In June 2013, Universities Australia signed an agreement with the then Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (now the Department of Education and Training) to lead the development of an information and promotions strategy to assist in the promotion of student mobility programs. The aim of the strategy was threefold:

• To increase awareness of the benefits of study overseas generally;
• To increase awareness of the opportunities to study in Asia; and
• To increase awareness of the funding options offered to students to participate in a mobility program, including the changes to OS-HELP.

The information and promotions strategy also assists in promoting Universities Australia's international higher education priorities as outlined in the Smarter Australia document, which calls for a more holistic approach to internationalisation. More...

The report found that 'fused’ companies, those that combine art and science skills in their workforce:

•     Show 8% higher sales growth than science-only firms.
•     Are 2% more likely to bring radical innovations to market.
•     Employ approximately 3.5 million people - despite accounting for around a tenth of UK companies, they employ roughly a fifth of all workers.

The authors of this report used official data to analyse the contribution of employees’ science and arts skills to the performance of their companies between 2010 and 2012. The research comes at a time when the government is promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) rather than STEAM - with the addition of Arts - in spite of a burgeoning creative economy. More...

The German higher education institutions welcome the fact that the recent decision of the Federal Constitutional Court[1] paves the way for a nationwide and substantial modification of the accreditation system. Regardless of the experiences acquired and the partial success achieved thus far on the current basis through the collaboration of all participants, the existing system has failed to address certain basic aspects in a way that is satisfactory for the higher education institutions.The HRK previously demanded a change to the system and called for the introduction of an Institutional Quality Audit in 2012 [2]. With respect to the necessary modification, the General Meeting of the HRK has noted the following key points:
- The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court does not call the existing system of external quality assurance into question in general terms. It underlines once again the difference between consultation and decision-making and requires directly or indirectly involved legislators in the federal states to introduce procedural and participative regulations. The legislators are to limit themselves to the embedding of essential principles in law and should not, through over-hasty lawmaking, create 'isolated solutions' limited to an individual federal state, which would hamper comparability and recognition at both national and international level. More...

"Le réseau des Chambres de commerce et d'industrie salue le projet de créer un Guide du financement d'entreprise, ouvrage qui fera sûrement référence et auquel les CCI sont fières d'avoir participé.
En effet, le financement des entreprises a toujours été un enjeu important pour le développement économique, et la recherche de financement une étape importante dans l'aboutissement de tout projet. Les modes de financement sont aujourd'hui nombreux et c'est souvent une combinaison des différents types de financements qui permet leur mise en oeuvre.
Parallèlement aux nombreux acteurs qui financent les entreprises, il existe une catégorie d'intervenants que nous pourrions qualifier de « facilitateurs », dont le rôle consiste à accompagner l'entreprise dans la recherche des financements publics ou privés dont elle a besoin. C'est dans cette perspective que les Chambres de commerce et d'industrie structurent leur offre de service allant de l'information au conseil tout en passant par la sensibilisation. Voir l'article...

At first glance, the most innovative universities in Europe don't appear to have much in common. Some are Catholic schools, some are secular, others are state-run and some are private. One is 920 years old. Another has been an independent institution for less than a decade. They’re scattered across the continent, some in large cities, others in rural areas.
REUTERS TOP 100
The single unifier: Nearly all of them emphasize practical research and applied science, as opposed to pure academics. Technical universities and colleges dominate Reuters’ first-ever ranking of Europe’s top 100 innovative universities, a list that identifies the educational institutions that are doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies, and help drive the global economy. More...

Viewing scientific research as a combinatorial process, the authors measure novelty in science by examining whether a published paper makes first time ever combinations of referenced journals, taking into account the difficulty of making such combinations.
They apply this newly developed measure of novelty to all Web of Science research articles published in 2001 across all scientific disciplines. They find that highly novel papers, defined to be those that make more (distant) new combinations, deliver high gains to science: they are more likely to be a top 1% highly cited paper in the long run, to inspire follow on highly cited research, and to be cited in a broader set of disciplines.
At the same time, novel research is also more risky, reflected by a higher variance in its citation performance. In addition, the authors find that novel research is significantly more highly cited in “foreign” fields but not in its “home” field. Download PDF. More...

In the 10 years since the World Economic Forum began measuring the economic gender gap it has narrowed by only 3% globally. In addition to the individual actions of employers and governments to address these gaps, public-private dialogue and collaboration are critical. To accelerate the pace of change, the Forum launched Gender Parity Task Forces in Mexico, Turkey and Japan in 2012. A further task force followed in 2014 in the Republic of Korea. The task forces have sought to generate collaborations between public and private sector stakeholders by examining barriers to female economic participation and progress, exploring and implementing solutions, and providing a neutral platform for continued dialogue and action in each country. This report sets out the experiences of each Taskforce and highlights examples of impact. The report also sets out key lessons learned from these pilot projects and makes recommendations for scaling this model in partnership. More...

La Commission nationale d'évaluation des politiques d'innovation lance un appel à projet "Évaluer les effets du crédit d'impôt recherche (CIR) - Enjeux et thématiques".

• Évaluer les effets du crédit d'impôt recherche - Enjeux et thématiques (PDF - 0.74 Mo )
• Règlement de l'appel à projets relatif à l'évaluation des effets du crédit d'impôt recherche (CIR) (PDF - 0.65 Mo )
• Évaluer les effets du crédit d'impôt recherche - Fiche de présentation de l'organisme candidat (PDF - 0.03 Mo )
• Évaluer les effets du crédit d'impôt recherche - Présentation du budget (XLS - 0.1 Mo ). Voir l'article...

A referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union (EU) took place on 23 June 2016.
The Society has conducted a 3-part phased project gathering evidence about the influence of the UK’s relationship with the EU on UK research. It is intended to inform debate.

The role of the EU in funding UK research

The European research landscape is complex. Both the European Union (EU) and individual European countries fund research. Researchers collaborate with each other within Europe and internationally. This report provides an overview of EU research funding and its role in funding UK research.

The role of the EU in international research collaboration and researcher mobility

Science today is almost always complicated and often interdisciplinary, frequently requiring contributions from a variety of participants based in different places. Researchers collaborate to pool intellectual and physical resources. They tend to seek the best and most appropriate partners they can, wherever in the world they may be found. This report provides an insight into the role of the EU in these international research collaborations and the mobility of individual researchers.

The role of EU regulation and policy in governing UK research

This report provides an insight into the role of the EU in developing EU and global policies that influence research conducted in the UK. It provides an overview of how EU policy is made and a number of case studies illustrating the development and implementation of EU and global policy that govern UK research. More...

Broad demographic shifts in marital status, educational attainment and employment have transformed the way young adults in the U.S. are living, and a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data highlights the implications of these changes for the most basic element of their lives – where they call home. In 2014, for the first time in more than 130 years, adults ages 18 to 34 were slightly more likely to be living in their parents’ home than they were to be living with a spouse or partner in their own household. More...