A few more days to register to Deep Tech and Forestry events (1 June 2021)

The agenda of the INESC Brussels HUB Spring Meeting is available on the HUB website. It will take place virtually on June 1^st and 2^nd, and will include a public workshop organised by the Work Group Agro-Food and Forestry, titled “Enhancing science-based knowledge on EU forests – its influence in decision making” (1 June, 10-12 CEST), and a public high-level roundtable on deep tech, featuring profiles from INESC and high-level European stakeholders in the area (1 June, 15-17 CEST). The events will take place on Zoom and registration is now open on the event pages.

The Spring Meeting will also include two events the participation in which is restricted to the Management Committee and selected observers: a thought leadership workshop on EU research career development (2 June, 10-12 CEST) and the Management Committee meeting (2 June, 14-17 CEST).

Trust and Artificial Intelligence

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) in the United States published and opened for public consultation their report on Trust and Artificial Intelligence. You can download it here. Also from the US and in AI, it was recently brought to our attention a 2020 report on AI implementation in governmental agencies at both federal and regional level. You can find the PDF in the HUB Private Area.

Horizon Europe calls delayed transversally across all Clusters

The rumours started being supported buy evidence with the release of draft papers indicating different dates across Pillar 2 Clusters. Whereas concrete information on Cluster 3 circulated in the last few days with a new Work Programme indicating new deadlines for October and November, just yesterday a draft paper on Cluster 5 (Energy) was circulated with indication of new deadlines for even later with most of the calls set for closing only in the beginning of 2022. We will be uploading the new drafts in the HUB Private Area for your convenience. Moreover, the new official launch date for all Cluster related work programmes is 30 June, as of the latest news.

Portugal’s contribution to the European Digital Agenda

Digital transformation of the way Europeans live and do business is one of the priorities of the Portuguese EU Council presidency, which ends on 30 June. To find out how much has been achieved, and what Portugal’s successor, Slovenia, should pursue, EURACTIV spoke to Hugo Santos Mendes, Portugal’s deputy minister for communications.

European Week Against Cancer 2021

Yesterday was the first day of the European Week Against Cancer 2021, an annual initiative to raise awareness of cancer prevention, screening and early detection, equal access to high quality treatment and support for patients and survivors. This year we have a plan: the EU Cancer Plan and tomorrow we have a new INESC article on the importance of technology to achieve the EU Cancer mission objectives coming out in Science Business, developed by the Work Group Health Technologies. Stay tuned!

Mobility and Transport Days

EU Information and Brokerage event on the MOBILITY & TRANSPORT in Horizon Europe will take place on 27-28 May 2021. The initiative is organized by the Slovak Liaison Office in cooperation with the Czech, Lithuanian, Polish and Hungarian offices in Brussels as well as Enterprise Europe Network. More information and registration here.

Research institutes clash with science publishers over open access

Nearly 900 universities, research organisations, and funding agencies want science publishers to be more transparent and abide by open access rules, after scientists complained their submissions are rejected if they apply a public copyright licence to accepted manuscripts. In a joint statement published yesterday, research-performing and research-funding organisations represented by the European University Association, Science Europe and CESAER, call on all publishers to stop requiring researchers to sign over their rights and to end the use of restrictions and embargoes.

Science publishers require researchers to sign exclusive publishing agreements that restrict what authors can do with their research findings. In the view of research funding agencies, this “outdated system” should be replaced. Publishers should allow researchers to deposit their accepted manuscripts in repositories with an open licence and without any embargo. Read more about this statement here.