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New study calls for more public involvement in the design of big data medical research projects such as DNA databanks and epidemiological studies based on healthcare records, allowing research to continue whilst protecting individual privacy

The decision to scrap the post of chief scientific adviser was “particularly disturbing” and risks ceding ground to vested interests. The EU must have a new source of impartial scientific advice, Roberto Bertollini tells Science|Business

Europe’s leading scientific institutions will work with less-developed regions to start-up new research centres

But in a time of dwindling resources in Europe and beyond, new energy technologies and processes must have efficiency as their watchword, says David Eyton, group head of technology at BP

With Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas expected to devise ways to ensure EU policy benefits from scientific insight in the next few months, thoughts turn to what form the advice will take, and how to avoid the banana skins of the past

If money is to be taken from the Horizon 2020 pot, there should be oversight from science to ensure research and innovation is not weakened, says an open letter from Europe’s leading scientific groups

The budget of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research should be absorbed by the European Research Council. A proviso that projects backed by Dutch money be conducted in the Netherlands would strengthen the country’s research, says Luc Soete, Rector Magnificus, Maastricht University

The SME Initiative aims to encourage banks to lend more to cash-starved small companies. The European Commission wants more countries to use this route for channelling regional development money to the grass roots

The US patent office has given specific examples of what types of software can get protection. This provides long-awaited clarification, says patent expert Andrew Thompson

German companies still top the table but overall Europe is less innovative, a new EU survey reveals

A group of German researchers give limited intelligence to a well-known computer figure

How can Europe balance its goal of energy security with the need to reduce CO2 emissions? Part of the answer would be fixing the carbon emissions trading system

Officials gathered in Brussels this week to untangle some of the messy, competing goals for making European energy greener, cheaper and more modern. Cutting energy use is the leading priority, a Commission adviser told the meeting

The search engine giant will dramatically increase its investment in European start-ups and skills in 2015. Prospects are good, but there must be broader acceptance in Europe that some ventures will fail, says David Drummond, chair of Google Ventures

Accusations fly as the European Commission releases details of the money its €315B investment plan will take out of the EU’s Horizon 2020 kitty. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology faces the deepest cut