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2019
How we can save hydropower
The way we’ve historically generated energy from water is not good for the environment. Here’s how that’s changing.
Extreme rain: how cities are preparing
Violent rainstorms are already more frequent, and they will only get worse. Europe’s metropolises are working on ways to protect themselves.
2018
The battle for batteries
The European Commission wants to build a strong battery industry that can compete with Asia, but has it entered the game too late?
“Eindhoven is a clear hotspot for photonics”
How to expand an R&D company into production? The CEO of a photonics start-up explains.
Europe’s answer to GPS
When Galileo is fully functional in 2020, it will provide the most precise navigation ever, even at the North and South Poles.
Fair phone vs. iPhone
The Fairphone is a smartphone built with “ethical” components. Now it hopes to compete with the iPhone.
The race for flying cars
Everyone from Airbus to Uber is interested. They could be part of the urban landscape in the next decade.
Europe’s drone opportunity
China may have a corner on the recreational market, and the US on military uses, but Europe is poised to find its own niche.
The race for rail-on-demand
Flexible railway systems can offer cheaper and faster transport in greater quantities. Their potential is most promising in freight handling.
In the driver’s seat for high-speed trains
Even as concepts like Hyperloop emerge, European leadership is not in danger.
Hyperloop: the doubts persist
Elon Musk’s dream of a train that can travel at 1,200 km/h faces serious unresolved engineering challenges.
Hyperloop: why it can work
Recent tests have shown the viability of the futuristic train. But does this mean we will have a new mode of transportation any time soon?
The concrete challenge
It’s the world’s most ubiquitous construction material – but it comes with a hefty environmental cost.
2017
Europe’s new research élite
Eight success stories show how European scientists are shaping tomorrow’s world.
Welcome to Health Valley
Building on skills honed over the centuries, western Switzerland has become a world leader in biotech.
Engineering healthier humans
Drawing on their knowledge of algorithms, design and materials, engineers can help improve healthcare in many arenas.
Spotlight on Toulouse
Europe’s aerospace hub is a thriving, synergistic blend of industry giants, start-ups and research centres.
Invasion of the job snatchers
Make no mistake, the intelligent machines of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lay waste to human employment – unless governments act.
Team players
Machines are getting much better at learning from humans and interacting with them. The next challenge: getting robots to talk to each other.
Life-saving lessons
Linking engineering and medicine has led to better diagnostics, drugs and treatments. But it’s not always easy to collaborate successfully.
Avoiding the sound of silence
With Europe’s ageing population, hearing loss will become a major concern for public health. A new generation of technologies can slow the process.
Flying the “big science” flag
Europe is once again on the hunt for emerging research and development trends that will spawn radical social and economic rewards in years to come. Discover three of the candidate projects.
“Our robots are better than Amazon’s”
A German start-up improves warehouse automation.
Artificial intelligence: where it all began
With its leading research institutes and ground-breaking innovations, Europe plays a major role in the field of AI.
2016
Buildings that live and breathe
From London to Hamburg to Singapore, architects draw inspiration from living organisms to design energy-efficient buildings.
Labs without borders
Designers working with biologists and engineers: not so long ago such collaboration would have been unusual. Now it is at the heart of European Science.
The Impossible Project: Giving a second life in a digital world
Polaroid enthusiasts have recreated instant film that can be used in old cameras and developed a new camera as well.
Putting goods back on the tracks
Some smaller countries are showing how efficiency-enhancing innovations can begin to shift some goods transport away from lorries.
Innovation from the East
What if your fuse box could talk to you? Created in the midst of Ukrainian turmoil, Ecoisme can analyse home energy consumption in real time.
Driverless trains: the difficult next step
Will autonomous locomotives one day operate outside urban areas?
2015
Five estonians to watch
Inspired by Skype, ambitious entrepreneurs have the confidence to believe their dreams can come true
“People underestimate Eastern Europe’s start-ups”
Part car, part plane, Aeromobil needs just a 200-m straightaway to deploy its wings and take off.
Climate engineering
Prudent plan B or desperate measure?
Growing spinach where the sun doesn’t shine
Once seen as a “towering lunacy”, vertical farms are all the rage from the U.S. to Europe to Asia.
2014
A world of invisible colours
Chemical cameras reveal a world that is invisible to the human eye. Smaller and cheaper devices are now finding uses from agriculture to cancer diagnostics.
Power from thin air
Mobile devices need energy – lots of it. Instead of focussing only on improving battery performance, some scientists are looking at the ambient energy that is all around us.
“New social norms will have to be accepted”
The latest portable technology will connect humans from head to toe. But it could also endanger both our safety and our social lives, warns Wijnand IJsselsteijn.