Research*eu results magazine. N° 67, November 2017.
Date: 2017-12-01
Institutions: CORDIS, Publications Office of the European Union
Subjects: research, research and development, research project, serial publication

ISSN 1831-9947

research eu

R E S U L T S   M A G A Z I N E

N°67
NOVEMBER 2017

SPECIAL FEATURE

DIGGING OUT 
THE SECRETS OF  
BLACK HOLES

HEALTH
NEW, TUMOUR-SPECIFIC  
THERAPY FOR COLORECTAL  
CANCER PATIENTS
» PAGE 13

SECURITY
A MODULAR SOLUTION  
FOR QUICK, EFFICIENT AND 
SECURE EU BORDER SECURITY 
» PAGE 40

research eu
R E S U LT S   M AG A Z I N E

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ED ITOR IAL

by the editorial team

PLUGGING THE (BLACK) 
HOLE IN THE LAWS  
OF PHYSICS

Black holes are easily one of the biggest mysteries the universe has to offer. 
In the eyes of the layperson, our current lack of understanding could easily 
be mistaken for a personal lack of command of the laws of physics. Yet, the 
truth is that even these laws are having a hard time withstanding the mind-
boggling properties of black holes.

Physicists' debates around black holes have never been so lively. Whilst we 
have come to know more about how large and dense a black hole can be, how 
it absorbs matter down to its event horizon or how it progressively evaporates 
to ultimately vanish, some of the most important questions surrounding such 
objects are still open. 

There  are,  for  example,  the  questions  of  how  a  supermassive  black  hole 
equivalent to the mass of millions or billions of our sun can be created, or 
how binary black hole systems affect matter surrounding them. Then, there 
is of course the more fundamental 
question  of  what  a  black  hole  is 
actually  made  of,  or  even  how  it 
affects the matter in its vicinity when 
it’s not close enough to be absorbed.

‘Black holes are also a 
central stage for one 
of the most exciting 
questions physicists 
have yet to tackle.’

But  beyond  their  own  physics,  black 
holes are also a central stage for one of 
the most exciting questions physicists 
have yet to tackle: the reconciliation of 
general  relativity  –  Einstein’s  theory 
explaining  gravity  –  with  quantum 
mechanics, which explains the other three forces of the universe. Doing that would 
create a long sought-after Theory of Everything (ToE) – the Holy Grail of physics. 
And to get there, one has to resolve the black hole information paradox, which is 
pretty much the embodiment of the existing conflict between the two laws.

This issue of the research*eu Results Magazine examines all of the above 
questions by shedding light on the most recent black hole-related research 
made possible by EU funding. It then follows up with our usual thematic 
sections: health, society, energy, environment, aquatic resources, industry, 
information  and  communication  technologies,  security  and  fundamental 
research. The magazine closes with a list of upcoming events hosted by or 
involving EU-funded research projects.

We  look  forward  to  receiving  your  feedback.  You  can  send  questions  or 
suggestions to:  editorial@cordis.europa.eu

Want more information on 
the contents of this issue?
For online versions or information 
about the contributors in this issue  
of research*eu Results Magazine:
CORDIS
•  http://cordis.europa.eu/projects
•  http://cordis.europa.eu/news

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R E S U L T S   M A G A Z I N E

NEXT
ISSUE

Focus on  
Seeking an edge 
in OLED 
technology

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22

25

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SPECIAL FEATURE

4 DIGGING OUT THE SECRETS  

OF BLACK HOLES

ISSN 1831-9947

research eu

R E S U L T S   M A G A Z I N E

N°67
NOVEMBER 2017

SPECIAL FEATURE

 DIGGING OUT
THE SECRETS OF  
BLACK HOLES

HEALTH
NEW, TUMOUR-SPECIFIC  
THERAPY FOR COLORECTAL  
CANCER PATIENTS
» PAGE 13

SECURITY
A MODULAR SOLUTION  
FOR QUICK, EFFICIENT AND 
SECURE EU BORDER SECURITY 
» PAGE 40

4  New theory could reveal the microscopic nature of black holes 
Clearing the thin line between central neutron star and black hole 
5 
formation

A holographic description of gravity 

6  Novel tools to analyse radiation near black holes 
7 
8  Newly found quasars bring us closer to the creation of the universe
9  Decrypting the gravitational waves of binary black hole systems
10  How rotation affects matter dynamics around black holes
11  Shelling the seeds of the first supermassive black holes
12  Hawking radiation now better understood thanks to in-lab experiments

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13  HEALTH
13  New, tumour-specific therapy for 

colorectal cancer patients

14  Fast, accurate malaria test identifies specific 

parasites

15  ELR-based patches and hydrogels  

to treat ischaemic diseases

16  Obese people less likely to consider their next 

meal when considering portion sizes
17  New drug can track down MRSA to the 

farthest reaches

18  SOCIETY
18  Re-framing the EU’s commitment to 

human rights

19  Immigrants’ labour market status in Western 

Europe

20  Transnational courts need to shape up
20  Research-based welfare reform
21  The effects of Chinese investment

22  ENERGY
22  How to increase support for new power 

lines

23  Academia and industry collaborate over 

subsurface CO₂ storage

24  Waste is a dirty word in the circular  

economy

25  ENVIRONMENT
25  For successful river basin adaptation 
planning, just add stakeholders

26  Warning that a three degree rise in 

temperature will ‘cancel out’ European 
emission reduction efforts

27  Tracking Europe’s water footprint, identifying 

potential economic vulnerability

28  AQUATIC RESOURCES
28  Next-generation marine sensors to protect  

the world’s oceans

29  Fishing around for sustainable solutions
30  A national label for small-scale fisheries 

products – one way to improve 
competitiveness

31  INDUSTRY
31  Looking to the future through the first 

autonomous artificial iris

32  Assessing the risks of nanomaterials along 

their lifecycle, for product and process safety 
by design

33  Nanotechnology enters the realm of 

superconductors

34  New technique to deliver environment-friendly 
and innovative coating for composite parts

35   INFORMATION AND 

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

35  Emergent behaviour from collective 

systems underpins the success of  
‘smart networks’

36  Advanced digital printing technology  

brings smart fabrics to life

37  ICT that encourages people to save water
38  Are we just a click away from the age  

of ‘enriched reporting’?

39  My teacher is a robot

40  SECURITY
40  A modular solution for quick, efficient and 

secure EU border security
41  A harmonised playing field for the 

European security industry

42  How to gear up against cyber crime

43  FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH
43  More than the sum of their parts: 

expanding the scope of particle accelerators

44  Unpacking the ‘black box’ of scanning probe 

microscopes for the next generation
45  Graphene helps shift the paradigm for 

nonlinear photonic integrated circuits
46  How neural mechanisms impact arithmetic 

processing

47  EVENTS

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research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

SPECIAL FEATURE
DIGGING OUT THE SECRETS  
OF BLACK HOLES

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NEW THEORY COULD 
REVEAL THE MICROSCOPIC 
NATURE OF BLACK HOLES 
Studying black holes is key both to reconciling the theory of general 
relativity with quantum mechanics, and to gaining a deeper understanding 
of space and time at their extreme. However, it requires looking beyond 
the  macroscopic  features  we  can  observe.  The  QUNAT  (Quantum 
Mechanical Nature of Black Holes) project set out to do just that, with a 
new theory meant to lift the veil on black holes’ microscopic features. 

In 1975, Benkenstein and Hawking came up with a formula to 

calculate black hole entropy, that is, the number of possible 
microscopic states consistent with the black hole’s observed 
macroscopic state. But this breakthrough also gave birth to one 
of the most significant outstanding problems in theoretical 
high energy physics: the information paradox of black holes. 

Although quantum theory tells us that information can’t get out 
of a black hole, this information is nowhere to be found, even 
in the radiations the black hole releases as it evaporates. A 
black hole can only be described by its mass, electric charge 
and angular momentum, and no information is encoded in it. 
In other words, there is currently no way to get a microscopic 
understanding of what a black hole is actually made of.

‘We can compare this situation to what we can see with water,’ 
says Troels Harmark, Professor of Theoretical Particle Physics 
and Cosmology at Niels Bohr Institute. ‘Water consists micro-
scopically of water molecules (H₂0) which then again consist 
of other more elementary atoms and particles. But when we 
experience water we only see its macroscopic features such as 
its temperature and pressure. For black holes, these macro-
scopic features are quite well understood. We have their mass 
and temperature for instance. But we don’t understand very 
well their microscopic building blocks.’

Whilst significant progress has been made over the last dec-
ades, in particular for special classes of black holes in string 
theory, a full understanding that would encompass astrophysi-
cal black holes is still lacking. By finding a way to count all 
microscopic building blocks, Prof. Harmark aimed to reveal their 
entropy. His work under the QUNAT project picked up where  
the holographic principle – which resolves the black hole infor-
mation  paradox  by  assuming  that  black  holes  are  two- 
dimensional surfaces projected in 3D – left off.

‘The idea of the holographic principle is that certain quantum 
theories  without  gravity,  not  living  in  our  space-time,  can 
describe the microscopic building blocks of black holes. These 

quantum theories live in fewer dimensions. This idea has all the 
right qualitative features to work,’ he explains.

However, whilst few doubt the validity of the holographic prin-
ciple, its workings are only completely understood in highly 
symmetric situations and when the strength of gravity is weak. 
Black holes and their extreme gravity are a whole other story: 
in order to truly understand their microscopic nature, the pro-
ject team needed to take the coupling of their underlying quan-
tum theory and increase it to be very large. 

To do that, they considered a limit of gravity and quantum 
mechanics where both of them simplify so much that it should 
be possible to take this large coupling limit. ‘In this limit, the 
black hole should be described with a new quantum mechani-
cal theory that we discovered, called Spin Matrix Theory,’ Prof. 
Harmark explains.

Thanks to this new theory, the team was notably able to under-
stand the so-called D-branes – non-perturbative objects simi-
lar to black holes. They revealed how these D-branes, which are 
described classically in a gravitational background, emerge 
from  a  quantum  theory,  including  their  interactions.  ‘This 
allowed for the first time for going beyond the supersymmet-
ric  limit  of  D-branes,  since  the  interactions  introduce  non-
supersymmetric corrections,’ says Prof. Harmark. 

Then, they could find the type of geometry that emerges from 
a concrete Spin Matrix theory. ‘Part of understanding black 
holes is to understand how geometry emerges from a quan-
tum theory. In this case, we are able to understand the emer-
gence of geometry from all Spin Matrix theories. This shows in 
particular that emergent geometry is a new type of geometry 
that has not been considered before.’ 

Prof. Niels Obers, deputy head of research at the Niels Bohr 
Institute and scientist in charge of the project, says these find-
ings contribute to our understanding of how space and time 
emerge  from  an  underlying  quantum  theory.  ‘This  could 

SPECIAL FEATURE 
potentially be very useful for understanding the earliest 
part of the Big Bang where space and time emerge,’ he 
enthuses.

Whilst the project is now completed, the team are continu-
ing their work by studying the Spin Matrix theories that can 
be used to describe black holes, as well as pursuing the 
general  idea  that  Spin  Matrix  Theory  can  provide  new 

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

5

  S P E C I A L   F E A T U R E

holographic correspondences that could help understand quan-
titatively how space and time emerge from a quantum theory.

QUNAT

 Coordinated by the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/109392

CLEARING THE THIN LINE BETWEEN CENTRAL 
NEUTRON STAR AND BLACK HOLE FORMATION
There is still much we don’t know about the last stages of stellar evolution, particularly the point at which 
a star is massive enough to generate a black hole in its final collapse. With his ERC grant under the FISH 
project, Prof. Friedrich Thielemann has set out to fill this knowledge gap.

Beyond 260-300 M  of mass, stars 

in their final moments have been 
known to form black holes. Below 
this  mass  range,  however,  things  get  
a  bit  more  unpredictable.  From  8  to  
140 M  , core-collapse will lead to a cen-
tral neuron star or possibly a black hole. 
The question is, what is the transition 
region where the formation of a black 
hole instead of a central neutron star 
becomes more likely?

‘We tried to better understand the end 
stages of stellar evolution,’ says Friedrich 
Thielemann, Professor emeritus of theo-
retical physics at the University of Basel 
in Switzerland. ‘We know that low mass 
stars end up in white dwarfs. We know 
that above about 8 Msol, we have final 
stellar  collapse  after  producing  an 
Fe-core. What is still open is the transition 
between core-collapse supernovae (leav-
ing a central neutron star) and the forma-
tion  of  black  holes.  Thanks  to  recent 
gravitational wave observations by LIGO 
(Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave 
Observatory),  we  know  that  there  are 
black holes of about 30 Msol and even 
lower masses in some cases.’

For his research, Prof. Thielemann tapped 
into fields like nuclear physics far from 
stability, the equation of state of dense 

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objects, 3D magnetohydrodynamics with 
neutrino  transport,  and  computational 
methods. 

Over  the  first  year  of  the  project,  he 
developed  databases  of  nuclear  equa-
tions  of  state  and  nuclear  reactions 
across the nuclear chart. His team: made 
available  an  Isotropic  diffusion  source 
approximation  (IDSA)  code  for  multi-
dimensional neutrino transport; provided 
a detailed code comparison for magneto-
hydrodynamic  simulations  of  core  col-
lapse;  and  performed  nucleosynthesis 
predictions for magnetars/collapsars and 
neutron stars mergers, to understand the 
temporal evolution of the heaviest ele-
ments during the evolution of galaxies.

Then came the heavy part, with simula-
tions of the production of intermediate 
mass and iron-group elements in collap-
sars/hypernovae/gamma-ray bursts: ‘We 
could  simulate  stellar  collapse  over  a 
wide mass range and noticed that there 
is a (soft) transition to back hole forma-
tion  slightly  below  25  Msol,  but  this 
depends also strongly on the compact-
ness  of  the  stellar  progenitor,’  Prof. 
Thielemann explains. ‘Black hole forma-
tion is also possible below 25 Msol, whilst 
supernova explosions are also possible 
above 25 Msol.’

Thanks to multi-D simulations, the team 
also lifted the veil on some aspects of 
black holes formation and managed to 
predict  gravitational  wave  emissions. 
They  could  determine  in  which  type  of 
explosions processed matter is ejected, 
what  the  composition  of  the  matter 
resulting from explosive nuclear burning 
is, and how this can explain the evolution 
of  chemical  elements  during  that  of 
galaxies. 

‘We also found an important additional 
channel, where black holes are formed 
during the merger of two neutron stars 
resulting  from  prior  supernovae,  which 
eject  large  amounts  of  very  heavy 

elements  before  forming  a  black  hole,’ 
Prof. Thielemann enthuses.

Thanks  to  work  under  the  FISH  (FaInt 
Supernovae and Hypernovae: Mechanism 
and  Nucleosynthesis)  project,  the  
scientific  community  can  now  better 
understand  the  evolution  of  element 
abundances during the evolution of gal-
axies,  and  determine  which  explosive 
events  were  responsible  for  which  ele-
ments and how their production changes 
with time.

Since the project’s end in December 2016, 
the team has been working very hard on 
neutron star mergers that have appar-
ently been observed by LIGO/VIRGO very 
recently, and which can also be seen as 
short duration gamma-ray bursts in the 
near infrared spectrum.

FISH

  Hosted by the University of Basel  

in Switzerland.

 Funded under FP7-IDEAS-ERC.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/106169

IMPORTANT INFO  
ON SUBSCRIBING: 
SEE BACK COVER

 
6

I N T E R V I E W
NOVEL TOOLS TO ANALYSE RADIATION NEAR 
BLACK HOLES 

With  the  current  state  of  scientific  knowledge  and  equipment,  understanding 
astrophysical black holes invariably requires detailed studies of the observable elements 
surrounding them. The STRONGGRAVITY project has developed novel analytical tools 
to do just that, with a focus on radiation. 

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Radiation processes taking place near black holes tell us 

much about physics in extreme conditions, conditions that 
not even the most advanced experimental setups can rec-
reate. They also provide a unique opportunity to test Einstein’s 
theory of relativity in the strong-field regime. 

Using  data  from  the  European  Space  Agency’s  XMM-
Newton  X-ray  satellite  mission,  the  European  Southern 
Observatory and other relevant sources, the STRONGGRAVITY 
(Probing Strong Gravity by Black Holes Across the Range of 
Masses) project aims to better understand these radiation 
processes. Dr Michal Dovciak, along with his team at the 
Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 
has  spent  the  past  four  years  analysing  and  interpreting 
multi-wavelength spectral and fast timing observations of 
systems  containing  black  holes  in  order  to  further  this 
understanding. 

The project’s new tools, which can compute the spectral, timing 
and polarisation properties of radiations in the black hole vicin-
ity, are hoped not only to contribute to astrophysics, but also to 
enable new research and scientific ideas in Europe and beyond.

  Why is it important to better understand radiation 
processes near black holes?

Dr Michal Dovciak: Black holes are quite well understood 
as mathematical objects, however there are still many myster-
ies as to how they behave as astrophysical objects. How do 
they interact with their surroundings at the centre of galaxies? 
How do they feed on nearby matter and what is the nature of 
their accretion? What are the reasons for the outflows by which 
they feed the host galaxy? 

All the information we can get on black holes as astrophysi-
cal objects originate from radiations in their close vicinity, espe-
cially those with very high energy. Therefore, we concentrate 
mainly on X-rays. We have to decipher all the processes that 
create or influence this radiation to better understand what is 
going on, more specifically, what components these systems 
consist of (accretion disc, corona, winds, etc.), what their prop-
erties are and how they mutually interact.

  Which type of black holes do you focus on and why?

We  focus  on  numerous  bright,  active  galactic  nuclei 
sources – each hosting a super-massive black hole of a 
mass  range  equivalent  to  millions  or  billions  of  solar 
masses  –  as  well  as  a  few  black  holes  of  stellar  origin 
within our galaxy. 

A  particular  source  of  interest  is  Sgr  A*  –  the  super- 
massive yet quiet black hole at the centre of our galaxy. We 
have  concentrated  on  the  most  active  species  of  black 
holes,  since  they  provide  us  with  the  largest  possible 
amount of information for studying them.

  What would you say were the main contributions 
of the project?

We have developed some new sophisticated tools and 
models as well as enhanced pre-existing ones. These tools 
and models are now being used by astronomers to much 
better understand the data that come from ground-based 
and satellite observations. 

Using those tools, we have for example detected the first-
ever hint at the relativistic precession of the orbit of one of the 
stars that are closest to the Milky Way’s central black hole.

  How will these new tools contribute to future 
missions like ATHENA?

We have already used them for defining the scientific topic 
‘The close environments of the super-massive Black holes’ for 
the mission ATHENA. We have simulated observations with dif-
ferent instruments of this mission to estimate their perfor-
mance  in  different  possible  configurations.  The  two  main 
objectives in this theme consist in measuring black hole rotation 
via X-ray reflection from the accretion disc as well as the geom-
etry of accretion disc corona via X-ray reverberation studies.

  How can your tools be accessed and used by the 
scientific community?

We have a dedicated web page on our website where 
the tools are provided together with documentation on how 
to use them.

SPECIAL FEATUREresearch*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
  What do you still need to achieve before the end 
of the project?

There are several subprojects that are yet to be com-
pleted and we would like to finalise them before the end of 
the project. We are still working on computations of the 
influence that the corona has on accretion disc emission, 
we are improving the code for X-ray reverberation studies 
and we would like to finish the reflection model for galac-
tic black hole binaries.

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STRONGGRAVITY 

  Coordinated by the Astronomical Institute of the Czech 

Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic.

 Funded under FP7-SPACE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/106556
Project website:  

http://stronggravity.eu/

DR MICHAL DOVCIAK

A HOLOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF GRAVITY 
To fully understand black hole physics, scientists first need to reconcile Einstein’s theory of relativity with 
quantum physics and, more specifically, make sense of the holographic interpretation of quantum gravity. 
The QEAH (Quantum Entanglement And Holography) project took an important step in this direction, by 
unveiling  how  standard  gravitational  quantities  should  be  expressed  in  terms  of  their  underlying 
microscopic, holographic description.

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When  she  started  her  work  in 

2015,  Dr  Manuela  Kulaxizi, 
postdoc  fellow  at  Trinity 
College Dublin’s School of Mathematics, 
aimed  to  investigate  and  highlight 
quantum aspects of the AdS/CFT corre-
spondence such as the emergence of 
space-time  and  gravity,  all  in  a  con-
trolled set-up. She did so by studying 
entanglement  and  CFT  correlation 
functions at large N.

Whilst highly theoretical, such studies 
actually set the stage for future black 
hole studies: ‘Based on current ideas 
about  string  theory  and  gravity,  we 
expect  that  the  quantum  theory  of 
gravity  should  be  “holographic”,’  Dr 
Kulaxizi says. ‘This means that there 
should  exist  a  description  of  the 

physics  of  gravity  based  on  a  com-
pletely different quantum theory, sim-
ilar  to  the  one  that  describes  the 
binding of the constituent quarks and 
gluons into the nuclei of the atoms – 
but  with  one  less  dimension.  This  is 
the holographic description of gravity, 
which my research contributes to.’ 

The  project’s  strategy  consisted  in 
considering a Conformal Field Theory 
(CFT)  –  an  ordinary  quantum  theory 
endowed with conformal invariance – 
and investigating the conditions under 
which such a theory has an alternative 
description  in  terms  of  gravity.  ‘The 
additional  amount  of  symmetry 
makes the theory way more tractable 
than ordinary quantum field theories,’ 
Dr Kulaxizi explains.

The team focused on a special class of 
CFTs which are likely to have a gravita-
tional description, with a view to com-
puting  certain  four-point  correlation 
functions in those CFTs. CFT correlation 
functions were expected to provide the 
dual/holographic description of ‘scat-
tering of particles in gravity’. Thanks to 
a simplified calculation focusing on a 
special limit corresponding to the scat-
tering  of  very  fast-moving  particles, 
along with the imposition of unitarity on 
the result for their correlation function, 
the  team  were  able  to  make  gravity 
emerge from their calculations. 

Dr Kulaxizi explains the experimental 
setup: ‘Einstein’s theory of gravity pre-
dicts that to some approximation, when 
two very fast particles collide with each 
other, they continue their way almost 
undisturbed except for one effect: they 
experience  a  time-delay.  Our  work 
described how to obtain the exact same 
expression for the time-delay, the same 
physics, in terms of a completely differ-
ent quantity which is naturally defined 
in the alternative holographic descrip-
tion of gravity.’ 

Fast travelling particles have an inter-
esting effect on the space surrounding 
them: they produce a non-trivial curva-
ture  around  them  called  ‘shock-wave 
geometry’.  The  project’s  results  shed 
light on how the description of the spa-
cetime formed around a very fast trav-
elling  object  can  be  obtained,  using 

 SPECIAL FEATUREresearch*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
 
 
8

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

S P E C I A L   F E A T U R E

notions and quantities naturally defined 
in the holographic description of gravity. 
In particular, the metric function of the 
shock-wave  geometry  was  identified 
with the stress-tensor conformal block 
in a special limit (the Regge limit). 

‘More importantly, we were able to explic-
itly show that a certain class of ordinary 
quantum field theories – conformal field 
theories – have an equivalent description 
in terms of a specific theory of gravity: 

Einstein’s gravity theory. For instance, we 
showed that under certain assumptions, 
the theory contains particles of maximum 
spin equal to two, with properties match-
ing those of the graviton. We also showed 
that other theories of gravity, e.g. Lanczos-
Gauss-Bonnet gravity, cannot arise from 
a consistent CFT,’ Dr Kulaxizi says.

the mysteries behind quantum gravity 
and black hole physics.

QEAH

  Coordinated by Trinity College Dublin  

in Ireland.

Dr Kulaxizi hopes that this work will be 
just  the  first  in  a  longer  series  of 
efforts that will help unveil some of 

 Funded under H2020-MSCA-IF.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/195730

I N T E R V I E W
NEWLY FOUND QUASARS BRING US CLOSER  
TO THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE
The question of how the universe’s first galaxies and black holes emerged has yet to be answered. By 
accessing data from state-of-the art facilities, the COSMIC_DAWN team was able to detect previously 
inaccessible quasars and characterise their physical properties.

It all started from some of the most fundamental questions 

ever raised in cosmology: How did the first luminous sources 
form and reionise the universe?

After five years of efforts and thanks to very thorough surveys 
of our sky, the COSMIC-DAWN (The Emergence of Black Holes 
and Galaxies in the Universe) project has taken an important step 
towards answering this question, and thereby towards under-
standing the transition from the cosmic ‘dark ages’ to the uni-
verse as we know it. The identification of more than 50 of the 
most distant quasars known to date, along with great progress 
in characterising the physical properties of early galaxies, make 
this project incredibly valuable to the scientific community.

  Why is it important to better understand quasars and 
galaxies at the earliest epochs?

Dr Fabian Walter: By finding and studying quasars in the very 
early universe, we can obtain important information on the for-
mation of the earliest supermassive black holes and their host 
galaxies. We now detect quasars at an age when the universe 
was only 750 million years old, that is, only about 1/20th of its 
current age. Still, we find supermassive black holes with masses 
exceeding 1 billion solar masses. These masses rival those of the 
more massive black holes found in the local universe. This puts 
challenging constraints on the rapid formation of supermassive 
black  holes,  as  there  is  little  time  to  form  such  structures. 
Likewise, accreting supermassive black holes reside in gas res-
ervoirs  that  show  significant  chemical  enrichment.  This 

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enrichment can only be explained by a previous generation of 
massive star formation. Again, this puts important constraints on 
star formation in the earliest massive galaxies in the universe.

  How does the project differ from previous attempts 
at gathering this knowledge?

These quasars are extremely rare, and therefore large sky 
surveys are needed to select them. Our team had privileged 
access to the latest multi-wavelength sky survey, the so-called 
Pan-STARRS1 survey. This survey was executed at a dedicated 
observatory in Hawaii, and, among other things, was designed to 
find quasars at redshifts that were previously not accessible. This 
enabled new selection techniques (particularly due to a red filter 
that was accessible for the first time with this new facility). 
Thanks to our efforts, we were able to triple the known quasar 
population, and significantly push the redshift frontier to earlier 
cosmic ages.

  What would you say were your most important 
findings?

Finding  the  quasars  is  time  demanding  and  tedious,  and 
establishing a large sample of high-z quasars has been of impor-
tance for the community. Once the quasars are found, they can 
be followed up with multi-lambda state-of-the-art observatories 
(both in space and on the ground). One of the most important 
findings was the fact that we could establish that some of the 
quasars live in major galactic overdensities that were already in 
place when the universe was less than 1 Gyr old. Our follow-up 
observations also established the presence of massive amounts 
of gas, sufficient to fuel future star formation, and provided evi-
dence of ongoing star formation in the host galaxies.

  How did you proceed to get to these results?

Some of the main results were obtained by targeting the 
newly-discovered quasars with the Atacama Large (Sub)millime-
tre Array (ALMA), a newly available radio interferometer, and the 
IRAM NOEMA observatory in the French Alps. The former facility 
is located in Chile, at an elevation of 5 000 m, and provides by 
far the best millimetre observations worldwide. These observa-
tions were essential to establishing the presence of galaxy over-
densities around the quasars, as well as  characterising  the 
detailed gas/dust properties of the host galaxies.

 
  What do you hope will be the impact of this 
project on the scientific community?

Our results put more stringent constraints on theories of 
early structure formation, as theoretical cosmological mod-
els need to explain and account for the presence of the bil-
lion  solar  mass  black  holes  as  well  as  the  chemically 
enriched gas and dust. This observational project therefore 
is of clear relevance to both theoreticians and numerical 
simulations of the early universe.

  What are your follow-up plans after the project 
ends, if any?

So far, we have only been able to focus on characteris-
ing the accreting supermassive black hole and the gas/dust 
in the quasar host galaxies. No stars have been able to be 
detected in the quasar hosts yet, even though the expecta-
tion is that a massive stellar component must exist in these 
quasars. This is likely due to the fact that the central bright 
quasar emission, powered by the accretion on the central 
supermassive black hole, outshines the stellar light. The 
next generation space telescope (JWST) has the potential 
to finally detect the early stars that constitute the quasar 
hosts. We plan to submit comprehensive observing pro-
grammes to observe a sample of quasars with JWST, with 
an anticipated launch date in early 2019.

  S P E C I A L   F E A T U R E

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COSMIC_DAWN

 Hosted by the Max Planck Society in Germany.
 Funded under FP7-IDEAS-ERC.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/104468 

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DR FABIAN WALTER

DECRYPTING THE GRAVITATIONAL WAVES  
OF BINARY BLACK HOLE SYSTEMS
It’s no coincidence that this year’s freshly-delivered Nobel Prize for Physics went to the scientists who 
pioneered gravitational-wave astronomy. This emerging branch can, in fact, reveal everything in space 
that the absence of electromagnetic radiation was previously making invisible to conventional astronomy. 
Compact black hole binary systems were amongst these, and thanks to work under the AWE project, they 
are now better understood.

Whilst  Albert  Einstein  had 

already taught us that gravi-
tational  waves  –  ripples  of 
gravity caused by the motion of matter 
–  regularly  wash  over  the  Earth  to 
stretch and squeeze the space around 
us, it was only recently that scientists 
became able to detect them. Actually, 
the  last  time  they  did  was  on  28 
September  2017,  when  gravitational 
waves from colliding back holes were 
detected for the fourth time in history.

‘Each detection has taught us new and 
sometimes surprising things about the 
universe,’  says  Niels  Warburton,  a 
Research  Fellow  at  University  College 
Dublin (UCD) who got to spend two years 
at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology  (MIT)  to  advance  this  new 
field of research.

With  his  AWE  (Accurate  Waveforms  
for  Extreme/Intermediate-mass- 
ratio-inspirals)  project,  Warburton 
aimed to set the stage for the European 
Space  Agency’s  Laser  Interferometer 
Space Antenna (LISA) – a future space-
based  gravitational  wave  detector. 
Unlike  Earth-based  detectors,  where 
seismic noise drowns out signals at low 

frequencies, this detector will be able 
to  measure  the  waves  coming  from 
small mass-ratio systems. 

‘One source for these waves is so-called 
Extreme-mass-ratio-inspirals  (EMRIs) 
where  a  stellar  mass  compact  object 
(such as a very dense star or a black hole) 
is in orbit around a million solar mass 
black hole. These systems will emit gravi-
tational waves for months or years, but 
extracting the signal from the noisy data-
stream requires very accurate models of 
the incoming waves. The AWE project fur-
ther developed these crucial models in 
preparation for the LISA mission,’ Adrian 
Ottewill,  project  host  and  Professor  of 
Mathematical Physics at UCD, explains.

To do so, Warburton applied black hole 
perturbation  theory,  which  he  further 
developed.  ‘By  combining  my  own 
expertise  with  that  of  my  two  host 
groups, and collaborators, I have pub-
lished seven papers during my fellow-
ship, with a few more in preparation for 
publication,’ he says. 

Of these seven publications, five have 
progressed the modelling of gravita-
tional waves from extreme mass-ratio 

binaries as outlined in the original pro-
ject  proposal.  The  other  two  papers 
were  initially  unplanned  for,  but  of 
high importance nonetheless: ‘Shortly 
after starting at MIT, a colleague who 
I had met a few times at conferences 
during my PhD walked into my office. 
Quickly  we  realised  that  we  had  a 
complementary  set  of  skills  which 
allowed  us  to  make  quick  progress 
studying the gravitational wave emis-
sion  from  the  inspiral  of  a  compact 
object into a rapidly rotating massive 
black hole,’ Warburton recalls.

There is a maximum rate at which any 
given black hole can spin, and black 
holes that rotate at or very near this 
rate exhibit some strange new phys-
ics. With their work, Warburton and his 
colleagues  demonstrated  that  the 
associated gravitational waves have a 
very  distinctive  signature  –  a  ‘song’ 
which, if detected, would immediately 
signal the existence of one of these 
unusually fast rotating black holes in 
nature.  Their  second  paper  on  this 
topic, which was entitled ‘Inspiral into 
Gargantua’ in reference to Christopher 
Nolan’s  movie  Interstellar,  attracted 

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
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attention from media outlets such as 
Space.com and Science News.

Warburton is confident that the nec-
essary  physics  to  model  extreme 
mass ratio inspirals are now known, 
and he hopes that, at some point, his 
work will contribute to the communi-
ty’s  future  capacity  to  detect  and 
measure them. In the meantime, he 
intends  to  continue  modelling  their 
gravitational  waves  under  a  Royal 
Society – Science Foundation Ireland 
University Research Fellowship. He is 

also leading the creation of an open-
source  software  toolkit  to  share 
expertise within and beyond the com-
munity. ‘This will allow less researcher 
time  being  spent  coding  and  more 
time spent doing physics,’ he says.

AWE

  Coordinated by University College 

Dublin in Ireland.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
  http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/186495 

HOW ROTATION AFFECTS MATTER DYNAMICS 
AROUND BLACK HOLES
The REGMAT project has explored the interplay between matter and the rotation of spacetime thanks to 
novel methods. Project results not only further our understanding of black holes, but also have implications 
for research on thermalisation in strongly coupled quantum theories. 

In two years of research, Rocha managed to determine pre-
cisely  the  anisotropies  (different  pressures  coming  from 
different directions) induced on matter by the rotation of 
spacetime. But another significant result concerns the cos-
mic censorship hypothesis: ‘This is a problem in classical 
gravity that has been around for 48 years. In an oversim-
plified version, this conjecture by Penrose posits that one 
cannot destroy a black hole horizon leaving behind a visible 
singularity. My investigations allowed for testing this con-
jecture in a fully nonlinear regime and in less symmetric sit-
uations than previously contemplated. It also permitted the 
examination of a vast range of cases, by varying the spa-
cetime dimensionality and the type of matter considered. 
At any rate, the conjecture was found to be robust against 
all violation attempts,’ he explains.

The  project’s  results  could  also  impact  other  fields  of 
research, notably equilibration of anisotropic plasma – all 
thanks to the famous AdS/CFT correspondence. ‘This seems 
completely unrelated, but this correspondence implies that 
classical gravitational physics in spacetimes with certain 
geometrical properties – called anti-de Sitter, or AdS for 
short  –  is  exactly  equivalent  to  some  strongly  coupled 
gauge theories that do not include gravitational interactions 
at all,’ Rocha says. 

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When  in  rotation,  even  the  biggest  structures  will 

slightly deform. Take our own planet for instance: 
it presents an equatorial bulge, meaning that its 
polar diameter is slightly shorter than the equatorial one. 
And this is all due to the force exerted by rotation.

Black holes are no different. Some of them rotate, and the 
effects  of  this  rotation  can  be  calculated.  Or  can  it?  ‘It’s 
actually pretty difficult,’ says Jorge Rocha, coordinator of 
the REGMAT (Rotational effects on strongly gravitating sys-
tems with matter) project for the University of Barcelona. 
‘When rotation is included in spacetime, spherical symme-
try is lost and the problem becomes more complicated since 
more coordinates are involved. Moreover, black holes are 
accompanied by accretion disks that introduce deviations 
from the known vacuum solutions. After the discovery of 
the simplest, non-rotating, black hole solution in 1915, it 
took almost 50 years to obtain its spinning counterpart.’

With his research, Rocha aimed to deepen our understanding 
of black hole dynamics in the presence of matter, and particu-
larly the interplay between matter and spacetime rotation. And 
for that, he decided to consider higher dimensions.

‘With extra spatial directions, spacetimes become charac-
terised by multiple angular momenta. The above difficulties 
are still present, but there is one key advantage: when the 
number of spatial directions is even, it is possible to con-
template a class of spacetimes (with all angular momenta 
equal) which exhibit a large amount of symmetry. Though 
not having the full spherical symmetry, this is sufficient to 
make the problem tractable.’

The project also benefited from the assumption that mat-
ter was being compressed into infinitely thin surfaces. This 
is a favourable idealisation, since it allows for constructing 
spacetimes with matter just by ‘gluing’ previously known 
vacuum geometries.

The  novelty  of  Rocha’s  approach  resides  in  the  use  of 
(semi-)analytical  methods  to  study  gravity  in  the  strong 
field regime combined with crucial effects from rotation. 
Such problems typically have to be tackled with demanding 
numerical simulations.

SPECIAL FEATUREresearch*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
 
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This means that black hole formation in AdS corresponds to 
the quantum field theory reaching a thermal state and, in 
turn, that REGMAT’s method to study gravitational collapse 
with rotation in AdS can shed light on the equilibration of 
anisotropic strongly interacting plasmas. This is expected to 
help capture important aspects of the quark-gluon plasma 
observed  at  CERN’s  Large  Hadron  Collider  or  at  the 

Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. ‘This is a connection I will 
explore,’ Rocha concludes. 

REGMAT

 Coordinated by the University of Barcelona in Spain.
 Funded under H2020-MSCA-IF.
 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/195349

I N T E R V I E W
SHELLING THE SEEDS OF THE FIRST 
SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES
Although their existence is undeniable, astronomers across the world are still unsure of how supermassive 
black holes actually form. An EU-funded project has set out to answer this question by simulating the 
formation and growth of their seeds – black holes created when an extremely massive star collapses.

This  is  one  of  the  most  puzzling 

questions  in  astronomy:  How 
were  supermassive  black  holes 
able to form in the early cosmic ages? 
Distant luminous quasars have been 
observed that betray their existence 
back when the universe was less than 
a  billion  years  old.  But  here  is  the 
thing:  the  conventional  growth  pro-
cess of a black hole is way too slow to 
allow their existence.

There are potential explanations. It has 
been  said,  for  example,  that  these 
supermassive  black  holes  were  born 
from  the  explosion  of  supermassive 
stars, from the collapse of large clouds 
of gas, or even from collisions between 
smaller  black  holes.  The  theory  that 
retained the attention of Dr Mahummad 
Latif,  however,  was  that  such  black 
holes  actually  grew  from  extremely 
large, ‘direct-collapse’ seed black holes.

Thanks to funding under the FIRSTBHS 
(The formation of supermassive black 
holes  in  the  early  universe)  project,  
Dr Latif simulated the formation and 
growth of these seeds.

  What makes the first 
supermassive black holes so 
interesting?

The first supermassive black holes 
are  very  interesting  as  they  were 
formed in the infant universe, within 
the  first  billion  years  after  the  Bing 
Bang, only a tiny fraction of the uni-
verse’s current age (13.7 billion years). 
They challenge our understanding of 
structure formation in the universe. 

A good analogy would be a situa-
tion where you would go to a kinder-
garten and find a seven-feet-tall kid. 
You will of course wonder how this kid 
was ever able to grow to such a height. 
It’s the same with these black holes: 
their masses are billions of times big-
ger  than  that  of  our  Sun,  and  it’s 

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difficult  to  comprehend  how  they 
could  become  so  massive  in  such  a 
short timeframe, when stars and gal-
axies just began to form.

  More specifically, what 
knowledge gaps did you aim to 
close with this project?

We aimed to understand what the 
most feasible way to assemble such 
massive objects would be. There are 
three main astrophysical mechanisms 
that could lead to the formation of the 
first  supermassive  black  holes.  The 
most  promising  scenario  is  the  so-
called direct collapse method: It pro-
vides  massive  seeds,  which  makes 
their growth easier. 

With  this  project,  we  aimed  to 
explore the feasibility of this scenario, 
how massive the seeds it can provide 
are and how abundant they are, com-
pare their number density with obser-
vations and investigate in detail the 
underlying astrophysical mechanisms. 
We  further  aimed  to  derive  their 
observational  signatures  and  make 
predictions  for  upcoming  space  and 
ground based missions. 

  How did you proceed to do so?

We  performed  so-called  three 
dimensional cosmological simulations 
starting  from  ab  initio  initial  condi-
tions  by  modelling  in  detail  all  the 
necessary physical processes.

  What would you say were the 
most innovative aspects of this 
methodology?

I  would  say  that  it’s  the  multi- 
physics of our cosmological simulation, 
which included detailed chemical and 
unresolved  turbulence  models,  mag-
netic fields, radiative transfer to model 
UV,  X-ray  feedback  from  accreting 
black hole and stars, as well as metal 
enrichment.  This  approach  is  beyond 
the state-of-the-art in the field.

  What were the most important 
findings from the project?

Our  results  show  that  the  direct-
collapse mechanism provides massive 
seed black holes of 10^5 to 10^6 solar 
masses,  which  may  grow  to  form  the 
first supermassive black holes. 

The conditions for the formation of 
such  objects  are  ideal  in  the  early 

 SPECIAL FEATUREresearch*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
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universe.  Particularly,  the  pristine 
massive halos illuminated by strong 
UV flux are the potential cradles for 
the formation of massive black holes. 
Our findings suggest that such objects 
are rare, as they require special condi-
tions to form – but this is still being 
debated among experts. 

  What do you expect from the 
JWST and ATHENA missions?

We are hoping that JWST will find 
some of the seed black holes, as these 
distant objects are quite faint at early 
stages. Of course, it also depends how 
abundant  they  are,  which  is  still  an 
open question. 

ATHENA looks more promising, as it 
is expected to detect a few hundred 
low-luminosity AGN at z>6 which will 
help to constrain black hole formation 
models. 

  What are your follow-up plans, 
if any?

We are currently investigating the 
growth of black holes in the early uni-
verse  for  which  we  have  performed 
detailed simulations. With my collabo-
rators, we are trying to understand how 
feedback from the black hole and stars 
affects the growth of black holes, and 
also  the  role  of  environment,  cold 
streams which feed these black holes, 

etc. We aim to derive synthetic observ-
ables for E-ELT, Euclid, ATHENA, JWST 
and  SKA,  and  we  hope  that  such  an 
approach will help us to understand the 
formation  and  growth  of  the  first 
supermassive black holes.

FIRSTBHS

 Coordinated by CNRS in France.
 Funded under H2020-MSCA-IF.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/195268

HAWKING RADIATION NOW BETTER 
UNDERSTOOD THANKS TO IN-LAB EXPERIMENTS
Black hole radiation and particle production in an expanding Universe are the cornerstones of current 
knowledge about the quantum nature of space-time. Yet, the fact that they are pretty much out of reach 
in astrophysics means they are also poorly understood. A solution to this problem might arise from 
artificial  black  holes  realised  under  the  FDTOQG  project,  which  has  furthered  our  understanding  of 
Hawking radiation.

The Generalised second law (GSL) of thermodynamics 

tells us that, as Hawking radiation, predicted by quan-
tum theory, emerges from a black hole, its entropy 
more than compensates for the drop in the black hole’s 
entropy. This is to obey the same law’s principle that the 
entropy of a black hole can never decrease, and to keep 
general relativity from conflicting with quantum physics.

However, although theorised, black hole radiation is still poorly 
understood, as Dr Silke Weinfurtner, Research Fellow at the 
University of Nottingham, explains: ‘On the one hand, we are 
still developing the framework in which general relativity and 
quantum physics reconcile, and on the other hand we have 
very little observational guidance due to the smallness of the 
Hawking temperature, such that the effect is, for all current 
black hole observations, negligible. The smaller the black hole 
the bigger the temperature, but unfortunately, the black holes 
in our universe are too large.’ 

This  is  where  analogue  gravity  kicks  in.  This  innovative 
approach tells us that Hawking radiation, superradiance and 
cosmological  particle  production  are  universal  processes 
which – although not appearing in astrophysical systems – 
can be found in a large class of other systems such as fluids, 
superfluids and optical systems. 

‘The analogy is not perfect, but the fact that these processes 
occur in a large class of systems proves that they are robust 
against  system-dependent  modifications.  For  example,  if 
space-time was fundamentally discrete, one would have to 
worry about whether the Hawking process would pick up on 
this discreteness. In the analogue systems, we do have some 
fundamental discreteness (for instance a fluid flow consists 
of water molecules), but the Hawking effect is still taking 
place,’ says Dr Weinfurtner.

The  robustness  of  the  superradiance  process  actually 
exceeded  the  scientist’s  expectations,  as  all  it  requires  is 
something rotating sufficiently fast and that can absorb a lit-
tle bit of energy. As black holes undoubtedly rotate and absorb 

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matter in their surroundings, Dr Weinfurtner is confident that 
they should be able to spin-down through this mechanism.

Extrapolation to astrophysics, however, is not as straightfor-
ward as it may sound. There is an analogy of the project’s the-
oretical models describing how small fluctuations interact with 
black holes, but they do not provide a real analogue to a black 
hole. ‘We can test our theoretical framework, but not if our 
theoretical framework has to describe reality. However, our 
research certainly enhanced our understanding of the Hawking 
radiation or superradiance (also known as the Penrose pro-
cess), as well as the difficulties involved in detecting it even in 
a controlled laboratory environment,’ Dr Weinfurtner explains.

Now that the FDTOQG (From fluid dynamics to quantum grav-
ity) project has come to an end, the team are eager to see how 
the scientific community will react. They are confident that 
there will be more experiments in the future, using different 
systems to report on the detection of superradiance.

FDTOQG

  Coordinated by the University of Nottingham  

in the United Kingdom.

 Funded under H2020-MSCA-IF.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/195125

SPECIAL FEATUREresearch*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

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H E A L T H

H E A L T H

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NEW, TUMOUR-SPECIFIC 
THERAPY FOR COLORECTAL 
CANCER PATIENTS
The combination of colectomy and chemotherapy can save up to 50-70 % 
of patients with colorectal cancer. Those who do not have that chance, 
however, often see their cancer come back in the form of metastasis. A new, 
more precise therapy could prevent these relapses and even remove the 
need for colectomy altogether.

Preventing  relapses  for  colorectal 

cancer – the second most deadly 
form of cancer in Europe – is com-
plex to say the least. The reasons for 
such  relapses  can  vary:  spreading  of 
isolated cancer cells beyond the primary 
tumour site; remaining cancer cells at 
this  site  following  its  resection;  poor 
specificity of post-resection chemother-
apy; or resistance to chemotherapeutic 
treatments. Yet, Dr Helena Azevedo of 
Queen  Mary  University  of  London 
(QMUL)  believes  that,  whatever  the 
cause, such relapses can be prevented 
with  post-therapies  promoting  the 
regeneration of the damaged tissue.

Enter  CANCERHYDROGELPATCH 
(Hydrogel-nanoparticle patches as pro-
phylactic  scaffold  agents  for  in  vivo 
local  gene/drug  delivery  in  colorectal 
cancer tumours), an EU-funded project 
whose purpose was to target colorec-
tal  tumours  cells  with  hydrogels- 
drug-siRNA nanorods conjugates after 
surgical removal of the tumour. 

‘Our idea was to design a therapy cus-
tomised for a particular cancer, to be 
more  effective  and  safer,’  says  Dr 
Azevedo. ‘For example, it is known that 

growth factors – proteins involved in cell 
proliferation  –  are  typically  overex-
pressed in most tumours, contributing 
to  cancer  progression  and  spreading. 
Using  Bevacizumab,  also  known  as 
Avastin, we saw that we could prevent 
tumour growth. But the complexity of 
the  tumour  environment  requires  the 
delivery  of  multiple  therapies,  so  we 
selected an additional drug consisting of 
short interfering RNA (siRNA – able to 
suppress/knockdown the expression of 
specific genes) with the aim of silencing 
an  important  oncogene  implicated  in 
the progression of colorectal cancer.’

Although drugs like Avastin are already 
being used in patients with colorectal 
cancer, CANCERHYDROGELPATCH inno-
vated by not administering it systemi-
cally or by intratumoural injection – a 
practice  that  results  in  adverse  side 
effects through non-specific uptake by 
both healthy and cancer cells, and accu-
mulation in other organs. Instead, the 
team  aimed  to  deliver  these  drugs 
within a hydrogel at the desired site and 
selectively to cancer cells by attaching 
them to nanoparticles coated with small 
peptide molecules that bind specifically 
to the surface of cancer cells. 

‘The  results  were  outstanding,’  
Dr Azevedo enthuses. So outstanding 
in fact, that the team exceeded its ini-
tial  expectations  of  a  therapy  that 
could be applied after tumour resec-
tion. Their combinatory therapy boasts 
high  efficacy  in  both  resected  and 
non-resected  tumours  by  combining 
three  therapeutic  approaches:  gene 
therapy to silence oncogenes involved 
in cancer progression; chemotherapy 
involving the release of a potent drug 
that stops growth of cancer cells; and 
thermal  therapy  that  produces  heat 
and  kills  cancer  cells.  ‘It  was  shown 
that  this  triple  therapy  was  able  to 
promote tumour abrogation, eliminat-
ing the need for their resection. When 
applied  post-resection,  complete 
remission was achieved by destroying 
the remaining cancer cells and avoid-
ing tumour regrowth,’ says Dr Azevedo.

The new therapy generated so much 
enthusiasm in the community that it 
led  to  the  publication  in  the  leading 
journal  ‘Nature  Materials’.  Now,  
Joao  Conde,  who  participated  in 
CANCERHYDROGELPATCH and special-
ises  in  designing  and  testing  nano- 
biomaterials for cancer treatment, is 

 
 
 
14

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

H E A L T H

bringing together a new research group 
to further develop these therapies.

‘Whilst  the  results  in  mice  are  very 
promising  in  terms  of  efficacy  and 
safety, further validation of the thera-
pies in large pre-clinical models that 

allow for follow-up studies over longer 
periods  is  necessary  before  we  can 
bring our new treatment and delivery 
method to human patients. This might 
require  5  to  10  years,  if  everything 
goes  as  expected,’  Dr  Azevedo 
concludes.

CANCERHYDROGELPATCH
  Coordinated by Queen Mary 
University of London in the  
United Kingdom.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/186301 

FAST, ACCURATE MALARIA TEST IDENTIFIES 
SPECIFIC PARASITES
A highly sensitive malaria diagnostic test developed by EU scientists differentiates between malarial 
parasites, useful for detecting last reservoirs of the disease in near-elimination settings.

EU-funded scientists have developed an innovative new 

malaria diagnostic test able to distinguish between differ-
ent malarial parasites from a single blood sample to ena-
ble more targeted and effective treatment of malaria. Some 
600 000 people die from the disease annually, mostly children 
and pregnant women in Africa, according to the World Health 
Organisation (WHO). 

The near point-of-care molecular diagnostic test developed by 
the  EU’s  DIAGMAL  (Translation  of  the  direct-on-blood  
PCR-NALFIA  system  into  an  innovative  near  point-of-care  
diagnostic for malaria) project identifies parasite-specific DNA 
in a blood sample, avoiding time-consuming and expensive  
laboratory  work,  particularly  in  developing  countries  where 
malaria is most prevalent.

Several molecular diagnostic tests currently in use for malaria 
‘require advanced technological infrastructure, which we tried 
to avoid with the DIAGMAL project,’ says project coordinator 
Henk Schallig, senior scientist in parasitology at the Academic 
Medical Centre, Amsterdam.

The new test, which builds on work carried out under the previ-
ous five-year EU-funded MALACTRES project, provides an easy 
to understand read-out within just an hour of collecting the 
sample.

‘Although  it  is  still  an  amplification  test,  cumbersome  DNA 
extraction and sophisticated read-out systems are not needed. 
The read-out system is a kind of “dipstick” test with lines on a 
strip that tells you whether the test was valid and whether a 
patient  has  been  infected  with  the  malaria  parasite,’  says  
Dr Schallig. ‘It also gives information about which species of 

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malaria is causing the infection. That is important because it 
determines the treatment.’ 

Need for a more sensitive test

The test discriminates between the most common but virulent 
malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which requires spe-
cific treatment measures due to increasing drug resistance, and 
others such as P. vivax, associated with morbidity, and more 
easily  treatable  species  such  as  P.  malariae,  P.  ovale  and  
P. knowlesi. 

With several malaria-endemic countries on the verge of elimi-
nating the disease, the final push requires identification of all 
malaria carriers, not just the ones with obvious disease, in order 
to end transmission, Dr Schallig explains. However sometimes 
the number of parasites in the blood is below the detection abil-
ity of other diagnostic tests or traditional microscopy. 

Contamination-free samples

Another advantage is that the test does not require DNA extrac-
tion, common in other molecular diagnostic tests. DNA contam-
ination can result in false positives.

Instead, the blood sample is extracted into a tube which already 
has the chemicals needed for the amplification reaction. The 
closed tube goes into the PCR machine for amplification, and 
then the sample is transferred via a closed transfer unit to the 
read-out strip. 

Excellent results were achieved in laboratory testing in Europe 
and the project has moved to the next stage of field evaluations 
on  the  Myanmar-Thailand  border,  Kenya  and  Vietnam,  
Dr Schallig says. 

The DIAGMAL team, which includes diagnostics and bioanalytic 
companies in the UK, Germany and Finland, hopes to develop 
the technology for other infectious diseases, particularly to iden-
tify the causes of undifferentiated fevers, Dr Schallig says. 
‘Despite declining malaria incidence in some African countries 
we still see a lot of febrile children, so we need to find out what 
else they have.’

DIAGMAL

  Coordinated by the Academic Medical Centre,  
University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

 Funded under FP7-HEALTH.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/108624 
Project website:  

http://www.diagmal.eu/

 
 
15

H E A L T H

ELR-BASED PATCHES AND HYDROGELS  
TO TREAT ISCHAEMIC DISEASES

The  current  absence  of  an  efficient  drug  delivery  system  for  ischaemic  diseases  is 
plaguing therapy performance. Elastin-like recombinamer (ELR) patch and gel developed 
under the ANGIOMATTRAIN (Development of Biomaterial-based Delivery Systems for 
Ischaemic Conditions – An Integrated Pan-European Approach) project, along with a novel 
medical device to deliver them to the clinical target, are hoped to result in shorter hospital 
stays and recovery times for patients.

Injectable  hydrogel  systems  have 

attracted  much  attention  in  recent 
years. They are less invasive than cur-
rent  pharmaceutical  therapies  for 
ischaemic diseases, and can be used as 
carriers for biomolecules that can bind 
to specific molecules on cells. 

Using the optimal biomechanical char-
acteristics of ELRs as a starting point, 
Prof. Abhay Pandit of NUI Galway and 
his team have developed a patch and 
gel able to treat Myocardial Infarction 
and  chronic  limb  ischaemia,  respec-
tively. ‘ELRs are an attractive material 
because  they  self-assemble  into  a 
hydrogel at body temperature; because 
they mimic the elastic properties of nat-
ural tissues; and, finally, because they 
provide a favourable environment for 
endothelial  migration  and  vascular 
assembly,’ he says.

The project’s ELR patch was tested in a 
preclinical  model  of  Myocardial 
Infarction, with histology results show-
ing  a  decreased  fibrotic  area  and  an 
increased muscle volume fraction. The 
ELR  gel,  on  the  other  hand,  was  first 
tested in a preclinical model of hind limb 
ischaemia.  These  tests  resulted  in  a 
Raman profile of hind limb ischaemic 
tissues treated with the gel similar to 
that of healthy tissues, suggesting that 
the gel might induce the remodelling of 
extracellular matrix components. 

The  team  then  evaluated  the  gel’s 
ability to deliver angiogenic factors to 
treat ischaemia. ‘One strategy was to 
embed the ELR gel with a concentra-
tion  gradient  of  the  pro-angiogenic 
protein  Vascular  endothelial  growth 
factor (VEGF). The grafted VEGF was 
shown to retain its bioactivity and in 
vitro  tests  with  endothelial  cells 
showed  preferential  cell  localisation 
on  the  high-concentration  end  of 
structures containing the gradient of 
VEGF,’ Prof. Pandit explains. ‘A second 
strategy  was  to  use  the  ELR  gel  to 
deliver a unique plasmid vector which 
encoded the genes for a combination 
of pro-angiogenic factors (VEGF and 

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PDGF-BB). The gene activated gel plat-
form was tested in a preclinical model 
of  hind  limb  ischaemia.  Results  sug-
gest that the injection of the gel caused 
a moderate, but promising increase in 
blood perfusion after ischaemia.’

Straight to patients’ hearts

With  ELR  hydrogel  having  proved  its 
effectiveness, the team was left with 
the task of delivering it to injured areas 
of the patient’s heart. They developed 
a  delivery  system  consisting  of  two 
main components: a reservoir/mixing 
component (containing the ELR poly-
mers), and a catheter system to inject 
the hydrogel at the infracted site. ‘The 
overall design of the catheter, handle 
and its mechanism is ergonomic and 
easy for surgeons to use in the operat-
ing room,’ Prof. Pandit points out.

The team hopes to pursue its research 
in  the  form  of  a  second  EU  funded 
project. In the meantime, they intend 
to  follow-up  with  any  commercial 
opportunity  that  could  arise  from 
ANGIOMATTRAIN’s results. Initial steps 
have been taken to file patents for the 
developed technologies, and an inven-
tion disclosure form is being written 
for the clinical application of the ELR 
patch to treat Myocardial Infarction. 
Another such form has already been 

“ELRs are an attractive material 
because they self-assemble 
into a hydrogel at body 
temperature; because they 
mimic the elastic properties of 
natural tissues; and, finally, 
because they provide a 
favourable environment for 
endothelial migration and 
vascular assembly.”

filed  for  the  development  of  micro-
spheres to be added to the project’s ELR 
hydrogel  –  thereby  reducing  H₂O-
mediated apoptosis in cells under oxida-
tive stress. 

‘The  development  of  less  invasive 
devices  will  not  only  result  in  shorter 
hospital  stays  and  recovery  times  
for  patients,  but  also  lower  costs,’  
Prof. Pandit concludes.

ANGIOMATTRAIN

  Coordinated by the National University 

of Ireland, Galway, in Ireland.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/108425 
Project website:  

http://angiomattrain.eu/

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
 
16

H E A L T H

OBESE PEOPLE LESS LIKELY TO CONSIDER THEIR 
NEXT MEAL WHEN CONSIDERING PORTION SIZES

Part-supported through the EU-funded NUDGE-IT (The Neurobiology of Decision-Making in 
Eating – Innovative Tools) project, researchers have undertaken a detailed study which 
shows how obese people are able to crucially discount future meal times.

Choosing what we eat, how much we eat and when we eat 

comes  with  many  conflicting  pressures  and  conse-
quences. As a result, making healthy decisions is often 
difficult and obesity continues to be a serious health problem 
in Europe, with almost one adult in six in the EU and over 20 % 
in the UK being classed as obese (Eurostat). 

Many components influence poor food choices from cultural, 
social, cognitive and familial to genetic and epigenetic traits. 
Thanks  to  a  study  crafted  by  the  University  of  Bristol,  a 
NUDGE-IT consortium member, researchers have now discov-
ered another strong trait. Individuals with a high Body Mass 
Index (BMI) i.e. of 30 or over, tend to ignore when their next 
meal is likely to take place when selecting their portion sizes 
whilst  on  the  contrary,  those  with  a  lower  BMI  tend  to 
acknowledge their next meal times. ‘Meal timings and future 
planning are an important area of research in obesity. These 
findings are exciting because they are the first to demon-
strate that discounting operates in planning from one meal 
to the next and that people with obesity might not be factor-
ing that into their choices,’ shared Annie Zimmerman, a doc-
toral student and lead author of the study.

In the past, psychologists examined ‘delay discounting’ – the 
tendency to treat something as less significant based on how 
far in the future it will occur – in tasks focusing on money. 
However, for the first time here, researchers have assessed 
how people classed as obese ‘delay discount’ information 
about future meal timing, thus showing signs of impulsivity 
and overlooking future rewards or consequences. 

Participants were asked to take part in a series of comput-
erised tasks, including choosing portion sizes after being 
told how long after lunch their next meal would be (ranging 
up to eight hours later). ‘Our results are consistent with the 

idea that overeating is promoted by feeling in the moment, 
disregarding future consequences of decisions. This novel 
finding might help to explain why being overweight is asso-
ciated with irregular meal timings. Potentially there could 
be  targeted  interventions  for  obesity  to  promote  future 
thinking in meal planning,’ underlined Zimmerman.

Such results indeed bring much food for thought when trying 
to better understand the decision-making processes behind 
our food choices. In a world where food-related disorders, 
such as obesity, are on the rise and many factors guide our 
choices, developing appropriate healthy eating policy making 
models have become all the more important. 

Nevertheless, despite bringing a better understanding of the 
factors that drive food choice, ‘to fully understand the role 
of dietary discounting in eating behaviours and the links  
to  obesity  we  need  to  develop  a  multifaceted  model  of  
discounting,’ explained Zimmerman.

The NUDGE-IT project, which runs until December 2018, has 
received just under EUR 9 million and engages internation-
ally  with  leading  experts  across  various  disciplines  to 
develop  innovative  tools,  better  understand  decision- 
making  in  food  choice  and  build  predictive  models  to 
improve public health policy.

NUDGE-IT

  Coordinated by the University of Edinburgh  

in the United Kingdom.
 Funded under FP7-KBBE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/111139
Project website:  

https://www.nudge-it.eu/ 

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research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
 
17

H E A L T H

NEW DRUG CAN TRACK DOWN MRSA  
TO THE FARTHEST REACHES

A researcher from UMC Utrecht has successfully developed a proof-of-concept drug 
capable of killing the intracellular components of Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus 
aureus (MRSA). These components allow for persistence to antibiotics and play a huge 
part in the high mortality rates associated with these bacteria.

‘This technique is extremely powerful as 
it combines both the location and the 
timing of the immune responses in liv-
ing  animals.  Unfortunately,  our  initial 
objective to investigate the role of PSMs 
in skin infections was too difficult to pur-
sue by imaging the skin, as collagen and 
fat prevented us from getting significant 
data with SD-IVM. Our focus therefore 
shifted towards the staphylococcal bac-
teraemia  and  its  impact  on  the  liver,’  
Dr Surewaard explains. 

When  injecting  MRSA  into  the  blood-
stream, Dr Surewaard found that 90 % of 
the bacteria were captured by a special-
ised macrophage located in the liver – the 
Kupffer  cell.  He  therefore  focused  his 
research  efforts  on  trying  to  find  out 
whether these bacteria survive in Kupffer 
cells or get killed, and what the mecha-
nism behind this is.

‘We found that 90 % of the MRSA ingested 
by Kupffer cells get cleared within the first 
eight hours of infection in a reactive oxi-
dant (ROS) dependent manner. However, 
the other 10 % can withstand the Kupffer 
cells  attack  and  they  start  to  replicate 
within  them.  There,  they  are  protected 
from  last  resort  antibiotics  such  as 
Vancomycin. This could explain why in the 
clinic patients have to get two-to-six week 
long Vancomycin treatments, whereas in 

a test tube the bacteria are killed within 
hours,’ Dr Surewaard explains. 

From thereon, he wondered how antibiot-
ics could be delivered into these cells. The 
solution came from liposomes (lipid drop-
lets)  packaged  into  Vancomycin,  which  
Dr Surewaard named vancosomes. These 
vancosomes were efficiently taken up by 
Kupffer cells, killing the MRSA residing in 
them and preventing the bacteria from 
spreading to other organs.

Whilst the vancosomes are to be consid-
ered  as  a  ‘proof  of  principle’  drug,  
Dr  Surewaard  is  collaborating  with  the 
Centre for Drug Research and Development 
(CDRD) in Vancouver, Canada to develop 
and  commercialise  new  liposomal  and 
nanoparticle formulations to deliver anti-
biotics more efficiently into Kupffer cells. 

Ultimately, he hopes that his research will 
cure  patients  with  staphylococcal  dis-
eases and convince the scientific com-
munity  of  the  existence  of  MRSA 
intracellular components and the neces-
sity to eradicate them.

PSMS-IN-INFLAMMATION

  Coordinated by the University Medical 
Centre Utrecht in the Netherlands.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/186470

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Over  the  years,  staphylococcus 

aureus – and more specifically its 
methicillin-resistant form (MRSA) 
–  has  become  one  of  the  most  infa-
mous consequences of hospitalisation. 
But  its  community-acquired  form 
(CA-MRSA) has become even more dan-
gerous and virulent, affecting otherwise 
healthy people notably in North America.

Usually the disease remains located on 
skin  and  soft  tissues.  It  causes  local 
abscesses that can be treated with the 
antibiotics that MRSA is still susceptible 
to – Vancomycin or Rifampicin. However, 
in some cases, MRSA degenerates into 
flesh eating disease (necrotising fascii-
tis) and, when it finally gains access to 
the bloodstream, disseminates through-
out the body. In such scenarios, the mor-
tality rate rises to about 30 %.

‘MRSA is considered as a “super bug” 
because of its resistance to antibiot-
ics,  but  I  call  it  that  for  a  different  
reason:  its  ability  to  evade  innate 
immune  responses,’  says  Dr  Bas 
Surewaard, who coordinated the PSMS- 
IN-INFLAMMATION  (Imaging  Innate 
Immunity of Staphylococcal Infections) 
project for UMC Utrecht. ‘Staphylococcus 
has  a  very  impressive  arsenal  of  viru-
lence  factors  that  basically  have  the 
potential  to  evade  and/or  kill  every 
immune cell in the body. Even when it has 
been  taken  up  by  phagocytes,  where 
most  bacteria  are  easily  eradicated, 
MRSA has multiple mechanisms designed 
to withstand and even replicate in this 
harmful environment.’ This means that 
no vaccine can eradicate MRSA, and that 
further understanding of its virulent fac-
tors is required.

Interestingly, only a relative small num-
ber of virulence factors have been asso-
ciated  with  CA-MRSA.  Phenol  soluble 
modulins (PSMs) are one of these, and  
Dr Surewaard initially aimed to dissect  
its functions. He did so by using a new 
state of the art technique called Spinning-
disk  confocal  intravital  microscopy 
(SD-IVM), which can be used to follow in 
real-time the immune response to bacte-
ria in living, anesthetised mice. 

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
 
1818
18

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

S O C I E T Y

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S O C I E T Y

RE-FRAMING THE EU’S 
COMMITMENT TO HUMAN RIGHTS
EU-funded researchers reframe the EU’s commitment to human rights to 
better address today’s multiple global challenges.

In the Treaty of Lisbon, the EU made a 

commitment to uphold and promote its 
values, including that of human rights. 
However,  this  commitment  to  human 
rights is facing many challenges, includ-
ing the various financial crises of recent 
years  and  the  ongoing  refugee  crisis. 
These crises have put significant strain 
on the EU, making it difficult to always 
find  an  effective  response  that  fully 
complies with human rights.

The EU-funded FRAME (Fostering Human 
Rights  Among  European  (external  and 
internal)  Policies)  project  set  out  to 
reframe the EU’s commitment to human 
rights  to  better  address  these  modern 
challenges. Its objective was to provide 
the  necessary  building  blocks  for  the 
development  and  implementation  of  a 
comprehensive  EU  policy  on  human 
rights. ‘FRAME was designed to provide 
the EU with policy-oriented and strategic 
research to address these challenges to 
contribute to the development of a com-
prehensive  and  coherent  policy  for  the 
implementation of the EU’s commitment 
to human rights,’ says Project Coordinator 
Jan  Wouters,  Professor  at  KU  Leuven, 
Belgium,  and  Director  of  the  Leuven 
Centre  for  Global  Governance  Studies. 
‘The project resulted in three fundamen-
tal building blocks from which the EU can 
redefine its commitment to human rights 
to better meet today’s challenges.’

Building blocks for human 
rights

The first building block was to create a 
sound  knowledge  base  that  takes  into 

account  the  evolving  factors,  concepts, 
institutions  and  instruments  underlying 
the  protection  and  promotion  of  human 
rights at the EU, international and national 
levels. The second block provided a critical 
examination and appraisal of the EU’s real 
and potential contribution to the govern-
ance of global human rights through its 
engagement with multiple actors and part-
ners  and  through  various  policies  and 
instruments. The third and final building 
block was a set of indicators, tools and pol-
icy proposals that allow for a consistent 
and  tailor-made  integration  of  human 
rights in the EU’s both external and internal 
actions and policies. 

Practical solutions for real 
results

‘The  results  of  the  project’s  work  took 
many  forms,  including  the  publishing  of 
over 50 comprehensive reports reviewing 
virtually the EU’s entire range of compe-
tences against its commitment to human 
rights,’  says  Wouters.  ‘This  amounts  to 
over 10 000 pages of knowledge, which is 
now available on the FRAME website and 
at the disposal of EU policymakers, civil 
society and the general public.’ According 
to Wouters, this repository now constitutes 
the world’s largest database on the theme 
of the EU and human rights. 

document may serve as a roadmap for EU 
institutions to use in fine-tuning their com-
mitment to human rights. 

The project also broke new ground by put-
ting together and offering a free Massive 
Open  Online  Course  (MOOC)  on  the  EU’s 
commitment to human rights. The MOOC, 
which  is  based  on  FRAME  research  and 
taught by FRAME researchers, attracted over 
12 000 students from 175 countries. The 
MOOC will be re-run as of 2 October 2017.

‘FRAME  offered  a  number  of  creative 
solutions for enhancing the effectiveness 
and coherence of the EU’s human rights 
policy,’ concludes Wouters. ‘In essence, it 
provided concrete guidance to EU policy-
makers to help resolve the problems that 
hinder  the  protection  and  promotion  of 
human rights in the EU and the world.’

Researchers  say  that  their  hope  is  that 
the project’s results will be picked up by 
policymakers. Already there are signs that 
this is the case. For example, the European 
Parliament Briefing on Human Rights in 
EU Trade Policy heavily relies on FRAME 
research.

FRAME

In  addition  to  the  database,  the  FRAME 
project produced a number of policy briefs 
on  their  findings  for  policymakers.  They 
also created an outcome document that 
highlights the 40 most important recom-
mendations  in  a  concrete  and  reader-
friendly manner. According to Wouters, this 

  Coordinated by the University  

of Leuven in Belgium.
 Funded under FP7-SSH.
 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/108540

 Project website:  

http://www.fp7-frame.eu/

 
 
19

S O C I E T Y

IMMIGRANTS’ LABOUR MARKET STATUS  
IN WESTERN EUROPE

A cross-national study has used a sociological perspective to investigate the incorporation 
of immigrants into the labour market of Western Europe. The initiative fills a gap in cross-
country comparative research on the effect of ethnic origin as well as generation on 
labour market outcomes of immigrants as compared to native populations.

research shows that ‘migrant workers who may be in great-
est need of union representation because of their vulnerable 
status lag behind local workers in their rate of unionisation 
in  all  countries.’  Yet,  the  institutional  position  of  unions 
affects the rates of migrant workers’ unionisation relative to 
those of local workers. This underscores a role for the unions’ 
agency in determining their own strategies for renewal and 
revival as well as fulfilling their potential as crucial actors in 
migrant workers’ integration in host societies. 

Second, the empirical results of IM-IT research support its 
theoretical argument that unionised workers express more 
positive views regarding immigration and immigrants than 
non-unionised workers. ‘Unions’ members’ attitudes towards 
immigrants and immigration are a potentially important fac-
tor shaping unions’ strategies,’ says Dr Gorodzeisky.

Project outreach and dissemination  
of research results

IM-IT research findings have been presented in scientific 
conferences in Israel, the Netherlands and the United States. 
Further, they have been incorporated in university under-
graduate and graduate courses, and published in scientific 
peer-reviewed journals. Specifically, on research related to 
trade union membership among migrant workers in Europe, 
Dr Gorodzeisky has co-authored three papers with Professor 
Richards  (Carlos  III  University,  Spain),  two  of  which  have 
already been published in the European Journal of Industrial 
Relations.

Regarding research on immigrants’ labour market incorpora-
tion,  the  project  coordinator  collaborated  with  Professor 
Semyonov (Tel Aviv University), leading to one publication in 
PLOS ONE and the working paper ‘Labour force participation 
among  immigrants  in  10  western  European  countries: 
Generation, gender and ethnicity.’ Other relevant research 
papers are also available online. 

Continuing in the spirit of IM-IT, future research plans focus 
on ‘the relationship between children’s age at migration and 
their  educational  and  labour  market  outcomes  [and]  
anti-immigrant  attitudes  and  their  sources,’  concludes  
Dr Gorodzeisky.

Project work and findings are useful for social scientists and 
policymakers given that the difficulties immigrants of non-
European  origin,  even  second-generation,  face  in  finding 
employment may have significant consequences for future 
ethnic relations and social solidarity in Europe.

IM-IT

 Coordinated by Tel Aviv University in Israel.
 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/104236  

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The  EU-funded  IM-IT  (Integration  of  Immigrants  in 

Western European Countries: A Comparative Sociology 
Perspective) project has shed new light on the issues 
involved in the labour market integration of immigrants, 
focusing on two key aspects: labour force status and attain-
ment of occupational status.

According to project coordinator, Dr Anastasia Gorodzeisky, 
‘The  research  considered  first-  and  second-generation 
immigrants  of  both  European  and  non-European  origin 
residing  in  Belgium,  France,  Sweden  and  the  United 
Kingdom (as well as in a combined category of nine Western 
European countries).’

Effects of immigrant origin and generation

Findings show that ‘whereas the likelihood of becoming 
economically active and finding employment is influenced 
by region of origin – not only among first-generation immi-
grants, but also among offspring of immigrants – the like-
lihood of attaining a high-status job is influenced mostly 
by immigrant status itself,’ explains Dr Gorodzeisky. 

Generally, the results indicate that ‘a sizable proportion of 
non-European  origin  immigrants  and  their  descendants, 
both men and women, face substantial difficulties in inte-
grating into the labour market of Western European coun-
tries,’ stresses Dr Gorodzeisky. 

However,  immigrants  of  European  origin,  and  especially 
their offspring, appear to experience less difficulty incorpo-
rating into the labour force than non-Europeans.

Role of trade unions’ attitudes and agency 
in migrant integration

Further research examined the relationship between trade 
union movements and migrant workers in Europe. Project 

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
20

S O C I E T Y

TRANSNATIONAL COURTS NEED TO SHAPE UP
The record of the European Court 
of  Human  Rights  (ECtHR)  in 
Turkey has shown inconsistencies 
and double standards that need 
to be addressed. The research is 
important for the Court’s dealings 
with all authoritarian regimes.

be  effective  against  Turkey.  ‘Without 
truly  effective  external  pressure, 
Turkey’s motivations for compliance are 
no longer much different from Russia’s: 
to keep up its international reputation 
as much as its authoritarianism allows.’

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,

Over the last three decades, the world 

has  been  holding  its  breath  as 
authoritarian regimes appeared to 
be giving way to more democratic socie-
ties. While transnational bodies such as the 
ECtHR may have played a pivotal role in 
this transformation, in more recent years 
their influence seems to be wavering.

Against  this  backdrop,  the  EU-funded 
DEMTUREUROPE (Democratisation and 
transnational human rights regimes: A 
case study of Turkey and the European 
Court of Human Rights) project studied 
how a transnational court engages gov-
ernments and influences change. Taking 
the  ECtHR’s  involvement  in  Turkey’s 
Kurdish conflict as a case study, it looked 
into the Court’s jurisprudence on gross 
human rights abuses by Turkey towards 
its Kurdish minority. 

Transnational courts 
undermined by authoritarian 
states

The in-depth analysis of the ‘Turkish prob-
lem’ offers an excellent example of how 
transnational courts fare in authoritarian 
settings.  ‘We  investigated  the  ECtHR’s 
democracy-expanding and rights-protect-
ing roles in Turkey, as well as the Court’s 
democracy-constraining  and  rights- 
inhibiting roles,’ explains project scientist 
Dilek Kurban. ‘This revealed variations in 
the Court’s engagement and effectiveness 
with political developments in Europe such 
as the end of the Cold War and enlarge-
ment of the Council of Europe.’

An interesting cyclical pattern emerged 
from  the  research  on  how  the  ECtHR 
tackled  state  violence  in  the  Kurdish 
region in recent decades. ‘The Court was 
at its most innovative, boldest and most 
receptive from the early 1990s until the 
early  2000s,’  reveals  Kurban.  ‘This 
showed  that  a  transnational  human 
rights court can effectively tackle state 
violence  by  documenting  it,  giving  a 
voice to its victims and discrediting offi-
cial denial.’ However, the findings show 
that the ECtHR could have done more in 
the right to life and torture cases.

Setback for Kurdish rights

During  the  2000s,  as  Turkey  edged 
closer to Europe, increased cooperation 
with the ruling AKP party actually damp-
ened  the  Court’s  receptiveness  to 
Kurdish legal mobilisation. ‘The Court’s 
willingness to get rid of as many pend-
ing cases as possible endorsed Turkey’s 
strategy of compensating victims’ mate-
rial losses without offering them apol-
ogy, truth or justice,’ states Kurban.

In the mid-2000s, when the EU negotia-
tions stalled, the AKP government rolled 
back  human  rights  reforms  it  had 
adopted  to  gain  accession  status. 
Subsequently,  in  the  early  2010s,  the 
ECtHR issued judgments that ceased to 

The Court also fell behind in protecting 
the Kurds’ linguistic and political rights 
claims. ‘The ECtHR’s oversight of Kurdish 
political  and  cultural  rights  claims  in 
Turkey emerged from the assumption 
that it was dealing with a democratic 
regime,’ says Kurban. 

Authoritarian and post-
communist commonalities

The Turkish case analysed in this project, 
as well as the cases of Russia, Hungary 
and Poland, have shown that the ECtHR 
has  not  been  effective  in  overseeing 
authoritarian regimes. ‘The ECtHR should 
not  apply  its  jurisprudential  principles 
without considering differences between 
the politico-legal regimes, judicial systems 
and political cultures of contracting par-
ties,’ notes Kurban. ‘Referring issues and 
cases back to domestic legal systems and 
local governments where majorities over-
power minorities and where the judiciary 
is complicit in state violence will legitimise 
authoritarianism,’ she adds. 

There is no doubt that DEMTUREUROPE 
research can support the EU in rethinking 
how transnational courts operate and how 
their legitimacy can be strengthened.

DEMTUREUROPE

  Coordinated by the Hertie School  
of Governance GGMBH in Germany.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/187899 
Project website:  

http://bit.ly/2gomI3m

RESEARCH-BASED WELFARE REFORM
By studying how the welfare state affects household behaviour, the EU-funded WSCWTBDS project is helping 
governments reform their tax and transfer programmes.

In Europe, much of a government’s activity is related to the 

welfare state – personal taxation, unemployment benefits, 
disability insurance, public pensions, etc. The effects of the 
welfare  state  are  more  complex  than  one  might  think.  For 
example, income taxes and the provision of benefits reduce the 
incentive for individuals to seek and retain employment. In other 
words, if one works, their income is taxed, but if they don’t work, 
they get benefits – so where’s the incentive for getting to work? 

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At the same time, the value of the welfare state to citizens 
is significant. After all, it is because of the welfare state that 
we can depend on financial assistance during old age. 

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
 
 
The challenge for European policymakers is to balance these 
costs  and  benefits,  which  is  exactly  what  the  EU-funded 
WSCWTBDS (The Welfare State in a Complex World Taxes 
and Benefits in a Diverse Society) project set out to do. ‘Our 
objective was to provide both theoretical and empirical evi-
dence on how the welfare state affects household behaviour 
and how governments should design tax and transfer pro-
grammes,’ says WSCWTBDS Lead Researcher Guy Laroque. 

The project’s theoretical work looked at how to design spe-
cific features of the welfare state, such as assessing entitle-
ments to benefits. ‘When implementing their redistributive 
objectives, governments almost always levy taxes and pro-
vide transfers that are deterministically conditioned on a set 
of household characteristics,’ explains Laroque. ‘What we 
wanted to know was if random transfers could improve out-
comes and provide the necessary conditions for the exist-
ence of socially-useful randomisations in entitlements.’ 

What Laroque found was for such a random-based transfer 
system to work, the potential beneficiaries must be less risk 
averse than the rest of the population. 

21

S O C I E T Y

The project developed a rich labour supply model to iden-
tify why individuals work the number of hours they do. This 
model separates the number of hours an individual would 
like to work from the number of hours that an employer 
allows them to work. ‘This model showed us that, for exam-
ple, women who are subject to constraints on the number 
of hours they can work are most likely to belong to signifi-
cantly poorer households than average and work shorter 
hours,’ explains Laroque. 

Researchers also discovered that an individual’s level of 
patience has an impact on their savings. ‘The more patient 
an  individual  is  the  more  likely  they  will  accumulate  a 
financial buffer to protect themselves against life’s risk,’ 
says Laroque. ‘This in turn has an impact on how the indi-
vidual will respond to certain aspects of government tax 
and transfer policies, and public policymakers need to keep 
this in mind when designing new programmes.’

Turning to the empirical side of the project, researchers tack-
led questions focused on understanding why individuals make 
the employment and savings decisions they do. ‘Knowing this 
can help us understand how an individual would respond to 
changes in tax and transfer policies,’ says Laroque. 

WSCWTBDS

  Hosted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies  

in the United Kingdom.

 Funded under FP7-IDEAS-ERC.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/98091

THE EFFECTS OF CHINESE INVESTMENT
An EU team has detailed the consequences of Chinese business investment in Europe. The study considered 
effects on the European economy as well as altered work practices in Chinese-owned European businesses.

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In  recent  years,  China  and  the  EU 

have developed many areas of coop-
including  substantial 
eration, 
research collaboration. The relation-
ship  also  involves  investment  by 
Chinese companies in EU businesses. 

The EU-funded CHEUFDI (China-EU FDI) 
project detailed and assessed Chinese 
investment activity in the EU. The study 
highlighted Chinese motivation factors, 
modalities and areas of concentration, 
plus  preferred  countries/regions.  The 

assessment examined the positive and 
negative impacts of such investment on 
the EU’s economy, growth strategies and 
recovery. The team also studied changed 
work practices in European companies 
acquired by Chinese firms. 

Partners  completed  mapping  exer-
cises concerning Chinese investments 
from  within  China.  They  surveyed 
companies  that  are  investing  in 
Europe  and  interviewed  individuals. 
Researchers then conducted a critical 
appraisal  of  the  results.  Additional 
investigations helped to identify secu-
rity  issues  in  Chinese  Foreign  direct 
investment (FDI) in Europe with regard 
to critical infrastructure and sensitive 
assets.  The  security  studies  focused 
on the previous five years, and com-
pared the European and American sit-
uations. However, the results will be 
made public at a later date. 

The  project  provided  graduate  and 
post-graduate students with opportu-
nities  for  training  and  research  in 
business  studies.  The  students  took 
part in both networking and dissemi-
nation activities. Case studies based 
on  project  findings  were  used  as 
teaching  materials  for  two  summer 
schools and for masters’ programmes 

at project partner institutions. Three 
students  have  entered  PhD  pro-
grammes in partner institutions. 

CHEUFDI  also  built  research  partner-
ships  within  the  broader  context  of 
EU-China  relations.  The  collaboration 
focused on analysis of economic policy 
and on the potential mutual benefits of 
cooperation. One of the project’s ambi-
tions was to launch an ongoing observa-
tory focused on Chinese FDIs in Europe. 

Results  of  the  CHEUFDI  project  will 
help reveal the nature and effect of 
Chinese  business  investment  in  the 
European economy. Such information 
will benefit business studies and can 
help policymakers interact with China 
in a more informed way.

CHEUFDI

  Coordinated by Coventry University  

in the United Kingdom. 
 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/104473

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
2222
22

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

E N E R G Y

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E N E R G Y

HOW TO INCREASE SUPPORT 
FOR NEW POWER LINES
Involving local residents and authorities is the way to facilitate building 
new power lines and make Europe’s electricity grid more efficient, say 
EU researchers.

Expanding the electricity grid is vital if Europe is to achieve 

a secure and sustainable supply of energy for the future, 
but building new power lines often faces strong opposi-
tion from the public. INSPIRE-GRID (Improved and eNhanced 
Stakeholders  Participation  In  Reinforcement  of  Electricity 
Grid), a multidisciplinary Italian-led project, has designed and 
tested ways of getting stakeholders, including local residents, 
more involved in the planning and approval process as the 
path to greater public support.

If the European Union is to meet its ambitious targets for a 
low-carbon  economy  by  2050,  it  needs  to  significantly 
increase the supply of renewable energy. But clean energy is 
not just a matter of putting up solar panels and wind tur-
bines, it also requires better transmission infrastructure to 
transport the extra power. 

Authorisation takes too long

‘Today, grid expansion in Europe is a very difficult and time-
consuming  matter:  often,  electricity  transmission  projects 
take 5-10 years to get authorised and proceed to construc-
tion,’ says Stefano Maran, INSPIRE-GRID project coordinator 
and research team leader at Ricerca Sul Sistema Energetico, 
a public research centre on energy based in Milan, Italy. ‘This 
situation is not compatible with the aim of massively and 
rapidly increasing the share of renewables,’ he adds.

A  lack  of  trust  between  stakeholders  and  Transmission 
System Operators (TSOs) is one factor. The complexity of 

comparing impact, usually local and immediate, with bene-
fits, usually global and deferred, is another.

Having better tools to manage the consultation process is 
part  of  the  solution,  the  INSPIRE-GRID  team  believes. 
Involving social scientists and engineers from academia as 
well as the national grid operators of France, Norway and the 
UK, INSPIRE-GRID researchers have developed a methodol-
ogy for effective communication with, and active participa-
tion by, stakeholders. It was tested in real-life case studies in 
rural Norway and suburban France during 2015 and 2016 
and adjustments were made accordingly. 

INSPIRE-GRID has now produced a comprehensive toolkit for 
guiding the power line consultation process. This includes a 
tool for mapping the concerns and needs of stakeholders, a 
decision tree for selecting the correct means for engaging 
people, a tool for considering different views and supporting 
decision making and an online geographical information sys-
tem which allows people to see and interpret data on pro-
posed infrastructures and express their preferences.

Interest from grid operators

This is complemented by publications for researchers, the 
general public and TSOs including a handbook on recommen-
dations for engaging stakeholders and three policy briefs for 
decision makers. INSPIRE-GRID’s closing conference on stake-
holder participation, held in Brussels in January 2017, gained 
positive  feedback  from  attendees.  ‘We  have  also  been 

  
 
 
 
23
E N E R G Y

contacted by various TSOs interested in implementing these 
ideas and tools,’ says Mr Maran. 

relationship  is  of  paramount  importance  in  building  trust 
between proposer and stakeholders,’ concludes Mr Maran.

He has some simple advice for national grid companies look-
ing to gain approval for a new power line. They should start 
their consultation activities much earlier in the planning pro-
cess – ‘it is not a good idea to come to people when the pro-
ject has already been defined and nothing can be changed,’ he 
says. The decision-making process should be traceable, trans-
parent and clearly state how the opinions of stakeholders will 
affect the final construction. Finally ‘choose a smart project 
manager, invest in his or her training on public engagement 
and do not replace him or her in the middle – the personal 

INSPIRE-GRID

  Coordinated by Ricerca Sul Sistema Energetico (RSE SPA)  

in Italy.

 Funded under FP7-ENERGY.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/109369
Project website:  

http://www.inspire-grid.eu/

  http://bit.ly/2yInwKw

ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY COLLABORATE  
OVER SUBSURFACE CO₂ STORAGE
European research teams from both universities and the private sector have joined forces to better understand the 
fate and impacts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) injection into the Earth’s subsurface during carbon storage activities.

Effective capture and storage of CO₂ 

from the atmosphere requires close 
collaboration  between  academia 
and industry. Academic institutions pos-
sess experimental and analytical exper-
tise in quantifying the rates and impacts 
of CO₂-rich fluid-solid interactions, while 
industry excels in applying this work to 
CO₂ injection in the subsurface.

The  EU-funded  project  CO2-REACT 
(Geologic  carbon  storage)  brought 
together six academic and six industrial 
research teams, conducting a series of 
interconnected  research  initiatives 
focused  on  characterising  the  rates  of 
reactions creating CO₂-bearing minerals. 

Consortium members worked together 
with  another  EU-funded  sister  project 
CARBFIX  to  develop  and  demonstrate 
how to capture and rapidly store CO₂ as 
a mineral formed in the subsurface. 

CO2-REACT combined observations of 
real rock cores with experiments explor-
ing mineral fluid interactions to predict 
the fate and impact of CO₂ once it was 
injected  into  the  subsurface.  Results 
were  tested  at  the  field  scale  at  the 
CARBFIX pilot site in Hellisheidi, Iceland 
and on limestone and chalk cores.

‘We  developed  new  technology  that 
accelerated carbonation of CO₂ in the 
subsurface by first dissolving the CO₂ 
gas into water and then injecting it into 
the subsurface,’ says project coordinator 
Dr Eric Oelkers.

‘This  had  two  advantages:  firstly,  
CO₂-charged water is denser than pure 
water, so it tends to sink. Secondly, the 
acidic  CO₂-charged  water  promotes 
reactions in the subsurface, specifically 
the dissolution of basalt, which in turn 

leads to the fixation of carbon as stable 
mineral phases,’ he explains.

Safe and cost efficient

Once it is made into a mineral the car-
bon  is  immobile  over  geologic  time 
frames, representing a safe, long-time 
solution for CO₂ storage. Furthermore, 
economic studies show that this would 
cost  in  the  order  of  USD  30-40  per 
ton, which is no more expensive than 
other less safe alternatives. 

‘Results demonstrate the rapid carbona-
tion  of  carbon  injected  into  reactive 
basalt at an industrial scale. The original 
injection was shown to fix over 90 % of 
the injected 170 tons of pure CO₂ as 
stable carbonate minerals in less than 
18 months,’ reports Dr Oelkers.

Researchers also developed and field 
tested novel gas membrane portable 
instruments for assessing the poten-
tial leakage of CO₂ through caprocks 
to the surface. The results were used 
to calibrate computer models of CO₂ 
transport to the subsurface. 

In  addition,  scientists  developed 
improved 2-dimensional reactive trans-
port  models  to  predict  the  long-term 
fate and consequences of the injection 
of CO₂ into typical subsurface aquifers. 
Both  models  will  help  to  ensure  the 
long-term safe storage of CO₂.

‘The technology developed during CO2-
REACT  provides  a  safe  alternative  for 
capturing and storing other acid gases, 
such as hydrogen sulphide, which may 
be a major application for our research,’ 
states Dr Oelkers.

The project trained 13 researchers in 
mineral synthesis, geothermal energy, 

chemical modelling and gas and radi-
oactive  waste  storage,  emphasising 
the  link  between  laboratory  experi-
ments and practical applications. This 
will help the next generation of scien-
tists in academia, industry and gov-
ernment to address the challenges of 
carbon storage.

Dr Oelkers concludes: ‘The wider aca-
demic community needs to understand 
the value of a strong collaboration with 
industry. Whereas academics can come 
up with and demonstrate ideas, it is only 
through industrial partners that one can 
upscale ideas to solve large problems.’

C02-REACT

  Coordinated by the Centre National  

de la Recherche Scientifique in France.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/105343

Project website:  

http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/co2react/

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E N E R G Y

WASTE IS A DIRTY WORD IN THE CIRCULAR 
ECONOMY
There is an urgent need for new thinking and practices when it comes to reducing the 
environmental load coming from industry, agriculture and communities, as continuing on the 
business-as-usual trajectory is widely recognised as unsustainable. An EU-funded project 
points a way forward not to be so wasteful with our waste.

Another criterion for selection was waste product preva-
lence in the participating countries. For example, in Morocco 
activated carbon was extracted from agricultural waste; as 
once processed the resulting microporosity increases the 
surface  area  available  for  adsorption  and  chemical 
reactions. 

Processing  highlighted  the  transnational  aspects  of  the 
project. As team member Doctor Satu Ojala recalls, ‘The 
Moroccan raw material was waste from olive and argan 
use. A Moroccan researcher first processed the raw mate-
rial in Morocco, then was seconded to Germany to apply 
hydrothermal carbonisation (HTC). After that he went to 
Finland  to  use  it  for  water  purification  and  successfully 
tested for the removal of herbicides, pharmaceuticals and 
endocrine disruptors.’

A catalyst for EU environmental efforts 

NO-WASTE consciously contributed towards EU strategies 
to make European energy more secure, affordable and sus-
tainable. Through the use of catalysts, the reaction rates 
required  in  certain  conversion  processes  were  improved 
and so the energy required was minimised. As catalysts are 
not  consumed  during  reactions  they  can  be  reused.  For 
example,  one  focus  was  on  hydrogen  production  from 
waste-based materials, which contributed directly to the 
development of alternative, low-emission fuels. As team 
member  Doctor  Nicolas  Bion  highlights,  ‘We  included 
research into the replacement of fossil fuels used in the 
metallurgical  industry  with  waste-based  energy,  using 
biogas to produce synthesis gas, which can then be used to 
reduce ore. This is an area we are continuing to explore.’ 

The  project  also  supported  EU  targets  to  reduce  green-
house gases. For example, by decreasing methane emis-
sions from coal mines in China, through catalytic oxidation. 
Catalytic oxidation was also used to abate Volatile organic 
compound (VOC) emissions. Avoiding the incineration of 
VOCs by using them instead as raw production materials, 
stops  the  formation  of  CO₂  emissions,  as  the  carbon  is 
retained within the chemical compound. 

Indeed, the team is currently pursuing the further utilisa-
tion  of  VOCs,  aiming  to  produce  valuable  chemicals  by 
developing catalytic materials that are: selective in formal-
dehyde production, sulphur-tolerant without losing activity 
and  able  to  function  in  diluted  conditions  and  at  low 
temperatures. 

NO-WASTE

 Coordinated by the University of Oulu in Finland.
 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/108159
Project website:  

http://www.no-waste.net/

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The  EU-funded  NO-WASTE  (Utilisation  of  Industrial 

By-products and Waste in Environmental Protection) 
project set out to explore and test new approaches 
that maximise renewable energy, while minimising waste 
and emissions. Catalysis played a vital role in achieving this 
aim, which worked specifically with hydrogen and synthe-
sis gas production from waste, utilisation of CO₂, organic 
gases and agricultural waste, and for the development of 
new products created by optimised hydrothermal carboni-
sation process. The project’s transnational network brought 
together multi-disciplinary experts from Finland, France, 
Germany, Brazil, Morocco and China. .

Materials selection for the sustainable use 
of natural resources

One of the key aims of the NO-WASTE project was to sup-
port efforts to develop the so-called circular economy. A 
prime example of this was the project’s efforts to utilise 
waste products as secondary raw materials. As the project 
coordinator Professor Riitta Keiski expounds: ‘One of the 
unique things about the project was that we did not limit 
waste to solid materials, as is traditionally the case, but 
also considered liquids and gases.’

The waste products were selected based on their potential 
for  sustainable  reuse.  A  sustainability  assessment  tool, 
along with supportive criteria developed in Finland, helped 
in the selection process. The qualitative method used was 
based  on  the  Green  Chemistry  Principles  to  guide  raw 
material selection in the early stages of process design, 
such as for adsorption material production.

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
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25

E N V I R O N M E N T

E N V I R O N M E N T

FOR SUCCESSFUL RIVER BASIN 
ADAPTATION PLANNING,  
JUST ADD STAKEHOLDERS
Responding to water challenges in the Mediterranean induced by climate 
change, the EU-funded BEWATER project developed sustainable water 
management plans by bridging the gap between science and society.

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The Mediterranean region faces increased water scarcity, and 

even drought, driven by changes in land use, demographics and 
the climate. If the region is to avoid the ensuing socioeconomic 
losses and environmental impacts, there is a pressing need for effec-
tive and sustainable water management practices.

The recently completed BEWATER (Making society an active par-
ticipant in water adaptation to global change) project recognised 
that  successful  adaptation  measures  require  efforts  that  go 
beyond raising public awareness. Therefore, BEWATER developed 
plans embedded with shared responsibility and active community 
participation. This shifted the focus from technocratic solutions to 
those that were stakeholder driven, drawing on local experience 
and knowledge. 

areas of expertise (agriculture, infrastructure, water, environment, 
energy, forest management), organisational affiliations (business 
and  economy;  government  and  public  authorities;  civil  society; 
practitioners) and gender. 

The participatory process included activities such as Fuzzy Cognitive 
Mapping for reference models capturing basin dynamics and Multi-
Criteria Analysis to prioritise proposals and implementation options. 
Participatory modelling tools and multi-criteria analysis were used 
to assess the impacts of the options and the stakeholder prefer-
ences. As Ms Sanchez puts it, ‘These methodologies were easy to 
work with for the stakeholders as they were active, with lots of 
hands-on work, so we successfully avoided one-directional science 
communication.’ 

Adaptation from the bottom-up

Ensuring sustainability 

BEWATER researchers worked with the project stakeholders to cre-
ate River Basin Adaptation Plans (RBAP) for the four selected case 
study locations: Tordera (Spain), Pedieos (Cyprus), Rmel (Tunisia) 
and Vipava (Slovenia). In total the group identified and formulated 
102 water management options. As the project coordinator Ms 
Anabel Sanchez recalls, ‘The stakeholders identified shared chal-
lenges, related to water quantity and quality. But owing to diver-
gent  environmental,  socio-economic  and  political  conditions, 
solutions differed. The Pedieos and Vipava basins had a preference 
for awareness campaigns and increased hydrological knowledge. 
The Tordera basin preferred ecosystem-based green options and 
prevention of water resources over-exploitation. Whereas the Rmel 
basin looked to improve infrastructure and new technologies or 
income generation activities.’

To  engage  participants,  BEWATER  adopted  the  Stakeholder 
Integrated Research (STIR) approach, specifically tailored to cli-
mate change adaptation. Guided by STIR, stakeholders for each 
river basin were identified using the Criteria-Quota-Individuals 
method, which ensured sufficient group diversity, in terms of their 

To ensure the retention and transfer of knowledge, BEWATER facili-
tated regular transnational meetings and events. Partners, along 
with key stakeholders from each basin, shared lessons learned, 
knowledge on water governance and management issues, as well 
as the challenges and success of overall project implementation. 
Additionally, the team compiled a freely available handbook that 
provides guidelines outlining the considerations and steps necessary 
to design a river basin adaptation plan using a scientific participa-
tory process.

In terms of the sustainability of the BEWATER adaptation plans, Ms 
Sanchez stresses that, ‘It was important to make the project rele-
vant to local policy development and to anchor the adaptation plan-
ning within ongoing political processes, fostering ownership and 
leadership amongst the decision makers responsible for implemen-
tation.’ The team have already participated as stakeholders in the 
evaluation of the EU Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and con-
tributed content to the Climate-Adapt platform. 

The involvement of a wide range of stakeholders from governmen-
tal and non-governmental organisations and from different sectors 

 
 
26

E N V I R O N M E N T

(water, agriculture, forestry, environment, urban planning, edu-
cation etc.) enabled the creation of a broad set of adaptation 
options, some of which are currently at the planning or imple-
mentation stage. Indeed, looking further afield Ms Sanchez sug-
gests that, ‘Results and guidance from BEWATER’s participatory 
approach may be useful for the development of wider environ-
mental policies, such as resource management, that benefit 
from  the  contribution  of  citizen  decision  making,  ultimately 
building more resilient territories.’

BEWATER

  Coordinated by the Centro de Investigacion Ecologica y 

Aplicaciones Forestales in Spain.

 Funded under FP7-SIS.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/111232
Project website:  

http://www.bewaterproject.eu/

  http://bit.ly/2gCWePv 

WARNING THAT A THREE DEGREE RISE IN 
TEMPERATURE WILL ‘CANCEL OUT’ EUROPEAN 
EMISSION REDUCTION EFFORTS
As a debilitating heat wave, nicknamed ‘Lucifer’ by the press, currently engulfs southern Europe, a new 
study part-supported by two EU-funded projects has warned that a rise in global temperatures of three 
degrees would reverse Europe’s dedicated efforts to reduce ozone pollution.

Despite  the  COP21  international 

agreement to reduce global warm-
ing  to  below  two  degrees,  the 
research  team  behind  the  study  pub-
lished  in  ‘Nature  Communications’  has 
warned that a global temperature rise of 
about three degrees is not only possible 
but  highly  likely  when  considering  the 
Intended  Nationally  Determined 
Contributions submitted for the COP21.

Specifically,  the  study  argues  that  if 
states  reduce  their  greenhouse  gas 
emissions  as  promised  at  COP21  in 
2015, the planet could warm by three 
degrees in 2050 compared to the pre-
industrial  era.  For  several  decades, 
European regulations to limit the emis-
sions of ozone have improved air qual-
ity and could theoretically continue to 
bear fruit by 2050. But climate change 
and, in parallel, continued ozone pollu-
tion  through  emissions  being  gener-
ated  in  other  regions  of  the  world 
would  tip  the  balance  against  such 
stringent European efforts. Indeed, for 
the  three  degrees  increase  scenario, 
climatologists predict that there would 
be an overall doubling by 2100 of the 
global concentration of methane.

Through numerical simulations using a 
cascade  of  models  of  atmospheric 
chemistry and climate, developed within 
the EU-funded ECLIPSE (Evaluating the 
Climate and Air Quality Impacts of Short-
Lived Pollutants) project (that ended in 
2015), the researchers have warned that 
in  this  scenario  European  efforts  to 
reduce ozone emissions would be effec-
tively cancelled out. They also argue that 
the greatest impact would be on indus-
trial  regions,  big  cities  and  southern 
Europe. With a rise in temperatures by 
three degrees instead of two, air quality 
would  clearly  degrade,  especially  in 
south-eastern Europe, where the health 

of  the  population  could  be  severely 
exposed  to  an  average  of  100  ozone 
exceedance days a year. The researchers 
warn  that  considering  the  adverse 
effects of even short-term exposure to 
daily  ozone  concentrations,  this  would 
strongly impact both human health, as 
well as vegetation.

To  overcome  these  obstacles,  the 
research team argues that if European 
air quality is to be improved, then there 
must be concerted global regulation on 
global methane emissions, which would 
provide positive effects on regional air 
quality but also benefit the fight against 
climate change. Moreover, it is important 
to note that these projections relate to a 
specific region and climate scenario, and 
the authors explain that different emis-
sion  or  temperature  trajectories  may 
alter the predicted ozone increases.

As well as being supported by the ECLIPSE 
project,  the  authors  also  acknowledge 
support  from  the  EU-funded  IMPACT2C 
(Quantifying projected impacts under 2°C 
warming) project, also officially ended in 
2015, which comprehensively mapped the 
effects of climate change on Europe from 
a two degree rise in global temperatures. 

Together,  both  projects  received  nearly 
EUR 9 million of EU funding.

With  southern  Europe  continuing  to 
bake in the ‘Lucifer’ heat wave and the 
recent release of another article that 
warns up to 150 000 people could be 
killed per year in Europe as a result of 
climate change, it is ever more obvious 
that  to  effectively  fight  growing  air 
pollution,  Europe  must  continue  to 
cooperate  and  encourage  its  global 
partners  to  also  take  effective  and 
decisive action against climate change 
as outlined in the COP21 agreement.

ECLIPSE / IMPACT2C

  ECLIPSE coordinated by the Norwegian 
Institute for Air Research in Norway.

  IMPACT2C coordinated by the 

Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Centre 
for Materials and Coastal Research  
in Germany.

 Funded under FP7-ENVIRONMENT.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/100410 (ECLIPSE)

http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/99957 (IMPACT2C)

Project website:  

http://eclipse.nilu.no/
http://impact2c.hzg.de/

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research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
TRACKING EUROPE’S WATER FOOTPRINT, 
IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL ECONOMIC 
VULNERABILITY

E N V I R O N M E N T

27

Climate  change  is  increasing  water 
scarcity around the world and the inter-
dependencies of global trade mean that 
the  impact  could  ripple  far  and  wide, 
including across Europe, as the EU-funded 
project IMPREX warns.

European  mitigation  and  adaptation  strategies  in 

response to the increase of high impact hydrological 
extremes rely on both improved forecasting coupled 
with an accurate quantification of the likely impact. Impact 
assessments need to look at a wide range of issues such 
as:  the  effect  on  citizen  safety;  agricultural  production; 
transportation; energy production; urban water supply, and 
ultimately, overall economic productivity. A recent study 
‘Dependencies of Europe’s economy on other parts of the 
world in terms of water resources’, carried out as part of 
the  IMPREX  (IMproving  PRedictions  and  management  of 
hydrological Extremes) project, contributes to the develop-
ment of a comprehensive risk assessment. 

Based on an analysis  of where  the goods  consumed by 
European citizens or used by businesses are produced, the 
IMPREX research finds that almost 40 % of the EU’s water 
demand  is  fulfilled  by  countries  outside  Europe. 
Furthermore, the study identifies that some European sta-
ples such as animal feed, rice and cotton, all come from 
regions experiencing increasing water scarcity, presenting 
a potential vulnerability for the European economy. 

Understanding demand, as well as supply

The basis for the study was the fact that commodities of 
international trade contain ‘virtual water’ embedded within 
them,  as  components  necessary  for  their  production. 
Therefore, combining knowledge about the source and flow 
of this virtual water, as it enters and leaves regions, can 
shed light on the water dependencies of economies. 

Perhaps  the  most  obvious  example  is  with  agriculture-
based products that are water-intensive, dependent upon 
water availability at various locations and stages in the 
production process. This makes the production vulnerable 
to threats such as fresh water pollution, droughts or river 
flow reductions. The IMPREX data mapped specific crops 
imported by Europe against their regions of origin, tracing 
instances  where  produce  comes  from  regions  facing 
degrees of water scarcity. Examples put forward are the 
import of cotton, rice and sugar cane from Australia and 
South Africa, both facing severe water scarcity. 

In order to calculate the ‘water footprint’ generated by the 
flow of the production and consumption of these commod-
ities,  IMPREX  looked  at  three  source  water  components 
referred to as green, blue and grey. The green water foot-
print represents precipitation water stored in soil and evap-
orated, transpired or incorporated by plants, relevant for 
agricultural, horticultural and forestry products. Blue water 
has been sourced from surface or groundwater resources 
and  has  either  evaporated,  been  incorporated  into  a 

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product or taken from one body of water to another, usu-
ally for irrigated agriculture, industry and domestic water 
use.  Grey  water  is  water  that  assimilates  pollutants  to 
maintain quality and safety standards. 

The IMPREX team were able to build a ‘Virtual Water Trade 
Model’ which correlates the annual global trade flows of 
major industrial products, crop products and livestock prod-
ucts to national production, for each of the green, blue and 
grey water footprints. The model covers the years 2006-
2013, the most recent years for which data is reliably avail-
able.  The  study  found  that  the  EU’s  production  and 
consumption water footprints for this period were respec-
tively, on average, 517 km3 and 600 km3 per year. 

Developing the vulnerability assessment 
framework

Commenting on the results of the study, Professor Bart van 
den Hurk, the IMPREX project coordinator has said, ‘Right 
now it is more like an alert.’ Indeed, the study forms the 
baseline for the project’s next stage, which is to assess the 
actual likely impacts, and so potential vulnerability, of dif-
ferent European economic sectors. 

IMPREX will ultimately support European governments, pol-
icy-makers and private companies with their sustainable 
development planning, integrating the influence of popula-
tion growth, increased demand for products and services, 
and climate change.

IMPREX

  Coordinated by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological 

Institute in the Netherlands.

 Funded under Horizon 2020-ENVIRONMENT.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/196811
Project website: 

http://www.imprex.eu/

  http://bit.ly/2y0cRHr

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
i

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research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

A Q U A T I C   R E S O U R C E S

A Q U A T I C   R E S O U R C E S

NEXT-GENERATION MARINE 
SENSORS TO PROTECT  
THE WORLD’S OCEANS
State-of-the-art marine sensors that are interoperable with existing 
ocean  observation  systems  have  been  developed  by  EU-funded 
scientists  to  monitor  the  state  of  our  seas  and  support  European 
environmental policies.

The marine environment plays a vital role in supporting life on 

earth through climate regulation and the absorption of car-
bon dioxide. It also supports economic activities, contributing 
to human prosperity, social wellbeing and quality of life. However, 
marine ecosystems are currently under threat from pollution, the 
impacts of climate change and the loss of biodiversity and habitat. 
Cost-effectiveness of sensing technologies is needed to monitor 
their condition. 

Major limitations to current sensing technology include their inabil-
ity to operate autonomously and the high cost of maintenance aris-
ing from the need for frequent servicing. These challenges can be 
addressed through the use of cost-effective sensors that operate 
autonomously,  reducing  maintenance  operations  and  human 
intervention.

The  EU-funded  COMMON  SENSE  (Cost-Effective  Sensors, 
Interoperable with International Existing Ocean Observing Systems, 
to meet EU Policies Requirements) project has designed, developed 
and tested prototypes of the next generation of in situ marine mon-
itoring sensors. According to technical coordinator Sergio Martinez: 
‘They will be used to increase the amount of available standardised 
data on eutrophication, heavy metal concentrations, microplastics 
and underwater noise, plus other parameters such as temperature 
pH and pCO₂.’ 

Such sensors represent a major step forward in marine data man-
agement by enhancing scientists’ ability to assess environmental 
conditions that affect the whole marine ecosystem. They will also 
help to protect marine life, mitigate the impacts of climate change 
and human activities and promote marine science research. Sensors 
have been deployed, tested and validated under a range of condi-
tions in the Arctic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, Baltic Sea and 
Norwegian Sea.

These sensors will be integrated into different marine platforms, sig-
nificantly reducing sampling and monitoring costs. They will also 
share data with both new and existing systems and will be compat-
ible with the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Global 
Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

The  initiative  will  also  contribute  to  the  implementation  of  the 
Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and other EU policies, 
such as the Common Fisheries Policy. Under the MFSD, Member 
States must assess the overall status of their marine environments 
and  put  in  place  the  necessary  measures  to  achieve  Good 
Environmental Status (GES) by 2020. 

Furthermore, the new generation of sensors will be able to share 
data. ‘The developed sensors are smart units able to operate as a 
standalone solution or managed by a data sensor platform. They 
include a processor unit for transducer management, a communica-
tion interface and data conversion, and can operate autonomously,’ 
says Sergio Martinez.

New, cost-effective sensors developed by COMMON SENSE will save 
millions of euros at the European scale, enabling in situ sample col-
lection and reducing the cost and resources needed for data collec-
tion. Thanks to the pre-processor inserted within sensors, real-time 
information can be interpreted and sent directly to the communica-
tions platform.

Increased availability of standardised in situ data and the temporal 
and geographic coverage of in situ marine sensors will enhance 
Europe’s contribution to the global monitoring of the oceans. They 
will also reduce the cost of the current data collection system and 
enhance the management of marine activities such as fisheries. 

Finally, the COMMON SENSE project is a template for partners from 
across the European Union to work together on important environ-
mental issues. Sergio Martinez concludes, ‘We have not only devel-
oped new technologies and solutions, but also brought them out of 
the lab to be deployed in real situations.’

COMMON SENSE

 Coordinated by the Acondicionamiento Tarrasense 

Association in Spain.

 Funded under FP7-ENVIRONMENT.
 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/110790
 Project website:  

http://www.commonsenseproject.eu/ 

 
 
A Q U A T I C   R E S O U R C E S

29

FISHING AROUND FOR SUSTAINABLE 
SOLUTIONS

Exploiting Europe’s fish supplies in a sustainable way needs cooperation from multiple 
agencies and sectors. The EU-funded COFASP project has brought stakeholders together 
to develop a research strategy for managing these vital marine resources.

How Europe deals with its fisheries and 

marine  environments  has  long 
been  a  sticky  problem.  Past 

overfishing had caused dramatic 
reductions  in  fish  stocks  and 
potential  damage  to  entire 
marine  ecosystems.  Since 
1995  Europe  has  had 
fishing  quotas,  with 
2015 seeing the total EU 
catch 7.0 % less than 10 
years earlier (5.1 million 
tonnes of fish). But the 
‘blue’ economy is impor-
tant – it represents 5.4 
million  jobs  and  gener-
ates  EUR  500  billion  a 
year.  It  needs  a  different 
approach  says  COFASP 
(Strengthening cooperation in 
European research on sustaina-
ble exploitation of marine resources 
in the seafood chains – ERANET) project 
coordinator,  Niels  Gøtke  from  the  Danish 
Agency for Research and Higher Education, ‘In the 
past we used to deal with Fisheries, Aquaculture and Sea 
Food Processing as separate challenges. In COFASP we have 
taken a holistic view, to seek effective and sustainable com-
mon solutions.’

COFASP sought to get all European organisations working 
together  across  the  Fisheries,  Aquaculture  and  Seafood 
Processing fields. Its 27 partners from 16 Member States, 
included primarily government ministries and funding bodies, 
but had broad interaction with research institutes, regional 
organisations, and industry. Three transnational funding calls 
led to 16 projects which are ongoing.

From synthesising its results, COFASP has created a Strategic 
Research Agenda for the future. The ambition is for European 
fisheries to become more efficient, selective and less destruc-
tive of habitats, leading to higher and more sustainable yields. 
This will also need a focus on bottlenecks in fish farming, such 
as breeding fast-growing species, and further automatisation 
in processing methods. 

‘The  COFASP  strategy  provides  a  scientific  and  evidence 
based underpinning of the latest plans to revise European 
fisheries policy through the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), 
especially with regards to the sustainability and future prof-
itability of these sectors,’ says Gøtke. He suggests the project 
will help European policymakers to optimise its financial sup-
port for the industry.

Case studies helped the consortium delve into the big chal-
lenges. One problem fisheries are facing is the discard ban – 
the  ban  on  returning  unwanted  catches  to  the  sea  which 
impacts the economics of fishing. A case study looked at 

ways of integrating multiple objectives in 
managing living resources to promote 
conservation  and  sustainability. 
Improving the farming of fish – 
aquaculture  –  was  another 
COFASP  focus.  A  case  study 
compared  European  farm-
ing of bass and bream with 
the  successful  North-
Atlantic salmon industry. 

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The  consumer  is  also  an 
important  part  of  the 
equation and a case study 
examined  the  route  from 
ocean to plate. ‘Traceability 
is crucial for consumers and 
industry. It has consequences 
for consumer health, sustain-
ability  as  well  as  helping  to 
reduce illegal imports from third 
countries,’ explains Gøtke. The case 
study showed there is consumer demand 
for high quality, safe and healthy seafood 
and industry is ready to respond to this with sup-

port from science. 

COFASP, which formally ended in January 2017, also initiated a 
foresight study to suggest future research focuses. ‘COFASP and 
the research it has coordinated have provided essential inputs to 
the industry and European policy makers. Together with other 
projects, this new knowledge will contribute to “blue growth”,’ 
says Gøtke. Blue growth is the strategy to support a sustainable 
growth in marine and maritime sectors using innovation. 

The  consortium  forged  strong  working  relationships 
between organisations and COFASP partners are exploring 
ways to continue collaborating through new projects in the 
years to come.

“The COFASP strategy provides a scientific 
and evidence based underpinning of the 
latest plans to revise European fisheries 
policy through the Common Fisheries 
Policy (CFP), especially with regards to the 
sustainability and future profitability of 
these sectors.”

COFASP

  Coordinated by the Styrelsen For Forskning Og Uddannelse  

in Denmark.

 Funded under FP7-KBBE.
 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/106875
Project website:  

http://www.cofasp.eu/

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
30

A Q U A T I C   R E S O U R C E S

A NATIONAL LABEL FOR SMALL-SCALE 
FISHERIES PRODUCTS – ONE WAY TO IMPROVE 
COMPETITIVENESS

How best to defend the rights of small-scale fishermen, ensure they receive fair pay and 
boost their competitiveness? The EU-funded SUCCESS project thinks one key step is to 
raise awareness and they are proposing to do so by labelling.

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Supply of produce for the seafood 

and  aquaculture  sectors  is  lim-
ited while demand is on the rise 
– surely a formula for quality opportu-
nities  for  any  seafood  related  busi-
nesses.  But  both  fisheries  and 
aquaculture companies are facing key 
challenges  which  currently  hinder 
them reaping the full benefits of sea-
food  markets  expansion,  and  even 
place their sustainability in question.

SUCCESS  (Strategic  Use  of  Com-
petitiveness towards Consolidating the 
Economic Sustainability of the European 
Seafood Sector) aims to increase demand 
for EU seafood by raising awareness of 
the benefits of European production. In 
their latest move, the project has just pub-
lished the latest in their suite of documen-
taries on their website. 

The  Small  Scale  Fisheries  Platform 
video, filmed in Brest, France, is called 
Fish & Changes. It showcases the work 
being done by a small-scale platform 
set up in 2013 to try and establish a 
national label for seafood and fisher-
ies  products.  It  celebrates  the  work 
done by the fishermen to invent new 
modes of operation. 

Its proposed label would give consumers 
the assurance that their fish was caught 
by a vessel under 12 metres long using 
passive  gear:  lines,  nets  or  pots.  The 
Platform knows that it needs to get its 
local fishermen on board, but they hope 
to initiate a snow-ball effect, with the 
benefit to both the fishermen and the 
market becoming clear. One clear benefit 
would be the label’s focus on the promo-
tion  of  less  well-known  species.  The 
Platform’s  manager  Ken  Kawahara  is 
aware of the barriers facing him, con-
vincing fellow small fisheries, the market 
and  the  consumer.  But  EU  support, 
through the SUCCESS project is helping 
him raise awareness of the benefit of 
such a system and giving his scheme a 
fighting chance of success.

The  project  is  part  of  the  EU’s  Blue 
Growth  Strategy,  and  is  designed  to 
develop  state-of-the-art  knowledge 
and results that are directly applicable 
to the production sectors and also the 
wider value chain. The outcomes will 
include scientific support to European 
seafood producers, and the production 
of a clear view of the current situation 
and future developments of the value 
chain. These videos are just some of 

“The Platform knows that it 
needs to get its local fishermen 
on board, but they hope to 
initiate a snow-ball effect, with 
the benefit to both the 
fishermen and the market 
becoming clear.”

the reliable, practical tools for planning 
and development of seafood products. 
All work done by the project will take 
global drivers of seafood supply and 
demand into account. Boom and bust 
cycles will be addressed and specific 
research  undertaken  to  avoid  such 
negative market-based impacts to the 
industry in the future.

SUCCESS

  Coordinated by the University  

of Bretagne Occidentale in France.

 Funded under H2020-FOOD.
  http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/193322

Project website:  

http://www.success-h2020.eu/
the-project/

  http://bit.ly/2larkPY

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

31

I N D U S T R Y

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LOOKING TO THE FUTURE 
THROUGH THE FIRST 
AUTONOMOUS ARTIFICIAL IRIS
The science of photonics continues to impact many areas of our lives from 
telecommunications to information processing, but the EU-funded PHOTOTUNE 
project recently highlighted its potential for medical applications, and the next 
generation of robotics.

Researchers  from  the  PHOTOTUNE  (Tunable  Photonic 

Structures  via  Photomechanical  Actuation)  project 
recently  published  a  study  in  the  Advanced  Materials 
journal,  which  announced  the  creation  of  an  artificial  iris 
which can react to light much as a human eye does. The 
study harnessed so-called photoalignment technology (also 
used in some contemporary mobile phone displays) in con-
junction with light-sensitive Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs 
or networks of polymer chains) to manufacture the iris. 

What makes the invention stand out is its ability to function more 
autonomously than previous efforts, as it does not rely on exter-
nal light detection systems or power sources. The head of the 
research group, Associate Professor Arri Priimägi elucidates, ‘An 
autonomous iris that can independently adjust its shape and the 
size of its aperture in response to the amount of incoming light is 
a new innovation in the field of light deformable materials.’ 

Exploring potential biomedical applications

The iris is a tissue in the eye which controls the amount of 
light that is let into the eye through alteration of the eye’s 
pupil size. Ensuring that the eye’s retina receives the right 
amount of light is key to enabling vision with any degree of 
high quality and definition. As Associate Professor Priimägi 
describes the new technology, ‘The artificial iris looks a little 
bit like a contact lens and its centre opens and closes accord-
ing to the amount of light that hits it.’

The  same  process  is  harnessed  by  camera  technology. 
However, cameras rely on a process that uses light detection 
systems to adjust the amount of incoming light, which then 
reaches the image sensors in digital cameras and film in ana-
logue versions, so producing high-quality pictures. 

The most obvious medical application of the technology is for the 
treatment of iris defects, but the researchers acknowledge that 
much work still lies ahead to fine-tune the technology before it 
is ready to be rolled out. As Associate Professor Priimägi further 
explains, ‘Our next goal is to make the iris function also in aque-
ous environments. Another important goal will be to increase the 
sensitivity of the device in order to make it react to smaller 
changes in the amount of incoming light. These developments 
will be the next steps towards possible biomedical applications.’

Photonics helping to herald the age  
of ‘soft robots’

More broadly, the PHOTOTUNE project was set up to develop a 
range of functional and stimuli-responsive materials based on pol-
ymers and liquid crystals, with particular focus on light-controllable 
systems. A specific area of interest for the researchers is the 
exploration of potential applications for so-called ‘soft robotics’. 

Earlier  this  year  the  team  published  a  study  in  the  Nature 
Communications journal about their advances in developing a 
light-activated polymer gripper. They have likened the functioning 
of this device to that of a Venus flytrap plant, as PHOTOTUNE uses 
its light-driven technology to achieve what they call ‘feedback-
type actuation’. This enabled the device to display autonomous 
object recognition, including the ability to make selections from 
amongst those objects based on pre-determined characteristics.

PHOTOTUNE

 Hosted by Tampere University of Technology in Finland.
 Funded under Horizon 2020-ERC.
 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/202565 

 
 
 
32

I N D U S T R Y

ASSESSING THE RISKS OF NANOMATERIALS 
ALONG THEIR LIFECYCLE, FOR PRODUCT  
AND PROCESS SAFETY BY DESIGN

They surround us, but how much do we really know about the risks from manufactured 
nanomaterials? The EU-funded SUN project set out to answer that question by tracking them 
along their lifecycles.

Despite  their  increasing  ubiquity, 

manufactured nanomaterials (MNs) 
could be posing a risk to both their 
producers  and  consumers.  Efforts  to 
quantify this risk have been chiefly con-
centrated on the synthesis, fabrication and 
production stage of the nanomaterial life-
cycle. However, once integrated within our 
products,  MNs  undergo  transformative 
chemical reactions, in addition to changes 
brought about by weathering and aging.

The knowledge gap about the physico-
chemical  properties  and  impacts  of  
MNs across their lifecycle inspired the 
formation  of  the  SUN  (Sustainable 
Nanotechnologies) project. As the pro-
ject coordinator Prof. Antonio Marcomini 
explains, ‘Before SUN, almost nothing 
was known about the quantity and iden-
tity  of  nanomaterials  released  from 
actual  products  used  by  workers  and 
consumers. This is especially true for the 
end-of-life  stage,  for  example  with 
incineration or landfilling.’

Developing decision support 
systems for risk 
management

SUN explored a balanced portfolio of 
both legacy and novel Nano-enabled 
products (NEPs), reflected in the three 
broad categories under investigation: 
firstly,  highly  studied  benchmark 
nanomaterials, for which the project 
would generate limited experimental 
data; secondly, less well-known nano-
materials with a history of use and of 
high  societal  relevance;  and  finally, 
innovative  nanomaterials  of  poten-
tially high commercial relevance, with 
no pre-existing data.

As  Dr  Danail  Hristozov,  the  Principal 
Investigator of SUN recalls of the meth-
odology, ‘For all the MNs, the complete 
value chain from synthesis through for-
mulation to use and disposal was cov-
ered by experiments and modelling. Our 
academic  and  industrial  partners 
assessed properties, release, exposure, 
hazards and risks. These products were 
of  industrial  quality  and  were  derived 

from pilot lines, actual production lines 
or batch control labs.’

The work resulted in the risk manage-
ment SUNDS software system. SUNDS 
estimates occupational, consumer and 
environmental risks from MNs, along 
their lifecycles in real industrial prod-
ucts, proposing suitable risk mitigation 
measures, such as engineering controls 
or personal protective equipment. Built 
in  a  modular  fashion,  SUNDS  also 
includes  a  Risk  Control  (RC)  module 
which can set acceptable risk thresh-
olds  or  investigate  viable  substance 
alternatives. If the risks are not ade-
quately  controlled  but  no  substance 
alternatives identified, a Socioeconomic 
Analysis  (SEA)  module  can  demon-
strate  the  costs/benefits  of  the  MN 
under investigation. 

The system can also be used at two lev-
els of complexity. Firstly, the NanoSCAN 
tool developed within the LICARA project 
can  check  supplier  risks,  competing 
products  and  market  opportunities  or 
perform risk/benefit analysis, and is tar-
geted  at  SMEs  for  regulatory  safety 
assessments  and  product  innovation 
decisions,  reducing  R&D&I  costs.  The 
second  level  performs  quantitative 
(deterministic  or  probabilistic)  risk 
assessment of MNs along the lifecycle 
of  NEPs  and  is  intended  mainly  for 
industry and regulatory bodies. 

As  Dr  Hristozov  summarises,  ‘Using 
SUNDS  will  reduce  uncertainty  in  the 
early stages of innovation and improve 
risk communication, with increased trust 
in responsible innovation leading to a 
more  positive  market  and  more  con-
vincing business cases.’

Getting regulations and 
market confidence up to 
speed

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helped  with  the  OECD  Technical 
Guidance (TG) document on multigener-
ational  tests  with  enchtraeids  (small 
worms), forming the basis for long-term 
toxicity tests covering epigenetic effects. 

A  critical  challenge  for  nanosafety  is 
assessing  risk  across  the  diversity  of 
MNs ranging in size, morphology, purity 
and  surface  coating,  with  different  
nanoforms  of  the  same  substance 
exhibiting  different  release/exposure, 
toxicokinetic and/or hazard profiles. To 
avoid  the  current  approach  of  costly 
case-by-case assessments, the team is 
exploring Intelligent Testing Strategies 
(ITS)  which  work  through  predictive 
modelling tools. According to Prof. Vicki 
Stone, the coordinator of the recently 
funded GRACIOUS project as a follow up 
to  SUN,  these  have  the  potential  to, 
‘Shift the paradigm away from risk con-
trol  to  safety-by-design,  one  of  the 
most effective forms of risk prevention, 
by designing out undesired material and 
process  characteristics  in  the  early 
stages of product development, while 
retaining high product quality.’

SUN’s MN work has already contrib-
uted directly to meeting the risk con-
trol  measures  requested  by  the  EU’s 
REACH  Chemical  Safety  Assessment. 
The team have also helped develop and 
improve standardisation activities, such 
as  OECD  and  ISO.  For  example,  SUN 

SUN

  Coordinated by Ca’ Foscari University 

of Venice in Italy.

 Funded under FP7-NMP.
  http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/110420

Project website:  

http://www.sun-fp7.eu/

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
33

I N D U S T R Y

NANOTECHNOLOGY ENTERS THE REALM  
OF SUPERCONDUCTORS

EU-funded researchers succeeded in substantially increasing the current that thin, 
high-temperature superconductor films can conduct without loss in lengths suitable 
for commercial use. Results can change the way energy is produced and transmitted, 
enabling for example lossless power grids or motors and generators, and can produce 
extremely powerful magnets.

First discovered in 1911, superconductivity is a property 

of some materials that conducts electricity with very low 
power losses below a certain temperature. Unlike famil-
iar conductors such as copper where part of the energy is 
lost as heat – which increases with the distance the charge 
travels – superconducting materials can carry immense cur-
rents without generating friction or heat losses, introducing 
a real solution to transmitting energy efficiently.

However,  commercially  available  superconductors  currently 
work at very low temperatures, requiring expensive helium, and 
so the main applications up to now have been in powerful mag-
nets. New superconductors that can work at higher tempera-
tures help decrease cost by eliminating the need for costly or 
complex cooling to maintain them, or also work at liquid helium 
and generate ultra-high magnetic fields. Unfortunately, they are 
too brittle for normal wire forming processes.

Within the EU-funded EUROTAPES (European development 
of superconducting tapes: Integrating novel materials and 
architectures into cost effective processes for power appli-
cations and magnets) project, researchers introduced inno-
vative methods to create thin, superconductor films with a 
superconducting  transition  temperature  of  up  to  92 K  
(– 181 °C) that can efficiently transport current.

The project team inserted nanoparticles as small as 4 nm 
in size in the matrix of the epitaxial YBa₂Cu₃O₇ (YBCO) thin 
films produced by combining different deposition methods 
such as Pulsed Laser Deposition and chemical solution dep-
osition (Ink Jet Printing) to get the best of both worlds. The 
tiny particles served to considerably increase the maximum 
current that superconductors can transport without losses, 
even under very high magnetic fields.

Project activities targeted three different applications requir-
ing testing conductors in varying magnetic field and tempera-
ture  ranges  to  optimise  performance,  a  key  challenge. 

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Specifically, researchers successfully developed: nanocom-
posite superconducting tapes, and demonstrated good perfor-
mances under ultra-high magnetic fields (exceeding 20 T) at 
low  temperatures  (4  K)  using  liquid  helium  as  a  coolant; 
motors and generators in high magnetic fields (3-5 T) refrig-
erated with cryocoolers at 30-50 K; and lastly, cables and fault 
current limiters at low magnetic fields (below 1 T) at relatively 
higher temperatures (65-77 K) using liquid nitrogen.

Although liquid helium is expensive, it is currently the cool-
ant for most superconductors used as magnets. The new 
superconducting tapes proved to have high performance 
under ultra-high magnetic fields and so they can be used 
to build a new generation of powerful magnets.

New low-cost methods

Despite the fact that high-performance superconductors can 
totally revolutionise our energy systems, the largest obsta-
cle  to  their  implementation  is  the  cost  of  production. 
EUROTAPES  delivered  a  600-m-long  production  unit  of 
superconducting tape, further decreasing the EUR/kA ratio by 
using new methods and materials for their fabrication.

In  addition  to  Pulsed  Laser  Deposition,  researchers  also 
experimented with a chemical solution deposition technique 
to  more  easily  process  the  YBCO  thin  films.  The  method 
involved suspending nanoparticles to form colloidal solution 
inks and then printing them on top of a metallic substrate to 
produce the tape. A key part of the technique involved con-
trolling the structure and stability of the created colloidal 
inks. ‘Retaining the single crystalline structure of the multi-
layered tape in hundreds of metres lengths was a major 
challenge  that  has  been  successfully  addressed  by 
EUROTAPES,’ says Project Coordinator Xavier Obradors.

‘To further increase the amount of current that the tape con-
ducts, the epitaxial conductors integrated nanometric non-
superconducting materials in addition to superconducting 
materials that modified the film structure,’ Obradors adds.

Nanocomposite materials, particularly thin films and coat-
ings, have a very broad industrial interest for many appli-
cations,  and  several  methodologies  developed  within 
EUROTAPES can be transferred easily to other areas. Typical 
applications where large-area or long-length nanocoatings 
are required include solar cells, electrochromic windows, 
fuels cells and batteries.

EUROTAPES

  Coordinated by the Spanish National Research Council  

in Spain.

 Funded under FP7-NMP.
 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/104063
Project website:  

http://eurotapes.eu/

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
34

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017
I N D U S T R Y

NEW TECHNIQUE TO DELIVER ENVIRONMENT-
FRIENDLY AND INNOVATIVE COATING 
FOR COMPOSITE PARTS

An EU initiative has introduced a manufacturing process that uses powder gel coats 
for composite parts in the automotive and transport industries.

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l

Composites  for  the  transport  and 

automotive  sectors  must  meet 
weight,  cost  and  production  rate 
requirements.  Traditional  composites 
used  in  the  automotive  industry  have 
typically utilised high-cost technology for 
autoclave curing or sheet moulding com-
pound.  Using  Resin  transfer  moulding 
(RTM) can provide optimal efficiency in 
terms of cost and production rates, while 
maintaining  the  same  level  of  perfor-
mance and quality. 

The EU-funded ECOGEL CRONOS (High 
productivity  manufacturing  process  of 
composite parts based on zero emissions 
fast curing coatings and heated moulds) 
project  developed  an  RTM  method  by 
using powder gel coats. In addition, it also 
developed new moulding technologies. 

To develop the powder gel coat, project 
partners first had to formulate a powder 
resin  system.  They  prepared  different 
resin  modifications  to  improve  powder 
gel coat adhesion to various resins, to 
develop conductive gel coats for mould 
construction and to improve the thermal 
resistance  of  epoxy  resins  used  in  the 
manufacture of hot skins. Preforms were 

utilised  during  the  manufacturing 
process. 

The ECOGEL CRONOS team assessed the 
influence of preforms in cycle time reduc-
tion. It determined that this contributes to 
drastically reducing cycle time through 
automation procedures. 

Researchers  employed  simulation  pro-
grammes  to  determine  RTM  mould 
design and electrical thresholds in con-
ductive  powder  gel  coat  formulation. 
They obtained non-conductive and con-
ductive  powder  gel  coat  formulations, 
and used electrically heated technology 
to manufacture demonstrator moulds. 

The electrically conductive hot skin mould 
technologies  are  based  on  laminates 
made of carbon-fibre plastics for mass 
production parts specifically for agricul-
tural equipment and goods transport. 

Lastly, a life-cycle assessment of powder 
gel coat was performed. 

ECOGEL CRONOS powder gel coats pro-
vide significant benefits to RTM produc-
tion plants in terms of costs, safety, the 
environment  and  process  flexibility. 
Curing  time  is  significantly  reduced 

“ECOGEL CRONOS powder gel 
coats provide significant 
benefits to RTM production 
plants in terms of costs, 
safety, the environment and 
process flexibility.”

compared  to  conventional  liquid  gel 
coats. Opting for non-conductive pow-
der  gel  coats  over  their  traditional 
alternatives could reduce the emissions 
of potentially harmful vapours known 
as  volatile  organic  compounds  by  a  
factor  of  30.  This  will  also  eliminate 
styrene  emissions  arising  from  gel 
coats in the workplace.

ECOGEL CRONOS

  Coordinated by AIMPLAS: Plastics and 

Technology Centre in Spain.

 Funded under FP7-NMP.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/108908

Project website:  

http://www.ecogelcronos.eu/

 
 
 
I N F O R M A T I O N   A N D   C O M M U N I C A T I O N   T E C H N O L O G I E S

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

35

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I N F O R M A T I O N   A N D   C O M M U N I C A T I O N   T E C H N O L O G I E S

EMERGENT BEHAVIOUR  
FROM COLLECTIVE SYSTEMS 
UNDERPINS THE SUCCESS  
OF ‘SMART NETWORKS’
‘Smart networks’ depend on an understanding of both the workings of 
individual components, as well as interactions across the system. The 
EU-funded  QUANTICOL  project  has  contributed  by  developing  a 
descriptive language for these systems, building on recent breakthroughs 
in the field of Formal Methods.

Smart cities rely on increased digital connectivity through 

technologies such as the Internet of Things, with its net-
works of wireless sensors. These systems are shaped by 
small distributed computational elements, as opposed to large 
centralised computing solutions. Yet these individual elements 
evidence adaptive behaviour, not only shaped by the system 
but in turn shaping it. Alongside the potential for joined-up 
activity, this arrangement also poses considerable design and 
operational challenges, such as elements competing for shared 
resources despite collaborating to reach common goals.

To overcome these challenges, the EU-funded QUANTICOL (A 
Quantitative Approach to Management and Design of Collective 
and Adaptive Behaviours) project used a descriptive paradigm, 
known as the Collective adaptive system (CAS), to enable system 
modelling across time and space. The CAS framework captured 
both the behaviour of individual components, as well as emergent 
behaviour from system interaction. These models predicted pos-
sible user-interaction outcomes, particularly focusing on criteria 
such as timeliness and appropriateness of system response.

Harnessing adaptive systems for improved 
end-user experience

QUANTICOL focused especially on the resource management 
challenges of smart urban transport and smart grid systems. 
Explaining how the approach works in practice, the project coor-
dinator Professor Jane Hillston says, ‘Take bike sharing systems; 
we know that it is not good for a pick-up station to be wholly full 
or empty. So by using modelling to track system components 
and interactions, we can help the underlying IT systems antici-
pate demand and improve its response, such as by capacity 
planning.’ 

Explaining how the modelling depended on first finding a specifi-
cation language capable of accurately describing the system, Prof. 

Hillston recalls, ‘The language we used belonged to a family of 
formal languages called stochastic process algebras. We then 
used established rules for constructing mathematical representa-
tions from the system descriptions, known to be amenable to var-
ious analysis techniques.’ The team were especially interested in 
mathematical structures which facilitated ‘continuous approxima-
tion’ analysis, as this delivers accurate results for very large sys-
tems, but with reduced computational demand.

Once modelling requirements had been constructed the team 
used automated analysis techniques to test hypotheses applied 
to use scenarios. The large number of components involved, and 
their spatially distributed nature, made the analysis computation-
ally  challenging.  As  Prof.  Hillston  summarises,  ‘QUANTICOL’s 
major contribution was to develop analysis techniques which 
allow the behaviour of substantial systems to be predicted within 
a reasonable timeframe, sometimes even in real-time. This was 
a significant improvement over the state of the art at the start of 
the project, offering the prospect of real-time monitoring and 
planning.’ QUANTICOL also succeeded in extending the class of 
models to which continuous approximation can be applied, while 
improving approximation data accuracy.

Taking language skills to the next level

Much hope has been placed at the door of smart IT systems for 
the delivery of products and services that help tackle global chal-
lenges like climate change, while also enabling a more sustaina-
ble and efficient way of life. But as Prof. Hillston contends, ‘As IT 
systems become ever more pervasive, through being embedded 
in our physical environment, they also become somehow more 
transparent, as users depend on them. It is crucial that those who 
develop and deploy such systems have tools available to assess 
their  behaviour  before,  during  and  after  they  are  put  into 
operation.’ 

 
 
36

I N F O R M A T I O N   A N D   C O M M U N I C A T I O N   T E C H N O L O G I E S

To take the work forward, the QUANTICOL team is continuing to 
seek novel ways of combining formal languages and logics with 
sophisticated mathematical models, so that designers and sys-
tem operators who are not necessarily trained in the required 
fields, can nevertheless take advantage of the results. The team 
is also extending modelling to systems and applications that 
could benefit from fluid approximation approaches. As well as 
applying their CAS techniques to more familiar systems such as 
data propagation protocols in peer-to-peer networks and epide-
miological models, the team is exploring new classes of systems. 
For example, they have explored the behaviour and interaction 
between subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to better 
understand their consequences for food security.

QUANTICOL  was  officially  funded  through  the  European 
Commission’s  Future  and  Emerging  Technologies  (FET) 
programme.

QUANTICOL

  Coordinated by the University of Edinburgh in  

the United Kingdom.
 Funded under FP7-ICT.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/106237 
Project website:  

http://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/quanticol/

ADVANCED DIGITAL PRINTING TECHNOLOGY  
BRINGS SMART FABRICS TO LIFE
Having the ability to simulate and transform everyday fabrics into interactive smart fabrics is becoming 
highly sought-after technology. The EU-funded CREATIF project has developed printing tools and software 
able to create bespoke smart fabrics.

Ever  wondered  how  and  when  it 

would be possible to play a fabric 
piano or fabric drum kit at home 
with  all  the  functions  and  noises  of 
real-size instruments? 

Dr  John  Tudor  from  the  University  of 
Southampton and project coordinator of 
the CREATIF (Digital creative tools for dig-
ital printing of smart fabrics) project, set 
his sights firmly on making such ideas 
possible by further developing the tech-
nology  and  software  needed  to  print 
smart functions on fabrics based on the 
results of the previous EU-funded project, 
MICROFLEX.  ‘Towards  the  end  of 
MICROFLEX it became clear that the cre-
ative and cultural industries were of sig-
nificant economic importance to the EU 
and that smart fabrics had the potential 
to be widely used in these industries. The 
CREATIF  project  offered  the  chance  to 
further develop the printing technology 
as well as the software to allow the crea-
tive  and  cultural  industries  to  design 
smart fabrics without requiring detailed 
technical knowledge,’ shares Dr Tudor.

The software’s productions

The  research  team  combined  Abode 
Illustrator  features  with  their  tailored 
CREATIF software. This intricate software 
was able to collaboratively design, lay-
out, visualise and simulate smart fabrics 
which could then be printed remotely by 
means  of  a  direct-write  printer.  As  a 
result, light and sound emission, colour 
change and proximity sensing could be 
produced  in  novel  printed  fabric  key-
boards, pianos, speakers and intricately 
curved shapes for the light emission. 

Thanks to an impressive consortium bring-
ing together a mix of expertise – a design 

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software developer (Grafixoft), a univer-
sity specialised in fabric machine design 
(University of Aachen), a university with 
world leading expertise in creating smart 
fabrics  by  printing  (University  of 
Southampton),  a  creative  design  SME 
(Diffus Design), an SME active in design-
led building structures and architecture 
(Base  Structures),  a  large  company 
active in architecture and creative design 
(Zaha Hadid) and an SME specialised in 
advanced inkjet printers (Ardeje) – the 
CREATIF project was able to successfully 
create, write and print interactive designs 
using the software from start to finish. 
‘The  most  important  technical  results 
were the new printers which we built and 
demonstrated as well as the software 
which enabled the design of smart fab-
rics without the need for detailed techni-
cal knowledge,’ stresses Dr Tudor. 

However this project was of course not 
without its challenges and problems. ‘The 
main  challenges  were  printing  on  the 
rough surface of the fabric and developing 
a  new  printing  technology  which  can 
directly write the smart functions on the 
fabric  without  needing  extra  tooling, 
such as the screens required in screen 

printing technology. A further challenge 
was to make the software as easy to 
use as possible and to make it compat-
ible with the existing design software 
used  by  the  Creative  and  Cultural 
Industries,’ underlines Dr Tudor. 

Thankfully the software overcame such 
hurdles  and  the  new  CREATIF  printers 
allowed the design of smart fabrics with-
out the need for complex technology. 

Next steps

The project officially ended in March 2017 
and  the  team  now  intends  to  further 
develop the CREATIF printing technology 
and emerging smart textiles in collabora-
tion with partners from within the Creative 
and Cultural Industries. Watch this space.

CREATIF

  Coordinated by the University of 

Southampton in the United Kingdom.

 Funded under FP7-ICT
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/110455
Project website: 

http://www.creatif.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

  http://bit.ly/2xZ5sNz

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
I N F O R M A T I O N   A N D   C O M M U N I C A T I O N   T E C H N O L O G I E S

37

ICT THAT ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO SAVE WATER

EU  researchers  have  developed  ICT-enabled  systems  that  encourage  people  and 
organisations to reduce and optimise their use of water.

Water is a valuable resource but we do not treat it 

as such. Our infrastructures, business models and 
behaviour reflect this disconnect; it is estimated up 
to 40 % of Europe’s cleaned water is wasted. ICT-enabled 
water systems can do much to change this scenario say 
researchers from the EU-funded WATERNOMICS (ICT for 
Water Resource Management) project. 

‘We wanted to investigate how ICT can be used to increase 
people’s awareness of how they use water,’ says Edward Curry, 
project coordinator and informatics lecturer at the National 
University in Ireland Galway (NUIG). ‘The hope was that ICT can 
change behaviour and optimise the use of water.’ 

The team developed a methodology providing a systematic 
way  of  putting  together  ICT-enabled  water  management 
systems. It used new Internet of Things sensors and water 
meters to provide new water data services for leak and fault 
detection as well as ways of engaging end-users. Crafted 
together in the WATERNOMICS information platform, it can 
be integrated into existing systems or used in new ones. 

Putting the platform to the test in homes, an airport and 
education buildings produced interesting results.

Big savings

At Milan’s Linate Airport, the WATERNOMICS platform was 
used  for  three  months  following  a  nine-month  control 
period. ‘We found significant water-saving opportunities, in 
one  building  it  was  27 000  m³,  the  equivalent  of  
EUR 37 400 in terms of the cost of buying and pumping the 
water,’ says Dr Curry. ‘This is a combination of identifying 
the leaks and increasing awareness of usage.’ Airport man-
agers SEA have kept the installation and are considering 
installing another at nearby Malpensa.

Ten households in the Greek town of Thermi participated in 
the second pilot. As well as tracking their consumption, the 
applications allowed participants to compare it to that of 
their peers – this kind of social benchmarking can provide 
strong motivation for changing habits.

The third pilot involved installing the platform at NUIG’s 
engineering  building  and  a  secondary  school  in  Galway, 
Ireland.  Both  buildings  were  brand  new  and  contained 
state-of-the-art smart technology, but the WATERNOMICS 
team discovered significant water wastage costing around 
EUR  60 000  a  year.  ‘Without  this,  maybe  nothing  would 
have been done for years,’ says Dr Curry, ‘unless you ana-
lyse the data and bring it to the attention of someone who 
can fix it, nothing happens.’

Each pilot targeted two types of people, those who manage 
the water system and those who use it, and called for dif-
fering approaches. A large dashboard installed in the build-
ing’s  foyer  provided  plenty  of  technical  data  for  the 
engineering students. At the school, a more interactive and 
playful approach was needed.

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“We found significant water-
saving opportunities, in one 
building it was 27 000 m³, the 
equivalent of EUR 37 400 in 
terms of the cost of buying 
and pumping the water.”

Different motivations

Understanding  people’s  motivations  was  important.  ‘In 
Thermi parents were interested in bills because they have to 
pay them, teenagers were not,’ says Dr Curry. People’s rela-
tionships with the place also count – passengers may just 
glance at a dashboard as they move through an airport, but 
management staff tend to have an intimate relationship 
with the building and are more interested in how it is run.

WATERNOMICS  commercial  partners  R2M,  Ultra4  and 
BM-Change are now considering how to use the platform in 
their commercial offerings, while VTECH has started a spin-
off to use WATERNOMICS technologies in an Internet of 
Things platform. NUIG is keeping its installation as part of 
its  overall  drive  for  sustainability  and  a  local  council  in 
Ireland  is  interested  in  using  WATERNOMICS  to  manage 
water in municipal buildings.

WATERNOMICS

  Coordinated by the National University of Ireland,  

Galway, in Ireland.
 Funded under FP7-ICT.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/189129
Project website:  

http://waternomics.eu/

  http://bit.ly/2yCIQSj

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
38

I N F O R M A T I O N   A N D   C O M M U N I C A T I O N   T E C H N O L O G I E S

ARE WE JUST A CLICK AWAY FROM THE AGE  
OF ‘ENRICHED REPORTING’?

Amidst debates across the media about ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, does the 
EU-funded INJECT project offer journalists a solution to the challenge of meeting 24/7 
demand for original content, while retaining accuracy?

The  ambition  of  the  INJECT 

(Innovative Journalism: Enhanced 
Creativity  Tools)  project  is  to 
enhance  journalistic  creativity  while 
improving workflow within busy news-
rooms. At the heart of the project is the 
use  of  a  digital  toolkit,  now  being 
piloted. The toolkit has been developed 
since the project’s inception six months 
ago, with the help of journalists who 
have provided the necessary feedback 
for iterations of the technology. 

Now the testing will go a step further 
as  the  toolkit  reaches  real  working 
conditions.  The  pilot  is  taking  place 
within the teams of three Norwegian 
local newspapers based in Hordaland, 
Sunnhordland and Hallingdølen, with 
plans to extend the number and type 
of  journalists  that  participate  in  the 
testing. The team is investigating the 
effectiveness of the tool’s algorithms 
and  the  degree  to  which  it  actually 
adds value to journalists’ output. 

Igniting the creative spark

INJECT  took  its  motivation  from  the 
increasing  pressures  experienced  by 
newsrooms  to  produce  fresh  and 
engaging content on a 24/7 news cycle, 
with reduced resources but against a 
backdrop  of  increased  competition. 
These challenges are also set against 
a context in which the accountability 
for the accuracy of facts is increasingly 
at a premium. 

Crucially, INJECT was designed to be 
more than simply a search engine as it 
works  from  an  algorithm  developed 
specifically to help journalists not only 
find  information,  but  also  explore 
options for crafting a story’s angle. One 
way it does this is by offering what the 
project refers to as ‘Creative Sparks’, 
which appear when a journalist hovers 
their mouse over keywords. These are 
suggested  approaches  for  writing  a 
story, such as those emanating from 
background information about the indi-
viduals or places involved in the story. 
The toolkit will also offer explanatory 
and interactive fact cards or footnotes, 
which help journalists build their article 
with clear references. 

Going with the (work)flow

INJECT  uses  techniques  developed  by 
studies into human computer interaction 
and artificial intelligence, such as Natural 
language  processing  (NLP),  enabling 
reporters to research widely and quickly 
across  multiple  databases,  delivering 
fresh  sources  and  data.  The  toolkit  is 
designed to be plugged directly into con-
tent management systems and includes 
functionality that will provide users with 
dashboards,  allowing  more  effective 
management of information. For exam-
ple, work displays will avoid the need to 
constantly switch between documents or 
browser tabs, when writing an article. 

Speaking  about  INJECT’s  innovative 
approach, Professor of Journalism George 
Brock at City, University of London, has 
said, ‘INJECT aims to do something which 
no other software for journalism attempts: 
to  combine  creative  search  techniques 
and ways of telling the reader more about 
background and sources. And this help is 
easy to use and fast.’

The  tool  is  currently  able  to  run  on 
Google Docs, WordPress, as a TinyMCE 
plug-in, and as a standalone web ver-
sion. It is capable of searching 1.5 million 
news sources, in English, Norwegian and 
Dutch.  It  is  also  extendable  to  news 
organisations’ own archives. Indeed, the 
Norwegian archives are currently inte-
grated, enabling the local newspapers in 
the pilot to search through sources in 
their own language. 

“INJECT aims to do something 
which no other software for 
journalism attempts: to 
combine creative search 
techniques and ways of 
telling the reader more about 
background and sources.  
And this help is easy to use 
and fast.”

It is expected that the tool will be fully 
operational  in  the  Norwegian  news-
rooms this autumn. Pending the out-
come of the current pilot phase it will 
also be rolled out more widely around 
this time. The plan is for the tool to be 
made available across newsrooms in 
multiple  European  countries,  during 
the summer of 2018.

INJECT

  Coordinated by City, University  

of London in the United Kingdom.
 Funded under Horizon 2020-LEIT-ICT.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/206183

Project website:  

https://injectproject.eu/

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research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
I N F O R M A T I O N   A N D   C O M M U N I C A T I O N   T E C H N O L O G I E S

39

MY TEACHER IS A ROBOT

EU-funded scientists have developed a robot that can assist teachers and may replace 
them in the classroom for certain tasks.

“We developed validated virtual reality 
and augmented reality protocols to 
provide additional teaching content – to 
explain, to question and to be a tool the 
robot can use to teach.”

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Scientists working on the EASEL (Expressive Agents for 

Symbiotic Education and Learning) project have devel-
oped autonomous robots that can carry out teaching 
tasks. ‘If society is not willing to invest in putting enough 
humans in front of classrooms to get a high level of individ-
ualised teaching that caters to the different ways a child 
learns, the only answer is technology,’ says project coordina-
tor Paul Verschure, professor of cognitive science and neu-
rorobotics at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain.

The team of almost 20 researchers developed ‘an inte-
grated control system for a robot-based tutoring system 
and we can now deploy it in classrooms,’ says Professor 
Verschure. The robot can read, respond to the behaviour 
and emotional state of the learner and adapt its responses. 
‘This is unique because the robot is autonomous. It learns 
from the learner,’ he says. 

Communicating like a teacher

The challenge of the three-year project was not just to build 
a robot that children could accept as a teaching assistant. 
‘The robot has to tune its communication so the learner can 
deal with it, only then can it exchange the knowledge that 
you  build  into  the  teaching  system,’  says  Professor 
Verschure, adding there is little point in a robot giving les-
sons if it does not engage its pupils.

But what sets the EASEL robot apart is that its teaching sys-
tem is grounded in scientific theories of the mind and brain, 
and work carried out by the project on the principles of how 
children learn. ‘It’s not just putting a robot in the classroom 
and seeing what happens. There is very little operational 
knowledge in this field of pedagogy that you can just trans-
late into a robot,’ explains Professor Verschure, ‘if you don’t 
understand how children learn and their individual variabil-
ity, technology is not going to solve the problem.’

Primary school experiments

The project carried out robot-teaching experiments in six 
primary  schools  in  the  Netherlands,  Spain  and  the  UK 
involving some 200 8-9 year-olds who were learning the 
physics of the balance beam. The pupils used a physical bal-
ance beam or a tablet using virtual and augmented reality. 
The robot acted as a coach, instructing the pupil to do cer-
tain things.

‘We developed validated virtual reality and augmented real-
ity  protocols  to  provide  additional  teaching  content  –  to 
explain, to question and to be a tool the robot can use to 
teach,’ Professor Verschure explains. 

The project devised what Professor Verschure describes as a 
new type of mechatronic educational tool – an instrumented 
balance  beam  as  part  of  an  integrated  architecture  that 
measures what a child does with it, so the robot can give pre-
cise feedback.

Learning impact was carefully analysed, measuring levels of 
communication, knowledge gained or lost, individual pupil 
variability and, crucially, pupils’ confidence in their own learn-
ing. The latter was key, and more important for learning than 
the  researchers  had  originally  anticipated,  Professor 
Verschure says.

In other experiments at science museums in Barcelona and 
Sheffield, UK, the robot instructed 14-15 year-olds in fitness 
exercises, explaining the amount of energy used. ‘The idea 
was to convey core notions of healthy living such as exercise 
and its effects on the body,’ says Professor Verschure. 

The challenge now is to generalise the results, currently lim-
ited to specific tasks with specific age groups, in order to 
devise autonomous robots that can tackle more areas of 
teaching.

EASEL

 Coordinated by Pompeu Fabra University in Spain.
 Funded under FP7-ICT.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/111164
Project website:  

http://easel.upf.edu/

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
404040
40

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

S E C U R I T Y

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S E C U R I T Y

A MODULAR SOLUTION  
FOR QUICK, EFFICIENT AND 
SECURE EU BORDER SECURITY
Border security has become a major political talking-point in Europe 
over recent years but many argue that more stringent border checks 
should not lead to a subsequent compromise in speed and efficiency 
for travellers. In order to strike the right balance, the recently-ended 
EU-funded FASTPASS project stepped up to offer a next-generation 
automated border control gate solution.

The  number  of  people  crossing 

European  international  borders  is 
constantly  increasing  –  in  fact,  by 
2025 the total number of border crossings 
(including into and out of the Schengen 
passport-free area from third countries) in 
Europe is expected to reach 887 million, 
posing a significant challenge to national 
border authorities. Whilst travellers expect 
a  quick  and  speedy  experience  through 
border  controls,  border  guards  have  to 
ensure that they fulfil all of their obliga-
tions to secure the EU’s external frontiers 
against irregular immigration and other 
threats, such as organised crime and inter-
national terrorism. 

A two-step modular 
approach

In order to satisfy both of these seemingly 
contrasting expectations, the FASTPASS (A 
harmonised,  modular  reference  system 
for all European automated border cross-
ing points) project team proposed a two-
step  approach  for  automated  border 
control that captures all of the traveller’s 
data,  using  a  self-service  process  (for 
enrolment) and a gate, which re-identifies 

the traveller very quickly and conveniently, 
and facilitates the actual border crossing. 

‘Separating  the  border  process  into  a  
registration/enrolment  phase  and  a  
re-identification  phase  provides  the 
advantage of being able to decouple the 
more difficult and error-prone enrolment 
from  the  rest  of  the  process,’  explains 
FASTPASS  project  coordinator  Markus 
Clabian  from  the  Austrian  Institute  of 
Technology. ‘The kiosks used during this 
step can be deployed at a distance from 
the border crossing area, either in the tran-
sit zone or, as part of a long-term vision, 
even before arrival at the border.’

Additionally, if biometric scanning of the face 
is utilised as a token for re-identification,  
this further accelerates the gate transit 
and  improves  the  recognition  rate. 
However,  even  without  this  additional 
technology, the FASTPASS concept brings 
clear  advantages  in  terms  of  cost  and 
time  efficiency  without  compromising 
security requirements. The solution pro-
posed by the project team is based on a 
modular architecture based on interoper-
able modules, allowing for the re-use of 
concepts across border types.

Putting FASTPASS to the test

A  number  of  innovative  scenarios  were 
conceived by the project team based on 
the  harmonised  modular  architecture, 
specifically seeking solutions for airports, 
border checks for cruise ships, and land 
borders where travellers remained in their 
vehicles.

Taking these scenarios into account, the 
project undertook trials at three sites – 
Vienna  Airport,  the  Port  of  Piraeus  in 
Greece and the Moravita land crossing in 
Romania. More than 10 000 travellers and 
around 200 border guards used the sys-
tem  during  the  trials.  ‘All  participants, 
whether travellers or border guards, gave 
constructive feedback, from operational 
efficiency  to  usability  and  acceptance,’ 
states Clabian. ‘This feedback was regu-
larly  referred  to  throughout  the  whole 
development process to guarantee that 
the  developed  technologies  are  in-line 
with user needs.’ 

Challenges and next steps

Overall, FASTPASS has developed a solu-
tion  that  encompasses  next-generation 
software  and  algorithms  meeting  the 

 
 
 
41

S E C U R I T Y

challenges  of  on-the-move  biometric 
identification, speed, costs, image qual-
ity, reduced intrusiveness (for travellers) 
and counter-spoofing. However, the pro-
ject also encountered a few challenges 
along  the  way.  ‘The  political  climate 
changed  during  the  project’s  lifetime 
due to changes within the EU’s Smart 
Borders Package and the overall security 
and migration crises,’ explains Clabian. 
‘This shifted the focus more from facili-
tation to security.’ FASTPASS adapted to 

these  changes  by  being  constantly  in 
contact with the major stakeholders in 
the field, allowing them to quickly adapt 
to changing needs and circumstances.

FASTPASS  successfully  ended  in  March 
2017,  but  Clabian  underlines  that  the 
solutions  developed  will  help  to  raise 
European know-how and competitiveness 
in  this  field,  technically,  practically  
and  economically.  This  will  also  enable 
FASTPASS partners to build further upon 

FASTPASS  successes  through  future 
Horizon 2020 project calls.

FASTPASS

  Coordinated by the Austrian Institute 

of Technology in Austria.
 Funded under FP7-SECURITY.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/106743

Project website:  

https://www.fastpass-project.eu/

  http://bit.ly/2z1eqdn

A HARMONISED PLAYING FIELD FOR THE 
EUROPEAN SECURITY INDUSTRY
Researchers within the EU-funded CRISP project have proposed a pan-European certification scheme for 
security systems, including social and legal aspects, encouraging increased citizen confidence in security 
technologies and strengthening of the competitiveness of European companies.

Security products, systems and ser-

vices are some of the fastest grow-
ing markets, both internationally and 
in the EU. However, growing international 
competition and market changes indicate 
that, if no action is taken, the market share 
of  European  companies  could  greatly 
decrease in the coming years.

To mitigate this risk, the CRISP (Evaluation 
and  Certification  Schemes  for  Security 
Products) project helped develop a har-
monised playing field for the European 
security industry by designing a robust 
scheme for security product certification. 
‘Harmonising the European security mar-
ket calls for a holistic, pan-European cer-
tification scheme, and this is exactly what 
the CRISP project set out to provide,’ says 
CRISP coordinator Ronald Boon.

Adding the social and legal 
to the security mix

Over  the  past  decade,  certification 
schemes have grown in popularity as a 
mechanism  for  encouraging  and 
enforcing  the  protection  of  security 
systems.  Nowadays,  end  users  have 
become  more  discerning  as  they 
demand more accountability and qual-
ity  checks  throughout  their  supply 
chain. ‘Certification helps improve the 
service to clients, and it is highly appre-
ciated as they feel much better treated 
and  better  understand  their  obliga-
tions,’ explains Boon. ‘In the end, certi-
fication  allows  end  users  to  use  a 
security system “even better”.’ 

With  this  in  mind,  CRISP  researchers 
focused their attention on developing a 
novel evaluation and certification meth-
odology for security systems that also 
integrates social and legal dimensions 
as  assessment  criteria.  ‘We  not  only 
wanted the CRISP certification scheme 

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to facilitate a harmonised playing field, 
we also wanted it to increase citizens’ 
trust and confidence in security technol-
ogies and, ultimately, provide protection 
in a more efficient manner,’ says Boon. 

The resulting methodology is based on 
a taxonomy encompassing a variety of 
security products and services from an 
array of applications, taking into account 
the  varying  roles  of  a  diverse  stake-
holder community that includes manu-
facturers, regulatory/certification bodies, 
data  protection  authorities  and  end 
users. ‘The really pioneering part of the 
CRISP methodology is the assurance it 
provides that a system has been evalu-
ated  using  the  four  STEFi  dimensions 
(Security, Trust, Efficiency and Freedom 
infringement),’ says Boon. According to 
Boon,  the  integration  of  STEFi  dimen-
sions is particularly innovative as, tradi-
tionally,  certification  was  primarily 
focused on the evaluation of technical 
requirements. 

Harmonised standards

Key  outcomes  of  the  project  include:  
a  taxonomy  of  security  products, 

systems and services; a report on secu-
rity  standards  and  certification  in 
Europe;  a  certification  manual  and 
roadmap; and an implementation plan. 
However, its most important contribu-
tion is the publication of a standardisa-
tion document by CEN, a so-called CEN 
Workshop Agreement (CWA). This CWA 
describes the evaluation methodology 
and provides examples of criteria based 
on each of the STEFi dimensions.

‘Looking  at  recent  developments,  the 
CRISP project proposes a certification 
scheme that uniquely bridges the gap 
between  security  and  privacy,’  con-
cludes Boon. ‘Applying the scheme will 
also  bring  users  in  line  with  the  new 
European privacy regulation (GDPR).’

CRISP

  Coordinated by the Stichting 

Nederlands Normalisatie-Instituut in 
the Netherlands.

 Funded under FP7-SECURITY.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/185503

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42

S E C U R I T Y

HOW TO GEAR UP AGAINST CYBER CRIME

According to a recent report from Lloyds Banking Group, a major cyberattack could cost 
the world up to EUR 46 billion. This raises an important question: how can financially 
motivated cybercrime be deterred? The E-CRIME project is providing concrete answers 
with a focus on non-ICT sectors.

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“Our countermeasures include the 
development of a law enforcement 
Awareness Training Programme specifically 
targeted at Law Enforcement Agencies 
(LEAs) and a manual on preventing and 
deterring economic cybercrime which has 
already been deployed across Europe.”

E-CRIME  (Economic  impacts  of  Cybercrime)  research 

revolved around two main objectives. First, the project 
team sought to better understand the spreading, devel-
opment and impact of cybercrime in non-ICT sectors: They 
created  a  detailed  inventory  of  cybercrimes,  analysed 
cybercriminal  structures  and  economies,  and  assessed 
existing counter-measures.

‘To come up with effective strategies, we first had to close 
existing  knowledge  gaps,’  Dr  Timothy  Mitchener-Nissen, 
coordinator of the project, recalls. ‘The most important ones 
were essentially related to predicting or modelling the over-
all economic cost of cybercrime, as well as the actual steps 
undertaken  by  those  engaged  in  conducting  financially-
motivated cybercrimes – regardless of the specific form  
of attack they are employing.’

Dr Mitchener-Nissen and his team proceeded by using the 
crime script methodology often employed in criminology. 
By  analysing  information  from  the  best-available  data 
sources, they were able to plot out the steps required by 
cybercriminals  when  undertaking  financial  cybercrime, 
from the pre-attack stage of selecting targets and attack 
methods, right through to the point of monetarisation. ‘By 
adopting this approach, we could overlay the steps required 
to successfully complete multiple different types of cyber-
attacks and identify the commonalities, thereby producing 
a master criminal-journey which effectively encompassed 
all attack types,’ Dr Nissen explains.

This approach was complemented with insights from spe-
cialists, as well as a vast European survey of over 6 000 
citizens  and  1 250  victims  of  cybercrime.  The  data  sets 
from the victim survey are available to researchers, and 
constitute a time-stamped sample of opinions and levels 
of economic cybercrime. The questionnaire, on the other 
hand, provides a standardised set of questions that can be 
used for re-sampling in longitudinal studies – to measure 
changes in opinions and cybercrime impact levels over time.

Finding the right countermeasures

With their crime scripts in hand, the team could go on with 
the second objective of E-CRIME, which consisted in defin-
ing appropriate measures for the non-ICT sector to effec-
tively counter and prevent cyberattacks. The crime scripts 
indeed enable a defender to identify conceptual gates that 
attackers need to break into as they conduct multiple types 
of  cybercrimes.  The  value  is  twofold,  as  Dr  Mitchener-
Nissen points out: ‘First, it enables a conceptual model that 
helps explain criminal attacks to audiences which may lack 
prior understanding of attack methods. Then, it can assist 
the  defenders  in  identifying  “pinch-points”  where  they 
should  be  focusing  their  efforts  on  preventing  as  many 
attacks as possible.’

All in all, the project has developed recommendations for 
regulatory  measures,  enhancements  for  crime-proofed 
applications, risk management tools, best practices, trust 
and confidence measures, and more: ‘Our countermeasures 
include the development of a law enforcement Awareness 
Training  Programme  specifically  targeted  at  Law 
Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and a manual on preventing 
and deterring economic cybercrime which has already been 
deployed across Europe. For industry, we have produced a 
cost/benefit calculation methodology and guidelines that 
enable a company to measure the costs and benefits of 
countermeasures to determine what makes the most sense 
to use,’ Dr Mitchener-Nissen says.

With the project now completed, the E-CRIME consortium is 
hopeful  that  the  law  enforcement  Awareness  Training 
Programme will continue to be refined and employed by 
police in multiple EU Member States. ‘This in itself would 
ensure that the work of the E-CRIME project will continue 
to have relevance and impact well past the end date of the 
project itself,’ Dr Mitchener-Nissen says.

E-CRIME

 Coordinated by Trilateral Research Ltd in the United Kingdom.
 Funded under FP7-SECURITY.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/185498

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017
F U N D A M E N T A L   R E S E A R C H

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F U N D A M E N T A L   R E S E A R C H

MORE THAN THE SUM  
OF THEIR PARTS: EXPANDING 
THE SCOPE OF PARTICLE 
ACCELERATORS
With the performance frontiers of existing infrastructure stretched, the 
EU-funded EUCARD-2 project was set up to enhance particle accelerators 
for basic and applied science. The project succeeded in rendering their 
design more compact and more sustainable than traditional options.

The  EUCARD-2  (Enhanced  European  Coordination  for 

Accelerator Research & Development) project team have 
successfully applied high-temperature superconductiv-
ity to accelerator magnets, developed new materials for par-
ticle  collimation  (narrowing)  and  new  superconducting 
coatings for acceleration, and contributed to novel, very high-
gradient,  acceleration  techniques.  Through  this  work, 
EUCARD-2  has  identified  promising  directions  for  future 
exploration, relevant to both industry and policy makers.

Increasing accessibility for medicine, 
industry, energy and the environment 

When setting priorities for EUCARD-2, the project coordina-
tor Dr Maurizio Vretenar explains that, ‘As well as playing to 
our competences, we had to also bear in mind that the mul-
tidisciplinary team was relatively small and so we focused 
on areas of high impact, which were achievable within the 
timescales.’ In practice, because accelerator work is highly 
resource intensive, this meant contributing to existing work. 
Most of the work therefore consisted of desk-based studies, 
laboratory experiments and the development of prototypes. 
Through  these  methods,  EUCARD-2  was  able  to  demon-
strate that more compact accelerators with reduced energy 

requirements are feasible, making the science more acces-
sible and affordable, and so also expanding the scope of 
applications.

The team prioritised areas of direct benefit to European cit-
izens: compact accelerators for isotope production in the 
field of medicine, electron accelerators for environmental 
applications, and compact accelerators for industry. As Dr 
Vretenar elaborates, ‘Accelerator produced isotopes offer 
new perspectives in medical imaging and in fighting cancer, 
contributing to personalised cancer therapies. Additionally, 
using  particle  accelerators  to  treat  flue  gases  from  coal 
plants or exhaust gases will reduce the release of sulphur 
and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere, improving air qual-
ity. Industrial processes based on accelerators, like material 
analysis, inspection, treatment of plastics and ion implanta-
tion, will also increase European competitiveness, resulting 
in job creation and economic growth.’

Building the brave new world, through a 
distributed European accelerator laboratory

The next step for the work will involve large scale prototyp-
ing, and the launch of pilot projects based on the new tech-
nologies.  This  will  include  the  identification  of  business 

 
44

F U N D A M E N T A L   R E S E A R C H

opportunities  and  industrial  partnerships.  Some  of  these 
steps are integrated into the project’s successor, the new 
ARIES  (Accelerator  research  and  Innovation  for  European 
Science and Society) project. As Dr Vretenar concludes, ‘There 
is a brave new world of applications in front of us, which will 
mean shrinking our industrial and medical processes down 
from the traditional chemical level to the atomic and suba-
tomic level, with many opportunities and challenges ahead.’

technology institutes, universities and industry, to address 
common challenges. The networks concentrated on extreme 
beam performance and novel accelerator concepts with out-
standing potential. By promoting complementary expertise, 
the cross-disciplinary fertilisation of ideas and a wider shar-
ing  of  knowledge  and  technologies  on  strategic  topics, 
EUCARD-2 has succeeded in enhancing R&D for European 
accelerators.

Accelerators give scientists a key with which to access the 
subatomic world. By concentrating huge amounts of energy 
in tiny particle beams that penetrate matter deeply, acceler-
ators  can  map  atomic  and  molecular  structures  or  even 
modify atoms within the structure itself. Accelerators can 
change the atomic nuclei, and are capable of generating new 
subatomic particles by converting energy into matter – in the 
manner of Einstein’s famous E=mc₂ equation. 

EUCARD-2 enabled a global view of accelerator research by 
coordinating a consortium of 40 accelerator laboratories, 

EUCARD-2

  Coordinated by the European Organisation for  

Nuclear Research in Switzerland.

 Funded under FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/108368
Project website:  

http://eucard2.web.cern.ch/

  http://bit.ly/2h1sQiP

UNPACKING THE ‘BLACK BOX’ OF SCANNING 
PROBE MICROSCOPES FOR THE NEXT 
GENERATION
Scanning probe microscope (SPM) techniques have evolved beyond imaging and manipulation with single atom 
resolution, to the sub-molecular and sub-atomic level. Yet, this success can jeopardise real process understanding, 
and so the EU-funded ACRITAS project set out to redress the balance.

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Since the invention of the scanning 

tunnelling  microscope  in  1981  – 
which many regard as the birth of 
nano-science  –  there  is  now  a  thriving 
market for scanning probe instruments. 

With these tools, much can be achieved at 
the  nano-level.  For  example,  individual 
chemical  bonds  can  be  resolved,  their 
properties  measured,  and  their  spatial 
symmetry exploited. 

However,  according  to  Professor  Philip 
Moriarty, the coordinator for the ACRITAS 
(Actuation  and  characterisation  at  the 

single bond limit) project, this current wide 
availability  of  commercial  instruments 
means that, ‘SPM has been somewhat a 
victim of its own success.’ According to 
the  professor,  SPM  is  often  simply 
equated with routine imaging and charac-
terisation, resulting in the technique being 
treated as a ‘black box’, where users have 
only  a  superficial  understanding  of  its 
operating principles, theoretical principles, 
and so also its limitations. ACRITAS was 
set up to unpack this ‘black box’, by culti-
vating  cross-disciplinary  training  and 
innovation for young researchers.

Redefining the state- 
of-the-art in scanning probe 
microscopy

Outlining the objectives for the ACRITAS 
research, Prof. Moriarty explains that, 
‘The scanning probe technique is prone 
to  many  artefacts  and  experimental 
challenges.  Yet,  that  data  is  often 
unquestioningly trusted due to a lack 
of  understanding  of  what  has  hap-
pened “under the hood”. A key goal of 
the ACRITAS network was to produce a 
new  generation  of  SPM  researchers 
who  were  well  acquainted  with  the 
vagaries of the technique.’

To create an exciting and challenging 
training environment for SPM training, 
ACRITAS brought together previously 
distinct  communities  of  scanning 
probe microscopists and theorists. On 
the one hand there were physical sci-
entists whose research is carried out 
under somewhat extreme conditions 
(ultrahigh vacuum, cryogenic temper-
atures), on the other, teams of life sci-
entists who focus on interactions and 
control  in  biologically  relevant  envi-
ronments.  Despite  using  the  same 
experimental  techniques,  there  had 
traditionally  been  little  communica-
tion between both groups. 

Explaining the value of this collabora-
tion strategy, Prof. Moriarty elucidates 

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
F U N D A M E N T A L   R E S E A R C H

45

(UHV)  and 

that, ‘Speaking as a probe microsco-
pist whose research is reliant on ultra-
high  vacuum 
low 
temperature conditions, we can learn 
a great deal from our colleagues who 
work in much less controlled and less 
forgiving environments.’ The conver-
sation  between  these  communities 
has resulted in a much greater appre-
ciation of the SPM instrumental and 
data analysis challenges to be over-
come. As Prof. Moriarty summarises, 
‘Bridging the two groups has created 
a unique training programme in a field 
which  underpins  a  vast  amount  of 
21st century science.’

Putting project benefits 
under the microscope

One  of  the  major  bottlenecks  for  the 
SPM technique is its dependence on the 

state of the scanning probe’s apex, where 
the last few atoms at the tip of the probe 
determine how the microscope functions. 
ACRITAS has already produced a great 
deal of knowledge about how to further 
control, define and redefine the probe, 
but to make the process more reliable 
the  team  has  laid  the  groundwork  to 
actually automate the process. By using 
machine learning, it is anticipated that a 
scanning probe controller could differen-
tiate  between  good  and  bad  images, 
without the need for a human operator. 

Additionally,  the  project’s  key  insights 
into the mechanisms of protein folding 
and probe-cell interactions are topics of 
interest for biomedicine and pharmacy. 
Looking  even  further  ahead,  Prof. 
Moriarty speculates that, ‘Ultimately, one 
could ask whether a technology akin to 
3D printing with atoms is possible?’

Despite  these  practical  benefits,  Prof. 
Moriarty  is  keen  to  advocate  for  the 
value of fundamental scientific research 
in its own right, to extend the boundaries 
of knowledge. As he concludes, ‘There 
are many reasons to do science beyond 
commercial and industrial benefit. The 
cross-disciplinary  nature  of  ACRITAS 
meant that the interface between the life 
and physical sciences was blurred, and 
this is the space where true innovation 
happens.’

ACRITAS

  Coordinated by the University of 

Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/105011

Project website:  
http://acritas.eu/

GRAPHENE HELPS SHIFT THE PARADIGM FOR 
NONLINEAR PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
On-chip spectrally broadband light sources have already advanced the fields of optics and photonics. Yet wider 
science and technology use calls for further innovation.

The creation of a photonic chip capable of mid-infrared 

(MIR) broadband light generation while being pumped 
by a small-sized portable MIR laser could be a boon 
for applications ranging from non-invasive medical diag-
nostics, to optical testing of water safety. However, today 
on-chip  broadband  light  generation  in  the  MIR  typically 
requires the use of pump lasers which are bulky and so 
impractical for widespread adoption. 

The EU-funded GRAPHENICS (Graphene-enabled on-chip super-
continuum light sources) project has demonstrated spectral 
broadening of MIR light in graphene-covered silicon photonic 
waveguides, pumped by a small-sized fibre laser developed in-
house, with a MIR emission wavelength well beyond 2 micron. 
This ground-breaking innovation lays the foundation for gra-
phene- on-silicon-based nonlinear photonic integrated circuits, 
as well as paves the way for the use of MIR on-chip supercon-
tinuum light sources in real-life applications.

Bringing the pump laser and graphene-
covered chip together

Spectrally broadband light generation, also referred to as 
‘supercontinuum generation’, relies on nonlinear optical phe-
nomena such as self-phase modulation (SPM). One of the 
defining characteristics of SPM is that the light wave actu-
ally alters the material properties of the media in which it 
travels. This alteration is exhibited by a wide array of mate-
rials but is particularly strong in the two-dimensional mate-
rial of graphene, provided that it is properly harnessed. 

MIR  spectral  broadening  was  accomplished  by  the 
GRAPHENICS team through SPM in a silicon photonic chip 
covered with graphene, with the pump light for the SPM process 
being provided by a novel, small-sized pulsed MIR fibre laser.

Outlining the GRAPHENICS investigative approach, the project 
coordinator Prof. Nathalie Vermeulen recollects, ‘Performing 
every step in the R&D cycle for the chips, we made fundamen-
tal nonlinearity calculations for isolated graphene, while also 
modelling and designing the graphene-covered waveguide 
devices. Our fabrication tasks included graphene growth, dep-
osition, patterning, and doping directly on top of the photonic 
waveguides. Our proof-of-concept experiments entailed both 
linear and nonlinear characterisation of the devices. And in 
parallel we also developed the compact MIR fibre pump laser.’ 

An entirely novel finding was that, in contrast to common 
belief, graphene’s third-order optical nonlinearity, underpin-
ning the SPM process, exhibits a negative sign rather than a 
positive one. As Prof. Vermeulen explains, ‘Typically, materi-
als used for fabricating (on-chip) nonlinear optical devices 
exhibit a third-order nonlinearity with a positive sign. This 
nonlinearity  could  be  enhanced  by  introducing  materials 
exhibiting a higher third-order nonlinearity with a positive 
sign. Researchers assumed that graphene would fulfil these 
conditions, until we found that its nonlinearity features a 
negative sign.’ This discovery highlighted the weaknesses as 
well  as  the  opportunities  of  the  material  for  nonlinear 

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research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
46

F U N D A M E N T A L   R E S E A R C H

photonic chips. The practical implication to ensure that the 
overall device performance was improved rather than hin-
dered, was that researchers had to take care with the posi-
tion and surface area of graphene coverage.

A ‘high-gain/high-risk’ project with practical 
applications

According to Prof. Vermeulen, both the graphene-covered 
photonic chip and the compact MIR fibre laser developed in 
the project are of interest for various applications. As she 
summarises,  ‘When  serving  as  a  pump  source  for  MIR 
supercontinuum generation, the fibre laser could find appli-
cations  in  all-optical  glucose  monitoring  for  diabetes 
patients. As a stand-alone device, it also offers interesting 
possibilities such as high-sensitivity detection of specific 
greenhouse gases.’

As a Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) project carried 
out by ‘Young Explorers’, GRAPHENICS not only contributed 
to fundamental and interdisciplinary research with an impact 
on society, but also developed the skills of future European 
science and technology leaders. 

The  GRAPHENICS  work  is  continuing  with  the  systematic 
examination  of  graphene  combined  with  other  types  of 
waveguides. The team is also looking into commercial exploi-
tation possibilities for their innovative MIR fibre laser.

GRAPHENICS

 Coordinated by the Free University of Brussels in Belgium.
 Funded under FP7-ICT.
http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/110878
Project website:  

https://sites.google.com/site/graphenicseu/

HOW NEURAL MECHANISMS IMPACT 
ARITHMETIC PROCESSING
By using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers with the EU-funded PISA project are 
shedding light on how we learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide.

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Although  many  animal  species  can 

identify  and  compare  numerical 
quantities, only humans can repre-
sent these quantities as abstract symbols. 
In other words, only humans can add, sub-
tract, multiply and divide. Yet just because 
we can do something doesn’t necessarily 
mean we are any good at it – a fact made 
abundantly clear by the more than 20 % of 
15-year-old European students who rank 
as low achievers in mathematics. 

‘Because  low  maths  competence  can 
have dire economic and social effects, 
improving our knowledge of the neural 
mechanisms involved in arithmetic pro-
cessing is critical to teaching and reduc-
ing  low  achievement,’  says  PISA 
(Procedures In Simple Arithmetic: neural 
implementation and development) pro-
ject coordinator Jerome Prado. 

There is currently a debate in maths edu-
cation on the benefits of using calculation 
procedures versus retrieval-based strate-
gies.  To  help  provide  an  answer,  the 
EU-funded PISA project used fMRI to test 
the hypothesis that fronto-parietal brain 
regions support automatised calculation 
procedures  that  can  be  as  efficient  as 
retrieval during arithmetic calculation. ‘We 

aimed  to  capitalise  on  the  idea  that,  if 
problems are solved with procedural strat-
egies,  abstract  automatic  procedures 
should be activated by the simple presen-
tation of an arithmetic sign and indepen-
dently of the operands,’ says Prado. 

Calculation versus retrieval 

The  central  question  posed  by  PISA 
researchers was whether calculation pro-
cedures could be elicited automatically 
and  effortlessly  in  the  brain.  Although 
most studies suggested that calculation 
is less efficient than retrieval, at least for 
simple, single-digit arithmetic problems, 
PISA  researchers  suspected  that  this 
understanding was misleading. 

To find out, they measured the brain activ-
ity of adults and children being presented 
single-digit  addition  and  multiplication 
problems.  To  isolate  activity  associated 
with the arithmetic sign, trials presenting 
only the arithmetic sign were also included. 
In these cases, participants were simply 
instructed to look at the signs.

‘We found that the simple presentation of 
the addition sign – compared to the multi-
plication  sign  –  was  associated  with 
enhanced  activity  and  communication 
within a fronto-parietal network,’ explains 
Prado.  ‘Furthermore,  the  neural  activity 
associated with the addition sign in a brain 
region predicted the size of an arithmetic 
priming effect measured in a behavioural 
task outside the scanner.’ 

Automatic addition 

In  line  with  recent  behavioural  studies, 
PISA demonstrated that addition signs are 

associated with the automatic activation 
of procedures that may be spatial in nature 
and used by adults to solve simple addition 
problems. ‘What this indicates is that arith-
metic procedures can be automatised and 
that single-digit arithmetic learning does 
not necessarily involve a shift from proce-
dural to retrieval strategies, but rather a 
shift from effortful to automatised proce-
dures,’ says Prado. 

Easy as 1, 2, 3

According  to  Prado,  this  research  is  of 
great interest because of the fundamental 
role that procedural knowledge plays in 
maths education. Although a wide range of 
teaching methods are used across the EU, 
there is general agreement that both flu-
ency in recalling maths facts and proce-
dural  skills  are  important.  Yet,  most 
cognitive studies point to the superiority of 
fact retrieval over procedural strategies in 
simple arithmetic. 

‘Our results challenge this claim and pro-
vide the necessary groundwork for future 
studies to investigate the extent to which 
automatisation  of  procedures  can  be 
affected by teaching methods,’ says Prado. 
‘This will have the potential of increasing 
achievement  among  students  –  a  key 
goal of many EU countries.’

PISA

  Coordinated by the Centre National  

de la Recherche Scientifique in France.

 Funded under FP7-PEOPLE.
 http://cordis.europa.eu/project/

rcn/108339

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017 
 
 
EVENTS

DECEMBER
12▶15

Barcelona, SPAIN 

C O N F E R E N C E
THE EU-FUNDED DIAPHORA 
PROJECT WILL BE HOLDING ITS 
MIDTERM CONFERENCE IN 
BARCELONA, SPAIN, FROM 12  
TO 15 DECEMBER 2017. 

The conference is sponsored by the research and 
training network DIAPHORA, funded by the European 
Commission,  and  will  run  from  the  afternoon  of 
Tuesday 12 to the morning of Friday 15.

The http://www.ub.edu/diaphora-midtermconference/
program/ (programme) covers areas including:
- Can Dispositional Essences Fulfill their Explanatory 

Role?

- A Defense of Ambivalence
- Counterfactuals and the Necessity of Mathematics
- A Priori Knowledge, Peer-agreement and 

Peer-disagreement

The  Marie  Skłodowska-Curie  European  Training 
Network DIAPHORA serves as a European research 
and training platform for collaborative research on 
the nature of philosophical problems, their resilience 
and the sources of persistent divergence of expert 
opinion about them, and their relation to conflicts in 
the practical sphere.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.ub.edu/
diaphora-midtermconference/

research*eu Results Magazine N°67 / November 2017

47

DECEMBER

07

JANUARY 
22▶24

Brussels, BELGIUM

Antwerp, BELGIUM

E V E N T
THE EU-FUNDED PROJECT HEALTH-
NCP-NET 2.0 WILL BE ORGANISING 
A PARTNERING EVENT IN BRUSSELS, 
BELGIUM ON 7 DECEMBER 2017.

C O N F E R E N C E
THE EU-FUNDED RESL.EU PROJECT 
WILL BE HOLDING ITS FINAL 
CONFERENCE IN ANTWERP, BELGIUM, 
FROM 22-24 JANUARY 2018.

HEALTH-NCP-NET 2.0 is holding a free-of-charge 
Partnering event on 7 December 2017, the aim 
being to assist attendees in finding the right part-
ners for the upcoming 2018 calls. The launch of 
the 2018 call is planned for 7 November 2017, 
with the first deadline being 18 April 2018. This 
would be a good opportunity for your institution to 
identify the right consortium partners. 

This Partnering event will target a wide spectrum 
of companies, universities and researchers from 
Europe and beyond, all interested in sharing new 
project ideas.

The following day, 8 December 2017, the European 
Commission is holding an Open Info Day dedicated 
to  ‘Health,  Demographic  Change  &  Wellbeing 
(SC1)’ challenges and focusing on the 2018 call.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.b2match.eu/healthBE2017

EVENTS

For more forthcoming events:  
http://cordis.europa.eu/events

The RESL.EU (Reducing Early School Leaving in the EU) 
project’s final conference is inviting scholars from a 
range of disciplines who have studied the mechanisms 
and processes influencing a student’s decision to leave 
school or training early, as well as school leavers’ deci-
sions to enrol in alternative learning environments unre-
lated to regular secondary schools.

Areas  of  interest  to  be  covered  at  the  conference 
include: 
- Early school leaving from an institutional 

(comparative) perspective

- Preventive and intervention measures to reduce (risk 

of) early school leaving

- Perceptions, views and ideas of young adults’ past 
educational experiences and future expectations

- Transitions and trajectories
- Early school leaving from a policy perspective
- Early school leaving and school cultures

The conference, organised by the European comparative 
RESL.EU project ‘Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe’ 
and funded by the European FP7 programme, aims to 
analyse, with scholars and policy makers working in this 
field, the findings from the RESL.EU project in light of the 
current state-of-the-art of research on early school leav-
ing in (European) countries. 

The RESL.EU project collected data in seven countries 
(Belgium,  the  Netherlands,  Portugal,  the  United 
Kingdom, Spain, Poland and Sweden) and reflected, 
together with expert teams in Austria and Hungary, on 
all aspects related to reducing early school leaving in 
European educational systems.

For further information, please visit:
https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/
resl-eu/

C O N F E R E N C E
ZONESEC PRESENTATION AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 
‘SMART CITIES AND MOBILITY AS A SERVICE’
The EU-funded ZONESEC project will be making a presentation at the ‘Smart Cities and Mobility as a Service’ 
conference in Patras, Greece, from 7-8 December 2017.

The conference will be organised by the University of Patras’ Department of Civil Engineering in cooperation 
with ITS Hellas, and with support from the Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers and TSS-Transport 
Simulation Systems: Aimsun & Aimsun Online. It is being held under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of 
Infrastructure and Transport. The ZONESEC (Towards a EU framework for the security of Widezones) project 
will be presenting some of its findings during the event.

The aim of the conference is to present the latest research and results related to Smart Cities and Mobility as 
a Service topics. It will provide industry, public organisations, local government and authorities, universities, 
researchers, consultants, constructors and freelancers with the opportunity to exchange views on relevant 
problems and solutions.

For further information, please visit: http://conference2017.upatras.gr/ 

DEC.
07▶08

Patras, GREECE

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