The scandal of regenerative medicine surgeon Paolo Macchiarini and his deadly plastic tracheas made world news. Yet this human abuse, which started at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, was just a part of a much bigger horror story. The suffering and deaths of other trachea transplant patients of Macchiarini and his collaborators, those who received a decellurised cadaveric trachea, is much less known. I focused my reporting on it, bringing back to memory all those dead patients which the hospitals in London, Florence and Barcelona pretend never existed. Presently, 62 patients were scheduled to be treated with decellurised cadaveric trachea in two phase 1 clinical trials in UK and one EU-funded phase 2 clinical trial, all led by former Macchiarini partner, UCL laryngologist Martin Birchall. But now, all 3 clinical trials are not going anywhere. Read more [...]
Since the General Assembly changed statutes in Copenhagen in 2014 we are electing new Governing Board members for a four-year period. It will not mark a really new beginning of EuroScience but it does provide a good opportunity to reflect on what EuroScience stands for, all the more so since EuroScience now exists for twenty years. Read more [...]
To support the announcement of the Marie Curie Individual Fellowships call, MCAA, EuroScientist and Horizon 2020 FOSTER+ are organising an Open Science CLINIQUE. The webinar will deal with the main question: Can Open Science make Marie Curie grant proposal more competitive, boost societal impact, and complement fellows soft-skills on knowledge management, knowledge transfer and public engagement? Read more [...]
EuroScientist editor has left and this is an occasion for the magazine to make some changes and reinvent itself. While we will not change the goals and the mission of EuroScientist we will focus in the coming months on anticipating the debates at ESOF and debates on FP9. In addition, we will merge the EuroScience Newsletter into EuroScientist. Homo Scientificus Europaeus (HSE) will also be integrated in EuroScientist website in the following weeks. We will also invite new contributions from you whatever you think is useful and valuable for the discussions in the wider science community and beyond that among stakeholders in science and innovation. Read more [...]
The Cambridge Analytics scandal has shown that the work of scientists is not neutral. The work of psychologists who designed the questionnaire aimed at profiling Facebook users might have been stellar work in its own right, within the standards of the field. But the way the answers to the questionnaire were later used for the purpose of influencing the political choices of the Facebook users who took the questionnaire, is--to say the least--questionable. This scandal is a case in point to show that there is no better time to continue the dialogue of the role of scientists in society. After 5 years working as Editor of EuroScientist, I would like to announce that I am now moving on to pastures new. Read more [...]
Ivo Verbeek is the co-founder of Peerwith. He has a background in software development and has worked for scholarly publishers in the past. He shares his views on what it means to open up access to a wide community of academics with language editing skills to scientists who are no proficient in language editing. He also talks about how his magazine disrupts existing language editing agencies while cutting the middle man. Read more [...]
Medicamentalia-Contraceptives is an international journalistic investigation by Civio on birth control access and barriers. We have combined data journalism with on-the-ground reporting to tell the stories of the women behind the statistics, to gather their opinions about birth control access and their freedom to decide about their bodies. This instalment follows in the footsteps of two predecessors, focused on access to essential medicines and access to vaccines around the world. Read more [...]
One in ten women around the world doesn't use the contraceptives she needs. We analyse how women exercise this right and how side effects, misogyny, beliefs, and outsiders interfere with it. Read more [...]
The three main monotheistic religions, Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam, all limit the right of women to decide about their pregnancies. But within each there are schisms and different interpretations and levels of acceptance. Read more [...]
RRI has become a buzzword in European science in the last few years. Scientists must fill in the RRI section in their European project and sometimes they don't know what to write there. Others are anxious to have the RRI tag attached to their communication and PR activities. But what RRI really is? Why is it needed? How could science and society benefit from this approach? The strict definition of RRI implies a radical change in the way of conceiving scientific projects from the very beginning, bringing a wide range of stakeholders (from companies to activists, from designers to patients...) in defining the scientific agenda. Are researchers prepared for that? What is the actual level of implementation of RRI in European science? What policies are there in place to facilitate this process? Read more [...]
Two researchers or research laboratories from across the world will be awarded a total of 60,000 euros each, as part of the 2018 Groupe Roullier Innovation Awards. Previous winners have had their work from a broad range of research areas, including plant nutrition, soil science, biocontrol and plant engineering, among others. This is a unique opportunity to get financial support for work which is likely to benefit the sponsor of the competition. Read more [...]
The next Science March will take place in Washington, Göttingen and many other cities throughout the world on the 14th April 2018. This research activism movement born last year is set to gain momentum. It is a reminder to the science community that researchers need to make their voices heard Read more [...]
European science conversations by the community, for the community