Prof. Luc Soete will address an informal meeting of EU ministers in Tallinn, Estonia, on 25 July 2017. Seeking to improve the coherence and openness of EU research and innovation partnerships, he joins speakers including Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, and Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the World Trade Organization. The meeting will also consider the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020 and the future of European research and innovation funding. ...

Co-authored by researchers Hugo Hollanders  and Nordine Es-Sadki, the European Innovation Scoreboard gives a comparative analysis of innovation performance across EU member states, other European countries, and regional neighbours. According to this year’s results, EU innovation performance continues to increase, partly thanks to improvements in human resources, the innovation-friendly environment, own-resource investments, and attractive research systems. Overall, Sweden remains the EU in...

The Dutch government’s refusal to allow Turkish ministers to visit Rotterdam and address the large number of Dutch-Turkish citizens on how to vote in the Turkish constitutional referendum of April 16 was a game-changer in the Dutch elections....

EU leaders have agreed to a plan that will provide Libya’s UN-backed government €200 million for dealing with migration. This includes an increase in funding for the Libyan coastguard, with an overall aim to stop migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean to Italy....

Brexit will hurt both the Brits and the Continental Europeans, no matter how the negotiations unfold. Some of the divorce pains will be in terms of cold hard cash. But the worst damage could come from Brexit undercutting the very soul of the EU – i.e., the gradual increase in understanding each other across Europe. Call it, if you will, ‘the move towards a European identity’. Exchanges of staff and students, and joint research programmes, have all contributed to the building of a European identi...

This year’s 19th European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) took the guiding theme of ‘Demographics & Diversity in Europe – New Solutions for Health’. As the leading event of its kind, the Forum aims to develop European health policy with input from national and regional authorities and decisionmaking bodies. Its main supporters include the European Commission and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. From 28-30 September 2016, UNU-MERIT’s Prof. Angela Brand and Researcher Seba...

The annual European Innovation Scoreboard, co-authored by Hugo Hollanders, Nordine Es-Sadki and Minna Kanerva, provides a comparative analysis of innovation performance in EU Member States, other European countries, and regional neighbours. It assesses relative strengths and weaknesses of national innovation systems and helps countries identify areas they need to address. According to the 2016 Scoreboard, the EU is continuing to catch up with global innovation leaders. But innovation is still he...

“Almost three quarters (73%) of 18 to 24-year-olds said they had voted to stay in the EU, compared with 62% of 25 to 34s and 52% of 35 to 44s,” noted a BBC article after last week’s referendum. But “support for Brexit formed a majority among every other age category and grew with each, peaking at 60% among those aged 65 and over.” Which begs the question — as younger generations will have to live longer with the economic, environmental and political decisions ...

Today is B-Day, when British voters decide whether to leave or stay in the European Union. For anyone fond of buzzwords the choice is simple: Brexit or Bremain? Yet the data feeding into the referendum are more complex and, as shown time and again, woefully open to manipulation. One of the main arguments revolves around migration, specifically whether the economic impacts of migration benefit or harm the UK in terms of wages, employment and public services. Those pushing for Brexit say that EU l...

Our EU Trend Reports tackle innovative business practices from a policy perspective. They help policymakers better understand the latest trends in business and industry innovation and provide specific policy recommendations to unleash the potential of European businesses and scale-up successful innovative solutions in the EU. Two trend reports are published every year, drawing on case studies and conference outcomes. ••• The latest innovation trends – from space services to extreme recycling — f...