Interview | Research and Innovation

Professor Maria Chiara Carrozza is a robotics expert who leads Italy’s National Research Council. © Cnr

ICT | Industry | Science in society | Interview

From knee surgery to home drudgery, the robot revolution beckons

Automation will play a growing role in people’s lives and Europe has the know-how to lead the way, according to a top Italian researcher.

Professor Manuel Heitor chairs an expert group evaluating the EU research programme. © Manuel Heitor

Frontier research | Policy | Interview

Society’s challenges demand youth interest and funding in Europe, ex-research minister says

EU research, which has improved society and the economy for decades, now needs to engage more young people and attract extra public and private ...

As climate change accelerates, so too should the definition of prosperity. Image credit: CC0 via Unsplash

Environment | Social Sciences | Interview

Once unthinkable, the prospect of society driven by wellbeing gains traction

As Europe embraces clean energy to fight climate change, a leading ecological economist argues for going beyond “green growth”.

Czech is available via eTranslation, the European Commission's machine translation service.

Translate to Czech | Important information about machine translation

Dr Alexander Kröller is researching the risk that hacking and viruses pose to self-driving cars. Image courtesy of Dr Alexander Kröller

Interview | Transport | ICT

Hackers could blackmail owners of self-driving cars - Dr Alexander Kröller, TomTom

Automated vehicles have the potential to revolutionise our day-to-day lives, but these kind of cyber-physical systems are vulnerable to attack by criminals. Horizon spoke with Dr Alexander Kröller, a research manager at Dutch navigation company TomTom, to explore the risks that hacking and viruses pose to self-driving cars.

Modestas Gudauskas won a prize for creating a bacteria that produces two substances which could be used to develop alternatives to plastics. Image courtesy of the European Union

Interview | Industry

Visualise your goals and never give up – EU young scientist winner Modestas Gudauskas

Taking part in science projects while at school plus a healthy dose of persistence is the key to making your mark in research at a young age, according to 19-year-old Modestas Gudauskas from Lithuania, winner of the first European Union Contest for Young Scientists award for projects in the bio-based industries.

Prof. Hanns Lochmüller says that data sharing is already speeding up discovery of rare disease treatments. Image courtesy of Hanns Lochmüller

Health | Interview

Sharing data between researchers too often an afterthought in rare disease work – Prof. Hanns Lochmüller

Sharing data between researchers is speeding up the discovery of treatments for rare diseases but is too often an afterthought and needs to be encouraged through the way funding is structured, according to Professor Hanns Lochmüller from Newcastle University, UK. He chairs the interdisciplinary committee of the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC), which was set up to increase collaboration in the area.

Collaboration between Europe and North Africa could mean more resources in the Mediterranean region for green energy projects, says InnoEnergy’s Claude Ayache. Image credit: Flickr/dirvish

Interview | Environment | Open to the World | Energy

EU, North Africa green energy tie-up draws closer - Claude Ayache

An experimental project connecting renewable energy researchers in the EU with colleagues in Morocco and Tunisia could help pave the way for a market in renewable energy and energy efficiency that spans the Mediterranean, according to Claude Ayache, senior advisor for European affairs at the EU’s public-private green energy partnership, InnoEnergy.

Vladimir Baulin has demonstrated how nanoparticles cross a lipid membrane and says we need to find out how exactly they affect living organisms.

Industry | Health | Interview

Nanotechnology is like the early days of radioactivity when it comes to knowing the risks – Dr Vladimir Baulin

When radioactive materials were first introduced into society, it took a while before scientists understood the risks. The same is true of nanotechnology today, according to Dr Vladimir Baulin, from University Rovira i Virgili, in Tarragona, Spain, who together with colleagues has shown for the first time how nanoparticles can cross biological - or lipid - membranes in a paper published in the journal Science Advances.

Dr Gonzalo Murillo says that piezoelectric materials, like nano flakes, could lead to self-powering microchips. Image credit: Dr Gonzalo Murillo

Energy | Interview

Energy all around us could power under-skin implants and sensors in aircrafts – Dr Gonzalo Murillo

There is unlimited kinetic energy all around us and harnessing it could change the way we interact with the world forever, according to Dr Gonzalo Murillo from the National Microelectronics Center of Spain, whose research into piezoelectric materials has earned him an award for the most novel innovator under 35 in Europe 2016 from the MIT Technology Review, US.

We should prevent banks from being too big to fail in order to avoid another financial crisis, according to Prof. Eckhard Hein. Image courtesy of Prof. Eckhard Hein

Social Sciences | Interview

Banks should be small and boring – Prof. Eckhard Hein

We need to return to a diverse, small-scale banking system in order to reduce the risk of another financial crisis, according to Professor Eckhard Hein from the Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany, who was involved in the EU-funded FESSUD project examining the causes and consequences of the 2008 - 2009 financial and economic crisis.

Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber says that limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius will not be enough to avoid all tipping points. Image credit: Mercator 2009

Environment | Interview

We need an Apollo-style programme to tackle climate change – Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

Europe needs a climate research plan as focused as the US Apollo space programme that took astronauts to the moon, according to Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who in 1995 first proposed that we should limit the increase in the earth's temperature to 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Dr Leonardo Santos Simão is the High Representative South of the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, which brings together 14 European countries and 14 African countries in an effort to find new ways to fight diseases. Image credit: EDCTP

Interview | Health | Open to the World

Malaria, HIV vaccine achievable ‘in one or two decades’ – Dr Leonardo Santos Simão

We will see vaccines for malaria and HIV within the next one or two decades, predicts Dr Leonardo Santos Simão, the former health minister of Mozambique, who has been appointed High Representative South of the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), which aims to accelerate the development of new treatments, vaccines and diagnostic tools for diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.

Prof. Giulio Di Toro says predicting the exact time, magnitude and location of big earthquakes may never be possible. Image courtesy of Prof. Giulio Di Toro

Interview | Environment | Frontier research

Big earthquakes may never be predictable - Prof. Giulio Di Toro

It is very, very difficult to predict when a big earthquake will hit. And we may never be able to forecast precisely the time, magnitude and location of destructive quakes such as those that tore through central Italy in August and October. But our understanding of how they happen is improving dramatically, says Giulio Di Toro, professor of geology in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester, UK.