Parallel to the large positive impact on human welfare and wellbeing, science and technology sometimes create new risks and ethical dilemmas. Over the last decades many efforts have tried to reduce the distance between science and society, leading to a European-wide approach in Horizon 2020 called Responsible Research and Innovation. The Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Tools Project provides a series of tools seeking to bring issues related to RRI into the open, to anticipate their consequences, and to involve society in discussing how science and technology can help create the kind of world and society we want for generations to come.
Source : http://www.rri-tools.eu/

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Strategy 2020 highlights cooperation as one of the five fundamental key values that guide EFSA in its activities. While this has been so since the creation of EFSA, the nature of cooperation is progressively evolving, with Member States increasingly playing a leading role in priority setting and the steering of activities. This annual report gives an overview of the activities undertaken by EFSA in 2015 together with different stakeholders, in particular with Member States. It also highlights how EFSA supports the European Commission, its main stakeholder, in policy-making decisions and enlargement programmes, contributing to the harmonisation of risk assessment practices at a European and international level.
Source: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) coordinated and contributed to two of the ten chapters of the 2016 Scientific Assessment Report of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which was officially launched in Brussels at the end of May. The main findings of the report show that air quality in Europe have improved significantly over the past 30 years thanks mainly to policy-driven reductions in air pollution. Nonetheless, air pollution is still the main environmental cause of premature deaths in Europe (due mainly to high concentrations of fine particles and ground-level ozone), and ecosystem biodiversity is threatened due to nitrogen deposition. The aim of this assessment is to serve as a basis for considering new directions for policy development and for identifying policy-relevant research questions.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/

Researchers and innovators from Armenia will now have full access to Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation funding programme, under the same conditions as their counterparts from EU Member States and other associated countries. Thanks to this agreement, its research institutes, universities and individual researchers will now have access to all opportunities offered by Horizon 2020 in diverse areas, from fundamental science to demonstration projects, on an equal footing with researchers and organisations from EU Member States and other countries associated to the programme.
Source: http://europa.eu/

The European Commission presented a proposal for the European Union to ratify the Paris Agreement, a legally binding deal to tackle climate change.

This proposal follows the successful conclusion of the COP21 in Paris, as well as the Commission´s full assessment of the Paris Agreement presented in March 2016. The Paris Agreement is an opportunity for achieving broader sustainable development goals, as well the EU’s priorities of investment, competitiveness, circular economy, research, innovation and energy’s transition. Chemistry will be playing a major role in providing solutions to reach the Paris Agreement targets.

Source: http://europa.eu/