Google Glass - a new type of wearable computer.
According to a 16 May 2013 review in The Telegraph, Google Glass is "the computer that has both excited and worried millions. Forget the next iPad or the Samsung Galaxy S5 - Google Glass is the hottest property in today’s ov...
On our way to a regressive society ?
Todd Akin, by his speech about the fact that he truly believe that a women can't get pregnant if she has been raped, has maybe open the doors to the return of a conservative society.
Aumento del fenómeno Bulliyng, violencia en las aulas.
Las cifras que durante este año se han publicado en los medios de comunicación sobre el acoso escolar son muy preocupantes, no tanto por la gravedad de algunas conductas aisladas, que se han dado a conocer y que hemos visto p...
¿Por qué ha cambiado tanto la educación?
La educación que había antiguamente no sirve para la actualidad, puesto que las cosas han cambiado y cambiarán más probablemente. Toda la vida nos han dicho que hay que tener estudios, pero ¿hoy en día para que sirven? es...
Life controlled by optical fiber technology
Currently more than 1.5 billion kilometers of optical fiber is deployed around the world, connecting people, businesses, communities, countries, and continents.
Deadly food products hit Europe
Health officials say the virus, believed to have originated from organic cucumbers in Germany has killed 10 people and infected hundreds. The epicentre of the outbreak has been in the country's north with more than 300 people c...
Emergence of no-gender societies
A Toronto couple are defending their decision to keep their infant's sex a secret in order to allow the child to develop his or her own gender identity.
Holistic Innovation – Fusion of Product and Service Innova ...
The successful creation of innovations is considered to be one of the key factors for companies to generate sustainable competitive advantages and corporate growth. But the exclusive focus on creating smashing new product innov...
Reduced Security Control to Push Innovation
In a keynote Google’s former CIO Douglas Merrill describes Google’s approach concerning internal innovation culture as offering employees as much freedom as possible in their working/innovation processes, e.g, by letting th...
Ideas In Action – High Transparency at Dell Idea Storm
The multinational technology corporation Dell is giving interested users the chance to post ideas on products, best practices and general topics. Other users can comment and further promote or demote them. In a specific section...
From Closed Innovation to Top-Secret Innovation?
n Summer 2009, an employee of one of Apple’s manufacturer committed suicide after loosing a prototype of a next generation iPhone, There are rumours that he was maltreated and his house was searched illegally. Apple, common...
Edison Nation: Match-making for innovators and companies
Edison Nation is an online community dedicated to inventors and people with ideas. It aims at helping them to turn their ideas into products and companies discovering those ideas. People can submit their ideas (into the Live Pr...
In the beginning of 2009 the American cereals manufacturer Post came up with a new campaign under the tagline “Why we put the NO in Innovation.” By emphasizing the 100% natural ingredients and the fact that the product has ...
The Board Of Innovation, an online network of innovators, organised a 24 Hour non-stop marathon of innovation projects around the world on May, 15th of 2009. During a full day and night more than 60 participants presented their...
Non-Western Innovation Boom: Biotech in China
China invests vast amounts of resources into research programs in order to foster basic research and applied science, in particular concerning the sponsorship of future technologies such as biotech. The budget of research insti...
Traditionally, innovations found their way from developed to emerging markets in the form of less-sophisticated products at lower prices. The numbers of examples that work the other way around are increasing. It is more and mor...
Obama´s goal: One Million e-cars on the US streets by 2015
In his State of the Union speech, Obama set a goal of putting one million "electric cars" on the road by 2015.
Ancestors’ Second Life influences our First Lives
People are encouraged to record advice, conversations, and memories – and thought processes and structures of feeling - to be used in the event of brain damage or death. In the latter case, these can be used as resources for ...
Emergence of Mediterranean Sea acidification studies
Increases of atmospheric CO2 and associated decreases in seawater pH and carbonate ion concentration this century and beyond are likely to have wide impacts on marine ecosystems including those of the Mediterranean Sea. Consequ...
Concerns over socio-economic and humanities research "downgr ...
The role of Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities as a stream (SSH) within the European Commission's Framework Programme is being changed. In particular, three issues have been highlighted by critical commentators and the Univ...
A suicide bomber of UK citizenship caused two explosions in Stockholm streets on Saturday the 11th of December 2010 . neer Christmas shoppers. The bomber was killed in the attack. The bomber named Abdulwahab used to study in ...
Optical lifting demonstrated for the first time
Scientists observed and experimentally verified a micrometer-scale object being lifted by a beam of laser light. Optical lifting may be useful for improving the design of solar sails for interstellar space travel. The scientist...
Privatisation of space flights
Growing efforts of commercial firms to commercialise space travel, including space tourism. For example, Boeing has teamed up recently with a private spaceflight marketing firm to sell passenger seats for future flights of its ...
Discovery of earth-like extra-solar planets
As of December 2, 2010, 505 extra-sols planets were detected. Most are giant planets (like Jupiter), but recently several relatively lightweight exoplanets, only a few times more massive than Earth, have also been detected, thu...
Life-form thriving on arsenic was discovered on Earth
NASA-funded research discovered microorganisms on Earth (in Mono Lake, California), able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. According to NASA, this finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter...
Growing frequency of floods in Europe and the world
The number of flooding events in Europe and the world has doubled since 2005 (when 50 severe events were reported). The figure increased in 2006 (67 floods), 2007 (73 floods), 2008 (77 floods) and 2009 (88 floods). However, 201...
Bees be no more, less food than before
Reducing numbers of bees and other pollinating insects reaches catastrophic levels with widespread crop failure due to lack of pollination of plants. Natural herbivores affected and go into decline but other insects also in det...
Social TV offers a new interactive viewing experience
People are combining their social networks with TV to comment on live events (such as Oscars, Olympics etc). Further research is ongoing into combining the active experience of social networks with the passive experience of TV ...
Eastern working practices influencing the Western world?
Working practices for manufacturers (such as ipods) in China are very poor and have led to a number of suicide attempts. If western practices are taken on board, then the demand for products may not be met and the Western world...
Growing efforts to assist SMEs to exploit R&D collaborative ...
Handbooks aimed directly at SMEs are available to assist SMEs to maximise the benefits of involvement of participating in collaborative R&D projects. SMEs could begin to take the lead in new innovative product and process devel...
Administration rather than results a priority
Organisations utilising public money for 'paperwork exercises' rather than R&D and results oriented research. More public money is wasted without a sufficient return on investment until projects become solely a paperwork exerci...
Lack of interest in science by young scholars
The relatively small number of scholars taking careers in science could lead to a shortage of researchers and severe knowledge gaps in the future that would take years to recover from as a whole generation has limited knowledge...
Implantable electronics leaving no trace
Implantable electronic devices can be used to deliver dugs, monitor biomarkers and stimulate nerves. Once their action is completed they dissolve. Although this could be pioneering for medical research, it is also open to abuse...
Synthetic Telepathy - thinking not so out loud...
Research is underway on synthetic telepathy to ultimately lead to a brain-brain communication system that would benefit soldiers on a battlefield aswell as stroke and paralysis sufferers. Communication would take on a completel...
Bendy Copper Nanowires akin to foldable iPad
Chemists have perfected a simple way to manufacture inexpensive copper nanowires in great quantities that are so small they are transparent. Applications could clearly be in thin-film solar cells, TVs, computers and other flexi...
Herbs (enhanced by Nanotechnology) used to fight cancer
Natural herbs enhanced with Nanotechnology are being used to combat and fight cancer. If successfully developed, this natural remedy would revolutionise global cancer treatment and prolong life. Such treatment is non-invasive a...
DNA Testing and Social Engineering on the rise
Technological advancements have seen that DNA can be accurately tested (for example to prove paternity). As this technology becomes more integrated into society, will people start to pick partners and friends by their DNA? Will...
In the nuclear research, R&D also in other fields of science is necessary. It is expecially the material science and its progress in development of new materials, first used in other industries (e.g. in airplanes) and then appl...
Lack of interest in nuclear energetics among young generation
Development of every industry is depended on availability of human resources. In the countries which declared a phase-out from nuclear energetics, an apparent decrease of interest in this field among young generation is seen, a...
Increasing negative attitudes of societies towards nuclear e ...
Although nuclear energy is due to many reasons considered safe and clean source of energy, there are countries and movements struggling for its total inhibition. These attitudes emphasize especially radiation risks of nuclear p...
No strict global rules on nuclear security
Nowadays, no strict global rules on nuclear security are being defined and implemented. With a anticipated spread of production of nuclear energy also to third world countries, the threat of a consequent nuclear disaster is hig...
Small-scale nuclear power plant operating
Small-scale nuclear power plant delivering energy only for two cities was put into operation. The production of the energy from this source make the two cities independent on pan-European energy system.
Nuclear power plants built in third world countries
Nuclear power becomes world-spread and nuclear power plants are being built in third world countries - with limited security infrastructure, or inappropriately qualified personnel. The risk of a nuclear disaster would become higher.
Increasing shortage of qualified labor force
With continuous ageing of population and low birth rate, the shortage of qualified labor in certain industrial sectors can become an increasingly wide issue, especially for the developed countries, but also for some of the deve...
Fast electronics for compact lab-on-chip applications
The goal of the ULTRA project is the development of THz systems for medical, biological and chemical analysis. The combination of electronic, microfluidic, THz and 3D packaging technologies will enable low-cost, reliable and hi...
Next generation peer-to-peer content delivery platform
P2P-Next develops an open source, efficient, trusted, personalized, user-centric, and participatory television and media delivery system with social and collaborative connotation using the emerging Peer-to-Peer (P2P) paradigm, ...
Virtual laws and nations in cyberspace
Project VirtualLife aims to provide an immersive and secure virtual life environment, combining a high quality 3D virtual experience with the trustiness of a secure communication infrastructure. The project constitutes a new fo...
Food markets became investment subject in previous credit cr ...
Basic production of agriculture may become globally very profitable business if we face a few years of crop failures. Furthermore, if a credit crunch takes place at the same time, the prices of grain, raw materials and oil will...
Algae production is a good way for carbon caption form atmos ...
Algae is, not only a carbon neutral form of biofuel energy production, but also a good way for carbon caption form atmosphere.
Lack of stability increases in all major oil/gas energy prod ...
Lack of stability and predictability merely increases in all major oil/gas energy producing countries such as Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Libya.
Consumption drives market capitalism, not saving, conserving ...
Consumption drives market capitalism, not saving, conserving or sparing
Many people are willing to pay more to get wind energy
Despite the fact that you can only get standard energy from a soscet in your wall, many people are willing to pay more to get wind energy.
There are many new serious attempts to utilize new fossil fu ...
The world is strugling with energy safety. There are many new serious attempts to utilize new fossil fuel resources. Prize of oil is Increasing. Contries and energy companies are constantly makeing new discoveries of new fossil...
Use of electric cars enhance national energy safety
Electric cars are becoming more ubiquitous as new generation of batteries emerge to markets – this contributes the energy safety because transportation becomes less dependent on only one form of energy - oil. Furthermore, use...
One Formula 3 team uses only biofuel and natural or recycled ...
The WorldFirst Formula 3 racing car drives down the straight of a test track at Bruntingthorpe near Lutterworth, in Leicestershire. The steering wheel is made from a polymer derived from carrots and other root vegetables while ...
Growing selection of sperm by donor social and cultural group
Despite opposition from many quarters (religious groups, some feminists and minority support and children’s rights advocates) the trend takes off, with celebrity endorsement (and donation) and media promotion. Markets in spe...
Emergence of secondary carbon financial vehicles
Over the last decade there has been exponential increase in the volume of secondary carbon financial trading (e.g. compliance security, securitization etc). These are a logical development which spreads risk and provides securi...
Advances in portable and autonomous greenhouse units
Advances in portable and autonomous greenhouse units are made, both in basic science and in deployment. These work on the ‘nano-generation’ principle of embedding solar panels and micro-fuel cells into construction material...
Growing environmental legal class actions on no-win no-fee b ...
There is rapid growth of environmental legal class actions on no-win no-fee basis. This originated as local and regional lawsuits in respect of specific and discreet environmental effects. There is now debate on the potential ...
Environmental reasons and increasing chaos from a rising number of cars has led to European cities increasingly banning individual transport. Many European cities have already created designated zones for pedestrians and additi...
Growing failures of social care in educating young people
New evidence mounts demonstrating the lack of educational engagement and achievement among young people from social care backgrounds. The perceived crisis of social care is intensified as “cycles of deprivation” accumulate ...
Publish-subscribe Internet routing paradigm
Despite its success, the Internet suffers from several shortcomings, forcing a fundamental reform of its paradigms and core technologies. A major flaw in the design of the Internet is its imbalance of powers in the favour of th...
Food consumers are steered towards healthier dietary choices
There are two FP7 research projects pursuing to make effort for better dietary choises for consumers
Emergence of new agricultural methods for coping with climat ...
The strategic objective of the SWUP-MED (Project Reference: 212337) project is to improve food crop production in the Mediterranean region, influenced by multiple abiotic stresses. These stresses are becoming even more pronounc...
Ideas for radically new ways to reach Space
Several innovative ideas published over the years point to potential alternatives to conventional space propulsion and may revolutionise space travel (e.g. by using much less energy). A well-known (but hard to realise) concept ...
Scientists predict mobile phone viruses will become a seriou ...
In future, mobile phones will be able to monitor and control healthcare implants and intra body personal area networks. Mobile phones may be infected with viruses through short range communications (Bluetooth) or Multimedia Mes...
Growth of real-time monitoring and response to water problems
The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is a legislation produced by the European Commission to achieve sustainable management of water across European Member States. The directive aims to achieve healthy water environment by takin...
Major states are using corporate organisations in numerous military, security, and auxiliary roles – just as some countries’ outsource even sensitive public sector activities (e.g. prisons) to private companies. Suspicions ...
Growing interest in wild cards and weak signals research
Growing interest in understanding low-perceived probability and high-impact events (wild cards) and bewildering (weak signals) events, and other topics that are hard to forecast. Growing recognition of importance of uncertain a...
Migration of internet services in pervasive ICT environment
The objective of FP7 project OPEN is to provide ICT users with migratory interactive services, which enable them to change interaction platforms and still continue their tasks through an interface adapted to the new context of ...
Less Bias Against Public Transport in Emerging Countries
Increasing public awareness towards sustainable mobility and a broad acceptance for public transportation services in Europe have helped to change the negative perception of it in emerging countries. It is perceived less as the...
Research on Aircrafts Propelled by Alternative Fuels
Great efforts in research aim at developing the usage of alternative fuels in aeronautics. A wide spectrum of classical solutions as plant oils, synthetic fuel, or even radical ones like organic materials may lead to several po...
Enhanced research on robot swarm intelligence might soon allow robots to communicate and build a system. Cooperation is organized, self-dynamic, and self-contained by intelligent robots. such capabilities are already demonstrat...
An intelligent road-on-vehicle is technically possible and might lead to a safety enhancing infrastructure. Many feature are already technically realised - though not implemented yet. A permanent road-to-car communication could...
Increasing research on enhancing human performance: e.g. modification of biochemical processes in the body, implants for monitoring body status and releasing drugs as well as nanotech-enhanced tissue, bones and brain.
First integrated multimodal supply chains and business-overarching application of intertwined databases enable seamless just-in-time deliveries without stop-overs (e.g. in capital-intensive deposits) across the continent, leadi...
Due to the ageing society and the need for nursing, new forms of living are being established: e.g. elderly people live together in "care-communities" and live in multi generation houses to be taken care of and look after each ...
Due to rising costs, doctors are less often being consulted, but patients medicate themselves. The probability of undetected diseases and risks for overdoses rise.
Mental Health from Retail Stores
Along with the general rising awareness for health and its commercialisation, mental health is becoming a commercial good as well; e. g. brainfood and brain training games were already introduced.
New drugs are continuously introduced. The drug consumption of legal and illegal drugs to improve one´s performance rises (neuro-enhancement). The consumption has already risen immensely: legal forms of amphetamine are given t...
Airlines liable for psychological treatment of relatives of ...
A court in Rio de Janeiro condemned Air Frace to cover the cost of psychological and psychiatric treatment of 7 family members of Walter Nascimento Carrilho (42). Mr Carrilho was one of the 228 people who died when the Air Fran...
Migration reform aimed to grant Cuban nationals the right to ...
The Cuban government has put in action a new reform, which has surprised not only Cubans but also the whole international community: A migration reform that is aimed to grant Cuban nationals the right to go out of the country. ...
Nowadays, we can notice the rise of successful women business owners who are called “lipstick entrepreneurs”. Indeed, the number of women setting up their own business has increased dramatically. The numbers of businesses ...
The Disappearance of the European Union
The European Union will disappear due to the crisis of some of their members. We have seen in the past years that Spain and Greece continue to worsen and some countries such as Germany do not want to keep giving them money. If ...
Increased use of cognitive enhancers- Students take smart dr ...
In recent years so called smart drugs or nootropics such as methylphenidate, modafinil and piracetam are increasingly being used by healthy students and academics. Normally prescribed for disorders auch as Alzheimer or ADHD cog...
Rise in Vegetarianism and Veganism
Within the developed world veganism and vegetarianism has recently experienced a large increase of adherents. Vegetarianism and then veganism will be the next step in the moral development of humankind. Empathy for animals has ...
R&D in synthetic biofuels from algae.
There is currently much venture capital flowing into this research area, particularly the breeding and treatment of different algae types. Additionally, the famous biochemist Craig Venter is active in financing projects aimed a...
Whenever there is a major health outbreak, then people quick ...
That increases the chance of more dietary shift. Methane emission by cows, and the fact that the meat industry is one of the biggest problems for climate change, could be an impetus. Meditation, as health costs are so high and ...
The technology progresses, that does not necessarily mean th ...
You could watch the natural miniaturization of electronic devices and track that to see how far that goes and how smart these things become. There is a lot of talk about web standards and the semantic web. The difficulty tracki...
Enabling more fluctuating sources of electricity.
On the material plenty side, you could be looking at energy trading, electricity trading. You could watch the fraction of renewable energy used in Europe, the transnational trading of these things and the consolidation of regio...
Euro became fiat money and not debt money.
Talk about fiat money; and places that are strong, but so challenged economically that they need to make a fundamental change in their economic system or be totally owned by the hedge funds. We think that is far more likely. If...
Some people has insisted on cycling everywhere and using pub ...
It is almost an ideology for him. You can probably find scores of examples of people making small shifts because they think it is appropriate, rather than waiting for the big shift to happen.
Cultivating the values that lead people to work within natur ...
It is a way of approaching small-scale farming that works within the capacity of the land to maintain fertility. It is not just pragmatic, it is more about cultivating the values that lead people to work within natural boundari...
The shift towards post-material values
Going from the need to own a lot of stuff to feel good, to modes of satisfaction and fulfilment that are not based on possessions, but maybe on quality of relationships or doing the right thing by the environment. Where It stop...
The current economic crisis and the lowbrow behaviour of pow ...
The driver of this development is the significant shift of the liberalised system of values in Eastern Europe towards the only critical criterion, economic gain.
Major changes in the behaviour of ecosystems could be caused by the surface water warming by a few degrees. That could also cause an enormous burden for the power grid because water is used to cool practically the whole industr...
Less than half of UK engineering and physical science gradua ...
There are many students deferring university entry because there is perceived higher competition for university entrants places. A knock-on effect could be a sudden downturn in UK student intake, leading to a dip in terms of sk...
Scientists produced artificial lungs for mice for the first ...
Normally, after having successfully achieved tests and experiments on mice it takes around 10 to 15 years before the same results or methods can be applied to humans.
Developing an individually fitting pharmaceutical against ca ...
Particularly in biotech it is observable that current research actions aim at the development of respective technologies. These actions hint at a probable breakthrough in this field, but not within the next ten years.
Too few transnational actions concerning the regulation of f ...
Already we can observe that banks are again distributing high bonus payments to their managers, that profits of banks, which had to be supported by the governments, are increasing and that there is a reintroduction of the “ca...
The way society perceives technological advances or other cr ...
There seems to be a general public misunderstanding of science. The way society perceives technological advances or other crises can dramatically influence their opinion and acceptance of such technologies. This has been eviden...
Particularly, strange are the sun spots (dark patches) as spotted by Galileo. They normally occur in an 11 year cycle, but they have been at a minimum recently as no sun spots have been observed for over 2 ½ years and this is ...
According to Luke GEORGHIOU: "There are some small signs, e.g. Paganism is one of the fastest growing religions. It has been officially recognised and the police are entitled to leave on Pagan festivals if they state that it is...
Misunderstanding of foresight studies.
Policy makers at the European level will read some of these wild cards, but probably for many of them there will be no response, action or preparation for some of these futures, because they think that is too far away, or not r...
More important for futurists is to understand what the decis ...
According to Karl Heinz LEITNER: "Future researchers are not so interested in this question, because they want to provoke and create. But I think the community should better understand what happens with this information."
A growing number of people want to live more consciously, an ...
This is partly due to the ever-increasing requirements for accuracy and work pace in all kinds of professions and other areas of daily life. These increased stress factors are also responsible for the continuously growing share...
The share of German small and medium-sized companies that re ...
These companies are now discovering Germany as their main production location.
A growing demand for mobility services.
An increased share of people prefer to rent, rather than own, mobility devices, or are increasingly using public transport. This development shows the increased awareness of environmental problems and aspects of sustainability,...
Most of PHD students think European
They think in terms not of fortress Europe, but in terms of doing a PhD in Finland but part of it in Barcelona and then getting an appointment in Britain. So there is an increasing consensus that that is the road to research an...
Each European country for itself does not mean anything.
There is a growing idea that we must act more together. There is also the realisation that if we want to be a global player we need a common foreign and defence policy. I think these might make it possible. With the research n...
Cyber attack could take on an economy by hitting a weak point over and over again. The US economy was almost taken down by the banking situation two years ago and there is evidence there was some malevolent cyber hacking and ba...
Bacteria; it is actually a strong one
We have people trying to make synthetic bacteria for energy conversion technology, such as converting coal into methane. That kind of technology, linked with other technology in IT, such as multi core processors – if you foll...
The environmental fiasco caused by scientists changing their ...
Many traditional techniques are clearly failing and many techniques used by politicians over the last few decades have made things much worse. There is a lot of frustration building up, people are wary of politicians and I thin...
According to Ian PEARSON: "At the moment there are some big ...
According to Ian PEARSON: "At the moment we are doing small incremental changes leading to a slow development path and it needs a rapid change. Weak signals of that are just the numbers of people looking at the field."
China already controls approximately 80% of essential earth ...
With regard to the Far East limiting access to rare materials that are vital to renewable technology, there are already studies saying China controls approximately 80% of these resources and as such there are concerns over futu...
Debate about climate change, carbon emissions and CO2 emissi ...
There is ongoing debate about climate change, carbon emissions and CO2 emissions. Typically, this is along the lines of climate scientists versus industry regarding the validity of CO2 emissions and the correlation to global wa...
An ambition for the energy industry is to create low cost re ...
There is a lot of research ongoing to establish this, which is itself a weak signal that we are aspiring to create this holy grail of low cost sustainable energy.
The bee population is massively in decline.
One of the reasons for this could be the changes in climate which is significantly changing the ecological system and the natural habitat. However, that is if there is such a thing as climate change!
A very serious reduction in support of research and developm ...
You could get a situation where this would not be merely discouraged but forbidden. Most cannot conceive of a serious setback like that but it is possible, particularly when you see more and more discontent with the way things...
According to Harold A. Linstone: "We see it already in the USA you have efforts in Texas, for example, where the school boards are forcing the schools to use texts that include intelligent design as an alternative to evolution....
There is a strange echo of the early industrial age from 200 ...
According to Fred Young Philips: "There was a report I read that compared the per capita GDP of countries to a host of variables and it turns out and I am quoting here from my paper, ‘a 24/7 Wall Street Report based on IMF da...
Changes in scientific journals – there is a focus and an i ...
Everyone is talking about biotechnologies nowadays, which is a good indication that there is potential there. People cannot imagine what can be done really. If you talk to people who work in this area, it is clearly very new an...
GlaxoSmithKline is trying to benefit from medical knowledge ...
According to Johannes Mayer: "Further, there has been an enormous increase in external requests at our research group lately. Another important signal might be a research group in Austria, which focuses on exploring a kind of t...
What happens if governments try to violate our human rights ...
which is happening a little in Italy. There is also a risk of this happening in The Netherlands, where a right wing party got a lot of votes in the last election. If they were in power, this could affect not so much citizens’...
The difficulty that have in The Netherlands to form a govern ...
This has almost become impossible, and at every new election it becomes more and more difficult to make a new cabinet.
There are certain occurrences on the internet, and certain w ...
More and more of the immediate landscape is becoming itemized, individualized and influenced by many more people. Twitter is a good example. In DATE???? a little more than one year ago I wrote an article for a Dutch newspaper...
The developing countries are not developing and that China i ...
As we move into a world of more sparsity, these decisions by the Chinese government, the Chinese people and Chinese companies to buy basic materials from Africa are a clear weak signal of the crucial position of Africa in a wor...
There is a difference between the reality of an issue and th ...
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) was once recognised as being completely independent, but now it is also prone to sensationalise events, and cannot be considered as a reliable source of information. Indeed, traditiona...
Fishing Blockades to prevent offloading thousands of fish to ...
Blockades have been made at Peterhead port in Aberdeenshire, physically preventing the Faroese vessel Jupiter from offloading 1,100 tonnes of the fish to a processing plant in protest at the quotas for mackerel fishing.
People do not care about their health
People do not care about their health because they will have a nano-lab inside their bodies.
estamos acostumbrados a pensar que solo existe un tipo de maltrato, el maltrato físico, sin embargo el maltrato psicológico puede ser más perjudicial para quien lo sufre. esta señal débil nos indica que puede convertirse e...
Talas de árboles, y sus consecuencias a largo plazo.
Con la tala indiscriminada de árboles que estamos sufriendo, es normal que los gobiernos tras las denuncias esten intentando acabar con este problema, pero estamos muy lejos de la solución, se esta intentando mejorar a travé...
extensible business reporting language
financial data transparency and interoperability; interoperancy
Relatively few of the reported policy initiatives aim at imp ...
One of the most striking observations is the low absolute number of reported initiatives intended at improving employment conditions and social security benefits (36/283). A total of eleven EU countries had not introduced any i...
Different employment policies in different EU members makes ...
With the drive towards autonomy, (Member States) MS appear to have few active policies to promote improved terms of employment and careers for researchers. Conditions of employment differ markedly too, with a broad split betwee...
Giving preference to UIC projects may have consequence of cr ...
There is a gap in terms of funds received between Northern and Western countries on one hand and Eastern and some Southern countries on the other hand. Considering that the FP allocates funds on the basis of the quality of the ...
ERA's emphasis on cross-border cooperation won't necessarily ...
The assumption that relatively stronger crossborder cooperation results in a higher degree of integration in the ERA, may require a closer view. Thus regions may pursue an unduly selective internationalization strategy. In this...
Wisconsin governor's stand on labor negotiations is characteristic of emerging practices in politics
Rapid research growth in scientific disciplines and industri ...
The growth in the number of researchers is matched by a slightly lower growth in expenditures (2% a year, in constant prices). The slight mismatch between the increase in researchers and in expenditures can be explained by a mo...
Those areas of knowledge which are not located at the fronti ...
The top research universities examined in this report are more involved in thematic priorities that are closer to the frontier of knowledge such as life sciences, nanotechnologies and information society.
Openness to research partners from non-EU countries attenuat ...
In most cases, the objective is to internationalise domestic research systems with a view on reaching a higher quality and level of excellence. Those criteria are guiding the rules for funding (e.g. selection of mobile research...
Breast milk ice cream goes on sale in Covent Garden
Mrs Hiley, 35, said if adults realised how tasty breast milk was more new mothers would be encouraged to breastfeed. Each serving of Baby Gaga at Icecreamists costs £14. Mrs Hiley's milk was expressed on site and pasteurised b...
"Smart Specialisation" will reduce the risk of emerging subc ...
Too many regions in Europe opt to compete in the same worldwide or European tournament in the field of biotechnologies or information technologies. This sheep-like behaviour inevitably leads to a collection of subcritical syste...
R&D policies associated with the objective of "encouraging p ...
Policy metrics often depend on policy objectives. In the EU, there is a diversity of policy objectives regarding the role of university patents and university-industry cooperation: ‘effective knowledge sharing’, ‘strength...
New technologies and the possibilities of digitalisation make innovation processes cheaper and more efficient, as they enable easy testing and evaluation – offline and online. Enterprises increasingly use digital and conventi...
A Soured Economy Prompted a Boom in Crowdsourcing
The current global economic crisis has a pervasive impact on national economies and labour markets, resulting in increasing unemployment. Due to the fact that many unemployed workers do no longer have the chance to find a perma...
CoWorking Houses as Creative Hubs
More and more of the so-called knowledge workers from the creative class join so called CoWorking houses. CoWorking houses offer an easy, flexible and budget workspace (LAN and coffee flat rate included). They combine workspace...
Product piracy and product imitation cases are increasing
The growing number of cases of product piracy and product imitation reveal an increased threat to business interests and the customers´ security due to deficient products and the utilization of materials with negative health e...
A Holistic Approach: Demand and Supply-Driven Innovation Pol ...
So far, traditional innovation policy mostly focuses on the development of innovation, the supply side of innovation, so to speak. Researchers from the German Institute of Global and Area Studies identified four main trends con...
Innovation by Governmental Supported Start-ups and Entrepren ...
Public funding for entrepreneurial hubs and start-up financing is nothing new. Many of the world’s most successful innovation hubs bear the stamp of governmental invention (i.e. Silicon Valley, Bangalore or Guangdong), but no...
Idea Contest “Save our Energy – The energy efficient cit ...
The idea contest is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and part of the project “OFFIES 2020+: Open Innovation Processes for the Energy Efficient City 2020+”. Among others, it is organized by the...
Open for Questions – Crowdsourcing at the White House
President Obama was looking for new ways to open up the White House to the American people, in order to get different perspectives from all over the country and enable people to participate. For this purpose, the White House im...
Fully Sponsored Innovation Camp for Young People
Palomor5 is an (currently running) innovation camp looking for creative young people to develop ideas for new working environments that fit the needs and skills of the digital generation. 30 young and creative minds were invi...
Social Innovation – The Urganda Rural Development and Trai ...
The Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme is a non-profit organization that provides education and training for rural development in the very poor and diverse Kibaale District of Uganda. URDTP is seen as a benchmark p...
Fab Labs – Fabrication laboratories for everyone
The concept of Fablabs - fabrication laboratories for everybody with flexible manufacturing equipment, consisting of several production tools such as laser cutters, CNC-Machines, 3D-printers, water jet cutters and injection mol...
OScar is an open source project launched in 1999. The objective is to jointly develop a car on the internet according to open source principles. Thus, the soft- and hardware used in the project are freely accessible to everyone...
Sprout – E-course for Idea Growth
Sprout offers an electronic course, in which people from all over the world can exchange their knowledge and help each other to further elaborate their social or environmental project ideas. Sprout tries to attract dynamic ac...
Sprout – E-course for Idea Growth
Sprout offers an electronic course, in which people from all over the world can exchange their knowledge and help each other to further elaborate their social or environmental project ideas. Sprout tries to attract dynamic ac...
Social Search - The Real Time People Web
The amount of information being available on the web in real time explodes, especially since Facebook status updates and tweets on twitter. It is now possible to see what lots of people are talking about in real-time on the web...
Disruptive Innovation from India: The Tata Nano
In January 2007 Tata Motors, India´s largest company in the automobile and commercial vehicle sector, launched a four-seater car with a purchasing price of around 1440 Euro. The Tata Nano is now the world’s cheapest car. Aut...
Innovation Culture of the Tata Group
Tata Consultancy Services, a firm belonging to India´s Group, makes internal innovation corporate culture top priority. Several strategies have been implemented in order to build a culture of innovation and stimulate employees...
Inter-regional networking does not significantly enhance tec ...
Findings indicate that there are distinct paths to obtaining "critical mass" for scientific and technological research. The regional agglomeration of innovation capacity is important for the productivity of technological resear...
Academic control is getting attenuated by businesses and com ...
At an institution level, reform is evident in the reduction of direct political influence and the attenuation of academic control by business and community interests within university governing bodies. University management tea...
Some regional investments are not contributing to regional d ...
One of the main messages of this report is that policy makers should be clear about the potential impact of research investments and related measures under specific regional techno-economic circumstances and these long term inv...
Young teenage CEOs have succeed in many fields of industries, especially in the ICT business. Their success shows that you don’t need a fancy MBA to be an entrepreneur, Entpreneural spirit is a teen spirit.
Social media includes also Social TV. Social TV could improve the viewing experience and provide new business opportunities for carriers.
Crowdsourcing to Become a Powerful Crisis-management Tool
The Ushahidi project brings crowdsourcing to bear on some of the most desperate situations people face around the world. Its downloadable software allows users to submit eyewitness reports during a conflict or disaster; the c...
Researchers develop a mathematical model that could help us make sense of how conflicts get messy. Researchers in the Cornell University describe a model for predicting how a social group will break apart during a turbulent split.
Service sector R&D will cease recession
A main R&D growth driver over the last decade has been the service sector, in particular computer based services, even during the recent economic downturn – the service sector was also responsible for most growth in numbers o...
International research cooperation primarily driven by acces ...
Growing linkages between international research cooperation and availability of natural resources.
Increasing number of people surpassing the age of 110 years
In several European countries the age of 110 years have been recently surpassed by a growing number of people.
Obama's controversial Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Prize committee wanted to contribute to enhancing that kind of international policy and attitude which Obama claimed to stand for. So the award reflected the enormous hopes invested in Mr. Obama, both in the U.S. and ...
Comercial craft orbits and returns
For the first time, a commercial space-craft has gently returned to Earth from orbit. The flight (wednesday 8-12-2010) by Space Exploration Technologies went flawlessly. It started with the launching of its Falcon 9 rocket, inc...
Growing privatisation of higher education
As reported by the BBC, the UK government has pushed through plans to allow universities to charge up to £9,000 per year, raising the cap from its current level of £3,290. Universities wanting to charge more than £6,000 woul...
University offers Lady Gaga sociology course
As reported by BBC, a new course on "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame" is to be taught at the University of South Carolina. Course documents said students would learn to "engage in sound and substantiated scholarly think...
Gordon Brown fears about Euro stability in 2011
BBC reports that Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that the euro's problems were bigger than just its governments' debts. Europe must also solve the euro's structural rigidities and the enormous debts of its b...
Growth of atheism in Europe and developed nations
Recent studies indicate that there is a growing number of countries with "organic atheism" (i.e. wherein non-belief has emerged on its own without governmental coercion). Nordic countries show the highest levels of atheism and ...
The space between the Earth and the Moon is filled with space debris (burnt out rocket casings, broken satellites, etc.) Space debris can circle the Earth for years until it slams into something, creating yet more space debris....
The latest GPS (Global Position System) jamming devices are now (in 2010) being used by car thieves in the UK to render stolen cars and trucks undetectable by law enforcement. In Germany, it’s believed that some drivers are u...
Accumulating evidence that life is or was possible on Mars
A growing number of scientists tend to think that Mars habits (or was habiting) some forms of life, following a variety of recent discoveries that support the assumption that life is or was possible there. It is not considered ...
USA instructs spying on key UN officials
As reported by Wikileaks in BBC, a cable to US diplomats issued under US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's name tells them to collect "biographic and biometric" information - including iris scans, DNA samples and fingerprint...
Several Arab leaders urged attack on Iran over nuclear issue
As reported by BBC, Several Arab leaders and their representatives are quoted as urging the US to carry out an attack on Iran to bring an end to its suspected nuclear weapons programme. In a cable from April 2008, the Saudi ...
Fears that terrorists may acquire Pakistani nuclear material
US and UK diplomats feared Pakistan's nuclear material could fall into the hands of terrorists, the Guardian reports some of the leaked cables as revealing. Cables reported in the New York Times reveal the US has been attemp...
Growing interest in geoengineering options
Growing number of research efforts aimed to increase the level of knowledge about the feasibility and implications of geoengineering options to limit climate change with, for example: deliberate manipulations of the radiative b...
Low mobility of EU researchers
Lack of transfer of knowledge around Europe leading to EU falling behind in knowledge economy.
Far East economy becoming stronger
The strengthening position of the Far East economy could affect import and export and ultimately lead to currency collapse.
Extinction of species providing common food
Increased reliance on fewer favoured varieties of plant and animal foods increases risk of devastating effect of diseases (could be through genetic selection, GM or just market pressure). For example, with less varieties of app...
UK Government spending cuts force libraries to close, this may result in people from deprived areas being unable to access books for reading pleasure. This will increase the current educational gap between rich and poorer area...
The dramatic reduction of pubs causes changes in the way communities interact - reducing the opportunities for people to meet and making people more insular. This would be especially prevalent in rural communities.
A laser light source is developed which has a zero angle of convergence. This enables the development of lasers replacing guns/missiles as the most effective mititary weapons.
A new technology has been developed to produce a rapid genetic test - paving the way for rapid genetic mapping and medical diagnosis. The new technology enables a test to be carried out in 1-2 hours rather than the usual 24 hou...
Estregen chemicals causing sex change in fish
Chemicals derived from plastics are causing sex changes in fish and may severely effect the fertility of humans.
Climate change a threat to birds...?
Studies in North America are showing that over 100 species of birds are becoming lighter and growing smaller wings. It is thought that this may be a consequence of climate change and could eventually lead to flightless birds or...
Fertility tests show up five-star sperm
Researchers have discovered a method to select sperm with the highest DNA integrity in a bid to improve male fertility and identify genetic diseases. If this became public knowledge, then there could be societal fractions as on...
Brain implants stopping symptoms?
Neurotechnological advances at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology are stimulating the brain from the inside (similar to the cochlear implant for restoring hearing). Would it be possible to control the brain remotely or ...
New blended learning and kinaesthetic increase uptake of sci ...
New teaching methods involving blended learning and kinaesthetic makes science much more appealing to students and there are more people forging a career and having an interest in science.
Stem Cells extracted at birth pioneer new methods for treati ...
Stem cells extracted from teeth at birth are being stored for future treatment of disease and ailments. At present this is an expensive treatment, but could become affordable to all in the future, dramatically reducing the numb...
Text speak becoming more common
Lag of the real behind the virtual with much less use in the human brain. This could lead to new generation unable to effectively read and write.
Self diagnosis available on the internet
By typing in a few symptoms to 'google' it is very easy to get an instant diagnosis of potential reasons for feeling poorly. Is this a sign of things to come? People no longer visit their GP, but rather have their own diagnosis...
Nanocells augment at cell level
Prevention of internal cell actions (such as cancerous replication) can stem major diseases. If available for all, this breakthrough can greatly improve the quality of life for all societies.
Nano becoming more widely accepted
As the public accept nanotechnology, there is less scepticism to research topics. This could allow dramatic breakthroughs in the future as the worl becomes nano-inspired.
People could live longer as rogue genes enhance life expectancy. As this reaches 100, health insurance rapidly increases, and there are problems with over population, until birth rates are monitored by governments.
If genetic screening became widespread and allowed uncontrolled use in the selection of genes for specific traits then what would be the result? Genetic testing and screening has huge potential for medical applications, such as...
The rising attractiveness of unintended consequences
Unintended consequences seem to plague our best efforts to plan these days. Financial writer Shishir Nigam declared in mid-2010 that "one of the biggest themes in this current investment environment and in the next few years wi...
Cubesats and the revolution in space science
Cubesats-- 1 liter-sized satellites weighing no more than a kilogram-- have been around for about a decade, and are now starting to be the subject of serious scientific and defense research. New programs sponsored by NASA and t...
Venlo – A Whole Town Adopts the Principle of „Waste is F ...
Venlo (NL) and its 90.000 inhabitants adopted McDonough and Braungart´s concept of Cradle to Cradle (waste = food) as a vision for their city. This joints the industry with the politicians, the general public and the creative ...
Overload of Transmission Capacities due to Increasing Data T ...
The data traffic caused by the internet is continuously increasing. Data-intensive applications as audio and video live streams become increasingly popular. In addition, the total number of internet users that have access to br...
Electronic Devices Powered by Body Heat
Small wearable electronic devices such as watches or portable MP3 players can be already powered by body heat. Thermoelectric materials might also be implemented in energy-intensive application fields, which are charactarised b...
Research on Effective Means of Geo-Engineering
The change of the global climate and growing environmental problems are being recognised as one of the great challenges of the 21st century. In order to reduce CO2-emissions, research on artificial interventions in ecological s...
Animal rights activists thwart the planning of an innovative ...
In Venray, Holland, in April 2008, animal rights activists successfully thwarted the planning of an innovative science park where some companies would potentially conduct research with animals . The activists used both lawful ...
Widespread availability of innovative technologies and off-t ...
Unlike the past, when most of the innovative technologies originated from the defense and security research, nowadays most innovative technologies result from the new global competitive economy and the worldwide consumers deman...
Growing dependence of society on technologies
There is a growing dependence of modern society on technologies, e.g. interconnected infrastructures in transport, energy, information and other fields. Also the everyday activities of individuals are more and more dependent on...
The RepRap (a short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper) project is working towards creating a cheap and easy-to-use rapid prototype machine that can construct plastic products after downloading a detailed description form a comp...
India and China offer high quality and low cost research services to the EU and US (signal for outsourcing the majority of the EU R&D).
Intelligent electric power demand and distribution control
Research is underway on “Smart” Electric Power systems where there can be much more management of consumer demand and power distribution
Evaluation of hydrogen storage and distribution systems unde ...
Research is underway to generate needed information on the safety, efficiency and other features of Hydrogen storage and distribution systems
Genome hackers are appearing, in one case, stealing records on individual data from an EU data base.
Emission reduction in energy supply chains
Research is underway on ways of achieving substantial reduction of emissions in energy supply chains
Collective intelligence decision making in European governme ...
There is much experimentation with uses of new technologies to capture the views and knowledge of millions of EU citizens, so as to better inform policy-making.
Consumers tend to be less concerned about privacy then regul ...
"European consumers appear to be less worried than some regulators about the potential loss of privacy" "The data protection agencies tend to be extreme," said Peter Heinzmann, chief executive of a Swiss company that makes s...
Increased use of chemicals by terrorists
Early indicator for chemical terrorism (attacks with use of non-conventional weapons).
Machine translation between English and one other language d ...
A usable machine translation tool is able to provide adequate translations between English and one other language. Weak signal for widespread use of machine translations between any two languages.
A Chinese or Indian university in worldwide top 20 universit ...
A Chinese or Indian university is ranked in the top 20 universities worldwide (currently, Peking University is ranked 50th). Weak signal for future dominance of India or China over Europe in academia.
Rise in cases of foot and mouth disease (FMD)
Cases of foot and mouth disease (FMD) rise in countries neighbouring on Europe. Weak signal for outbreak of pandemic.
Following a period of high employment and increased balance of payment deficit, the US decides to withdraw from previous trade agreements and eventually to leave the WTO. Weak signal for US isolationism.
US and EU countries decide to levy high taxes on cross border R&D collaborations. Early indicator for research isolationism. For instance, Western governments fear that China and India are gaining competitive advantages through...
Global number of patent filings decrease 2 years in a row after a long period of growth. This may lead to a decline in patent filings signalling a slow down in innovation processes
Ongoing radicalization of fundamental islamist groups
Low political will and dedication to resolve conflicts in Middle East region has a consequence in ongoing radicalization of various islamist groups in the region. With growing capabilities, these groups can acquire means of mas...
Increasing dependence of EU on import of fossil fuels
One of the goals of the European energetic strategy is to secure a availability and stability of energy supply, especially that of electrical. However, increasing dependence of EU on import of fossil fuels makes this goal hardl...
More money dedicated to nuclear research
Governments realized that long-term funding of nuclear research would bring about significant improvements to natural environment, quality of life as well as regional development. Significant is also a possibility to become ene...
Insufficient R&D expenditure hampers service competitiveness ...
The article by Kaartemo, Kaivo-oja and Inkinen (2010) discusses the correlation of service innovation input with international competitiveness. The study is based on longitudinal trend analysis of official statistics. Firstly, ...
US army worried about youngsters being too fat to fight
US Generals have warned that rising rates of obesity among young Americans could undermine the future of the US military. More than a quarter of young Americans are now too fat to fight. The so-called fat crisis ruled out more ...
Terabit silicon photonic on chip
BOOM is an integration project that aims to pursue the systematic advancement of Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) integration technology to develop compact, cost-effective and power efficient silicon photonic components that enable p...
Sign language for deaf ICT users
The project Dicta-Sign addresses the need for communication between deaf individuals and communication via natural language by deaf users with various HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) environments. It will research and develop ...
The SFLY project is focused on micro helicopter design, visual 3D mapping and navigation, low power communication including range estimation and multi-robot control under environmental constraints. Autonomous micro helicopters ...
Quality impact prediction for evolving service-oriented soft ...
The Q-ImPrESS project aims at bringing service orientation to critical software systems, such as industrial production control, telecommunication and critical enterprise applications. All these domains share a need for guarante...
Humanoids learning socio-communicative skills by observation
Human communicative skills rely on a complex mixture of social and spatio-temporal perception-action processes. Autonomous virtual agents that interact with people could benefit greatly from socio-communicative skills; endowing...
A metropolis of ubiquitous information services
User-friendly creation tools in the mobile, optimised execution environment, a model for knowledge warehouse, a proposed specific searching engine and a set of business models for users, for service providers and for third part...
The 3DPHONE project aims to develop technologies and core applications enabling a new level of mobile 3D experience, by developing an all-3D imaging mobile phone. The aim of the project is to realise all fundamental functions o...
Dynamic personalisation of multimedia
Project MyMedia addresses the key social problem of what has been called the "Crisis of Choice", the problem of information overload. The goal is to increase the level of relevant content over the "noise". The problem worsens y...
Computer Aided Cryptography Engineering
The goal of project CACE is to design, develop and deploy a toolbox that will support the specific domain of cryptographic software engineering. The proposed toolbox will allow non-experts to develop high-level cryptographic ap...
Idea of life-long-learning seems to start to penetrate society
In the future, the degrees may not be for whole lifetime anymore. It may be mandatory to update you qualifications in order to be qualified to certain profession. Life-long-learning challenges the contemporary degrees.
Russia takes stronger actions to incerease its fossil resour ...
Russia’s attempt to take over “legally” the energy resources of the North Pole by sending a submarine to set a flag to the bottom of the Arctic Sea is a statement. Fossil fuels still mean power and money in world politics.
Russia may cut its gas deliveries to Europe again
Russia is discussing with Ukraine about its debts and the prize of gas. As a side effect of the dispute, Russia may cut its gas deliveries to Europe again.
EU has decided to forbid regular light bulbs in whole EU area
EU has decided to forbid and replace regular light bulbs with energy saving models in whole EU.
Eu has decided to obligate oil companies to put ~ 5% biofuel ...
Eu has decided to obligate oil companies to put ~ 5% biofuels to gasoline and to increase this amount in coming future
Capital is flowing to biofuel from algae R&D
Some people are investing their own real money on algae R&D. They must believe on it. An idea of smart consumption society proceeds as people realize that the era of oil is going to end sooner or later, and that we need to do s...
Richard Brunson says he wants to use only biofuel in his pri ...
Richard Branson says he wants to use only biofuel in his private aeroplanes. Branson is known as a man who walks ahead of his time and makes things to happen.
Growing importance of the role of finance in sustainable gro ...
The financial sector is playing a growing role in sustainable growth.
Growing interest in role of media in public attitudes to EU ...
Growing interest in role of media in public attitudes to EU politics
Growing interest in legacy of slave trade
new targets for funding reimbursement - slave ports, companies, some communities in Africa itself. new claimants - eg people shipped around within British Empire.
Hyrated Fullerenes (C60) coming to Ukrainian marketplace by ...
Water soluble fullerenes are about to be launched on the Ukrainian marketplace as a natural food supplement called Fullerene Water Solution (FWS) Some of the over 20 medical benefits include antimicrobial, antiviral, highest a...
Medical research on ethnic variations in vulnerability to tr ...
The papers are apparently quite neutral and the authors did not realize that this evidence would be used by extremists, to inflame an already tense situation in deprived urban areas.
First Side Effects of Nanotechnology-Based Consumer Products
The number of cosmetical and medical products as well as food, that incorporate nanotechnology is rising daily. Risks and side affects of products cannot be foreseen yet; nevertheless, some side effects have already been seen i...
Price Decline in Decoding the Human Genome
The complete decoding of the human genome has been realised, but the procedure is still rather costly. Nevertheless, it is only a matter of time until techniques of decoding the human genome have become fast, cheap and therefor...
Increasing Migration Due To Climate Change
Extreme weather phenomena such as hurricanes, storm floods or droughts are already causing migration, especially in parts of Africa and Asia (e.g. in India about 4 mio. people leave their homes temporarily every year). Besides ...
People tired of hearing about climate change
People become bored and switched off about the issue. People cannot be bothered to change behaviour
USA abandons plans to build missile facilities in Czech Repu ...
USA abandons plans to build missile facilities in Czech Republic and Poland
Growing importance of evaluation of research programmes
Growing requirement for research programmes and institutions to be evaluated in terms of the extent to which they meet objectives.
Increasingly complex identities in East European border areas
Transborder communities demand new modes of political representation.
Growing use of international law to regulate conflicts
Crisis as major intervention in a Third World conflict is ruled illegal by European courts, and several countries immediately stand down their troops.
Growing use of domestic criminal law in international human ...
Widespread refusal of foreign leaders to travel to or within the EU, due to threats of prosecution for war crimes, etc.
Recognition of role of work and community in regeneration
European peace corps, where youth unemployment and other problems attacked by large-scale mobilisation of young people in voluntary or semi-voluntary reconstruction and community action work in deprived regions.
Growing interests in gender politics and anti-discrimination ...
Growing problems involving intersection of gender politics and anti-discrimination rules concerning ethnic minorities. (1) Separate regimes of law for different ethnic groups, hugely extending current frameworks permitting som...
Growing interest in post-conflict cultural identity
Several European sites of great historical and cultural interest become hotly contested in terms of their “ownership” and historical meaning – cultural tourists and pilgrims are increasingly seen as reviving past conflict...
Festivals increasingly seen as object of policy
Festivals increasingly seen as culturally and economically important and as object of policy. Towards the great festival of Europe – or (2) competition among festivals becomes symbolically or economically important, with winn...
Interest in construction and nature of European identities
Interest in construction and nature of European identities – suggesting growing concern about these issues. Evidence of rapid growth in diversity of identity across MS, with little if any sign of expected convergence (er.g. b...
Growing use of indicators of perceived justice
Evidence of widespread disaffection/distrust of justice system, especially in specific countries and areas of law, leads to political crisis as member states criticise each other and deportation orders and even police cooperati...
The goal of the NoE (Network of Excellence) PetaMedia is to bring together the research of four national networks in the Netherlands, Switzerland, UK and Germany in the area of multimedia content analysis (MCA) and social peer-...
Context-aware data-centric information sharing
An efficient, fast and seamless data exchange is vital for today's society. At the same time such exchange should not create risks of violating confidentiality and privacy that may be associated with the data. To deliver a tech...
Networks require greater degree of service-awareness. This implies that not only are all digital items pertaining to a service delivered, but also all relevant business goals are fulfilled, and network resources are used optima...
Wireless alliances for testing experiment and research
Very and Ultra high-speed radio platforms are key developing technologies for emerging applications but raise issues of efficient radio spectrum management and interoperability of technologies, from radio to media access contro...
Trusted revocable biometric identities
TURBINE is a multi-disciplinary privacy enhancing technology, combining innovative developments in cryptography and fingerprint biometrics. It aims at providing highly reliable biometric 1:1 verifications, multi-vendor interope...
Self-optimisation and self-configuration in wireless networks
The SOCRATES project investigates the application of self-organisation methods, which includes mechanisms for self-optimisation, self-configuration and self-healing, as a promising opportunity to automate wireless access networ...
Industrial deployment of advanced methods of systems enginee ...
The overall aim of the DEPLOY Project is to make major advances in engineering methods for dependable systems through the deployment of formal engineering methods. Formal engineering methods enable greater mastery of complexity...
Open Media Platform (OMP) is a European project which aims to define an open and extensible service & software architecture for media-rich end-user devices, such as mobile phones or mobile media players, that will address softw...
Software services and systems network
S-Cube, the European Network of Excellence in Software Services and Systems, will establish an integrated, multidisciplinary, vibrant research community. This will enable Europe to lead the software-services revolution, thereby...
Collaboration and interoperability for networked enterprises
By 2020 enterprise collaboration and interoperability services will become an invisible, pervasive and self-adaptive knowledge and business utility at disposal of the European networked enterprises from any industrial sector an...
Content generation and delivery for 3D television
The 3D4YOU project aims to pave the way for the introduction a 3D TV system. The project will develop the key elements of a practical 3D television system, particularly, the definition of a 3D delivery format and guidelines for...
Media distribution based on satisfaction of users
The predominant candidate for current trend of multimedia services convergence with mobile/fixed networks and broadcast-interactive applications is the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IMS entails novel business opportunities for...
Telecommunications is experiencing major change. Sector actors are searching for new strategies as globalisation, mergers, convergence and new and disruptive technologies happen. The eMobility Technology Platform was formed to ...
Development of future generations of hybrid fibre coax netwo ...
The aim of the REDESIGN project is to further evolve HFC network architectures and transmission technologies used in these networks by creating a smooth migration path towards future infrastructure concepts. A reliable and cost...
Break through with Fuel Cells may be closer than the general ...
There are four FP7 projects working contemporarily with crucial botle neck issues of Fuel Cells. Different membrane materials and different temperature ranges are under development work. It is expectable that fuel cells systems...
Sustainable greenhouse system's development work is underway ...
Especially EUPHOROS project reference (211457) aims at developing a sustainable greenhouse system that: does not need any fossil energy & minimizes carbon footprint of equipment; with no waste of water nor emission of fertilize...
General theory of relativity is revisited in the context of ...
General theory of relativity's progress extending beyond symmetry or linearised theory now appears possible
Interesting new types of climate change models and anticipat ...
PACEMAKER (Project Reference: 226600) discovered a new quantitative continental temperature proxy, the MBT index, which is based on the distribution of membrane lipids of soil bacteria. Their composition is a function of annual...
Life expectancy doubled in small mammals
Scientists succeed in doubling the life expectancy of small mammals. It is a precursor for scientific possibilities vis-a-vis humans.
The persistence of tacit knowledge
In spite of endless efforts to convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, researchers fail to demonstrate successful applications in this area.
Collective intelligence decision making in European governme ...
Policy decisions and regulations in EU countries are facilitated by collective intelligence applications taking into account the knowledge and experience of millions citizens.
Intelligent Electric Power demand and distribution control
Control of electric power demand at the consumers based on electric production availability and reserves
Emission reduction in energy supply chains
Evaluation of performance aspects of thermal and biologocal energy conversion systems using selective under pinning research.
Evaluation of safety, efficiency and other performance param ...
Generation of missing information on long term behaviour of hydrogen storage tanks, safety performance and their modelling. The use of new computational tools must provide a better understang of the pressure vessels used for hy...
Monitoring and management of the environment
Monitoring and management of the environment is a great challenge for the coming years. The supply of clean water in many regions of the world is hindered by the pollution imposed by overpopulation and industrial development. r...
Evaluation of safety, efficiency performance and cost of hyd ...
Cost effective market penetration of hydrogen technologies to fuel vehicles and prime movers will depend upon our understanding of the hydrogen interaction with its containment materials. to achieve this goal a coordinated appr...
There are a couple of projects in FP7 ICT priority with ambition to create an artificial robotic fish capable of autonomous movement and sensual perception in water environment, which may enable performing of specific activitie...
Research on personalised medicince promises earlier intervention and even prevention of diseases, an improved diagnosis and more efficient drug therapy when treating diseases. It is inter alia based on the results of mapping th...
Interactive real-time multimedia applications on service ori ...
The project IRMOS will design, develop, integrate and validate a Service Oriented Infrastructure that enables a broad range of interactive real-time applications. It will support the development and deployment of real time appl...
New visual progrmamming platform development
The main objective of the project FAST (Fast and Advanced Storyboard Tools) is to create a new a visual programming environment that will facilitate the development of complex front-end gadgets, involving execution of relativel...
Personalized media streaming environment
The main idea of My-e-Director project is to research and develop a unique interactive broadcasting service enabling end-users to select focal actors and points of interest within real-time broadcasted scenes. The service will ...
Together anywhere, together anytime
How can technology help to nurture family-to-family relationships? This is the question asked by the collaborative project "Together Anywhere, Together Anytime" (TA2). For many people, families form the key social unit. Many of...
Coordination of global RFID-related activities
Standardisation, and associated regulations, in respect of RFID is of critical importance in realising open systems applications of global significance, such as supply chain traceability and logistics. Of parallel significance ...
Managing the complexity of the open source infrastructure
The project Mancoosi aims to develop the scientific knowledge and build the tools necessary to manage the complexity of the open source infrastructure, which is one of the essential building blocks of tomorrow's software archit...
User-centric paradigm for seamless mobility in future internet
PERIMETER's main objective is to establish a new paradigm of user-centricity for advanced networking. In contrast to network-centric approaches, user-centric strategies could achieve true seamless mobility. Putting the user at ...
Network of excellence in wireless communications
NEWCOM++ is the acronym of a proposed Network of Excellence in Wireless COMmunications. The core concept of NEWCOM++ is that of an NoE of medium size, which is created for the purpose of scientifically addressing medium/long te...
Cognitive self-managed elemenets for the Future Intenet
Project Self-NET aims to design, develop and validate an innovative paradigm for cognitive self-managed elements of the Future Internet. The present Internet model is based on clear separation of concerns between protocol layer...
Development of new decenralised technology for the wireless ...
The motivation behind the SMART-Net projedt is to overcome the limitations of conventional Broadband Wireless Access systems, in which all communications are required to pass through one costly central base station. Therefore, ...
Publicky availabel testbed for computer networking and distr ...
PlanetLab is a group of computers available as a testbed for computer networking and distributed systems research. As of March 2009, PlanetLab was somprised of 913 nodes at 460 sites worldwide. Each research project has a 'slic...
Comprehensive method of maintaining life long privacy of int ...
Life long trail of personal data of each individual arises in the net. The project PRIMELIFE reflects an effort to propose comprehensive method of maintaining life long privacy of internet users. This effort may be considered a...
New type of SLA management framework for Service Oriented In ...
The SLA@SOI project consortium strives to create an open source SLA (Service Level Agreement) framework for the SOI (Service Oriented Infrastructure). There is an assumption of a product economy transformation towards a service...
The FP6 DustCart project is aimed at designing, developing and testing a system for improving the management of urban hygiene based on a network of autonomous and cooperating robots, embedded in an Ambient Intelligence infrastr...
Advances in small robots for environmental monitoring and re ...
The robots in this research, as part of an Ambient Intelligence platform, integrate sensors for monitoring and tasks execution, communications, and databases technologies (including knowledge discovery in databases (KDD)) capab...
Growth of European deforestation
Lignocellulosic bioethanol has the potential of contributing to a sustainable and secure European energy supply for the transport sector. European research and industry is presently among the forerunners in developing lignocell...
Tonnes of Helium 3 discovered in the moon
Mineral samples from the moon contain abundant quantities of helium-3, a variant of the gas used in lasers and refrigerators. The moon is thought to hold tonnes of helium 3 which may solve Earth's energy crisis. A potential gas...
Thorium is better fission fuel than uranium
There is three times more thorium in nature in comparison to uranium. It is possible to get 40 time more energy from thorium in comparison to equel mass of uranium. Nuclear waste can be used as energy source in thorium reactors...
Germany is turning pro-nuclear force
Angela Merkels CDU won the German parliamentary elections. Immediatelly after the victory CDU declared that they want to expand the use of nuclear force beyond 2032, which used to be the date of ending the use of nuclear force...
Growing interest in novel science, technology and innovation ...
INNOS&T aims to develop and collect novel science and technology indicators with extensive European coverage, to be used in empirical models that can contribute to improve European, national and regional policies on: 1) Economi...
Recent studies show suggest nanotubes could trigger diseases similar to those caused by asbestos.
Concerns about surface area being a better determinant of na ...
Some researchers suggest that biological activity of nanoparticles will depend on physico-chemical parameters not routinely considered in toxicity screening studies.
Nanopollutants are nanoparticles small enough to enter your lungs or be absorbed by your skin. Nanopollutants can be natural or man-made. Nanoparticles are used in some of the products found on shelves today, like anti-aging co...
Nanoparticles have a potential to contribute to air pollution
Recent research suggests that systemic access of ultrafine insoluble particles may induce adverse reactions in the cardiovascular system, and other organs.
Calls to standardise nanomaterials and methods for monitorin ...
Some recent studies demonstrate that results obtained with specific assays for toxicity may have been invalidated by the presence of investigated nanoparticles leading to false-positive outcomes.
Some opinion shift towards pro-nuclear power
Finland, China and US are currently building nuclear power plants and planning to start new constructions. The public opinion in these countries has changed towards more fission friendly after long political debates and discus...
Non-stop final descents of aircrafts are usually interfered by the large number of aircrafts in the airspace being guided by few beacons located in the runway. First tests show that the additional application of virtual GPS-bea...
Improvements in Personal Sensory Device Interfaces
Neuromorphic engineering develops personal sensory device interfaces that promise to enhance human senses such as hearing and vision and to improve communication through providing information to people about their environment.
Integration of all - so far decoupled - air transport systems such as systems for traffic management, runway lightning control, baggage handling, passenger check-in and flight information display. The airport can be run by a ce...
New Approaches for Stem Cell Based Therapies
Stem cell based therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson´s and Huntington´s disease is close. Stem cell therapies might also be applied to other diseases.
Intelligent Health Infrastructure at Home
Smart technical devices and diagnosis structures are increasingly developed, tested and are slowly been introduced to e.g. monitor and treat elderly, chronically sick or post-clinical patient at home.
Increased User Innovations in Sustainable Transports
Due to the further spread of virtual communities and online innovation platforms, customer innovations in the field of automotives and transport slowly advance.
Increased communication of EU research projects
EU projects and initiatives work on the communication of the EU research to draw attention to the Union. This might lead to a rise of public awareness towards the EU in general.
Migration flows increase and thereby cultural diversity. New hybrid cultures start to develop as already observed in music (Hindu rap), Food (Fusion Food) or language.
TV screens are increasingly used at waiting rooms of hospitals and practices to inform and entertain the patient.
International Rise of Widespread Diseases
Setbacks for the fight against diseases such as polio or tuberculosis as the parents in industrial countries are taking the decision not to vaccinate their children.
Smart self-improving personal pervasive computing spaces
Concept of pervasive or ubiquitous computing, where information processing is thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities, is more than 20 years old. But current trends in the design of pervasive systems have con...
Innovative multichannel control concepts enable intuitive control of aircrafts and all instruments. This leads to a reduction of human effort and reduced reaction times in critical situations; furthermore, ergonomically designe...
Increased Public Awareness of Sustainable Mobility
Frequent reports and discussions in the media about global warming and environmental pollution lead to a fundamental change in mobility behaviour and an increasing utilisation of "green means of transport".
Water Pollution Warning System
Researchers work on a water pollution warning system. This would constantly analyse water quality. Differencies can immediately be recognised by science centres and thereby warn of pollution and a risk for diseases caused by wa...
Micro/Nano Electromechanical Systems (NEMS/MEMS) as Redeemer
Research on NEMS and MEMS promise quantum jumps in several fields, such as drug synthesis, drug delivery, nanosurgery, nanotherapy, gemome synthesis, diagnostics, novel actuators and sensors, disease diagnostics and prevention ...
Personal Responsibility for Health Care
Cubacks in welfare based on an ageing society cause higher health care costs. Increasingly people have to take care of costs for themselves. More and more private insurances covering additional costs are established. Therefore,...
Digital natives - young people that grew up with the internet - are used to digital devices and services. However, it is mostly old patients who might increasingly profit from technology-based self-services, as digital haemodyn...
EU-Regulations for Clinical Research
The EU increasingly passes directives regulating clinical research
Increased Awareness for Work-Life Balance in EU Workplaces
There is an increase in research on improving the work-life balance that will eventually increase productivity and efficiency of employees in the EU.
Increasing Migration of Medical Personnel
Due to a shortage of medical personnel in several areas of the EU, there is an increasing migration of medical personnel within the EU. Increasingly, medical personnel from outside the EU fills the gap aswell
Few research institutes have already established platforms integrating "several people" in research projects. Similar to open innovation platforms, everyone, e. g. university students or people dealing with similar themes at wo...
Transplantation of Tissue-Engineered Organs
First tissue-engineered organs were already transplanted.
Increase of Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases
The number of people - especially children - that have to deal with different kinds of allergies and autoimmune diseases increases. Besides an increasing refusal of chemical products, there is also a greater demand for improve...
Rising interest for health science and health policy
Due to a rising awareness for health issues in an ageing society, people become aware of the importance of health research as well.
