the top of the list,” he said.

ENISA’s report claimed that this year has seen impressive successes by law-enforcement, and that an increasing number of reports and data regarding cyber-threats has also improved the quality of available information.

“Cooperation among relevant organisations to commonly assess and defend cyber-threats has been envisaged and is going to gain speed in the near future,” the report said.

The report recommended the active involvement of end-users in defence of cyber-threats and increasing the speed of threat assessment to reduce exposures.

MEDIAN Technologies Announces a New EUR205K Project Award - Wall Street Journal

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 06:50:41 +0000

MEDIAN Technologies Announces a New EUR205K Project Award
Wall Street Journal
MEDIAN collaborates with institutes at the cutting edge of medical imaging, including the French National Institute for Computer Science and Control (INRIA), the University of Chicago, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ...

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Web giants hit back at US surveillance

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 07:37:40 +0000

Eight major US web companies, including Apple, Google and Facebook, made a joint call yesterday (9 December) for tighter controls on how governments collect personal data, intensifying the furore over online surveillance.

In an open letter to US President Barack Obama and Congress, the companies said recent revelations showed the balance had tipped too far in favour of the state in many countries and away from the individual.

In June, former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden exposed top secret government surveillance programs that tap into communications on cables linking technology companies' various data centres overseas.

After Snowden's disclosure, many of the big internet companies warned that American businesses may lose revenue abroad as distrustful customers switched to local alternatives.

"We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens," said the letter from the eight firms which also included Microsoft Corp, Twitter, LinkedIn Corp, Yahoo Inc and AOL Inc.

"But this summer's revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide.

"The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual - rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It's time for a change."

Several of the eight companies, which have a combined market capitalization of nearly $1.4 trillion, have responded by publicising their decision to boost encryption and security on their sites.

The companies have detailed their 'Reform Government Surveillance' campaign on a website, calling on the US government to take the lead by limiting how much user information a government can collect.

"People won't use technology they don't trust," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said on the website. "Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need to help restore it."

The campaign also calls on governments to limit surveillance to specific, known users and not to collect data in bulk, and asks that companies have the right to publish the number and nature of government demands for user information.

"The security of users' data is critical, which is why we've invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests for information," Google Chief Executive Larry Page said on the website.

"This is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world. It's time for reform and we urge the US government to lead the way."

Obama last week said he intended to propose NSA reforms to reassure Americans that their privacy was not being violated by the agency.

British-based campaign group Big Brother Watch welcomed the move by the Internet groups and said surveillance laws in Britain, the US and many other countries were no longer fit for the Internet age.

"This statement of principles, by some of the world's biggest companies, is a watershed moment and one that cannot go ignored in any country that regards itself as a democracy," it said.

Data protection reform in peril as Germany stymies deal

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 07:09:02 +0000

The prospects of agreeing a proposed Europe-wide data privacy rules by spring next year, a key objective of the European Commission, look in doubt after EU ministers last week failed to agree on the concept of a one-stop-shop for data protection.

Justice ministers representing the 28 member states attempted to reach agreement on the proposed data protection regulation at a meeting in Brussels last week (6 December).

The reform aims to unify national data protection regimes, making it easier for businesses operating across territories who would deal with a single data protection authority – a so-called ‘one-stop-shop’ – in the country where they are based. The proposal also envisages that citizens should be able to rely on such a one-stop shop across the bloc’s 28 individual data protection authorities to safeguard their data protection rights.

Germany resists a one-stop-shop

But Germany proved the most resistant to the one-stop-shop proposal at last week's meeting, and received backing by ministers from the Czech republic, Denmark and Hungary.

“This proposal involves replacing all of the German consumer rights on data protection – which is around 100 pages – and we therefore have to be careful that our high standards remain,” Ole Schrӧder, secretary of state in the German federal ministry of the interior said at the outset of the meeting.

“Harmonisation, yes, but not at any price,” Schrӧder added, when asked if he believed whether – in the light of the NSA scandal – the data protection regulation should be pushed through more quickly.

Meanwhile the UK and Sweden, whilst favouring the one-stop-shop proposal, continue to argue that the regulation should instead be a directive, allowing member states greater flexibility in transposing the rules.

“We worked intensively during the entire period of our presidency on this, however there is a significant gap in member states positions on this,” said Juozas Bernatonis, the Lithuanian justice minister who was chairing the meeting.

Ministers agreed in principle to the one-stop-shop principle in October, so the failure represented a blow to achieving agreement on a complicated dossier.

“Today’s meeting was a disappointing day for data protection… today we have moved backwards and I am very disappointed about that, because a swift agreement would be important for our citizens as well as our companies,” said Viviane Reding, the EU's Justice Commissioner.

Parliament's rapporteur reacts angrily

Lawmakers in the European parliament’s civil liberties committee voted in October to strengthen Europe's data protection laws, including plans to impose fines of up to €100 million on companies such as Yahoo!, Facebook or Google if they break the rules.

The Parliament, and Reding, have consistently tied the need for stronger data protection to acknowledge alleged privacy abuses arising from information leaked by former US espionage contractor Edward Snowden.

“It’s just ridiculous. The German government has talked about data protection throughout the last months, Chancellor Angela Merkel said it is priority and then the German interior minister is going to Luxemburg and Brussels and doing exactly the opposite,” said German Green MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht.

“They use the argument that they are safeguarding German consumer rights, but these arguments are lies, because the Parliament has insisted on consumer protections which are of exactly the same standards as those in Germany,” Albrecht added.

EU losing power struggle with national telecoms bodies

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 06:55:37 +0000

The European Commission will this week issue a rebuttal against the Italian telecoms regulator for its proposed reduction of broadband fees. The move comes after several similar actions aimed at asserting EU powers against national authorities, but it risks proving ineffective.

Telecoms rules give the Commission the power to admonish national regulators when they adopt decisions which may affect the functioning of the common European market, for instance in the field of pricing access to the fixed or to the mobile network.

The Commission exercises its power together with the council of EU national telecom regulators BEREC – the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications.

In case of a disagreement with a national authority, the Commission can issue a number of warnings, which are much more effective when BEREC supports them. On the other hand, when national regulators do not abide by the Commission's warnings, EU rules do not give the EU executive a clear power to impose sanctions.

Broken alliance?

Given the Commission's limited powers, over the years Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes has tried to safeguard the consistency of national rules acting mostly in accord with BEREC.

But recently this crucial alliance seems to be close to breaking point.

Over the last few months, Kroes has lost the support of BEREC in nearly all power struggles with national authorities. Since September, she took on the regulators in Austria, Italy, Finland and Germany. BEREC supported Kroes' position solely in the Finnish case. In all other cases, the Commission's warnings were considered "not justified".

The gap between BEREC and Kroes widened further when BEREC issued in October a heavily negative opinion on the most important reform proposed by Kroes for the telecoms sector since she has taken office.

With the regulation called Connected Continent, proposed in September, the Commission launched a new overhaul of the sector after its last reform in 2009. Kroes proposed to increase EU powers on a number of sectors, ranging from spectrum management to net neutrality.

>> Read: 'Connected continent' plan seeks harmonised EU telecoms market

But BEREC was not supportive and expressed "significant concerns about the evidence base and analysis behind the proposal," according to its opinion on the proposed regulation.

"BEREC is also concerned that the proposals represent a significant shift in policy orientation, without proper consideration of its far-reaching consequences," adds the document which also raised doubts on "the feasibility and proportionality of some of the proposed measures".

The Italian crusade

However, worsened relations with BEREC have not prevented Kroes from continuing her fights against national regulators. The Italian case, which will reach a new stage later this week, confirms this attitude.

In July, the Italian authority, AGCOM, proposed to lower certain fees that new operators have to pay to the historic operator Telecom Italia for accessing the fixed telecom network.

In August, the Commission opposed this decision, raising doubts on the methodology and the timing of the measures. In September, however, BEREC said that the Italian regulator "presented sufficient evidence" to justify its proposed action.

Nevertheless, the Commission has decided to proceed against AGCOM, and later this week will recommend the Italian authority "to amend or withdraw the draft measure", according to the draft recommendation seen by EurActiv.

Vague powers

But true ability of the Commission to impose its decision remains a matter for debate. Kroes may push to open an infringement procedure against the state of a rebellious regulator.

But the legal basis for doing so is vague and risks preventing the Commission from reaching the final stage of the procedure, which is a referral to the European Court of Justice. For these matters, the Court is the only institution which can impose financial sanctions if its rulings are not applied.

In other words, Kroes may be stepping up the political pressure to conceal the fact that the Commission's real powers are limited.

A single regulator for all Europe would probably be the best solution to guarantee the smooth functioning of the EU telecoms market, but this option was opposed by member states at the time of the review of telecoms rules in 2009.

WAAPP-Nigeria Embraces E-Technology Transfer (ETT) to Upscale Agricultural ... - AllAfrica.com

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 15:51:01 +0000

WAAPP-Nigeria Embraces E-Technology Transfer (ETT) to Upscale Agricultural ...
AllAfrica.com
While disclosing this recently at the commencement of a five day training workshop on the Electronic Technology Transfer organized for Coordinators of adopted villages and Desk Officers of WAAPP projects from the 27 Agricultural Research Institutes and ...

Who or what is in control of my digital identities and can they be trusted?

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 13:46:03 +0000

Juliet Lodge is Professor Em. at the University of Leeds; Member, Privacy Expert Group, Biometrics Institute, and Participant of the initiative IDENTITY | Talk in the Tower

The questions of who or what is in control of somewhat misnamed digital ‘identities‘ and how we can be reasonably confident that we are free and safe to trust them confront us all. The fragility of trust and the need to sustain it have been amply illustrated by disagreement between the EU and the USA, and others, not simply where spying allegations, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks and the EU‘s draft privacy regulation are concerned, but potentially in all commercial and private ventures relying on an exchange of data and information. That includes all manner of innovations on the horizon.

The case for the EU having its own independent icloud lies in the competitive value arising from an opportunity it would offer Europe to set global benchmark and guaranteed privacy and security standards in protecting citizens and businesses alike by combining robust technical security (possibly in conjunction with EU privacy seals, assurance and certification mechanisms - as required by the EU’s Draft Regulation - and EU values and attachment to implementing them according to the law and shared ethical values.

The power of machine-to-machine communication and robot mediation to steer our lives and identities is insufficiently understood. Even less well understood is the potential impact on our ability to control our own identities. We take being connected 24/7 for granted and expect machines and our ‘smart’ devices, clothes and environment to anticipate our every need and whim. But how can we be sure that the provider of information, for instance, is authoritative, credible, open, transparent, genuine and objective. Can an invisible service provider and possibly one outside the EU can be trusted to secure personal information against intrusion, loss, theft, privacy breaches, degradation and misuse?

Somewhat paradoxically, governments and private sectors simultaneously commend privacy and data protection legislation while extolling the assumed commercial virtues of big and micro data analytics, anticipating a growth in employment opportunities, enterprise and prosperity. However, it seems that this is divorced from the wider context of a surfeit of data and information slushing around and beyond the informed control of governments or citizens. Life cannot simply be boiled down to how much can be mined from or sold to an individual. The ends – more information, cut, spliced, re-configured, disproportionately accumulated, linked and analysed and re-sold – do not necessarily justify the means: exploiting all the data and information out there.

Codes of ethics, societal norms and values, enforced and upheld by legislation and respect for the rule of law and liberal democratic practice, at least, within clear territorially defined jurisdictions, are not necessarily shared or enforced outside them.

Given growing hyper-connectivity, the EU must take a genuinely forward-looking view of the probable impact on privacy and data protection and on what it means to be human. Smart ambient applications using all manner of single or multi-biometric authentication inevitably mean that daily transactions and activities by citizens, businesses and governments, private and public bodies can be tracked, linked, repackaged, spliced, mined and commodified, sold and commercialised without explicit, informed case-by-case provider consent. If the public sees a surveillance society on the horizon, cynicism grows and trust deteriorates not only towards government and authority but also towards the providers of services and technologies. The erosion of private space and the commercialisation of both publicly collected data and our every waking moment is not without (albeit unintended) consequences.

Innovation in e-commerce, e-education, e-administration and e-health are applauded. Apps to monitor nutrition, leisure, travel, purchasing and life-style while ‘advising‘ us of something that may ‘interest‘ us – depending on what profile we set up, can save us the bother of having to search or think consciously for ourselves but also potentially facilitate future denial of access to services.

At one level, the convenience gain has its advantages: mobile alerts on traffic delays are usually welcome for travellers; and reminders to drink or take medication may be useful to some patients. Yet, those vulnerable, infirm, disabled, or excluded people who may lack capacity to self-determination, to be autonomous, or equal and who may most benefit from the innovations are those usually who lack access to them, who do not know about them, who cannot afford to buy and service them or necessarily make informed decisions about consenting to how their own data is recorded (on an implant even), handled and shared or linked.

The power of information also lies in its power to disempower us arbitrarily by means of digital tokens associated with a user claiming an entitlement to use them. The semantics of ‘identity‘ remain confused and yet identity management is about trust in the credibility of the added certainty that the token supposedly confirms.

Regardless of the hype, there is little point in having discrete bits of data that cannot be linked to provide information that can be probed, for may be as yet indeterminate purposes only tangentially – if at all – related to the original purpose for which they were provided. Generating spin to justify linkage is easy. Protecting the citizen – something that is at the heart of much of the current EU thinking – is far more difficult.

The future of identity and of innovative and user-centric identity management tools to build trust and confidence has to be looked at holistically by legislators and the private service providers as the participants of the conference “The Future of Identity” in Brussels confirmed last week (a debate initiated by the dialogue platform IDENTITY Talk in the Tower). The overriding concern centres on trust, trusted secure technologies and data handling and trusted relationships. These may be managed automatically (by machines and robots), by good practice, and/or be constitutionally and legally regulated, rendered accountable and transparent, and implemented.

The piecemeal approaches to public-private partnerships, stakeholder dialogue, out and in-sourcing, privacy seal design, training and certification schemes, audit trails, privacy impact assessment tools, privacy by design, security metrics, the EU icloud and so on, have their place but, in this robot-influenced hyper connected world, are insufficiently connected to what is happening in the real world.

EU challenges US hegemony in global internet governance

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 07:54:44 +0000

French lawmakers, supported by the EU's Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes, are pressing the European Union to stand up more firmly against American domination in cyberspace.

33 French MPs launched an information mission on 3 December to explore the EU's role on the global governance of the Internet.

“The European Union is not present enough in the different international fora on Internet governance although the future of the Internet is a significant challenge,” said Catherine Morin-Desailly, vice-president of the EU Affairs Committee in the French Senate.

She urged French and EU authorities alike to “truly take over the international digital challenges”.

“Only the EU has the necessary power to influence this new cyberspace where the USA dominates,” she added.

US hegemony

The MPs’ concerns stem largely from the massive and illegal wiretapping done by the Americans which were revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

America's digital hegemony is obvious in the influence it exerts over the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body which deals with the attribution of domain names worldwide.

>> Read our LinksDossier: The global battle to rule the Internet

The issue of attribution of domain names is becoming more sensitive in Europe and globally. Aside from the traditional extensions like .com or .fr, since 2011, ICANN has allowed more specific ones such as .paris or .vin.

While there was no problem about the .paris attributed to the City of Paris, the .vin or .wine extensions are much coveted by three different companies specialised in the auctioning of domain names.

The problem is that ICANN has no established rules to limit the speculation on domain names, or to protect the commercial use of winemaking geographical indications, which has angered winemakers.

“It’s not normal that ICANN is the only one to decide. Governments and the EU should have the same power, rather than just give simple recommendations, as is the case now”, claims Pascal Bobiller-Monent, the director of the French confederation of winemakers and alcohol producers with controlled designation of origin.

Commission letter to ICANN

The European Commission has already sent a letter to ICANN and the Commissioner in charge of digital issues, Neelie Kroes, requested ICANN to wait for a compromise which will protect geographical indications before attributing the names.

“Our position is firm: in no case can we accept .vin and .wine extensions on the Internet if the rights and interests of the geographical indications and those of the consumers are protected,” Kroes wrote.

But for now, both sides remain at loggerheads. Inside the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of the ICANN, countries are split in two groups. On one side, the US, New Zealand and Australia are opposed to framing the process. On the other 34 members including the EU, Latin America and French speaking African countries are in favour of it.

The European Commission firmly stands on its position over the domain names and on the issue of governance imposed by ICANN.

“For the Commission, the Internet governance issue is open,” Pascal Bobiller-Monnet assures.

“The current debate over .vin and .wine extensions also opens questions about the decision making process within the GAC,” the EU Commissioner wrote in another letter from 28 October.

Brussels is not alone in its battle against the American hegemony at ICANN. Countries like China and Russia are thinking about establishing their own regulation body.

Leading MEP claims Snowden willing to testify before Parliament by video link

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 07:53:12 +0000

Green German MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht claimed yesterday (5 December) that Edward Snowden, the whistleblower and key actor in the NSA scandal, is willing to testify before the European Parliament.

The hearing will be before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) via video recording during one of the upcoming meetings on the surveillance scandal, said Albrecht, the committee's rapporteur on the current proposal to update data protection rules.

Snowden – who fled his native US before unleashing a series of revelations that have embarrassed the country’s security services – is currently living in Russia where he has been granted a year of asylum (see background).

"Edward Snowden – as a central witness in the surveillance scandal – being willing to testify in public in the European Parliament via video recording, is a huge success for the European Parliament,” Albrecht said in a statement.

“Edward Snowden will answer to questions of the members of the LIBE committee. The meeting may not be scheduled before 18 December,” the statement continued.

Albrecht railed against the fact that, in the wake of Snowden’s revelations, “none of the politically responsible persons drew any consequences. It is now up to the European Parliament to demand for these consequences to be drawn."

Parliamentary investigation ongoing

Before an official investigation of the surveillance scandal was begun (4 July) over the summer by the Parliament, the Greens demanded Snowden be invited before the committee.

At the last EU summit (24 October), German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that the United States strike a "no-spying" agreement with Berlin and Paris by the end of the year, saying alleged espionage against two of Washington's closest EU allies had to be stopped.

Speaking after talks with EU leaders, Chancellor Merkel said she wanted action not just apologies from US President Barack Obama, following revelations that the US National Security Agency had accessed tens of thousands of French phone records and monitored Merkel's private mobile phone.

Germany and France will seek a "mutual understanding" with the United States on cooperation between their intelligence agencies, and other EU member states could eventually take part.

The United States has a "no-spying" deal with Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, an alliance known as "Five Eyes" that was struck in the aftermath of World War Two.

But there has traditionally been a reluctance to make similar arrangements with other allies, despite the now close relations between the United States and Germany.

Collective anger

Some senior German officials, and the German president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, have called for talks between the EU and United States on a free-trade agreement, which began in July, to be suspended because of the spying allegations.

The European Parliament that same week (22 October) backed legislation, proposed by the European Commission in early 2012, that would greatly toughen EU data protection rules dating from 1995.

The new rules would restrict how data collected in Europe by firms such as Google and Facebook is shared with non-EU countries, introduce the right of EU citizens to request that their digital traces be erased, and impose fines of €100 million ($138 million) or more on rule breakers.

If Albrecht is as good as his word, the hearing will be closely followed by Brussels policymakers, and the wider world.

Ministers give telecoms proposals tepid approval, timing in doubt

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 07:31:08 +0000

European ministers yesterday (5 December) gave conditional support for the European Commission’s 'Connected Continent' proposals for greater harmonisation of the EU telecoms markets, but cast doubt over the substance and timing.

The tepid response by telecommunications ministers from the 28 member states – conducting an orientation debate on the proposal in Brussels – could stymie Digital Affairs Commissioner Neelie Kroes’ hope of achieving an agreement on a proposed regulation before the end of her tenure in 2014.

“Member states raised concerns that the balance between the interests of all stakeholders is not yet achieved and the consolidation that might result from the proposal could harm some markets and operators,” Rimantas Sinkevičius, Lithuania’s minister of transport and communications said.

The proposal received almost full support from Italy and the Netherlands, but Austria, Cyprus, France, Finland and Slovakia all expressed strong concerns.

Ministers sceptical on roaming proposals

Reduced mobile phone roaming charges was the popular leading act in the European Commission's proposal to harmonise the telecoms sector, which also included controversial attempts to level EU access to the internet and radio spectra.

Read >> 'Connected continent' plan seeks harmonised EU telecoms market

The Commission's roaming proposals would eliminate charges for receiving calls across borders within the bloc, and a cap of €0.19 per minute for those making calls across EU borders.

Ministers supported the aim of reducing roaming charges, but many said existing roaming proposals need to be implemented before new ones are adopted, and others claimed the proposals would distort competition.

“We support the aim but believe the new mechanism is unnecessary because existing roaming proposals have not yet been implemented, so this needs further discussion,” said Peter Ramsauer, Germany's federal minister for urban development and transport.

This stance was also echoed by the Finnish, Slovenian, Hungarian and Estonian ministers.

Meanwhile ministers from Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden and Spain were concerned that the roaming proposals would distort competition in the market.

“We are worried that the 'roam like at home' proposal might lead to higher roaming prices,” said Anna-Karin Hat, the Swedish minister for information technology.

Member states protective of spectrum

The proposal's attempt to coordinate the timing, duration and sale conditions of radio spectrum frequencies, in an attempt to give operators more certainty when investing across multiple European markets, met with some strong resistance.

Under the proposal, member states would retain overall control of the process of spectrum sales, but these would be subject to scrutiny and sanctions from Brussels. Although ministers broadly agreed that spectrum auctions require more harmonisation, all the larger states called for this to stop short of the centralised control currently envisaged by Brussels.

“We need better coordination of spectrum, but we need to ensure that rights of member states must not be rolled back,” said Germany's Ramsauer.

“Spectrum is a national asset; member states do not want to see that changed,” said Leo Varadkar, the Irish minister for transport, tourism and sport.

Many ministers expressed concerns that the Commission’s proposals to harmonise consumer protections in the proposal would have the effect of diluting their own existing domestic provisions.

Kroes remains upbeat but unimpressed with Lithuanian presidency

Concluding the debate, Sinkevičius said: “For a number of these issues, for example spectrum or roaming, irrespective of the possible added-value of some provisions of the proposed regulation, there is the shared sentiment that instruments under the existing regulatory framework are not used to their full potential.”

However Kroes took issue with the Lithuanian presidency’s interpretation of the debate, claiming that the conclusions had been written before the debate started.

She told ministers before the debate that she was “pleasantly surprised” at the progress made in the Parliament on the proposal, but added: “I am worried about the Council. We have seen little concrete action in six weeks.”

A spokesman for Kroes said: “She has been unimpressed with the attitude of the Lithuanian Presidency and doesn’t think it [Sinkevičius' conclusion] is a fair reflection of what national leaders want.”

USSaudiForum | Fostering Technology Transfer and Industrialization - SUSRIS

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 22:04:23 +0000

USSaudiForum | Fostering Technology Transfer and Industrialization
SUSRIS
The policymakers, and you see some of them sitting here, in the Kingdom have rightfully recognized that technology transfer can make a positive contribution towards creating jobs for a growing population in the Kingdom, and in this regard defense ...

and more »

Industry leader: More women needed in mobile phone industry

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 07:55:54 +0000

More women need to work in the digital sector if it is to realise its full potential, says Anne Bouverot. The director-general of the GSM Association added that the industry must start by making itself more attractive to women and encouraging girls to see the benefits of working in the sector.

GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, covering more than 220 countries, nearly 800 operators and over 230 companies in the mobile ecosystem. She responded to questions from EurActiv's Jeremy Fleming.

What contribution to Europe’s digital economy are women making, how does that compare with other parts of the world?

According to the European Commission, of the seven million people working in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in Europe, only 30% are women. This is a missed opportunity - not only for women but also for the European economy. A recent study published by the Commission indicated that if women held digital jobs as frequently as men, Europe’s GDP could be boosted annually by around €9 billion. The study explained that the ICT sector itself would also benefit, since organisations that are more inclusive of women in management achieve a 35% higher return on equity and 34% better total return to shareholders than other organisations.

Compared to the rest of the world, however, Europe has made initial progress in advancing women’s participation in ICT. This year the United Nations Broadband Commission released the first global report on broadband and gender, which showed that women now account for fewer than 20% of ICT specialists around the world. This amounts to a huge untapped potential.

What are the career opportunities in the mobile industry for women?

Career opportunities in this sector are immense. The European mobile industry has been one of the most successful in the world, with a strong track record in innovation. Mobile contributed more than two per cent of European GDP in 2012 and employs 390,000 women and men across the EU, making mobile comparable in size to aerospace and larger than pharma.

The mobile industry has the potential to play a leading role in helping the EU to meet the growth, jobs, sustainability and innovation objectives set out in the EU 2020 strategy. By 2020, the mobile industry could generate up to 156,000 new jobs across the region, with the right conditions in place.

In the wider ICT sector, the European Commission expects up to 900,000 ICT vacancies by 2015. This should be a strong incentive for young women looking for exciting and rewarding careers with long-term prospects. However, those vacancies won’t be easily filled if we don’t attract more women to study subjects such as computer programming, engineering and maths. As Vice President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes recently pointed out, only three per cent of women have a first degree in an ICT-related subject, while for men it's nearly 10%.

Another issue is that whilst women constitute only 30% of ICT workforce in Europe, they also leave the industry too early, missing the chance to go to the top of their profession. Recently the European Commission reported that while 20% of women aged 30 with ICT-related degrees work in the sector, only nine per cent of women above 45 years of age do so.

It’s a shame to see so many women not extending their careers in ICT – careers that can offer a combination of challenging assignments, good remuneration and a healthy work-life balance. In fact, women who work in the ICT sector earn almost nine per cent more than women in other parts of the economy, enjoy greater flexibility in arranging their working schedules and are less susceptible to unemployment.

Does industry need to take action to attract women?

Absolutely. The underrepresentation of women in ICT clearly shows that the ICT industry needs to take concrete actions to bridge the gender gap in ICT. I believe that we can do a lot to change the status quo, through three crucial areas of action:

Firstly, to meet the industry employment needs, we need to encourage young women to pursue degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. For those who are unemployed or under-employed, industry should provide opportunities for them to develop the skills to secure jobs in technology fields. Internships at companies across the mobile ecosystem are one way of driving this, while meeting with and engaging with students at universities offers another opportunity to encourage young women to pursue education and careers in technology.

Second, it’s important to raise the overall awareness of the opportunities for women in mobile. The GSMA has developed the Connected Women programme to focus on how we can attract more female talent to the mobile industry. Through annual conferences, networking and mentoring activities, we are working to highlight the opportunities for women in the mobile industry and attract women to career paths in this vibrant and dynamic sector. We are building the Connected Women programme not only here in Europe, but on a global basis.

Lastly, we should provide a forum to showcase women in leadership. In the events that the GSMA organises, such as Mobile World Congress, Mobile Asia Expo and our Mobile 360 series of events, we are actively working to increase the number of women who speak in our conference programmes. This is not only at the CEO level in our keynote programmes, but at all levels, across the entire conference.

What kinds of initiatives would you favour?

Personally, I support measuring and tracking progress. For example, tracking the percentage increase of women on boards or at the executive level at European companies over a period of several years.

Companies and organisations should of course have the flexibility to set their own objectives for balancing the gender of their workforce, but I am also pragmatic - if no notable progress is seen after a number of years (and I mean something like five years, not a generation!) then quotas might be a useful measure. But that would not be my first choice.

Are there other gender equality issues at stake in the digital sector?

One thing that was true in the GSMA, and is also the case for many other organisations in the digital sector, is that while there are women in the workforce, they are not necessarily working in the higher echelons. When I arrived at the GSMA, most of the senior positions were occupied by men. But we now have a chief strategy officer who is a woman, and we continue to hire senior women in our organisation. So we are very focused on improving this metric.

One of the problems with monitoring gender equality in the digital sector is the difficulty in tracking progress of companies hiring women into ICT-related positions – due to a general lack of data – and a lack of data which is broken down by sex, age and location. This is compounded by the absence of internationally comparable statistical standards and definitions related to ICT occupations.

Does social media and the new digital sector entrench or liberate from gender stereotypes?

I believe that social media and the rapidly growing digital sector offer fantastic opportunities for everybody. However, in order to succeed in this promising sector you need the right set of skills - and of course access to Internet. Those who are lucky to profit from Internet resources and IT know-how can unleash their technological and business creativity in the digital space.

At the same time we should bear in mind that prevailing stereotypes may limit access for girls and women to these tools, pushing them to curtail their education prematurely and/or stick to ‘traditional’ interests and professions. According to the United Nations Broadband Commission’s global report there are currently 200 million fewer women online than men. The study also warns that the gap could grow to 350 million within the next three years if action is not taken, noting that while the gap between male and female users is relatively small in developed countries, it widens rapidly in the developing world, where expensive, ‘high status’ technology like computers are often reserved for use by men. If we really want to free the digital sector from gender stereotypes, we should start by ensuring equal access to digital skills and tools for girls around the world.

New EUR 239K Project Award for MEDIAN Technologies - Wall Street Journal

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 06:50:36 +0000

New EUR 239K Project Award for MEDIAN Technologies
Wall Street Journal
MEDIAN collaborates with institutes at the cutting edge of medical imaging, including the French National Institute for Computer Science and Control (INRIA), the University of Chicago, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ...

and more »

Elargir l'expertise des PME en Midi-Pyrénées - Les Échos

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 05:10:11 +0000

Elargir l'expertise des PME en Midi-Pyrénées
Les Échos
Un comité de pilotage s'est tenu en octobre pour articuler l'action des différents organismes de recherche et de transfert régionaux, dont une Société d'accélération du transfert de technologie (SATT). Implantée depuis mars 2013, l'antenne toulousaine ...

Générateurs HRSG : Alstom transfére sa technologie au Moyen-Orient - Enerzine

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 10:26:10 +0000

Enerzine

Générateurs HRSG : Alstom transfére sa technologie au Moyen-Orient
Enerzine
"Après le transfert de technologie, la co-entreprise aura la licence exclusive de la technologie HRSG d'Alstom au Royaume d'Arabie saoudite" a précisé Alstom. Outre le Royaume d'Arabie saoudite, le site approvisionnera également l'Irak, Bahreïn, le ...

L'INRIA en Gironde, terreau d'images 3D et de réalité virtuelle - Sud Ouest

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 10:34:49 +0000

Sud Ouest

L'INRIA en Gironde, terreau d'images 3D et de réalité virtuelle
Sud Ouest
Elle n'a pas surpris Pascal Guitton, aujourd'hui directeur de la recherche à l'Inria (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatisme), organisme public en pointe dans les sciences du numérique. Il faut dire que ce quinquagénaire, à l ...

Tech receives federal grant to facilitate technology transfer - News/Talk 790 KFYO

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 15:40:37 +0000

Tech receives federal grant to facilitate technology transfer
News/Talk 790 KFYO
The Economic Development Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce, awarded the grant to Texas Tech University to help build on the South Plains region's capability in wind and other renewable energy sources that increase ...

Le transfert de technologie facilité dans le Grand Est - MaCommune.info

Sun, 01 Dec 2013 18:03:05 +0000

MaCommune.info

Le transfert de technologie facilité dans le Grand Est
MaCommune.info
... pour agrandir. Un guichet unique. Favoriser les projets des laboratoires de recherche et permettre leur maturation, à travers notamment le dépôt des brevets, tel est l'objectif de la Société d'accélération de transfert de technologie (SATT) du ...

MEDIAN Technologies to Take Part in the Annual 2013 Conference of RSNA in ... - Wall Street Journal

Fri, 29 Nov 2013 06:50:24 +0000

MEDIAN Technologies to Take Part in the Annual 2013 Conference of RSNA in ...
Wall Street Journal
MEDIAN collaborates with institutes at the cutting edge of medical imaging, including the French National Institute for Computer Science and Control (INRIA), the University of Chicago, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ...

and more »

Supercomputing 2013 : quoi de neuf dans le monde du Calcul ... - bulletins-electroniques.com

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 19:20:36 +0000

Supercomputing 2013 : quoi de neuf dans le monde du Calcul ...
bulletins-electroniques.com
Enfin, à noter la présence d'un pôle français composé des industriels Bull, CAPS et Sysfera, ainsi que du CEA, de l'INRIA et du CNRS (représenté par IN2P3). La conférence a donc eu lieu à un moment où l'économie du HPC retrouve une seconde jeunesse.

SMEs need to embrace technology to boost growth

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:08:20 +0000

There is a clearly established link between SMEs' rate of adoption of high technology and growth. Europe's companies need to stay ahead of the game, and can club together to help each other, writes Per Werngren.

Per Werngren is owner and CEO of Idenet AB, a private cloud hosting provider based in Sweden

Policy-makers and avid newspaper readers looking for solid proof of economic recovery often rely on news coming from Fortune 500 companies to take the pulse of the economy. The truth is that Europe’s economic comeback depends much more on its army of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) than on corporate elites.

SMEs may not grab the headlines but they constitute more than 99% of all European businesses, providing two out of three private sector jobs. As we celebrate European SME Week we have an opportunity to showcase their impact on growth and job creation but also to address the critical factors which may improve their performance. Recent studies show clearly that today’s “business X factor” for SMEs is the smart adoption of information and telecommunication technology (ICT).

ICT is not just a policy buzzword but a great enabler for businesses, regardless of size or activity sector. Whether you are a tech start up or a provider of traditional products or services, thanks to capabilities such as the use of social networks, cloud-based services and data analytics you can expand your business reach to new clients and markets.

One phenomenon in particular that has created new opportunities for SMEs is cloud adoption, which has sped up with the rapid growth of the digital economy. By offering access to capabilities and services that previously only multinationals could afford, cloud computing has created a level playing field for SMEs. At a time when cost-efficiency holds the key to economic survival, SMEs can benefit from cloud-based communication services such as Voice over IP calls to ensure smooth collaboration with employees, clients and suppliers based at home and abroad. Technological prowess facilitates worker mobility and provides access to a larger talent pool than the one available locally.

Bringing SMEs up to speed with the digital revolution is not just a matter of improving their quarterly profits, but also about creating European growth and jobs. The European Commission rightly pointed out in the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan that in the digital age, no business can thrive without better use of ICT. The Action Plan emphasised that SMEs grow two to three times faster when they embrace technology. It also encouraged entrepreneurs to exploit the potential of the EU’s digital single market, which is expected to grow by 10% a year up to 2016. These recommendations mirror key findings of a recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study on the benefits of ICT adoption by SMEs, which was commissioned by Microsoft.

The BCG team surveyed more than 4,000 SMEs across all industry sectors in five countries —the United States, Germany, China, India, and Brazil – to find out the link between successful technology adoption and business performance. Unsurprisingly the study showed that, regardless of their home country, entrepreneurs who were early technology adopters increased their annual revenues 15% faster than their competitors. Moreover, they managed to create jobs twice as fast as other small businesses.

The transition of SMEs from “digital laggards” to “digital champions” can provide a much needed boost to a sluggish economic recovery. The BCG report found that, in those five markets, even if only 15% of SMEs that lag behind in technology implementation and 30% of SMEs who moderately use technology adopted modern and advanced IT tools, they could increase their combined revenues by €570 billion and create more than six million new jobs.

The list of digital opportunities for SMEs is long but the list of current barriers to technology adoption is, unfortunately, even longer. Among the most common obstacles mentioned by entrepreneurs are the perception that technology is too expensive, that broadband infrastructure is inadequate, that data security might be at risk, and – last but not least – that there is excessive red tape and regulatory costs. Removing these barriers will require a dialogue between policy-makers and SMEs but also more action on the part of the latter.

Owners of small and medium businesses often hesitate to roll out new technologies because they lack the expertise and staff to properly manage them. SMEs aiming to embrace technological change should connect to existing local or regional networks of IT experts who can share best practice. And there are many of them out there, including the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP), which my company is a part of.

20 million European SMEs are the true backbone of our economy. EU and national policy-makers should act to facilitate adoption of new technologies through a clear regulatory framework designed in collaboration with entrepreneurs. This matter requires their immediate attention if they aspire to make Europe a hub for innovative SMEs and future industry leaders. Otherwise, we risk losing the benefits of this and next wave of technology adoption.

German tech giant rejects calls for a pan-European IT champion

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 07:53:02 +0000

Germany's biggest tech company, SAP, has rejected calls by domestic politicians for European IT firms to band together to better compete against US tech groups in the wake of spying allegations.

Some German politicians have suggested an IT industry equivalent to European jetmaker Airbus following allegations about US spying on Europeans, including the monitoring of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.

"A merger between some European IT companies with the aim of drawing a line between them and the rest of the global market, does not make any sense," SAP co-Chief Executive Jim Hagemann Snabe said on Wednesday (27 November), in an e-mailed response to questions from Reuters.

"Such an endeavour would be doomed to fail from the outset," he said, adding it would lead to less competition, less innovation and less growth in a globally-focused sector.

Government snooping is a sensitive subject in Germany, which has among the strictest privacy laws in the world, since it dredges up memories of eavesdropping by the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany.

German politicians in favour of IT companies teaming up, such as Merkel, argue it would make Europe less dependent on US technology and data groups including Microsoft, Google and Cisco.

It would copy the success of planemaker Airbus, part of European group EADS, which compete head-to-head with US rival Boeing in the global aerospace market.

Hagemann Snabe said Europe's IT sector needed to promote competition and foster young talent. "This way we will create the next generation of young IT companies in Europe, thus ensuring growth and progress," he said.

While some of SAP's US rivals have said they were expecting setbacks from the spying allegations, SAP said the current debate around privacy in Europe is helping its business.

Still, the company will not proactively launch a campaign as it does not want to offend its US customers.

Hagemann Snabe made a plea for international standards for data protection both in Europe and the United States, echoing European telecoms commissioner Neelie Kroes.

The European Parliament's civil liberties committee recently voted for a tougher data privacy regime in Europe.

That vote cleared the way for negotiations with member states, with the aim of having a new code of conduct agreed by May next year, the first fundamental updating of Europe's data protection laws since 1995.

Corporate transparency part of the solution

Wed, 27 Nov 2013 10:09:18 +0000

Information on companies’ performance and prospects is of key interest to investors, decision-makers, the citizen and consumer; so why are member states now blocking corporate social responsibility rules, Jérome Chaplier wonders.

Jérome Chaplier is the coordinator of the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ).

Imagine a world where companies did not have to report on their financial performance – or where companies were allowed to decide for themselves how, when and to whom they reported on how much money they made. Devoid of meaningful information, shareholders or investors would be probably be reluctant to risk their cash.

Imagine a world where companies were not required to report on risks to society, such as a risk in its supply chain overseas, even though these risks could mean the company was likely to face future costs. Perhaps the pollution from a factory was contaminating the local water supply causing health problems for the local community. Or perhaps poor operating practices and reduced safety budgets were increasing the risk of an accident on an oil platform. Wouldn't shareholders and potential investors still want to know if there will be future costs to the company? Can supplies be guaranteed? What can be done to prevent things going wrong? And shouldn’t local communities, European consumers, and decision-makers also be entitled to know?

Such information is of course also of value to members of the public, as consumers, and as concerned citizen. Can I buy a smartphone safe in the knowledge that it doesn't contain conflict minerals, or metals mined by slave labour. Or can I be sure that I am choosing a model of car where the manufacturer is doing the most to minimise its carbon emissions. Consumers' choices can be based on a range of criteria – and if they are to make informed choices, they need the full picture. Yet according to a Eurobarometer survey, 62% currently feel they do not know enough about the impacts of business.

So when the Commission released a legislative proposal to beef up corporate social responsibility rules to require larger companies to report non-financial information such as environmental and social matters, it sounded like good news for everyone.

Why then are some Member States now set on ensuring that this does not become a requirement? Why would some Member States be so opposed to greater transparency about the impacts of business? Because it is clear that some states and some within the business community who are working very hard to make sure this measure is blocked.

At the current time, just 2,500 out of 42,000 large companies report on any non-financial information. Of those that do, the reports are often of little value because there is little consistency in what is reported on, or how it is measured.

The measures put on the table by the Commission are straightforward and in reality quite weak. They would require minimal effort from companies. And indeed just 18,000 companies are likely to have to comply. As it stands, they would simply be required to report on their policies and risks on human rights, social, environmental, anti-bribery and diversity issues. They would not be required to have policies covering all of these areas. The proposals already include a number of loopholes, which have been criticised by civil society groups because of the excessive flexibility they provide. Failing to report would even not necessarily lead directly to sanctions.

Progressive companies know that they have far more to lose from burying their heads in the sand. Civil society groups, environmental and human rights campaigners are voicing their support. Surely even the companies with skeletons in their closet realise they have far more to lose from a campaign-led expose, than from openly facing up to their problems themselves.

Yet the business lobby is fighting against the changes tooth and claw – and they seem to have secured the ear of some Member States. It is time for some hard questions about whose interests they represent. Who, they must ask themselves, really benefits from a lack of transparency. Responsible successful companies looking to build a sustainable future – or dinosaur industries who want to be protected from public scrutiny?

MEPs equally have a responsibility to look at the bigger picture and consider the contribution of business to the future of Europe. In the context of the economic crisis, the Parliament has already recognised that fundamental errors were made by the private sector with regard to transparency, accountability and responsibility. Do they think the Europe can afford to repeat these errors across other sectors of industry?

The question of how to build a more sustainable future is at the top of the agenda for many policy makers. Growth at any cost is not a sustainable solution. We need sustainable growth and responsible companies. Transparency is a key ingredient in delivering that.

Inria Méditerranée fête ses 30 ans à Sophia Antipolis - Invest in Côte d'Azur

Wed, 27 Nov 2013 08:58:34 +0000

Inria Méditerranée fête ses 30 ans à Sophia Antipolis
Invest in Côte d'Azur
Le centre Inria Sophia Antipolis – Méditerranée a ouvert s'est portes il y a 30 ans, en s'installant au cœur de la technopole naissante de Sophia Antipolis avec une dizaine de personnes. Aujourd'hui, 600 personnes travaillent à Sophia Antipolis au ...

NASA Launches Technology Transfer 'Super Tool' - Aerospace Manufacturing and Design

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 05:10:20 +0000

NASA Launches Technology Transfer 'Super Tool'
Aerospace Manufacturing and Design
"The QuickLaunch Licensing tool will enhance our efforts to transfer more NASA technologies to American industry and U.S. consumers in a timely manner," says Daniel Lockney, NASA's technology transfer program executive. "NASA develops hundreds of ...

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Le ministre Duchesne annonce 3 nouveaux centres collégiaux de ... - 98,5 fm

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:38:12 +0000

Direction Informatique

Le ministre Duchesne annonce 3 nouveaux centres collégiaux de ...
98,5 fm
... lundi 25 novembre 2013 à 14h32. Modifié à 17h05. Le ministre de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche, de la Science et de la Technologie Pierre Duchesne a annoncé lundi la création de 3 nouveaux centres collégiaux de transfert de technologie.
Hausse du financement pour les CCTT du Québec Direction Informatique
Les CCTT plus en forme que jamais! Hebdo du Saint-Maurice

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EU Parliament investigating hacking of MEPs’ personal email

Fri, 22 Nov 2013 07:57:53 +0000

A Parliament spokesperson said the institution was concerned about how easily an anonymous hacker broke into MEPs’ personal emails, as was revealed yesterday (21 November) by French investigative journal Mediapart.

Using only his laptop, a hacker succeeded in hacking personal and confidential emails of 14 randomly selected MEPs, parliamentary assistants and employees, French online media Mediapart revealed.

“It was a child’s game”, the anonymous hacker said.

With “ridiculous” computer equipment and “a few bits of knowledge that everyone is capable of finding on the internet”, the hacker broke into the personal files and confidential emails of MEPs such as Ana Gomes from Portugal, Markus Pieper from Germany, Constance Le Grip from France and 11 others.

The hacker says his aim was simply to raise awareness about the vulnerability of the security system of the Parliament, at a time when the NSA spying scandal was shaking public opinion across Europe.

The hacker sat in a public place near the Parliament building in Strasbourg and managed to make nearby smartphones and computers pass through the “wifi” of his computer to connect to the internet. That was the hardest part of the procedure, he explained.

Then he accessed an application most MEPs use and which signals when new mail arrives in their inbox. The app does warn the user that an intruder is trying to access their data, but the message is “obscure”, the hacker said, and most users click OK, thereby giving access permission.

The Parliament head of the press unit, Marjory Van den Broeke, expressed concern about the information disclosed by Mediapart.

The House IT services are “investigating” the issue “since this morning” to “establish how this happened," he said.

“It’s a technical issue, depending on the outcome of the investigation, we’ll see if and what measures should be taken,” Van den Broeke stressed.

She added, however, that inducing people to use a certain wifi service is something that “is seen everywhere in the world”.

Although this is the first “cyber security” problem in the European Parliament, the security of the EU institutions has been compromised in the past: a post office inside the parliamentary assembly was robbed during a nearby summit of EU heads of governments, and an ING bank located on the ground floor of the Parliament was attacked by a man armed with a gun, raising serious questions about the buildings' security in Brussels.

European Central Bank concerned over mobile payments security

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 22:00:00 +0000

The ever growing innovation on the mobile payments market, from contactless cards to digital wallets, has attracted the attention of the European Central Bank (ECB), which has launched a public consultation on mobile payments security for all involved stakeholders. EurActiv France reports.

The institution’s board of governors launched a public consultation on 15 November to improve its recommendations on mobile payment security. Relevant stakeholders should send their comments to the ECB by 31 January 2014.

New risks

The bank noted that security risks are on the rise with the development of new technologies.

“The establishment of harmonised European high-level recommendations for the security of mobile payments is expected to contribute to mitigating payment fraud and enhancing consumer trust in mobile payments,” the ECB stressed in its temporary recommendations.

The Frankfurt-based financial institution identified a number of risk factors. On the one hand, the current generation of mobile devices and operating systems doesn’t take into account the necessary precautions to ensure security of payments. On the other hand, data transmission via mobile devices is less safe than other means of payment.

The ECB also points to the lack of awareness-raising and information campaigns for consumers.

Other important market actors have also underlined that security of mobile payments as a matter of trust in banking institutions.

François Villeroy de Galhau, director general of BNP Paribas, said that “the asset of the banks in this context is that we are a trusted actor”, citing a trust survey conducted by the French research company Ipsos.

The study revealed that 77% of French citizens trusted their bank for mobile payments. Only 12% said they trusted large digital companies like Google or Amazon.

For BNP Paribas, security is the biggest obstacle in the development of the mobile payment market. 94% of consumers expressed concern over these issues.

However, the market keeps growing despite consumer fears. Visa Europe estimates that by 2020, 50% of payments will be made through mobile devices.

BNP’s director general is confident mobile payments will indeed become a non-exclusive but central payment mode.

This expanding market attracts many potential candidaties. Banks of course, digital companies, but also recently the US company, Boku, specialised in micropayments.

BNP Paribas has multiplied its innovations in different European countries. It is currently testing the digital wallet Paylib in France, which gives consumers a username and a single security code for all of their future payments.

Another innovation is the Smartphone Mobo in France, Italy and Belgium. It allows shops with little banking transactions to enjoy a low cost payment terminal. The Easytranfer services provides a peer—to-peer mobile payment service.

Europe needs to re-think its regulatory approach to the internet

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:42:20 +0000

French proposals to tackle internet regulation are half-right and half-wrong, writes James Waterworth, arguing that there is a danger in the idea of prescribing too much control over the web.

James Waterworth is the vice-president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, based in Brussels

Over the 20 years since the invention of the World Wide Web there is barely an industry, a state or a society that has not been challenged to some degree by this new, general purpose, technology.

For some the loosening of the control has been liberating: the citizen has an enhanced ability to scrutinise and interact with leaders; the consumer can more easily transact with a greater range of businesses; innovative business can more quickly identify and exploit niches.

These opportunities work both ways however and online life also provides opportunities for those with dubious aims. Economically there are winners and losers. There is a new generation of industrial success stories from Spotify to Etsy and Facebook. But what next?

Proposals that were made by the French government in the run up to last month’s (Digital) European Council were simultaneously proactive and pessimistic. They proactively sought to build a policy framework for continued European success in the Internet economy; they were pessimistic because they (wrongly) assumed that the disruptors of the last decade will not be disrupted themselves.

Internet markets are typified by dramatic change. Cool factor and market share have passed from one apparently unassailable company to another, witness MySpace being overtaken by Facebook, Flickr by Instagram and Nokia and Blackberry by Apple and Samsung. New products, services and markets are constantly invented: Twitter has not replaced another company as market leader. Rather, it supplements and competes with all other modes of communication.

Most concerning among the proposals floated by France is the vague idea of ‘platform neutrality’: demanding Internet platforms like app stores, social networks, search engines and ecommerce sites meet certain publicly specified criteria, whether to achieve economic, social or political ends. Such regulation would, supposedly, facilitate the emergence of European Internet platforms and guarantee ‘open access’ to users.

It is not clear how regulating online platforms might help new, competing, ones to emerge. Given the range of competing services available online it is not clear why regulation is necessary: in such fluid markets will consumer preference not decide the winners and losers and force firms to adapt and localise their offer?

Rather, by ensuring that the platform of platforms, the Internet itself, is kept open, by introducing net neutrality safeguards, innovators and consumers have their greatest protection.

While the idea of regulating for platform neutrality is an unnecessary concept that smacks of protectionism, the issue of how to regulate the behaviour of companies, states and individuals online is a real one, and here the French approach hit upon something: the need for speed. Fleur Pellerin has publicly bemoaned the 10 years it took to reach a settlement in the competition case against Microsoft and must be concerned that the case against Google may also drag on. In such a fast paced environment consumers, citizens and authorities cannot afford to wait a decade. She is right to call for flexibility and speed.

Regulation in the Internet era requires a number of complementary instruments, used in different proportions to the past.

Firstly, European Union legislation has its place, not least to bind the single market, but a five-year process means that the world you are regulating for has moved on by the time law is enforced. Its relative inflexibility means it should be used sparingly.

Secondly, competition enforcement will remain a vital tool. In Internet markets this will mean not only being able to identify abuses, but also being able to resolve them rapidly. Lengthy competition cases will likely resolve problems related to services that are no longer market leading, in markets that may no longer exist.

Thirdly, voluntary approaches allow policymakers and companies to remedy problems in a timely fashion. They should not replace, but complement, democratic processes. They also need transparent oversight.

The Internet economy is buoyant. Fostering the right framework that encourages rapid business creation, particularly for Internet start-ups will allow Europe to extract even more value from the talent we have. Polish antiques sellers, makers of traditional Bavarian costumes and Spanish jewellers all sell well beyond their home markets because of the Internet.

October’s European Council ultimately said nothing radical on the Internet economy, but successive controversies mean these debates will resurface. When control is necessary the tools of regulation need to be used differently from the past. Policymakers should adapt to the new conditions for innovation and ensure that business across Europe are making the most of the new tools at their disposal. There is no time to be lost.

University of Reims Supercomputer Ranked 5th on Green500 List - HPCwire

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 14:16:03 +0000

University of Reims Supercomputer Ranked 5th on Green500 List
HPCwire
It will reinforce French regional capacity in Equip@meso infrastructure and will extend the HPC-PME program, the national initiative aimed at SMEs with Inria, BPI France and GENCI in the Champagne-Ardenne Region. By benefiting from this equipment and ...

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Feed The Future USAID Agriculture Technology Transfer Project Launched - spyghana.com

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 13:34:09 +0000

Feed The Future USAID Agriculture Technology Transfer Project Launched
spyghana.com
The Feed the Future (FTF) USAID Agriculture Technology Transfer (ATT) project launched has been launched at the University for Development Studies in Dungu, near Tamale. The five-year, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ...

EU leaders urged to push China on IT trade

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 07:49:18 +0000

European digital industry representatives have called on EU leaders to pressure China into lifting trade tariffs on IT products, during the EU-China summit in Beijing today (21 November).

The summit in Beijing is the first meeting between EU officials and the new Chinese leadership.

World Trade Organization negotiations about an expanded Information Technology Agreement (ITA) have reached stalemate in Geneva this week due to disagreements between China and several other countries, according to industry representatives involved in the talks.

China is currently holding out for exclusion of 57 different ICT products from the scope of the ITA, which seeks to abolish import tariffs in order to stimulate trade (see background).

These include micro computer chips found in a wide range of IT products as well as various types of computer monitors.

Other countries want fewer tariffs than China

By comparison, the European Union seeks to exclude a handful of products from the scope of the ITA, including TVs, the US seeks to exclude just one item, fibre optic cable, and Japan does not want to exclude anything.

DigitalEurope, an EU trade association which represents some of the world’s largest IT, telecoms and consumer electronics companies, has urged China "to show good faith and reduce sharply its long list of exclusions”.

“Chinese and European leaders have an excellent opportunity this week to give a positive political stimulus to the talks. We urge them to use their summit to help the ITA talks progress,” said John Higgins, Director General of DigitalEurope.

Lifting tariffs on technology products as proposed in the ITA would eliminate an estimated €8.5 billion in tariff costs globally in a year, according to an analysis by the Brussels-based think tank ECIPE.

“An expanded ITA will lead to increased global trade in digital products. As well as delivering major benefits on a global scale in terms of productivity, economic growth and the creation of new jobs, it will also benefit the users of technology in the form of lower prices and greater choice,” Higgins said.

Selling arms to Asia

Meanwhile, in a new policy brief for think-tank the European Council on Foreign relations – “Divided Asia: the implications for Europe” – Francois Godement argued that Europe should develop a bold new Asia strategy.

The paper called for the development of a Europe-Asia-Partnership (EAP) to match the US-backed Trans Pacific Partnership – but differing from the latter in offering China the opportunity to join, and a common strategy for Europe’s arms sales to Asia.

“Asia is not interested in Western imports of multilateral security institutions and international arbitration, and the EU should abandon its efforts to transfer its own post-war solutions to the Asian situation,” said Godemont.

“Instead, it should focus on rewarding compromise and build on its growing arms trade with the region to take a more central security role,” he added.

University Start-Ups: Critical for Improving Technology Transfer - Brookings Institution

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 02:20:55 +0000

University Start-Ups: Critical for Improving Technology Transfer
Brookings Institution
University technology transfer has been largely dominated by a business model of licensing university patents to the highest bidder. This model is unprofitable for most universities and sometimes even risks alienating the private sector. However, a new ...
Patenting Their Discoveries Does Not Pay Off for Most Universities, a Study Says New York Times

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UT Dallas computer scientists create 3-D technique - Eureka! Science News

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 19:48:07 +0000

UT Dallas computer scientists create 3-D technique
Eureka! Science News
Zichun Zhong, research assistant in computer science at UT Dallas was also involved in this research. Researchers from the University of Hong Kong, Inria Nancy Grand Est in France, Nvidia Corporation in California and UT Southwestern Medical Center ...

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EU Commissioner Reding: US meeting on data protection 'constructive'

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:19:54 +0000

L'Inria Sophia fête ses trente ans - Nice-Matin

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 11:24:16 +0000

L'Inria Sophia fête ses trente ans
Nice-Matin
L'Inria Sophia est depuis toujours très impliquée dans l'écosystème sophipolitain en tissant des liens aussi biens avec les acteurs académiques que les entreprises. Plusieurs start-up du département sont en effet des spin-off du centre de recherche.

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Reding hails ‘constructive meeting’ with US on data privacy

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 07:56:15 +0000

European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding, responsible for justice and fundamental rights, expressed her satisfaction for the “positive and constructive” meeting with US Attorney General Eric Holder on data protection, following revelations about US interception of EU communications.

According to Spiegel Online, Reding said she was on a “reconnaissance mission” to the US and wanted to find out if the Americans saw Europeans as partners or adversaries in the spying debate.

Following the meeting, Reding told reporters that Washington and Brussels had agreed to speed up negotiations on data protection and underlined the need to "restore confidence” following revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden on US eavesdropping on EU leaders, companies and citizens.

Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Rand Beers said the Snowden revelations had caused regrettable tensions in transatlantic relations, which needed to be overcome.

Reding said this was the first time in three years that the EU was discussing data protection with the US, and that her American counterparts had acknowledged there were problems.

“An American who has concerns regarding the use of his personal data in France can address a French tribunal. A Frenchman who has a similar problem in the US cannot turn to a US court”, Reding was quoted as saying by the French daily Libération.

The Commission vice-president underlined that data protection was a fundamental right in Europe and that the EU did not make any difference regarding the nationality of the individuals concerned.

She explained that this was the main stumbling block for the conclusion of a framework agreement on police and judicial cooperation between the EU and the US, under discussion for two years already.

“Everything is fine except one thing: the rights of Europeans in the US,” Reding said.

Speaking in the Bundestag yesterday (18 November), German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the NSA spying scandal was putting pressure on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks.

Merkel urged Washington to provide “a clarification” of its alleged mass surveillance as “a basis for building new transatlantic trust”.

3D printing needs rapid attention of EU Commission

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 11:13:08 +0000

3D printing is reshaping some of the foundations of today’s society and economy. A report by Netopia shows the opportunities are monumental, but so are the legal and regulatory challenges on product safety, consumer protection or even international trade tariffs and value added taxes, writes Per Strömbäck.

Per Strömbäck is the editor of the online magazine and ideas forum on the digital sphere, Netopia.

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing as it is also called, has been a functioning technology for the last thirty years. As patents filed in the 80’s are progressively expiring, many new models and devices are expected to appear the coming months and years. We are witnessing a paradigm shift that follows a familiar pattern of lower prices, simpler design, cheaper raw materials and increased volumes.

3D printers could stand before a similar trajectory as photo printers did in the 1990’s, with fast growth in affordable printers for home-use and specialized services like local 3D print houses. However, where photo printers ‘only’ challenged the business of traditional photo development labs, it is almost easier to define what will not be affected by 3D printers.

3D printed replicas of fire-arms are improved by the day and make regular news stories in the media. But that is only the tip of the ice berg. Already today, 3D printers can produce for example concrete buildings, human organs, sugar candy, metal spare part to cars and functioning prostheses. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the vast opportunities, but it shouldn’t divert attention from the challenges that accompany it.

Netopia recently publishes the report 3D Printing - Technology and Beyond. The report gives an overview of the technology and the challenges it poses to current legal rules and regulations. There are obvious issues related to consumer protection and product safety. Who is responsible if someone is injured by a 3D printed product? The designer? The owner of the printer? The maker of the printer? The trademark system is to a large extent a consumer protection system, but widespread personal 3D printing challenges its current structures and functions. We can also expect a rise in intellectual property infringements for a vast new group of industries.

The development should be a call for action for policy makers, but as it appears it has barely entered the radar screen of the EU Commission. History shows that short-sightedness when it comes to policy making and technological advances can have significant consequences.

When the e-commerce directive was negotiated at the very end of the last century, most Europeans were using dial-up to connect to the Internet. In the negotiations of the directive, internet intermediaries were granted substantial liability privileges based on the then current technology and Internet use – a far cry from today’s provider desiderata around the possibilities of technology, from traffic management, priority services, to automated curation. Only a couple of months after the directive was adopted, ADSL broadband reached mass markets in many EU countries and with it, Napster, later convicted for organizing mass copyright infringement. Technology had outrun legislation on Internet time.

The EU Commission and its president José Manuel Barroso must avoid trailing too far behind the 3D printer development. We might be standing on the brink of a manufacturing revolution. Now is the time to make sure it will work in the best of our interests.

The EU, US approaches to endocrine disruptors have been appropriate until now

Wed, 02 Oct 2013 09:52:28 +0000

Critics point out that some chemicals like bisphenol A can briefly influence human endocrine levels. But they dismiss the fact that our endocrine systems are dynamic and built to quickly adjust to brief exposure to these endocrine disruptors, writes Jeff Stier.

Jeff Stier is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, DC and heads its Risk Analysis Division.

When it comes to food safety, the European Union and the United States have some of the most effective scientific and regulatory programs in the world.

So it came as a surprise when France flouted the studies and assurances of EU and US food safety regulators and sought to ban the use of Bisphenol A (BPA) in any food contact item starting in 2015.

Activists are trying to push the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in the same direction. The EU should hold firm to the science and policy-making that led it to find that BPA, at levels at which humans are exposed, does not present a danger.

The science supporting the safety of BPA has become stronger as government bodies have poured tens of millions of dollars into independent research.

The widely used chemical is an important component in, among other things, food containers such as cans, where its application prevents botulism.

You’ve probably heard of BPA, since every time another animal study comes out, it gets disproportionately wide play in the press.

A Google search for “BPA causes” leads to related popular search results including “BPA causes infertility”, “BPA causes homosexuality”, and “BPA causes obesity”. This is all nonsense. But that’s what happens when animal studies that bear no relevance to real world human exposures are rewarded with press, prestige, and promises of more research funding.

The possibility that anti-chemical activists could succeed in removing such a well-tested and important chemical from the marketplace has some scientists uncharacteristically outspoken.

A group of prominent science journal editors with a broad range of backgrounds and experience wrote a powerful piece in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology this summer, which detailed why the BPA scare is scientifically unfounded.

They concluded that: “Regulations that profoundly affect human activities, that legally impose significant fines and even detention, should not be based on irrelevant tests forced to be regarded as relevant by administrative dictates, and on arbitrary default assumptions of no thresholds. Such standards would be contrary not only to science, but to the very principles of an enlightened governance and social contract. Not only scientists but society itself would pay dearly if unscientific approaches were to undermine our everyday practice of science, and the stringency of data analysis and evaluation developed by scientific thinking over the past centuries.”

The EFSA, the US Food and Drug Administration, and other governmental bodies have all pointed out that high dose animals studies are of little relevance to humans given our relatively low exposure.

So activists have fallen back on an old but still unproven theory that argues that very low levels of exposure actually have an even larger effect than higher exposures. But more and more research fails to support the allegations. In the US alone, the federal government handed out $30 million in economic stimulus money to study BPA. And even with that, the low dose theory still hasn’t been shown to exist in the real world.

Critics point out that some chemicals like BPA, known as endocrine disruptors, can briefly influence endocrine levels. But they dismiss the fact that our endocrine systems are dynamic, built to quickly adjust to brief exposure to endocrine disruptors, many of which occur naturally, in products like soy, and that our bodies metabolise BPA very quickly so that any minor change from such low exposure is transient, causing no harm.

Those seeking a ban have little to hang their hat on. The argument comes down to, first of all that endocrine disruptors are bad because they have a measurable effect on the human body, even though that effect isn’t shown to be harmful in humans. Secondly, that animals exposed to very high doses of endocrine disruptors do suffer harmful effects.

Thirdly, a regulatory scheme based on those justifications would amount to a de-facto ban on any product containing any amount of an endocrine disrupting chemical, since it is impossible to (ethically) prove, to the activists’ satisfaction, that the chemical is safe to humans.

That would be “ludicrous,” according to Daniel Dietrich, head of environmental toxicology research at Germany’s University of Konstanz. Dietrich, editor-in-chief of chemico-biological interactions, told the journal Nature, that he is among a group of respected scientists that rejects the “no threshold” theory that says absolutely no level of exposure is safe.

Instead, he argues regulators should rely on the “weight of the evidence,” which points clearly in the direction of a linear relationship between dose and response.

Regulators in the US, the EU, and other regulatory bodies have, to their credit, stuck with the weight of the evidence approach. Given the overwhelming evidence pointing to the safety of BPA at levels at which we are exposed, rational policy-making and sound science dictate regulators throughout the EU hold firm against the anti-BPA campaigns.

Report: Scientists who attacked EU chemicals policy had industry ties

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 06:45:30 +0000

Seventeen scientists who publicly criticised EU plans to regulate endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been linked to regulated industries, according to Environmental Health News.

The journal conducted an investigation of 18 toxicology journal editors who signed an editorial on the European Commission's endocrine-disrupting regulatory framework. It found that 17 of them had collaborated with the chemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, tobacco, pesticide or biotechnology industries.

The editorial, which was published in 14 scientific journals between July and September, criticised a leaked draft proposal by the Commission that recommended use of the precautionary principle and could lead to a ban of commonly-used chemicals.

The editors wrote that the EU's executive's plan was "scientifically unfounded", and defied common sense, established science, and risk assessment principles. It also had worrisome ramifications for science, the economy and human welfare, they wrote.

The EU's efforts to regulate hormone-affecting chemicals has been the world's first. The new rules would have sweeping, global implications because companies that sell a variety of products in Europe would have to comply.

Daniel Dietrich, a toxicologist who was the editorial’s lead author - and is a former advisor for an industry organisation - told Environmental Health News that any links between editors and the industry were an irrelevant discussion.

“We do not believe the discussion on the conflicts of interests will serve anybody because it takes away the focus from the real issue," Dietrich said.

Trust-based science

In February this year, a report by the Stockholm-based professor Åke Bergman, linked endocrine-disrupting chemicals with rising levels of cancer along with increasing brain, thyroid and reproductive problems.

Bergman said the editorial that criticised the Commission's policy proposal was an “unusual initiative” for science journal editors and called the links between the editors and the industry "worrying".

“I was very surprised by the editorial. I thought it was emotional and non-specific, a mixture of science and policy, and with too many errors," Bergman added.

Joseph Hennon, Commission spokesperson for the environment, told Environmental Health News that the Commission would use the best available science for guidance on its endocrine-disruptor regulations.

“We all want our decisions to be based on science. And we count on the scientific community to play its role and inform policy and decision-makers with facts and figures," Hennon said.

“The relationship between science and politics should be based on trust,” he added. “And we trust scientists to act independently for the benefit of all.”

Britain should stay in the EU, for science

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 13:49:43 +0000

At a time when Britain debates whether to remain in the European Union or leave, there is one critical area being overlooked - science, write Michael Galsworthy and Michael Brown.

Michael Galsworthy is a senior research associate at the University College London. Michael Browne is head of European research & innovation at University College London. This piece was originally published on the UK edition of The Conversation, the news website sourced from the academic and research community.

With a growing appreciation that the financial markets are something of a casino, many countries are getting wise to the importance of research and innovation as a high-return solid investment for the future. Much of this comes from the start-up tech companies increasingly emerging from, or feeding off, universities and publicly-funded science. Critically, the EU is providing the UK with a scientific boon that is set to grow.

European science has always been high quality, but fragmented by the patchwork of borders. Efforts to provide a central funding mechanism for collaboration have traditionally been characterised by painful “Eurocracy”. Added to this, European academia has been more separated from commercial partnerships than in the US.

Over the past ten years, however, EU science has slowly coalesced into an impressive force which now looks to become a genuine world leader. The EU already outstrips the US for academic output – by about 20% according to World Bank data, partly thanks to the EU being bigger than the US by 200m people.

The European Commission has been a driving force of science growth, consistently increasing the EU science budget. In his State of the European Union speech today, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said: “we need an industrial policy fit for the 21st century.” A key piece of this is their new €70 billion Horizon 2020 programme for 2014-2020, where there are substantial efforts to strip out bureaucracy and invest in future-focused science infrastructure. There is also a drive to link European research with industry – small innovative businesses in particular – to get maximum commercial mileage out of research “excellence”. Unknown to the wider public, there is a buzz of “can do” around these plans that you wouldn’t usually associate with European policymakers.

The UK has contributed many ideas to the new European science push, has reaped a lion’s share of the communal funding, and due to its prowess, sits in a driving seat. As EU science gets set to take off, abandoning that seat would be a colossal error. It would significantly hurt the UK’s global competitiveness.

What does the UK get from the EU?

The UK makes up about 12% of the EU population and contributes some 11.5% to the budget. However, the science funding that is awarded centrally from the European Commission is not based on population – it is based on research “excellence”. UK science is excellent by any standard and UK institutions win some 16% of all the EU funding. The UK is particularly strong in areas such as health, leading 20% of all projects and winning 27% of the prestigious European Research Council funds.

Whereas the UK government’s budget for science is frozen at a lamentable £4.6 billion annually (despite George Osborne’s “personal commitment”), the EU’s upcoming €10 billion per annum represents a 35% increase on previous funding. If the UK wins 16% of those funds, that’s a big slice atop our meagre £4.6 billion. It means that unlike the science cuts in the US, UK science has more money coming its way. And that’s not thanks to George Osborne. It’s thanks to the European Commission.

The EU also lets UK researchers play with “big science”, for example the European Space Agency, or the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN. There are countless projects that pool resources across Europe to forge world-leading science. Scientific articles with international authorship also get more citations than exclusively domestic papers. The UK has rapidly increased in this department and now more than 50% of its papers are international (the US is around 35%). European science is getting big – and UK researchers are deeply involved.

Lastly, let’s not forget the influx of researcher talent from the mainland. Sure we can congratulate “excellent science” but we must also thank international collaborations and the EU’s Marie Curie programme which facilitates researcher mobility around Europe.

Some will argue that there are a handful of countries outside the EU that contribute finances to the EU science program just like EU countries. They can coordinate projects too and reap all the same benefits. In fact, they do very well. Can’t the UK just follow their model?

The key difference here is size. The UK is no small partner looking only for peripheral participation. We get away with an exceptional deal on a large scale (where eastern Europe, for example, is missing out badly) because British science is currently deeply involved in forging the European science direction.

The UK’s driving seat within the EU is a win-win for our science and innovation. Pulling out of the central team would break a bond that would be very difficult to recover.

Food safety agency seeks to repair its risk assessor reputation

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 05:58:55 +0000

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.

A recent scandal exposing EFSA's links with the agro-chemical sector have led the agency to strengthen rules related to conflicts of interests and show greater openness to various stakeholders.

The EU established EFSA in 2002 after a series of food-related alerts, including the chicken dioxin scare and mad cow disease, which shook public confidence in food safety during the 1990s.

The General Food Law, passed in 2002, was meant to provide a comprehensive framework to ensure that the European food regulatory system was based on reliable science. One of the key elements was the functional separation of "risk assessment" and "risk management" activities, which led to the establishment of EFSA as an EU agency providing independent scientific advice to policymakers on risks associated with the food chain.

"Confident consumers are the cornerstone of a competitive economy, and the EFSA has an important role to play in boosting this confidence," said European Commission President José Manuel Barroso at the 2005 inauguration of EFSA's new headquarters in Parma, Italy.

As a consequence, EFSA’s key activity is scientific "risk assessment", a specialised field of applied science that involves reviewing scientific data and studies in order to evaluate the risks associated with certain products or substances.

Meanwhile, EU policymakers – the European Commission, Council and Parliament – have retained control over the the "risk management" part, which includes policy responses, as well as prevention and control measures to address emerging risks.

With mad cow disease still fresh in their memory, policymakers sought to root risk management decisions in the precautionary principle, which allows politicians to make discretionary decisions in matters where scientific knowledge is lacking, with a view to protecting the public from exposure to potential harm.

This means that EFSA officials might be asked to answer scientific questions from the European Parliament or the member states, and provide the public with scientific information.

Conflict of interest

But while the public has rarely criticised the risk management track record of politicians, EFSA has received repeated flak for a perceived lack of credibility in its risk assessment processes.

Health and environment NGOs in particular have pointed to close corporate links amongst EFSA's network of over 500 experts. One of the biggest rows has centered on genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), with NGOs claiming that EFSA had been unduly influenced by industry. EFSA has routinely found no human health risk from GMO consumption while dismissing studies indicating the opposite as of "insufficient scientific quality".

A recent controversy also includes EFSA's definition of endocrine disruptors, which led the anti-pesticides NGO PAN Europe to send an open complaint to Health and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Tonio Borg, accusing EFSA of creating loopholes for industry.

Unfortunately for EFSA, some of the criticism has had more than a grain of truth.

In May last year European Parliament lawmakers urged EFSA to tighten safeguards against potential conflicts of interest amongst its staff after Diána Bánáti, then the chairperson of EFSA's management board, failed to mention that she was also a member of ILSI-Europe, a body funded by the food and agro-chemical industry.

Bánáti eventually resigned from EFSA and announced that she would join ILSI-Europe on a permanent basis but the damage had been done, seriously putting into question EFSA's reputation as an independent body.

New conflicts of interest rules

To address the issue, EFSA unveiled new rules in March last year for its in-house staff, as well as its outside experts, including specified lists of activities that would preclude scientific experts from serving on advisory panels.

Scientists previously employed by industry must now have a two-year "cooling-off" period before they can sit on EFSA’s scientific panels and scientists who receive more than 25% of their research funding from industry face other restrictions on the roles they can undertake at the authority, for example.

Former staff - but not scientific advisers - must notify EFSA of all new employment for two years after their departure, and EFSA can ask them to refrain from working with the authority in their new job for one year.

Ragnar Löfstedt, professor of risk management and the director of the King’s College Centre for Risk Management in London, told EurActiv in an interview that he finds EFSA “highly professional”. His collegues also shared that view, Löfstedt added.

“EFSA, of course, has been and is attacked by a number of NGOs. It is very unfortunate that some individuals have not been clear and transparent in terms of declaring their interests… But as a risk-assessment agency, EFSA is seen as credible,” the professor said.

Public involvement

Through its advisory forum, EFSA works in cooperation with the national food safety authorities on scientific data collection and monitoring, and communications activities.

EFSA also holds regular meetings with organisations representing consumers, industry, environmental NGOs and other stakeholders.

To ensure public involvement and transparency EFSA has recently had an online public consultation on its draft opinion on the food additive aspartame and a follow-up stakeholder meeting.

Research Director at the International Prevention Research Institute Philippe Autier who took part in EFSA's stakeholder meeting told EurActiv that he "sincerely" believed EFSA was doing the right thing to ensure transparency.

"I’m pretty sure that some of the points and opinions raised during the meeting will be evaluated by the EFSA panel on aspartame and incorporated in the final report," Autier said.

"Otherwise, I do not see why EFSA would have had the public consultation and organised the conference. Under the current circumstances, it is the best EFSA can do. It's up to anyone to make his own perception of the EFSA report and the opinions they received," the research director added.

The challenge now for EFSA will be to convince the general public of its renewed sense of integrity. But that may take a while.

BASF’s university job sparks green fury over biased science

Mon, 06 May 2013 05:47:10 +0000

The Pesticide Action Network has accused the German chemicals company BASF of buying credibility for industry views within academia, after one of its employee was offered a professorship at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

BASF employee Bernhard van Ravenzwaay will officially get a professor seat at the Dutch agricultural university in exchange for BASF funding, PAN Europe said in a statement issued on Thursday (2 May).

The environmental organisation said van Ravenzwaay has a track record of studies published with a favourable outcome for the chemicals industry, suggesting his university research will be biased.

By acquiring a professorship in university, BASF might try to buy credibility for the views of industry, PAN Europe claimed.

On its website, Wageningen University says it is "the only university in the Netherlands to focus specifically on the theme ‘healthy food and living environment’."

"We do so by working closely together with governments and the business community," it adds, saying it wants to expand its leadership position in this field of research by fostering “close collaboration with governmental organisations, commercial businesses, fellow institutions and universities at home and abroad".

Unhealthy relations?

But the NGO pointed to what it describes as "unhealthy relations" in a range of joint industry programmes at Wageningen University.

Among these are its Green genetics programme (with Bayer and Syngenta), and another group within the university where researchers Theo Brock and Paul van den Brink showcased pesticide industry ways to relax water standards.

According to PAN Europe, Bayer and Syngenta partly paid for a professor chair at Wageningen for van den Brink in 2008. The NGO also highlighted the fact that Brock and van den Brink sit in EU-funded institutions such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

"The cases at Wageningen University are an example of a general development of university independence getting victim of company control. In less and less places in the world a real independent scientific opinion will be heard," Hans Muilerman, PAN Europe's chemicals officer said.

"A critical view on a pesticide will harm their chances of getting money from the pesticide industry. We see the same in agencies such as EFSA who are less and less able to recruit independent scientists. Governments should stop forcing universities to get their money from the market. Every link to industry is the end to independence," Muilerman added.

Improving science

BASF's senior manager for media relations, Bernhard Thier, defended the appointment at Wageningen.

Responding to EurActiv, he said that close cooperation between academia and corporate R&D was extremely valuable for research as it helps find answers to the many important technological challenges society is facing.

"Today, BASF maintains more than 600 cooperation projects with universities, research institutes and companies. This substantial commitment to cooperation between academia and industry helps to improve quality and relevance of scientific research, and benefits many public and private organisations," Thier told EurActiv.

Regarding PAN Europe's claims, Thier said that while maintaining his responsibilities as head of BASF’s Experimental Toxicology and Ecology Department, van Ravenzwaay has been lecturing at Wageningen University since 2012, without being paid by the school.

"In recognition of his valuable contribution to toxicology, the university has given him professor status. BASF welcomes this public recognition of his work and is proud of Dr van Ravenswaay's achievement, in this respect," Thier said.

The BASF spokesman said such collaborations have already proven fruitful in the past, mentioning Fritz Haber (from the University of Karlsruhe) and Carl Bosch ( from BASF), who together developed the Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia. The technology was successfully used in a large-scale production at BASF’s Ludwigshafen plant 100 years ago.

In 1931 this public-private partnership was also recognised in the form of a Nobel Prize in chemistry, Thier said.

Getting trust back

In Brussels, the European Commission too is concerned by the suspicions raised by industry's involvement in science, and suggested new ethical standards could help solve the issue.

>> Read: Top EU scientist calls for ethical standards to ease suspicion of industry

The chief scientific advisor to Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Anne Glover, stated in April that she was “extremely uncomfortable” witnessing the lack of trust in some quarters at the role of industry in science.

“Why are we so suspicious about industry? We suspect it is only interested in profit. We need to do something about that because companies employ people and are an integral part of the environment,” Glover said.

Barroso’s science advisor said the creation of a standard ethics code for business to apply to research could help repair this lack of trust.

“Why is it that science needs ethics but business does not?” Glover said.

EU's chief science advisor gives shale gas go-ahead

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:35:16 +0000

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.

The EU executive launched a green paper on 27 March, setting out Europe's energy and climate aims for 2030, with Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger taking a favourable position on shale gas.

"I am in favour of producing shale gas, particularly for safety reasons, and to reduce gas prices," he said. "In the United States, which is a big producer of shale gas, the price of gas is four times less than in Europe."

Shale gas has triggered an industrial revival in the United States, which the International Energy Agency expects to become almost self-sufficient in oil and gas by 2035.

But crippling production costs, exploration closures, and government-level environmental concerns have seen the industry’s expansion in Europe waver.

>> Read: US ‘shale boost’ provokes EU fears and indecision

EU climate chief circumspect on shale

Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has adopted a less favourable tone on shale gas, believing its extraction in Europe bears little comparison with the United States.

“We do not expect that it will be so easy in Europe: geological conditions are different, and so are environmental rules and the activity of soils,” she told reporters at the launch of the Commission green paper last month.

But Anne Glover, the chief scientific adviser to Commission President José Manuel Barroso, contradicted this view and gave a scientific green light to shale.

Speaking at a debate on science and policy-making in Brussels on 9 April, she said: “As with all energy production, there will be risks involved whether that is wind or coal power,” Glover told the audience at the debate, organised by the European Policy Centre, a think tank.

“We should not go into a denial phase. From my point of view the evidence will allow us to go ahead [with shale production]. But in terms of extraction and production there are non-scientific issues to be debated,” Glover said.

Europe 'in the denial phase'

António Fernando Correia de Campos, the Portuguese MEP who chairs the Parliament’s science and technology options assessment panel, also endorsed shale during the debate. Although he said he was not speaking on behalf of any parliamentary group or committee, Correia de Campos said Europe was “in the denial phase” on shale gas.

He said it was clear that within five years Europe would be importing shale gas from the US because it cost a quarter to a fifth of current European gas imports. “We are basing our opinion on the denial paradigm, which is one step behind the precautionary principle,” Correia de Campos said.

Member states remain divided on their approach to shale. Last October, British Chancellor George Osborne announced potential tax breaks for domestic shale. The same month Poland declared its push for the gas, saying it would invest some €12.5 million to develop exploration by 2020.

But large-scale production has proved difficult, with European governments and major energy companies recently suspending or halting exploration, and France has imposed a moratorium on shale gas drilling.

Meanwhile doubts remain amongst campaigners about the safety of shale extraction.

"Several peer-reviewed studies have shown that [extracion] operations and production activities significantly increase the cancer risks for communities living less than half a mile from drilling sites,” Antoine Simon, extractive industries campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, told EurActiv.

Climate change means bumpier air travel, scientists say

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 06:09:05 +0000

Turbulence on transatlantic flights will become more frequent and severe by 2050 as carbon dioxide emissions rise, leading to longer journey times and increased fuel consumption, British scientists say in a new study.

Turbulence can happen without warning and is caused by climate conditions such as atmospheric pressure, jet streams, cold and warm fronts or thunderstorms.

Light turbulence shakes the aircraft, but more severe episodes can injure passengers and cause structural damage to planes, costing around an estimated €115 million a year.

Turbulence will be stronger and occur more often if carbon dioxide emissions double by 2050 as the International Energy Agency forecasts, scientists at the universities of Reading and East Anglia said in the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday (8 April).

Carbon dioxide is one of the most potent greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Increasing emissions raise the global average temperature, heating up the lower atmosphere.

However, warming also changes the atmosphere 10 km above ground level, making it more unstable for planes, Paul Williams at the University of Reading and co-author of the report, told Reuters.

Remain seated

The scientists focused on the North Atlantic flight corridor - where 600 planes travel between Europe and North America each day - using computer simulations to examine the effects of climate change on conditions there.

They found that the chances of encountering significant turbulence by the middle of the century will increase by between 40% and 170%, with the most likely outcome being a doubling of airspace containing significant turbulence.

The average strength of turbulence would also increase by between 10% and 40%.

Bumpier air journeys would make flying more uncomfortable and raise the risks to passengers and crew.

Detours to avoid strong patches of turbulence would lengthen flight times, increasing fuel consumption, emissions and airport delays, which would ultimately drive up ticket prices, Williams said.

Air travel is one of the fastest-growing sources of carbon dioxide emissions, but the effects of climate change on turbulence have not been studied before.

"Aviation is partly responsible for changing the climate in the first place. It is ironic that the climate looks set to exact its revenge by creating a more turbulent atmosphere for flying," Williams said.

New group to advise Barroso on science, technology

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:00:27 +0000

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.

The Science and Technology Advisory Council includes a cross-section of advisors – from universities, non-governmental groups and businesses. The council is to provide independent information and advice on an array of scientific and technology issues.

The creation of the council and the earlier appointment of a staff science advisor reflect both the Commission's increasing focus on science and technology to boost European competitiveness, but also a need to deal with political minefields such as genetically modified crops, biofuels and shale gas.

"Science and innovation are key drivers for European competitiveness, economic growth and the creation of new jobs,” Barroso said in a statement announcing the formation of the council.

“This Advisory Council will focus on science and technology related topics that are of cross-cutting nature, with a clear societal dimension. It will identify the issues of value where science, research and innovation can contribute to support future development in Europe," he said.

The 15-member panel includes experts from EU countries as well as Switzerland and Israel.

In a statement, the Commission said the council differs from other advisory bodies “in that it does not have a specific subject remit, but tackles issues that are of cross-cutting nature, with a clear societal dimension. It will operate in a proactive way, identifying topics of value and of interest to support future growth and development in Europe.”

In January 2012, Barroso announced the appointment of Anne Glover, a former professor of biology at the University of Aberdeen, as the Commission’s first chief scientific advisor. She served in the same capacity for Scotland from 2006-2011.

Her role is to bolster scientific evidence by saying things that politicians and officials are sometimes uncomfortable with, she told EurActiv last year. “The evidence with which I work is independent, the evidence with which I work does not change according to political philosophy,” she said. “And that should give people a lot of confidence.”

The advisory council members are: Alan Atkisson (Sweden), Ferdinando Beccalli-Falco (Italy), Victor de Lorenzo (Spain), Tamás F. Freund (Hungary), Susan M. Gasser (Switzerland), Søren Molin (Denmark), Joanna Pininska (Poland), Alexandre Tiedtke Quintanilha (Portugal), Ortwin Renn (Germany), Riitta Salmelin (Finland), Pat Sandra (Belgium), Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber (Germany), Roberta Sessoli (Italy), Cedric Villani (France) and Ada E. Yonath (Israel).

The EU needs a better way to cope with risk

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 08:54:24 +0000

Policymakers recognise the links between innovation, growth and employment. However, novelty often bears uncertainty in Europe, where an increasingly risk-averse mind-set could threaten innovation, writes Dirk Hudig.

Dirk Hudig is secretary-general of the European Risk Forum, a Brussels-based think tank.

The management of risks related to public health, safety and the environment has become a core function of EU policymaking. It plays an important role in spurring innovation and economic growth, while at the same time preserving high standards of living.

The regulation of risk is now considered to be a common and important feature of modern policy making. Risks are to be weighed against their possible benefits, so as not to stifle innovation and scientific progress. Such an approach will eventually benefit society as a whole.

Significant improvements have already been made in EU risk governance, through the establishment of the Impact Assessment Board in the Secretariat General of the Commission, as well as a new unit dedicated to this policy issue in the European Parliament.

The appointment in late 2011 of Anne Glover as chief scientific adviser to the European Commission president lays the foundation for ensuring that reliable, well-founded scientific evidence will form the basis of the EU’s legislative and regulatory decision-making process.

A more scientific approach should lead to better, evidence- based legislation and regulation.

Further progress still needs to be made. Guidelines are currently lacking in key areas such as the screening of scientific advice and risk communication. Gaps, as well as limited resources and weaknesses still exist in the institutional framework, particularly at the Council’s level.

A new report by the European Risk Forum seeks to reinforce the work done by the EU institutions in the realm of the Smart Regulation agenda, and proposes to put greater emphasis on the areas that could be widely beneficial to society.

The ERF Action Plan promotes the extensive use of evidence (especially of a scientific nature); the rigorous definition of policy objectives; a clear and comprehensive description and assessment of problems and their underlying causes; a realistic understanding of the costs and benefits of policy options; and the extensive consultation of stakeholders.

For example, the precautionary principle – the idea of taking preventative action in advance of possible harm – is in many cases common sense when facing uncertainty. But in the EU, once the precaution principle has been translated into regulation, there is no way back, as even after the scientific uncertainty has been resolved, the restrictions remain in place.

Such an outcome is harmful for both scientific and economic progress.

One should be careful when addressing risk through substitution for example that the actions taken don’t potentially lead to even bigger risks.

The questions surrounding the field of biotechnology offer a case in point. DNA was first discovered in 1953, and is considered to be one of the most important discoveries of the past century.

In 2003, exactly half a century later, the human genome project unveiled the 3 billion elements comprising the human genome. Last September, a discovery was made which established that the so-called ‘junk genes’ making up approximately 80% of the human genome, are in fact operating systems, which have the capacity of turning genes on or off.

This new insight holds the promise of opening up a whole new field of research. The EU regulatory environment in the field of genetics has essentially come to a standstill since the 1990s, when the first directives controlling the use of genetically modified organisms were adopted.

EU regulators seem to have concluded that the risks involved outweigh the benefits. Genetically modified plants have saved millions of lives, and it is therefore safe to conclude in this case that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Yet the EU has a virtual ban on GMO plants in spite of them having been proved safe after decades of use and millions of years of exposure.

Europe is and remains a leading centre of scientific excellence. We have more scientists working today, equipped with high performing computing skills and tools than ever before in the history of the world.

It is therefore essential that the right regulatory environment is established, so as to enable innovation, maintain employment and a certain quality of life in Europe. The ERF Action Plan intends to contribute to this purpose."

The world innovation landscape: Asia rising?

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:01:55 +0000

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.

Reinhilde Veugelers is a senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel.

"Global growth in research and development has been vigorous, with both public and private R&D investment increasing and growing more rapidly outside the previously dominant centres of North America, Europe and Japan.

The countries with the largest R&D spends are the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, China and South Korea. These seven countries account for about 71% of worldwide R&D expenditure. R&D spending is increasing especially rapidly in Asia, most spectacularly in China.

China is now the world’s second R&D spender behind the US and spends as much as Germany, France and Italy combined. Other south-east Asian countries are also rapidly increasing their R&D spends, in particular Korea, while Japan is an incumbent R&D stronghold.

China’s rise to the position of the world's second biggest R&D spender is a consequence of its spectacular growth in overall R&D in the last ten years, even outpacing its GDP growth. Its “R&D intensity” doubled between 1999 to 2009, reaching 1.7%, about the same ratio as the UK.

While the US, Japan and Korea have high R&D intensities, the EU taken as a whole performs very modestly, due to some large countries with low scores, such as Italy and Spain.

Who is behind the Asian R&D spending growth? Contrary to expectations, government spends relatively less on R&D in Asia than the US and Europe.

That of course is not to say that the government has major influence over private R&D decisions, particularly in China, where many large private companies are state controlled or influenced.

Since businesses account for the greatest share of total R&D spending in most countries, differences in business structure go a long way to help explain differences in trends in R&D-to-GDP ratios.

Asia's increased innovation spending is most prominently related to information and communication technologies, an area with high technological opportunities and positive externalities acting on other sectors. Europe’s failure to increase its R&D-to-GDP ratio is often attributed to its failure to specialise in high-tech sectors.

But how efficient is the increase in Asian R&D investment? Is it resulting in a new generation of inventions? A good proxy for innovation is patents. The evidence suggests that growth in Asian R&D investment is translating into increasing patent filings.

In fact, Asian patenting has increased even more rapidly than Asian R&D investment. In line with this, the US share of global patent filings is declining, and the EU's position is also being eroded.

But although the increase in China’s share of world patent applications has risen faster than its share in world R&D expenditure, it remains so far a minor power, with the same patenting weight as much smaller Korea.

Moreover, when looking at the most valuable inventions (i.e. those for which protection is sought in all major world markets (the US, EU and Japan), China's shares remain tiny, indicating that the wave of new Chinese inventions does not yet have a strong international orientation.

The US maintains its dominant position in this respect, together with Japan, while the EU’s share is declining considerably. Asian growth in R&D patents is very much focused on ICT. In other technologies with high growth potential, such as clean technologies and nanotechnology, the global playing field remains open.

World markets for pharmaceuticals remain dominated by the EU and US. Overall, the Chinese and Korean economies are still not specialised in knowledge-intensive goods and services.

When looking at the economic value created by innovative new goods and services, all of the countries with major R&D expenditures are increasingly concentrating their economic activities in knowledge-intensive goods and services.

In this respect, the US is the most specialised and China the least, with the EU in between. Furthermore, each region specialises in different high-tech sectors. While the US and Europe relocated ICT manufacturing to Asia, the services and the pharmaceuticals sectors remain western strongholds.

China’s dramatically increasing exports of high-tech goods, particularly ICT goods, might seem impressive, resulting in wider EU and US trade deficits with China for these goods. But the Chinese role is still mostly assembly, with limited value added contributed locally.

China is not yet capturing much value from high-tech manufacturing nor capitalising on its rising science and technology capabilities in these areas. Overall, although the Asian, and particularly, the Chinese rise in innovation is a real phenomenon, it is still far less materialised than Asia's rise in science and R&D investment.

China still has to become a developer of high-value inventions for world markets, beyond ICT manufacturing. And it still has to capture the value from inventions beyond assembly.

It would be wrong to discount China's innovation potential, however. China clearly has the ambition to become a world-leading innovator, creating and capturing high-tech value added, particularly in targeted areas.

But it would be equally wrong to see the rise of China and other Asian countries in innovation as a threat to Europe. Nevertheless, the opportunities that the globalisation of R&D and innovation can offer to Europe cannot be taken for granted.

As the data has shown, Europe is struggling more than the US to build technology strongholds in knowledge intensive goods and services, particularly in new areas and with high quality new technology.

The most relevant issue for the EU is not so much if Asia's science, technology and innovation capacity will continue to increase, but who will be able to use this capacity for value creation and value capture.

Corporate R&D and innovation is highly concentrated in a few global players. How these firms react to and ride on the Asian science and technology rise will be critical for assessing the impact on Europe."

Research Commissioner on Horizon 2020

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 11:48:12 +0000

Professor: EU needs more women scientists

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 11:21:51 +0000

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.

Curt Rice is vice president of Research & Development at the University of Tromsø. He spoke to EurActiv's Jeremy Fleming during the European Gender Summit.

The future European policy agenda for advancing research and innovation is centred a budget of €80 billion over the 6 years from 2014 – 2020. This appears to be dropping as a result of the current negotiations, what does this mean?

Research and innovation are the single most important hope for the improvement of society, and for this reason, public support of research is worthwhile and important. If funds for research are cut, progress will be slowed. But research institutions must also 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.

Why is Europe performing poorly in engaging with women in science, and what more can be do to change this?

There is tremendous variation on this matter throughout Europe, and those of us who are doing poorly may not have to travel far to learn how we could be better. Part of equality at work is of course related to equality at home, such that cultures in which children are sent home in the middle of a day for a warm meal or cultures in which a tradition for part time work for women has emerged have a difficult starting point for achieving balance at work. But beyond cultural factors, European universities have career paths that are discriminatory, just as they are in other parts of the world. Academic careers are extremely competitive, for example, and advancement and rewards depend in part of a significant commitment to self-promotion. Yet study after study shows that women and men are different on these points, so building career paths which require this kind of behaviour is inviting gender imbalance. Finally, there is inadequate understanding of the actual benefits to productivity and scientific quality that gender balance can offer.

What difference does a balanced gender research community make to science?

There are so many. Workplaces with gender balance are better workplaces, according to very large surveys of employee satisfaction. And employees who are happier at work are more productive. So, a gender balanced research community is a more satisfied and more productive research community. Furthermore, evaluation of teams of people working together to solve complex problems shows that gender balanced teams to a better job. Yet another important point is that if we assume men and women are equally intelligent (although there is some evidence that girls as a group have higher IQs than boys), then a lack of gender balance means we are drawing from the weaker part of the pool of men and ignoring the stronger part of the pool of women. And I could go on. In fact, I write a blog where I've just pulled together all these arguments into a free ebook; maybe your readers would enjoy stopping by, at curt-rice.com.

How can real results be achieved in attracting more women and how can this best be monitored?

At my home institution, the University of Tromsø, only 9% of our professors were women in 2001, and we were the worst in Norway. Today, nearly 30% of our professors are women and we are the best in Norway. This is a result of deliberate and focused investment through creative strategies that have now been shown to be successful. The story and strategies can also be found in my ebook, for your readers who are curious about the details. To attract women, we have to make it clear that we want more female colleagues. Monitoring is crucial, and successful monitoring requires external accountability, either to ministries or perhaps to sister institutions, as the League of European Research Universities will now do, according to a presentation at the Gender Summit.

EU scientists attempt to crack the nut on falling bee populations

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:40:33 +0000

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has launched a review of scientific studies and risk assessments related to the decline in bee populations worldwide and in Europe. A final report next year will identify information gaps and research needs in the field.

Bees are some of nature’s most prolific pollinators but their numbers have been declining for years, a fall blamed on a host of environmental risks – including agricultural chemicals and loss of natural habitat.

Earlier this month, an article in the scientific journal Nature raised fresh concerns about the effect two common crop insecticides have on bees.

The author, Juliet L. Osborne of the University of Exeter in Britain, said recent research linking the use of chemical insecticides to declining bumblebee populations merits fresh regulatory review. In the Nature article, she said “the balance between protecting crops from pest damage and protecting pollinators needs further consideration.”

Previous scientific studies have focused on a smaller species, the honey bee, with similar warnings about the impacts of agricultural chemicals.

Policymakers are under the gun to require farmers to develop buffers that nurture plant and wildlife diversity, sparking a debate in the EU over whether to make such policies obligatory in the post-2013 Common Agricultural Policy.

Ben Woodcock, of the British National Environment Research Council, argues that buffers and other habitats reduce the need for pesticides and fertilisers, help improve soil quality and make farmland more productive.

Referring to the role of bees and birds as pollinators, Woodcock told EurActiv: “If you keep damaging crop land, if you keep reducing the overall area of semi-natural habitats, these ecosystem services will actually decline.”

Woodcock, of the council’s Centre’s for Ecology and Hydrology, testified at a European Parliament conference last month that such buffers areas are good for productivity.

Meanwhile, a recently launched programme supported through European Union research funds seeks to encourage farmers to protect bees and other insect pollinators.

The Status and Trends of European Pollinators, or STEP programme, says bees and other pollinating insects are vital to the production of 84% of Europe’s crops, including fruits, vegetables and herbs. But the organisation notes that 16% of honeybee colonies have disappeared over a generation due to loss of habitat, disease and the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides.

EFSA report due in 2013

EFSA established a task force to review hundreds of scientific reports on threats to bee populations. The findings will now be assessed by EFSA’s scientific experts with their assessment to be published next year.

“With its mandate to improve EU food safety and to ensure a high level of consumer protection, EFSA has a responsibility to protect bees and the ecosystem services they provide to humans,” EFSA said in a statement.

The second EFSA report on bees for next year will build on the review of EFSA’s activities on bee-related risk assessment activities and research carried out by national, European and international bodies such as the French food safety agency Anses, the European Commission, the European Environment Agency and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Food agency wants to strengthen EU risk assessment

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 07:42:24 +0000

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.

The two-day conference, Challenging boundaries in risk assessment – sharing experiences, which ended yesterday (8 November), brought together global specialists from a wide range of scientific disciplines.

The scientists examined the frontiers of risk assessment and considered future key issues and opportunities.

“EFSA functions thanks to the EU risk assessment community,” Hubert Deluyker, EFSA's director of Science Strategy and Coordination, said in a speech.

“And we are central to its progress, for instance through the development of guidance that has harmonised and modernised methodologies relating to risk assessment for food and feed over the past decade.”

The conference came amid renewed controversy surrounding the approval of genetically modified crops in Europe after a French biologist from the University of Caen published a study that questioned the safety of Monsanto's GM maize.

The French government immediately asked the country's health watchdog to investigate the findings further and called on European authorities to "take all necessary measures to protect human health", including an "emergency suspension" of imports of the maize variety in Europe.

>> Read: French study re-launches GMO controversy

EFSA later rebuked the French study, saying in a preliminary report that the research was "of insufficient scientific quality for safety assessments".

In doing so, the agency drew accusations that it was too close to the biotech industry, illustrating the political sensitivity of GMOs, which are banned for cultivation in Austria and several other European countries.

"It's not our role to say whether we like GMOs or not," said EFSA Executive Director Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle. "We are just here to access the risk. This does noes ease our work because we are scientists and we work in a very political environment," she added.

>> Read: Food safety agency questions French GMO report

Speaking at the conference, Geslain-Lanéelle reaffirmed the food safety agency's commitment to expanding risk-assessment capacity in Europe.

Other top speakers were Anne Glover, chief scientific advisor to the European Commission, Jesse Goodman of the US Food and Drug Administration, and EFSA expert and University of Rome Professor Vittorio Silano.

Growing workload

The context in which the EFSA operates has evolved significantly in recent years, the speakers stressed, driven both by advancements in science and technology as well as changes in the legislative framework.

This has seen an increased emphasis in EFSA’s workload towards the evaluation of regulated products, environmental risk assessment and post-market monitoring.

Deluyker called for a debate on how risk assessment organisations such as EFSA can best focus their finite resources in the face of growing and evolving demands for their expertise from regulatory authorities and different stakeholder groups.

While cooperation with public health bodies and research institutes is critical for EFSA’s work, stakeholders also have an important role to play in the risk assessment community, for example, by collecting and sharing of data with public authorities.

“A core challenge is about where we focus our time and effort to continue to make progress in protecting consumers," Deluyker said.

The delegates at the conference will during the conference have the opportunity to attend sessions that will focus on identifying and characterising hazards; environmental risk assessment; dietary exposure in risk assessment; risk characterisation and efficacy assessment in food and feed.

Wrapping up the conference, Tony Hardy, chair of EFSA’s Scientific Committee, said that the conference should not be a one-off.

"These scientific conferences should take place more often and focus on some of the issues raised. Science will always drive forward with developments in technology and also in scientific theory," Hardy stated.

EU, UNESCO seal ‘partnership based on values’

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:09:53 +0000

The EU and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization have signed an agreement unprecedented in terms of its commitment to cooperation not only in education, science and culture, but also in press freedom and human rights.

The deal to boost cooperation between the EU and UNESCO was signed in Brussels on Monday (8 October) by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

Cooperation agreements have been put in place in the past between UNESCO and the Commission. The new agreement, however, the first since the Lisbon Treaty was enforced, binds not only the EU executive but the Union as a whole, and the content appears as more “political” in terms of commitment to universal values.

A European touch

“I see I see this signing as the culmination also of one of the priorities I set when elected director-general - to deepen strategic relations between UNESCO and the European Union,” Bokova said, who has held the post since September 2009.

Bokova, a Bulgarian national, became the first woman and the first Eastern European to lead UNESCO.

“Having myself worked on the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union as the first State Secretary for the European integration, I am deeply aware of the common ground UNESCO and the European Union share,” said Bokova.

Bokova said the EU and UNESCO should work “harder and closer” in the rapidly changing environment, mentioning the economic crisis, the consequences of climate change and the challenges of the Arab Spring. To this end, UNESCO opened a liaison office in Brussels.

Among the main areas for common action, she outlined the support of freedom of expression and media development, notably in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Piebalgs expressed hope that the focus on human rights and education would make “more of a difference in these key areas than ever before."

Both UNESCO and the EU promote human rights and fundamental freedoms as cornerstones of stability and development, the joint statement reads.

Marie-Paule Roudil, head of the Brussels office of UNESCO, told EurActiv that previous agreements had been “more administrative” in nature. In general, she said UN services were looking traditionally at the EU as the biggest sponsor of development aid. But when Bokova came to Brussels to set up the liaison office in February 2011, she committed to change this pattern and set up “a partnership based on shared values”, Roudil said.

“Some organisations see in the Union more of a financial sponsor than a promoter of values. We at UNESCO are a different in this respect,” she said.

Obiang prize crisis

Defending “values”, however, doesn’t appear as an easy task tor UNESCO, an organisation whose members include countries with dubious democratic credentials.

The agency lived recently through a crisis over the awarding of a prize, financed by the dictator of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. The prize was proposed in 2008. Obiang, who took power in a coup in 1979, provided €2.32 million over five years; half the money is to go to recipients and half is to cover the costs of selecting the winners, who are all distinguished scientists.

The USA and other countries blocked the award for years, but in March, the 58-nation executive board of UNESCO voted to go ahead. Bokova opposed the award. A compromise was found - the award no longer bears the name Obiang. Instead, it is called “the UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences.”

EU science advisor: 'Lots of policies are not based on evidence'

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:17:58 +0000

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.

Professor Anne Glover was appointed the Commission’s first chief scientific advisor in December, charged with providing “high-level and independent scientific advice throughout all stages of policy development and delivery” to Commission President José Manuel Barroso. Glover served as chief scientific advisor for Scotland from August 2006 to December 2011, holds a chair in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Aberdeen, is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Glover spoke to EurActiv’s Jeremy Fleming in her office in the Berlaymont.

How is your new role bedding down in the Commission?

It’s important for me that there is added value. Many would have felt 'What does the CSA do?', and many say do we already have scientific representation in the Commission through DG Research.

But that is a little different, because what they do is policy for science, whereas what I am doing is science for policy. There will be overlap, but the roles are quite distinct. I’m pleased that many perceive it as an opportunity for policymakers, rather than as something that they do not need to pay attention to, or are not keen on.

People understand the value of evidence in policymaking and where science and technology fits into 21st century Europe. I am surprised by the types of people who want to speak to me, such as economists. I was the CSA in Scotland and I was still finding doors to knock on by the time I left. My term lasts until the end of the current Commission at the end of 2014. It’s two and a half years away and I am working on how much I can achieve within that time and I have to be realistic.

How advanced is scientific evidence in policymaking in Europe?

I think if we have got a fresher approach to evidence at policymaking, and I think there is an impressive robust approach in the Commission. In terms of how you generate a platform of evidence, how that in turn is used to look at impact, and the whole impact assessment board. I have been very impressed by that, because I think it has to be one of the most robust processes across member states.

The challenge is what you then do at the next step, where the democratic process comes in. I look at that and how member states wish to use the evidence base, or not, and how happy they are and how confident they are in using the evidence as the main tool for decision-making, and that is a big challenge.

Why is that such a challenge?

Because in every member state, including the one I am from, lots of policies are not based on evidence, there could other economic reasons, social reasons. Take a simple issue such as harmful drugs. If you look at the evidence of how many people die taking drugs, rather than in a pastime. There are more people killed horse riding – an example recently used by [former UK government science adviser] David Nutt – rather than taking ecstasy. So do you use that evidence, and say: 'Fine, let’s ban horse riding, and legalise ecstasy?' Well, no, because there are lots of other issues and lots of other factors to consider. Such as: if you go horse riding you probably use safety head gear and go to a proper stables, whereas you hardly ever know exactly what you are taking if you take recreational drugs, so it’s a different scenario.

So we need to use evidence carefully and properly and there will be times when people wish to modify how they use the evidence, and the important thing for me is transparency. I think we could really get somewhere in Europe if when evidence is used partially, there were an obligation on people to say why they have rejected evidence.

That is a really important thing for me, because I think that you should be held to account, it’s easy in life to say no to things, it’s quite hard to say yes to things.

Can you give an example of where you feel evidence has been partially used, or not used?

It would apply to how we implement regulations around genetically modified organism (GMO) foods, because we have so much very robust evidence, and the precautionary principle is no longer relevant with GMO foods or crops.

If we look at evidence from [more than] 15 years of growing and consuming GMO foods globally, then there is no substantiated case of any adverse impact on human health, animal health or environmental health, so that’s pretty robust evidence, and I would be confident in saying that there is no more risk in eating GMO food than eating conventionally farmed food.

I would say there is risk in eating food and that’s what people forget. Eating food is risky, most of us forget that most plants are toxic, and it’s only because we cook them, or the quantity that we eat them in, that makes them suitable.

So you would say GMOs are safe?

The bottom line for me is that there is no more risk in GMO food than conventionally farmed food, it has nothing to do with genetic engineering, so if you decide that you want to implement the regulations in such a way that you want to prevent the use [of GMO food] then that has to be talked about, and people need to be clear why you have rejected it.

I am looking at the global challenge of how we feed the world’s population, which is increasing, how do we address sustainable fuel, such as second and third generation biofuels – indeed first generation biofuels? If we are using land to produce biofuels, we are not producing food, and that that means we have to intensify food production. It is connected to sustainable intensification.

I would argue that we use every technical possibility – not just GMOs – it requires every tool in our toolkit to deliver. It is the same with water security, if we have the possibility of producing drought-resistant crops why would we not do that if that is safe?

How can you reinforce your evidence-based approach?

I hope I have a role in that. Sometimes politicians and officials here in the Commission are not so confident around scientific issues, but that’s what I am, a scientist.

Sometimes you hear my role referred to as an ‘independent’ CSA, that’s not because I am operating entirely independent of the Commission, but because the evidence with which I work is independent, the evidence with which I work does not change according to political philosophy. And that should give people a lot of confidence, that there is a stable platform, and surely evidence does evolve but we’ve got a really secure platform on which to examine the evidence.

There has been much public mistrust around GMOs

You are right to mention the public view of things, because the public remembers in the 1980s and 1990s, when we started hearing about a lot of discomfort around the subject of GMO crops, and felt perhaps they were being manipulated by industrial interests.

But that is a generation ago, we’ve moved on and the challenges are completely different and we are not having that debate. I would be happy to reopen that debate, but just to be absolutely clear, I am not trying to promote GMO crops, I am trying to promote evidence. I would be happy for people to have that evidence and then consider the risk versus reward.

In the same way that you might consider the risk of excessive use of mobile telephones, transmission masts, and iPods. We know that there is a high risk that if you listen to iPods a lot of the time at high volume that you will be deaf by middle age. If you look at that risk, it means medical treatment and support for a generation that will not be able to contribute to the workforce and have a diminished quality of life, but people make a choice there, and they know what the risk and the rewards are.

The difference with GMO is people are not aware of the real risk and the real reward. I Think it would be good to talk about that.

Would you like to have a more formal approach to the use of evidence in policymaking, for example an evidence test applied to policy?

I would like that very much. It’s always possible if there is a will to do that [it could be introduced], but people need to be convinced of the value of it.

What would the value of that be? The value would be that where you use scientific evidence for another policy then it would be much more credible. If, for example, on GM crops you say well we wish to make the regulations even more robust and difficult to grow GM crops, but you claim that there is no evidence, but then later you try and use that scientific evidence to back up another issue. There is a reward for being transparent about evidence.

Are you against the precautionary principle being applied to evidence?

No, there is nothing wrong with the precautionary principle if it is properly implemented in the way conceived. In my mind it’s useful as a challenge function. If you have a new technology like geo-engineering, you might say it would be great if you fill the sky with clouds [through cloud-seeding] but you have to ask: 'What do I need to know to allow me to proceed?' Does that mean a moratorium on advancing issues? No, because we do not halt work in most areas.

But we need to think of imaginative ways of taking advantage of the fact that we produce the highest quality knowledge in the world in Europe, and we need the pathways to allow that knowledge deliver for Europeans and more widely for the globe.

European business needs success, in healthcare and quality of life and the environment we need to be best on the basis of the knowledge we produce, largely through public funding, whether by the individual member states or the Commission.

We should not, in producing that knowledge, somehow tie our hands behind our back in such a way that we will be so precautionary that we will wait for everyone else to use our knowledge before we use it. That would be my worry, because knowledge is an international currency, and we are amongst the slowest in taking advantage of the knowledge we create, and that cannot be right.

I would like to test opinion on that, to see is that what people want. We accept that there is always risk, it’s something that inherently we all know. Anyone who rides a bike or drives a car knows that there is a risk, and they are not going to remove risk but reduce risk. Most people feel happier driving than taking an aeroplane trip, because they think it’s riskier, but the hard facts say – per kilometre – flying is much safer.

The difference is that people feel that because they are in control of the car but not the plane, and that they can deal with it. It’s an interesting [example] in working out how you make evidence understandable to politicians. You cannot get something that is risk free.

You have talked publicly about the need to increase the role of women in science. What was your reaction to the Commission’s recent controversial video teaser for its 'Women in Science' campaign, which was accused of sexism and was pulled?

I think it got headlines for the wrong reasons. Did it appeal to me? No. But was it targeted at me? No. If I were a teenage girl it might have done, and I was genuinely upset at the reaction to that campaign. It was nothing to do with me, but I fully supported it and I support it because the Commission was genuinely trying to do something to get around the idea that science is for boys, engineering is for boys, and you are not welcome if you are a woman, that girls are unwelcome here.

And the teenage group of young women – for whom that teaser video was directed – is a very hard group of people to reach and they are at that stage in life where they are making choices, and a very large proportion do not choose science. Across the member states the Commission used focus groups asking what drew their attention. I may not like the fact that young girls think about high heels and lipstick. Now, if that’s what young girls think about then you would be foolish if you were an advertiser to ignore that.

So it might not be the world I want to live in but it is the world I am living in and I want to change it now. So I am quite happy that if that video attracts people to the website and they start looking at things then that’s fine by me, and I was genuinely disappointed, particularly by many older scientists and women my age. They had perhaps not thought about who was the focus of the campaign. It was not them, but adolescents.

I had a campaign in Scotland for science using women designing clothes that change colour. People complained then, and asked: 'Why women and clothes?' Well, because women are interested in clothes. Do young people want to see a bluestocking in an advertisement? If that were the case I could have been the role model for that.

The Commission realised there was a lot offence and withdrew it, but I was mystified and disappointed because there is a lot of good stuff on that website.

Are there similar CSA roles in the US and China?

There is no one in China but John Holdren [director of the White House’s office of science and technology policy] is probably my equivalent in the US. The fact that there is not someone equivalent in China and other countries is, I think, a lost opportunity. Because it would be rather interesting if we had a network of chief scientists. The idea is to find people who have great credibility and a network with the science community and politicians in their own country. They have the opportunity of discussing evidence amongst scientists, of identifying where there might be blockages or challenges in particular countries, thinking about being imaginative about that evidence, and then to go back to politicians and giving them – I think – a much better sense of security about using the evidence.

Would you consider trying to implement a sort of network of CSAs in Europe?

I am speaking to member states at the moment at the level of ministries, and it’s a slow process, to try and get them to nominate someone they would feel happy with to start such a network. Because once I have got that network, they will have some way of influencing me, and I will have a way of disseminating information back to member states.

I believe that can only be useful to MEPs and ministers, because they would come here with a scientific briefing taking account of issues within all the member states. We would be ahead of the game if Europe organised itself like that.

What can the research at CERN in Switzerland achieve, is the Higgs Boson particle, if provable, a game changer for science?

It has already produced a vast quantity of data, and that led to the World Wide Web. If you think how important that has been in all our lives, and that was what looking for this elusive particle led to. What CERN does is three things: science and knowledge, translation – supporting business and industry – and education. They do these in equal measure, and they have these three in mind.

They have also produced PET scans [positron emission tomography scans]. Positrons are antimatter so this is a development that came out of CERN, using antimatter to be able non-invasively to scan the body and provide diagnosis and treatment for a variety of issues. Retinal imaging eye-scanning also comes from CERN.

Maybe we are not good at saying 'PET scanning, brought to you by CERN!'. Maybe we are not good at doing this and people think it is just a big budget project for some people to find a Higgs Boson.

The Higgs Boson (HB) will help us to understand the fundamental nature of matter. So what? Well the 'so what' is quite interesting, because this table [Glover points to a table] is 99.9% nothing. But I’m hitting it [Glover taps the table]. It’s because we do not understand the very little matter in the table. We cannot fully explain it, and the HB will help us understand what gives things mass.

If we wanted to transport it from here to Rome, it would require energy. But if we understand the fundamental nature of matter, it may be possible – and I am straying a bit into science fiction here – It may be possible to take that from a 30 kilogram table into one gram.

No risk with GMO food, says EU chief scientific advisor

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:11:06 +0000

EXCLUSIVE: Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are no riskier than their conventionally farmed equivalents, the European Commission’s Chief Scientific Advisor Anne Glover has told EurActiv in an exclusive interview, calling for countries impeding GMO use to be put to proof.

The endorsement of GMO safety will rattle member states where bans are in place (see background), and represents the CSA’s highest-profile policy intervention since Glover became Commission President José Manuel Barroso’s scientific advisor last December.

“There is no substantiated case of any adverse impact on human health, animal health or environmental health, so that’s pretty robust evidence, and I would be confident in saying that there is no more risk in eating GMO food than eating conventionally farmed food,” Glover told EurActiv, saying the precautionary principle no longer applies as a result.

Glover said she was not promoting GMOs, and added that “eating food is risky”, explaining: “Most of us forget that most plants are toxic, and it’s only because we cook them, or the quantity that we eat them in, that makes them suitable.”

Scarce resources

But she said that scientific evidence needed to play a stronger role in policymaking, firing a warning shot at countries that have banned GMOs. “I think we could really get somewhere in Europe if when evidence is used partially, there were an obligation on people to say why they have rejected evidence,” she said.

GMOs and other scientific advances must be explored in order to head off the increasing scarcity of energy and other resources and competition for land use, Glover suggested.

“If we are using land to produce biofuels, we are not producing food, and that that means we have to intensify food production,” she said.

Glover, a former professor of biology at the University of Aberdeen, served as chief scientific advisor for Scotland before from 2006-2011. She joined the Commission on 1 January.

Her role is to bolster scientific evidence by saying things that politicians and officials are sometimes uncomfortable with, she said, adding: “The evidence with which I work is independent, the evidence with which I work does not change according to political philosophy. And that should give people a lot of confidence.”

Glover said that discomfort around the subject of GM crops in the 1980s and 1990s was “a generation ago, we’ve moved on and the challenges are completely different”.

She said that the precautionary principle was appropriate when applied properly, but added: “We should not … somehow tie our hands behind our back in such a way that we will be so precautionary that we will wait for everyone else to use our knowledge before we use it.”

"That would be my worry, because knowledge is an international currency, and we are amongst the slowest in taking advantage of the knowledge we create, and that cannot be right."

Grabbing the attention of teenage girls

Glover also defended the recent teaser video issued by the Commission in support of its 'Women in Science' campaign. The teaser – which depicted young women mixing chemicals morphing into cosmetics – was pulled by the Commission amidst complaints that it pandered to sexist stereotypes.

“I may not like the fact that young girls think about high heels and lipstick. Now, if that’s what young girls think about then you would be foolish if you were an advertiser to ignore that,” Glover said, expressing disappointment with the criticism from “many older scientists and women my age”.

She said: “They had perhaps not thought about who was the focus of the campaign. It was not them, but adolescents.”

Glover also said that she was examining the possibility of creating a network of individual chief scientific advisors within member states, to provide more clearly focused lines of communication on scientific evidence within EU policymaking.

Huge pool of Arctic water could cool Europe: study

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:14:03 +0000

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.

Using satellites to measure sea surface height from 1995 to 2010, scientists from University College London and Britain's National Oceanography Center found that the western Arctic's sea surface has risen by about 15 centimetres since 2002.

The volume of fresh water has increased by at least 8,000 cubic kilometers, or about 10% of all the fresh water in the Arctic Ocean. The fresh water comes from melting ice and river run-off.

The rise could be due to strong Arctic winds increasing an ocean current called the Beaufort Gyre, making the sea surface bulge upwards.

The Beaufort Gyre is one of the least understood bodies of water on the planet. It is a slowly swirling body of ice and water north of Alaska, about 10 times bigger than Lake Michigan in the United States.

Some scientists believe the natural rhythms of the gyre could be affected by global warming which could have serious implications for the ocean's circulation and rising sea levels.

Climate models have suggested that wind blowing on the surface of the sea has formed a raised dome in the middle of the Beaufort Gyre, but there have been few in-depth studies to confirm this.

If the wind changes direction, which happened between the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, the pool of fresh water could spill out into the rest of the Arctic Ocean and even into the North Atlantic Ocean, the study said.

This could cool Europe by slowing down an ocean current coming from the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe relatively mild compared with countries at similar latitudes.

"Our findings suggest that a reversal of the wind could result in the release of this fresh water to the rest of the Arctic Ocean and even beyond," Katharine Giles at UCL's Center for Polar Observation and Modelling and lead author of the study, said on 22 January. The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The team plans to investigate further the relationship between sea-ice cover and wind changes.

European Research Area re-launched, again

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 08:39:23 +0000

The European Commission will today launch "the largest ever European consultation on science and research" in its third major drive to create a European Research Area (ERA), more than a decade after the idea first surfaced in 2000.

The consultation runs until 30 November 2011 and will ask researchers if they find themselves "trapped" in one country, and what sort of new infrastructures they require to share their ideas.

Speaking to journalists ahead of the consultation's launch, the EU commissioner for research and innovation, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, said she was aiming to finalise the proposal and publish it before the end of 2012.

The initiative follows calls from EU leaders in February to remove remaining obstacles to a unified European Research Area by 2014, a move that will provide new impetus to the decade-old ERA, she claimed.

Single market for knowledge, goods

Geoghegan-Quinn said creating a single market for "knowledge" would enable researchers, institutions and businesses to circulate, compete and co-operate across borders, increasing growth potential.

She wanted the results of the ERA to be just as visible in Europe as the implementation of the single market for goods and services was in 1992.

Delays to the original proposal, which surfaced during the Lisbon Council in 2000, mean that the Commission is running out of credibility in relation to the idea, which was already "re-launched" in 2008.

Given the current budgetary restrictions and austerity drives at national level, there are doubts that the Commission will have the time or the energy to implement such an idea.

Backing from Barroso, Van Rompuy

Geoghegan-Quinnn insisted that her colleagues were not too distracted by fire-fighting the "stark" economic outlook to prevent this attempt at creating the ERA from succeeding. She claimed to have significant political backing from EU member states, Commission President José Manuel Barroso and his European Council counterpart Herman Van Rompuy.

The commissioner said that the Council's "deadline" of 2014 was unprecedented and provided impetus to the project, adding that Van Rompuy would personally intervene to include the ERA on the Council agenda if he felt that member states were dragging their feet.

Meanwhile, she said Barroso had been asking his Commission colleagues for proposals that could deliver growth and jobs to be put forward to him, and that discussion of austerity programmes had always gone hand in hand with attempts to deliver growth and jobs.

An EU official told EurActiv that the ERA had the advantage of being an initiative that would cost nothing, and that such proposals were likely to find more favour in the EU executive during such a period of austerity than high-cost job creation schemes.

Jeremy Fleming

A scientific Europe is imperative

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:05:11 +0000

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.

Helga Nowotny is president of the European Research Council and Professor Emerita of Social Studies of Science at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology).

"On 29 June, the European Commission will present its budget proposal for the next multi-year period, which begins in 2014. It will include items such as the Common Agricultural Policy, regional structural funds, and research and innovation. But how does the European Union envisage using these investments to shape its future?

The European Parliament and the Council of Europe's member states are yet to have their say, as foreseen in the budget procedure. But several trends are discernible in the intense discussion that has already begun, both within the European Commission and among the various stakeholders,

For one thing, the term 'framework programme' will be scrapped. Even its name is up for grabs: the European Commission has just launched an open competition to come up with a new one. The goal is to capture the major underlying policy shift from a highly heterogeneous portfolio of programmes – intended to support various goals in various ways and to varying degrees – to a legislative and budgetary package designed to serve as a common strategic framework.

But a framework constructed to achieve what? The strengthening of Europe's position within an atmosphere of heightened global competitiveness remains at the forefront. The dramatic increase of China's share in scientific publications worldwide, recently highlighted in a report by the Royal Society in London, is a good indicator of what lies ahead.

The aim is no longer to become 'the world's most competitive knowledge economy,' as disingenuously announced in 2000. Rather, it has shifted in a more urgent, complex, and inherently unforeseeable way, as spelled out in the EU 2020 strategy's vision of an 'Innovation Union'.

Under this broad umbrella, research, development, and innovation (RD&I) policy must identify the right answers on two fronts: 'what' and 'how'. Currently, a three-pronged strategy can be discerned for the 'what': knowledge for growth (economic recovery and prosperity); knowledge for society (tackling the grand challenges ahead, from climate change and energy security to healthy ageing); and knowledge for science (nurturing Europe's science and technology base, which remains indispensable for innovation).

Under the banner of 'simplification,' the 'how' is gravitating towards outsourcing most of the implementation to agencies that are to be endowed, one hopes, with greater flexibility to fulfill their specific missions. This requires a smoothly working and much more efficient interface between the agencies and the European Commission, which retains overall control over them, as well as a thorough revision of the financial regulation for the entire operation and its oft-criticised bureaucratic red tape.

Some tough political choices lie ahead: Which parts of the framework programme are to be continued, and which terminated? How can innovation, which is never only technological, but social as well, be achieved and fully used? And, perhaps most importantly, what are the optimal trade-offs to get EU member states and European institutions to cooperate more efficiently for a common European future?"

To read the op-ed in full, please click here.

Published in partnership with Project Syndicate