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Science in society

The EUCYS 2012 competition winners.
science in society
16 September 2013

Empowering a generation of scientists

Lithuanian Laurynas Pliuškys hopes that the research he is doing could help find a cure for arthritis, and it’s thanks to Europe’s young scientist award that has been giving researchers the confidence to take up careers in science for a quarter of a century.

Marc Abrahams pictured with the Public Health prize-winning wonder bra at TEDx at CERN. © CERN
science in society
14 June 2013

Ig Nobel prizes make you laugh... then think

Each Autumn, just before the announcement in Stockholm of the genuine Nobel Prize laureates, a band of merry men at Harvard University distribute the ‘Ig Nobel Prizes’. These awards recognise real research work that make people laugh… and then think.

Archaeologist investigating a submerged prehistoric settlement site in Denmark. © The Viking Ship Museum
science in society
08 May 2013

Shipwreck ahoy!

Denmark’s best-preserved 17th century wreck may have gone completely unnoticed if it hadn’t been lying close to the path of a construction project.

During the PERPETUATE project, researchers used a huge shaking table from the Italian National Agencies for New Technologies and the Environment in Rome to test the vulnerability of model buildings confronted by a simulated earthquake. Here, a model of a vault from the Dey Mosque of Algiers is being tested. © Serena Cattari
science in society | environment
24 April 2013

Earthquake projects try to preserve history

The Ottoman mansion of Hassan Bey in the seismically active medieval centre of Rhodes, Greece, does not worry civil engineers – even though the building is faulty because its floor isn’t very well connected to the wall.

New scientific journals aim to be more and more open. © iStock
science in society
18 March 2013

A new 100 % ‘open’ scientific journal

Across the Atlantic, scientists are also making use of open access journals. In Canada, the national medical association started publishing a totally new, fully ‘open’ journal in January.

Gaining professional experience abroad can be a career boost for women scientists © Shutterstock
science in society | women in science | policy
18 March 2013

Women in science: Mobility is good for your career

For scientists, packing up their lab coats and microscopes and heading to foreign laboratories can really pay dividends. Thanks to initiatives like Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships, women are benefiting more and more from making a move abroad.

Open access aims to make the results of publicly funded scientific research more accessible
science in society | innovation union
13 March 2013

Research plan fuels open access revolution

When Tim Gowers, a maths professor at the University of Cambridge in the UK, wrote a blog post criticising the high price charged by academic journals to access research, he did not expect to start a revolution.

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