The European Parliament had a busy week this September as they discussed and debated a number of highly important and relevant topics through plenaries and Committee meetings.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) approved a report which calls for a tightening of the maximum limits for certain pollutants and harmful bacteria in drinking water as well the introduction of new caps for some endocrine disruptors. The approved report will then be voted on during the October plenary of the European Parliament. Full debrief available here.
MEPs in turn highlighted the current complex barriers that prevent efficient accessing of medicine and innovative technologies in the EU, and in particular, the high prices of medicines and the lack of novel treatments for many diseases. The legislative report was approved by the ENVI Committee and will also be voted on beginning of October. Full article is available here. The Committee also approved a report prepared by MEP Miriam Dalli which called for carmakers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 despite split opinions.
Research Professional reports that as part of the European Research Council’s (ERC) 2019 work programme, preprints – publications that have not yet been peer reviewed – will be recognised as part of applications. One of the reasons for the change is the lengthy peer-review processes in certain disciplines which can ultimately damage speedy and more efficient breakthrough outcomes. Read the full article here.
On 4 September, a coalition of national research funders, with support from the European Commission launched ‘Plan S’, a commitment to accelerate the transition to open access in scientific publishing. The initiative was held under the backing of Science Europe and with the support of Robert-Jan Smits, the European Commission’s open access envoy. The initiative has the potential of fundamentally altering the scientific publishing landscape, as well as accelerating the transition to Open Science more generally.
The reaction to the plan has been mixed, with many European publishers questioning aspects of the initiative, as well as highlighting the high costs this could incur to smaller publishers, as well as publishers from economically disadvantaged countries and regions.
Because of the many unanswered questions, and the as of yet unknown consequences the transition may have, EuChemS endorses a more cautious approach, that fully takes into account the concerns and proposals of all stakeholders, in particular those who will have to adapt their business models and who risk financial losses if the transition is rushed and one-sided.
As 2020 will come to a close, so will the 8th research framework programme, known as Horizon 2020. Its successor, named Horizon Europe, will be launched at a time where ambitious funding for science, research and innovation will be essential if Europe is to deal with the many challenges its citizens are already facing, and will continue to face in the coming years.
As the voice of Chemistry in Europe, EuChemS has published a Position Paper which outlines the strengths and weaknesses we perceive in the proposals put forward by the European Commission as well as the reports prepared by the Members of the European Parliament, Dan Nica and Christian Ehler.
In our position, we call for a larger budget to be allocated for the research framework programme as a whole, as well as boosts to be made to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and the European Research Council (ERC) budgets – two funding programmes that have enabled breakthrough scientific outcomes over the years. EuChemS has also underlined its support for excellent science, as well as the notion of ‘Missions’ put forward by the European Commission. Such missions would define targets to be reached, from finding cures to Parkinson’s disease to ensuring plastic-free oceans. Finally, EuChemS had emphasised the fact that science knows no borders, and that countries that have in the past participated in research framework programmes, should be able to do so again in Horizon Europe.
On 20 November 2018, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) will organise its annual Stakeholder Forum in Brussels, where EuChemS, recently accredited official stakeholder status will be present. The event offers a unique opportunity to network and communicate with scientists, industry and business representatives, NGOs, and European Insitutions representatives to discuss the challenges facing Europe’s food sector.
On 8 November 2018, EuCheMS in cooperation with EFMC and the European Parliament (under the chairmanship of MEP Pavel Poc) will hold a workshop at the European Parliament on the causes and the treatments availble for Parkinson’s disease. Watch this space for more information!
The challenge is to develop a safe and sustainable battery for electric-vehicles through the development of new materials and chemistries making use of abundant, sustainable low cost materials, which are easily available in Europe. Solutions are required to provide the same or better performance than vehicles with internal combustion engines and to be capable of recharging the electric vehicle within a time equivalent to fill a conventional gasoline/diesel fuel tank.
This prize will contribute significantly to the decarbonisation of Europe for the benefit of the EU’s economy and its citizens.
With the Congress already shaping up to be the European Chemistry event of the year not to miss, EuChemS President, Professor Pilar Goya delves into what the Congress encompasses, how it brings together scientists from across Europe and beyond, and how it embraces an increasingly interdisciplinary agenda.
Read the Editorial online now from the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) – the German Chemical Society’s Angewandte Chemie journal.
EuChemS Past President, and current Vice-President Professor David Cole-Hamilton demonstrates through a thorough and highly informative essay what EuChemS is, how it works, why it does what it does, and what it means for science and policy. By exploring our activities and events, Cole-Hamilton displays an active and lively network of scientists from across Europe who together develop unique scientific evidence and advice which we communicate to decision-makers in order to better inform their policymaking work. Formed in the 1970s, EuChemS has grown to represent some 160,000 individuals from 47 member organisations from over 30 countries!
You can read Cole-Hamilton’s essay here in Chemistry, a European Journal (ChemPubSoc), which will be open access until September 2018.
If you had not yet noticed (and we are sure you did!), EuChemS looks a little different… The EuChemS Congress in Liverpool will also be remembered in yet another way as we officially launch our new name, acronym, and logo!
We are no longer EuCheMS, the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences but rather EuChemS, the European Chemical Society. Not only is it easier to spell and explain, it also better embodies who we represent and why. EuChemS joins the voices, the opinions, the worries, the expectations and the visions of societies and individuals from over 30 different countries, all with the same aim: to demonstrate the vital role Chemistry plays in our everyday lives and to provide scientific evidence and advice to tackle major societal challenges facing Europe and the world.
We will have the pleasure of celebrating and commemorating the 100th, 125th, and 150th anniversaries of nine EuChemS member societies that will fall or fell in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
In 2019, the Estonian Chemical Society, the Finnish Chemical Society, the Polish Chemical Society and the Romanian Chemical Society (all founded in 1919) will be celebrating their 100th anniversaries. The German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry (founded in 1894) will celebrate its 125th anniversary. In 2018, the Norwegian Chemical Society (founded in 1893) will be celebrating its 125th anniversary, and the Mendeleev Russian Chemical Society and the Swedish Chemical Society in Lund (both founded in 1868) will celebrate their 150th anniversaries. And finally, the GDCh (founded in 1867) commemorated its 150th anniversary in a splendid ceremony in Berlin in 2017. We look very much forward to celebrating all of these anniversaries, as well as the 100th anniversary of IUPAC in 2019 during the welcome reception of the Congress.
This year’s Congress will be all the more special due to several awards being celebrated.
European Chemistry Gold Medal
Professor Bernard Lucas Feringa, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry in 2016 will be awarded the first European Chemistry Gold Medal and will subsequently give the opening lecture at the Congress. The Gold Medal aims to reward the exceptional achievements of one scientist working in the field of chemistry in Europe. An International Award Committee is specially assigned to oversee nominations and submit a proposal to the EuChemS Executive Board.
EuChemS Historical Landmarks Award
The Liverpool Congress will also witness the very first EuChemS Historical Landmarks Award. The aim of the award is to reinforce a sense of belonging of European chemists, and to demonstrate to the public the vital link that exists between chemistry and our shared cultural heritage.
Following the recommendations of the Landmark Selection Committee and the decision of the EuChemS Executive Board, two awards have been given out – one focusing on the European-wide level of meaning of the landmark, and the other on its role played at the national or local level.
The Ytterby Mine, in Sweden, has been awarded the EuChemS Historical Landmarks Award in recognition of the role it played in the history of chemistry and European sense of belonging between people and ideas. The Ytterby Mine and the important chemical discoveries that were tied to it successfully exemplify the way chemistry is part of the general cultural heritage and history of Nordic, but also all European citizens.
The industrial complex of ABEA in Crete has been awarded the EuChemS Historical Landmarks Award in recognition of its role in fostering a deep link between chemistry and local cultural heritage. ABEA and the important chemical discoveries and developments that were tied to it successfully exemplify the manner in which chemistry forms an important element of the regional cultural heritage and history of Crete.
We hope that with these awards, the landmarks will become ever more familiar and well-known, where citizens will better understand and appreciate a significant moment when chemistry and history were forever tied together.
EuChemS Award for Service 2018
And last but not least, the Congress will also provide the opportunity to celebrate the outstanding passion, commitment and success that describes the work done by three exceptional professors. The EuChemS Award for Service 2018 has been awarded to Francesco De Angelis, Sergio Facchetti and Reiner Salzer. In our latest edition of Chemistry in Europe, we asked them three questions – read the short interviews here!
Looking to find out more about EuChemS, talk to our team and get involved? Join us at our stand, located in the exhibition hall near the entrance to the Plenary Sessions Auditorium.
We are also pleased to invite you to come and chat at our stand with Professor Reiner Salzer, one of the awardees of the EuChemS Award for Service 2018 and project leader of the 3rd European Employability Survey for Chemists; and Professor Jan Mehlich, who has played a central role in developing the upcoming EuChemS online course on Chemistry and Ethics.
Find us at our sessions too!
Our Science Communication and Policy Officer, Alex Schiphorst will be talking alongside Susan M. Vickers from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), Karin J. Schmitz from the German Chemical Society (GDCh) and Sue R. Morrissey from the American Chemical Society (ACS) for a Global Communications Training Session that will explore the different ways of communicating science to different audiences, as well as offer concrete training tips and offer participants an interactive go at polishing their own communication skills. The
session will be moderated by Menno de Waal, member of the RSC and the EYCN.
When? Monday 27 August, 11:00-13:00 Where? Room 4B Why join? This session will allow participants to hone their communication skills, receive feedback, and learn from communication experts how to efficiently communicate their research to different audiences!
EuChemS General Secretary Nineta Hrastelj will be talking alongside the Award for Service Awardee Professor Reiner Salzer, EuChemS Vice-President David Cole-Hamilton, and LaTrease Garrison, Executive Vice President, Education at the American Chemical Society (ACS), for a session moderated by Rigoberto Hernandez, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. The session, entitled Education and Empowering the Future Global Workforce, addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, will examine more precisely the Goals numbers 4 and 17, on Quality Education and Partnerships for the Goals. Nineta will then focus on the challenges of Open Education.
When? Tuesday 28 August, 13:00-14:30 Where? Room 4B Why join? Educational programmes need to convey more than knowledge and developing the skills and abilities to foster solutions for scientifically, politically and economically complex needs has become crucial in an increasingly global environment. Participants will be given the chance to examine the complex questions surrounding educational standards, performance expectations, and assessments fostering the use of evidence-based practices, as well as grasp the intricacies of open science challenges, (global) quality of university education, ethics and industry-academia interactions.
Join Nineta Hrastelj, EuChemS General Secretary for her talk at the EYCN session where she will look at European funding: Sharing an evaluator’s knowledge, view and experience.
When? Thursday 30 August, 11:30-12:00 Where? Room 12 Why join? Intending on submitting a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) proposal? Join this session to hear what an evaluator is looking for, how the evaluation processes work, and how to make sure your project has what it needs to make it!
And of course, connect with us directly via our social media channels, on Twitter, Facebook and our new LinkedIn page throughout the congress! Tag us with @EuChemS handle and join the discussion through the #euchems2018 hashtag!
We hope you are as excited as we with the upcoming EuChemS Chemistry Congress 2018! Our 7th Congress (the first having been held in Budapest back in 2006) is sure to make a splash in the world of Chemistry. The EuChemS Chemistry Congresses reflect the outstanding research being done in Europe and around the world by bringing together chemists from different countries and professional backgrounds to exchange ideas, advance knowledge and discuss key issues for chemistry and society. With a theme of ‘Molecular frontiers and global challenges’, the scope and scale of the 2018 congress means that there will be abundant opportunities to gather information, network and develop your knowledge alongside leaders in your field.
Some of the fields that will be explored in depth include:
As part of our mission in bringing chemistry closer to the heart of policymaking in Europe, we have updated our position on what we want out of the next research framework programme, Horizon Europe, which will follow the current Horizon 2020. Through a simple info-sheet, we have laid out the areas where we believe greater funding will have an immense impact, and where proposals have been deemed insufficient or misdirected.
The budget proposed by the Commission, although an increase from the current research framework programme, will be insufficient if Europe is to be successful in dealing with the many challenges we are facing and will continue to face over the coming years. And whilst we welcome the European Parliament’s call for a €120 billion budget, this is still lacking ambition. We have therefore called, much like the majority of scientific and academic organisations across Europe, for a budget of €160 billion.
The budget proposal for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, which have proven particularly successful over the last years, is poor. We have therefore also called for a stronger and more ambitious budget – as unfortunately a huge number of excellent proposals are rejected due to lack of funds.
There has moreover been a worrying lack of clarity surrounding the role third countries will have in the programme. But science knows no borders, and we have therefore called for third countries to be able to fully participate. Whether this is the UK, Balkan countries, Switzerland, Norway, Turkey or beyond, we need to work together to ensure Europe remains a champion of research and innovation.
Finally, we have also stressed the absolute necessity of mechanisms that support projects through all TRLs – from basic research right up to commercialisation. To this day, too many wonderful ideas and projects are killed off before they can succeed, and the ‘valley of death’ of innovation continues to hamper the quality and capacity of European innovation.
We will soon release our detailed Position Paper with comments and amendments on the proposals made by the European Commission and the European Parliament Rapporteurs. You can in the meantime take a look at our info-sheet here!
The 3rd edition of Chemistry in Europe 2018 will be released at the end of July. You will find short interviews with the three exceptional awardees of the EuChemS Award for Service, a look at how scientific advice is to best be accessed and managed by policymakers, and an interesting exploration of the history of some of our Member Societies who will celebrating their 100, 125 and 150 years since their founding!
With the Congress already shaping up to be the European Chemistry event of the year not to miss, EuChemS President, Professor Pilar Goya delves into what the Congress encompasses, how it brings together scientists from across Europe and beyond, and how it embraces an increasingly interdisciplinary agenda.
EuChemS Past President, and current Vice-President Professor David Cole-Hamilton demonstrates through a thorough and highly informative essay what EuChemS is, how it works, why it does what it does, and what it means for science and policy. By exploring our activities and events, Cole-Hamilton displays an active and lively network of scientists from across Europe who together develop unique scientific evidence and advice which we communicate to decision-makers in order to better inform their policymaking work. Formed in the 1970s, EuChemS has grown to represent some 160,000 individuals from 47 member organisations from over 30 countries!
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