Joanna Roberts 
Socially focused innovators across Europe have called on the European Union to put innovation at the heart of its strategy to achieve a ‘social triple A rating’– an ambition set out by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014 to give greater prominence to the bloc’s social priorities. Carlos Moedas, the European Commissioner for Research, … Read more
Bill Gates and the European Commission have launched a €100 million investment fund designed to bring radical clean energy technologies more quickly to market in order to promote energy efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking at the launch in Brussels, Belgium, on 17 October, Gates said that science and innovation hold the key to tackling climate … Read more
The most cost-effective climate change actions are also those that could help us achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as ending poverty and hunger, according to Dr Keywan Riahi, director of the energy program of the International Institute Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria, who says the first step should be to cut our energy … Read more
Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics, ‘desperately’ need an institutional framework and system of values to help regulate the industry, an ethics expert has told leading scientists and policymakers. Jeroen van den Hoven, professor of ethics and technology at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, was speaking at a session on ethics … Read more
The scientific community needs to listen more to people outside academia if it wants to continue to help politicians create good evidence-based policies that will benefit the public, a conference has heard. ‘The time has passed where you write a report with a band of experts and pass it on to the public,’ said Dr … Read more
There are likely to be many more ingredients for life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus than those identified so far, says Dr Frank Postberg from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, the lead author of a paper published on 27 June which revealed the presence of complex carbon-based molecules in the moon’s core. He says a fresh mission could … Read more