Science Flash For You - Ireland

All European citizens are called to join in and help co-design a project to connect the European Green Deal to our living spaces and rethink the way we live together. The idea is to find beautiful, sustainable and inclusive solutions for our living spaces, so together we can build a better future for everyone, and for our planet.

Orla is an Irish architect and lecturer whose work focuses on collaborative ways of designing and advocating for rural towns. She sees the New European Bauhaus as “a hopeful and positive means to harness design, in its broadest and most inclusive sense, to deliver the objectives of the European Green Deal, and to decarbonise Europe”.

The New European Bauhaus already counts over 200 partners from all EU countries, a high-level roundtable of 18 experts including designers, innovators, activists and academics, as well as thousands of citizens. As co-leaders of this design phase, the JRC has collected more than 2,000 examples and ideas.

The areas affected, which include Mallow, Killarney, Cork, Fermoy and Clonmel, were monitored between 23 and 25 May. In total 11 flood maps were produced and delivered.

Over 2020, Irish authorities activated CEMS three times to ask for support in managing crisis situations related to natural disasters. CEMS is one of the six core services of the European Union’s Earth observation programme Copernicus. It provides geoinformation which is derived mostly from satellite images to support actors involved in disaster management. The JRC is responsible for CEMS and implementing a part of it through service contracts with European industry and academia.

The information was extracted from the satellite images, in this case specifically the extent of the event impacts, and is also provided in digital format which allows the user to do further analysis and integration with other datasets in Geographic Information Systems.

The median age of the Irish population grew as well: an average Irish person is now 38.1 years old while he/she was 34 only ten years before.

The expected trends for the next three decades vary substantially across the country. In rural areas around Dublin, such as Enniskerry, Powerscourt and Kilbride, a growth in population of more than 20% is expected by 2050, while some areas in the West of Ireland will lose inhabitants.

The JRC research suggests that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the government responses to it could reshape migratory movements, shift migration routes and alter the composition of migrant populations worldwide.

The Atlas is published by the JRC Knowledge Centre for Migration and Demography. It is an online reference tool guiding policy-makers, practitioners and the general public through the complexities of migration and demography. It brings together indicators related to migration, asylum, integration, demography and development for about 200 Countries from several international data sources.

The 2021 report of the European Commission provides an overview of the performance of economic sectors related to oceans and the coastal environment. JRC experts contributed with modelling and analysis on themes like climate change, marine pollution and other human impacts, marine natural capital and ecosystem services, trends of established and emerging sectors, including the impact of COVID-19.

The JRC’s report examines the Computer & Electronics sector by looking at the technological capabilities behind possible export markets in which Ireland is not active today, but could be active in the future.

The analysis of technological capabilities at regional level identifies the regions best suited to enter each of these markets. As an example, the Southern region of Ireland is highlighted as the best suited region for the sectors of Semiconductor (as opposed to light sensitive) devices.

The JRC Economic Complexity analysis shifts the focus of economic analysis from aggregate quantities - i.e. ‘how much’ a country makes (what is the GDP of the country?) - to their underlying components - i.e. ‘what’ a country makes (in which industrial sectors does the country specialise?). This includes forecasts of countries’ economic performances, a breakdown into industrial sectors, and an analysis of innovation capabilities down to the regional level, with a product-by-product resolution.

Many medicinal and toxic compounds are tested on animals before they are declared safe for human use. Animals are also used in basic and applied research. But animal testing can be costly and can cause suffering to animals, and the results do not always translate successfully to humans.

Teachers will have the opportunity to explore the new technologies that could make animal use in science unnecessary in the future. The MOOC will take them through the “Three Rs” principles with many practical examples on how to address them in the classroom, to develop students' critical thinking and debating skills, develop their data literacy and enhance their understanding of science. The course will start on 13 September, is free of charge and will be most relevant for secondary school life sciences (biology) teachers. Teachers of other disciplines, as well as animal science/welfare stakeholders and policymakers are welcome.

The project is promoted by the EU Reference Laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (EURL ECVAM). The lab is based at the JRC’s site in Ispra (Italy) and over the last 30 years has been developing, validating and promoting scientific methods to replace animal tests. Its researchers are pushing scientific boundaries to identify new methods that will ultimately make animal testing redundant in the EU.