“European Research Council in full flight,” screams the July issue of the Europe4Researchers newsletter published by the European Commission, which landed in my inbox on this afternoon.
The article boasts that the ERC has “developed into a well-functioning research funding body”.
Great news, if it were true.
Yesterday a panel of experts - assembled by the Commission itelf [...]

When words like “subprime” and “credit crunch” entered the public lexicon in 2007, commentators said it would pass within a few months. Once banks published their annual reports, they said, we’d know who had toxic assets on their balance sheets and confidence would return to the markets.
That was two years ago.
Now, as the credit crunch [...]

€228 million for entrepreneurs in Cyprus, €300 million for Dutch SMEs, and €200 million for a train in Spain: The European Investment Bank promised three quarters of a billion Euro in loans to help keep economies moving during the credit crunch - and that was just Friday!
The Bank has pledged to make €30 billion available [...]

Oh dear. As if the debate on nanotechnology were not complex enough, it now seems companies are quietly burying references to nanomaterials contained in consumer produts. Until recently, branding something as containing ‘nanotechnology’ was seen as a plus - a marketing boost. Now though, a new pattern is emerging.
Consumer groups in Norway, the UK and [...]