The founding goals of the Network are to strengthen and develop cooperation in the areas of research, academic education and service to society among a cluster of highly-ranked, young research universities in Europe on an equal basis and for their common benefit.
Working as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Forest Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland, Samuli Junttila – a.k.a. The Eastern Prof – uses musical edutainment, namely rap, to spread awareness of forest research, and of UNITE, the new Forest-Human-Machine-Interplay competence centre selected to the Academy of Finland’s Flagship Programme.
The interactive Kon.Screen – a joint project of the University of Konstanz, the City of Konstanz, and the University of Applied Sciences Konstanz (HTWG) – is a freely and easily accessible media installation that presents the University of Konstanz's research at changing, popular locations in and around Konstanz. Anyone who takes a seat in the Kon.Screen can experience hands-on science presented on large displays, learn about the latest research projects at the University of Konstanz – or simply find a comfortable place to rest and relax. Using the free Kon.Screen app, visitors can turn their smartphones into remote controls to interact with the Kon.Screen and select the topics that interest them most.
Creating new procedures that improve mass drone traffic is the purpose of LABYRINTH, a European research project coordinated by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) with the participation of 13 international organisations within the R&D&I, transport, emergency, and auxiliary services fields. Researchers hope to use these drone swarm applications to improve civil road, train, sea, and air transport, making it safer, more efficient, and more sustainable.
Pádraig Murphy
Covid-19 and the climate emergency have shown how vulnerable the world is and how rapidly we all need to respond to sudden shocks to the system. Standard dissemination as “explanation” about the science of the coronavirus or climate change will continue to be needed urgently but will not be enough: continuous public and civic society involvement is vital. Inter- and multidisciplinary research needs to be more adaptive, such as DCU Covid-19 Research and Innovation Hub and this university’s centralised response to the Sustainable Development Goals, but there will also need to be a larger role for publics in order for us to work together for common solutions. This changes fundamentally how we think about how communication works for research and development.
Since 2000, the European Research Area (ERA) has led to important achievements in the Research and Innovation (R&I) European landscape, notably in areas such as Open Science, mobility of researchers, research infrastructures, among others. (1) However, progress has recently been slowing down, showing that improvements in key areas are needed. (2) It is in this context that the Young European Research Universities Network (YERUN) welcomed the Communication a “New ERA for Research and Innovation” and the Council Conclusions on the new ERA launched at the end of 2020. They set a direction for the future of the ERA through four strategic objectives: prioritising investments and reforms, improving access to excellence, translating R&I results into the economy, and deepening the ERA. It is now time to move from strategy to implementation, and to answer the questions: How to translate such strategic objectives into the reality of the different European R&I actors? How to ensure a strong commitment from the entire European R&I community, including national governments? How to keep track of progress and ensure an inclusive and effective governance and implementation of the ERA?
This year, the YERUN Research Mobility Awards scheme will be a bit different than usual: due to the fact that mobilities across Europe are still heavily affected by the pandemic, YERUN will support virtual mobilities only during 2021.
YERUN is delighted to announce that the University of Cyprus (UCY) has officially become a YERUN member! By welcoming UCY into the network, YERUN expands its representation towards South-East Europe. For YERUN, the University of Cyprus is a fantastic fit: in only thirty-two years since its foundation, UCY has established itself as a leading research institution in the Euro-Mediterranean region, and its values and goals resonate perfectly with those of YERUN. A big welcome to UCY into the Young European Research Universities Network!
Often when people from a socially disadvantaged area have poor health or behavioural issues, we look to the individual for the root of the problems without taking into account collective identities which, if considered, can help with positive change. Researchers at the Centre for Social Issues Research at UL have addressed this problem by conducting highly regarded research on the benefits and burdens of so-called ‘collective identities’, such as nationality, socio-economic groups, and ethnicity.
Everything starts with fundamental research. Just look at the University of Antwerp’s PLASMANT research group – Prof. Annemie Bogaerts and her colleagues have accumulated years of expertise in plasma, the fourth state of matter. Their fundamental research led to the establishment of start-up D-CRBN.
There has been a paradigm-shift in light-microscopy over the past twenty years. Many of the rules governing what microscopes can resolve have been overturned. It is now possible to observe the structure of living cells down to single-biomolecule level, offering the prospect to study cell-biochemistry in spectacular detail, and new hope for medicine. However, super-resolution microscopy requires sensors to illuminate the cell interior and conventional probes cannot fulfil the demands of these methods.
