Science Flash For You - Ireland

Just over half of respondents (51%) had never worked from home before the COVID-19 crisis. The majority (87%) of respondents said they had the equipment needed to work from home but poor physical and ergonomic workspace was indicated as one of three key challenges of working from home. The other challenges most frequently cited were not being able to ‘switch off’ from work and greater difficulty in collaborating with colleagues. The remote working experience was however assessed favourably in most respects. 83% of respondents would like to work remotely after the crisis is over (12% on a daily basis, 42% several times a week, 29% several times a month).

Real-time survey sources cited in the recent JRC report on "Teleworkability and the COVID-19 crisis" confirm that for advanced economies the incidence of working from home increased dramatically in reaction to the public health measures taken. The incidence amongst EU Countries varied broadly but largely reflected pre-existing differences, with lower levels of teleworking in Eastern and Southern member states and higher levels in the Nordic and Benelux countries.

These estimates reveal that cancer affects men slightly more than women, with 54% of new cases and 56% of deaths. The most common causes of death are from cancers of the lung (20.4% of all cancer deaths), followed by colorectal (12.4%), female breast (7.3%) and pancreatic cancer (7.1%).

Higher incidence rates are estimated in the Nordic countries. Ireland has the higher level among the 27 Countries of the European Union, before Denmark and the Netherlands. At the beginning of August, the European Cancer Information System registered for the current year in Ireland 12,689 new cases of cancer among women, for whom breast cancer is the most common (27% of cases, followed by lung and colorectum), while 14,378 cases are recorded among men, of which 31% are prostate cancer.

The output of the JRC project with the European Network of Cancer Registries consist of cancer incidence and mortality indicators, including specific analyses by cancer site, sex, age group, calendar period, and geographic area. The project, launched in 2015, aims at establishing a single European cancer-registry data repository. A total of 149 population-based cancer registries from 34 European countries responded to the call for data and were included in the ENCR-JRC project.

For market conditions, large countries tend to exhibit higher scores because of their larger domestic markets, but countries like Ireland, Denmark and Sweden stand out in spite of their smaller size. The other leading EU countries are Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

The EIDES index describes the context within which the country’s entrepreneurial dynamic is embedded and which regulates the quality of this dynamic, i.e. its ability to allocate human, knowledge, financial and physical capital to productive uses. It was developed by the JRC in 2018 in response to the pervasive trend of digitalisation, which has been transforming the start-up dynamic over the past decade.

The current drought marks the third consecutive year of unexpectedly dry conditions across Europe. Some rivers levels are lower than normal, particularly the lower Danube, Warta and tributaries of Elbe. Indeed exceptional precipitation during February in north-western Europe allowed reservoirs to fill to full capacity, and mitigated against the evolution towards a full-scale agricultural or hydrological drought at the end of the spring.

Since its use became mandatory in 2014, ETD equipment has become an important component in screening processes in European airports, due to its low limit of detection and its low false alarm rate. It is important that ETD equipment, like all the screening equipment used in European airports, continues to perform at a high level during its operating lifetime.

Among testing materials developed by JRC in collaboration with other European Commission's services, a unique easy-to-use spray bottle was developed. This TATP spray bottle can be used to verify the detection capabilities of ETD equipment as well as of explosive detection dogs. Ireland’s National Police and Security Service (An Garda) uses the TATP spray to train and verify the detection capability of ETD.

Overall, 54 % of Europeans perceive life as fair. Going beyond the average, a more nuanced picture emerges: for low-income earners, individuals with comparatively low levels of education and older people, the EU does not resemble a land of fairness.

Growing disparities on multiple socio-economic dimensions have contributed to a sense of unfairness and discontent in Europe. The JRC report on Fairness, written before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, analyses some of the most pertinent dimensions of fairness in relation to the agenda for a fair, inclusive and social European Union. Income inequality, educational inequality and the challenges facing existing welfare state arrangements are discussed from a pre-crisis perspective.