R&D News

New investment vehicle seeded with €410M of public money aims to attract pension funds and sovereign wealth funds to back early-stage companies and help them reach €1B ‘unicorn’ status in Europe

Freeing research funder from European Commission oversight will cut red tape, UK science academy says. The idea has some broader support among scientists

A report by the European Parliament’s science and technology options assessment panel calls for the Commission and member states to put more effort into bridging the geographical divide in research and innovation

“Any VC firm will tell you – meeting people is more important than the ideas,” says EU Research Commissioner

Bernard Bigot, director-general of the world's biggest nuclear fusion project, tells Science|Business the perpetually out-of-reach energy source is finally in sight – so long as Trump does not scale back US involvement

Brussels makes strongest statement yet that it wants the UK in EU research programmes after Brexit, but says there can be no half in, half out arrangement on trade and EU agencies

Anja Karliczek has no background in research, though some welcome her outsider perspective. She will preside over a €2B increase in science spending over the next few years

Open letter calls for European Commission to trust outside investors with picking the best companies to fund

In a bid to boost Europe’s overall spending on defence, EIB has struck a deal with the European Defence Agency to increase lending for technologies including sensors and lasers, with both civil and military uses