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Institutional issues and a lack of system thinking are hampering progress toward resolving Europe’s renewable energy dilemma, says Mark O’Malley, professor of electrical engineering at University College Dublin. More comprehensive and objective analysis would help.

As resistance to traditional antibiotics reaches crisis levels, scientists are poised to forage in hard-to-reach sea trenches for new antimicrobials and novel compounds that could provide the basis of new drugs

A decrease in applications of almost two per cent is attributed to the ineligibility of Swiss scientists and new rules on re-submission

The successful integration of renewables could cut Europe’s energy bill by as much as €50 billion annually, says Goran Strbac, professor of electrical energy systems at Imperial College London. First, however, the market must start rewarding investment in flexible power generation, demand-side response and energy storage.

Subsidies for renewable energies should be progressively eliminated where they distort competition, Director-General Dominique Ristori tells Science|Business

EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) counts 459 smart grid initiatives in its yearly stock-taking report

Output from photovoltaics rises by 34 per cent in 2013, but changes in incentive programmes mean Europe loses ground

Plant biologist Peter Olesen to succeed Alexander von Gabain in August 2014

There’s a long tradition of offering scientists prize money to solve specific problems. After making the first such payment – of €2M for a way of preserving vaccines without refrigeration - the EU is planning more prize give-aways

Smart specialisation roadmaps will make better use of EU structural funding and break the old habit of thinking on a project-by-project basis