NewsByte

Despite producing more highly-cited scientific papers, several EU countries have slipped in world rankings, as China boosted its scientific output, according to a new report by France’s High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES).

Researchers in China publish the most scientific papers in artificial intelligence (AI), but their work has a lower citation impact, according to a new report from the Center for Data Innovation (CDI), a Washington and Brussels-based think tank.

Fast growth in patent applications for artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare reflects the strong momentum behind medical technology innovation in China, according the Global Innovation Index.

The latest data from the European Commission shows research projects in ICT and energy, and ERC grants to carry out basic research, generate a large amount of intellectual property, including patents, copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets.

The share of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Spain and eastern European countries introducing product or process innovations is significantly lower than in the rest of Europe, according to the EU’s 2019 Regional Innovation Scoreboard.

Portugal has been the most successful country in winning Widening Fellowships and Individual Fellowships under Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA), according to the latest data. In 2018, Portuguese scientists won thirteen Widening Fellowships and 21 Individual Fellowships.

According to the 2019 Regional Innovation Scoreboard, there is a large variation in the number of international scientific co-publications within European countries.

Performance of regional innovation systems decreased in more than half of the regions of Bulgaria Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, according to the 2019 Regional Innovation Scoreboard published by the European Commission. Meanwhile, performance fell in all regions in Romania and Slovenia.

According to a new report published by the Royal Society, the output of UK’s international science collaboration with the EU is rising faster than with the US.

The Czech Republic, Slovenia, Korea, Poland and Italy are the five countries with the highest share of employees who are at high risk of automation and need significant training to move into lower risk jobs, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Up to six per cent of employees in the Czech Republic and Slovenia will need significant training to find new jobs. Keyboard operators, mining and construction labourers, plant operators and subsistence farmers are the occupations with the higher risk of automation. By contrast, workers in Belgium and Israel are best placed to keep their jobs as automation rises.

Business investment in R&D continues to be the main global driver of R&D growth, according to the latest OECD data. In 2017, corporate R&D investment grew by 4.8 per cent and it now accounts for more than 70 per cent of all the R&D performed in OECD countries.

An analysis by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) shows many sectors and industries are exploring the commercial exploitation of artificial intelligence.

Horizon 2020 is mostly about collaborative research projects: groups of researchers that come together from several organisations, from at least three countries, to perform EU-funded R&D. But clearly, some countries are more important than others when setting up these consortia.

According to the latest data from the European University Association (EUA), only 21 per cent of surveyed higher education institutions have policies on research data management in place. Another 38 per cent of universities were in the process of developing them. However, almost 40 per cent reported that they lacked or were not in the process of developing such policies.

In 2016, the share of innovative companies in Estonia increased to 47.7 per cent from only 26.5 in 2014, while in Portugal the share increased to 67 per cent from 54, according to the latest data from Eurostat’s Community Innovation Survey.

A report by the European University Association (EUA) sees higher education systems in England, Greece, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Serbia to be “in danger”, citing funding cuts paired with increasing student cohorts over a nine-year period, from 2008 to 2017.

Over the same period, 12 higher education systems are “shrinking” or “declining under pressure” in countries where both public funding and size of student body have been decreasing since 2008.

Germany remains Europe’s top patent holder with 26,734 European patents applications filed in 2018, a 4.7 per cent increase compared to 2017. This represents Germany’s fastest growth since 2010. In contrast, ten EU member states filed less than 100 patents each.

The proportion of women researchers in the EU remains low, according to data presented in the “SHE FIGURES 2018” report by the European Commission. In 2015, women represented only 33.4 per cent of researchers in EU’s 28 member states. This proportion hasn’t changed much since 2012, when women represented 33 per cent of researchers.

In 2017, only 19.5 per cent of the total energy used for heating and cooling in the EU came from renewable sources. 

Despite a nearly two fold increase compared to 2004, when only 10.4 per cent of the energy used for heating and cooling came from renewables, the distribution of renewable energy across member states is uneven.