CORDIScovery – unearthing the hottest topics in EU science, research and innovation

We see cultural artefacts, hear music composed centuries ago and, if we are lucky, get to handle pieces that were created by long-forgotten makers. But what about bringing to life the smell of a historic scene, or an object no longer made? This episode looks at the novel ways researchers are analysing the artefacts left to us by our ancestors, and the new light that shines on how they lived. Come and hear what our guests have been exploring. Inger Leemans, is a professor of Cultural History at VU Amsterdam and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is passionate about making her research on the smells of the past accessible to everyone. Matthew Collins is a fellow of the Danish and Swedish Royal Academies, and chair of the Archaeology section of the British Academy. Collins explores the ways in which archaeology can borrow tools from biology to explore ancient artefacts and tissues, from shells and bone to parchment and pots. Michela Rossi is a scientific project officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. She is interested in structural safety assessments of historic buildings and digital fabrication.

Computational power, AI, genomics: the treatment and diagnosis of prostate cancer is advancing rapidly. This episode finds out how.  A leap forward in the diagnosis and treatment would be very welcome: prostate cancer is the second most frequent malignancy in men. In 2020 alone, around one and a half million new cases and almost half a million deaths were registered worldwide.  To explore new diagnostics and treatment are:  Jan Tkac, founder and chief scientific officer at Glycanostics, in Slovakia. The company has developed an innovative diagnostic test for cancer, based on novel biomarkers. Jan is also keen to explore how different sports relate to the levels of endorphin release.  Harald Mischak, chief scientific officer of Mosaiques Diagnostics & Therapeutics, Germany. Harald is focused on understanding the underlying molecular structures of certain types of cancers.   Joaquin Mateo, group leader of the Prostate Cancer Translational Research Group at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, in Barcelona. He is especially interested in the development of novel forms of precision medicine.  For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!dgTGkb

Printed buildings, energy from atmospheric humidity, earthquake resilience – some of the novel ideas taking age-old construction techniques and making them fit for the future.  The way we build has not evolved much over millennia, but the context is radically different. So how can we build the homes we need in the least damaging way possible? To talk us through some of the latest ideas are:  Abdelghani Meslem is senior research engineer in Hazard and Risk Modelling at NORSAR in Norway. His work is focused on earthquake risk modelling, risk reduction and management. Paweł Sikora is an associate professor from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin, Poland, where he researches additive manufacturing, lightweight concretes and nanotechnology. Andriy Lyubchyk is assistant professor of Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials at the Research Center in Industrial Engineering, Management and Sustainability, part of Lisbon University. Andriy focuses on harnessing nanoengineering to advance the generation of renewable energy.   For more info, visit: https://europa.eu/!DRRdbj

Democracy is a collective achievement and 2024 has been called its biggest year. Europeans go to the polls in June, to vote for their representatives at the European Parliament, and 8 of the 10 most populous countries in the world are also holding elections. But the process will face challenges, perceived and unperceived. Our three guests explore some of the latest ideas about those threats and how to counter them. Jan Kubik is distinguished professor in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University in America, and professor emeritus of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London. He is interested in the rise of right-wing populism. David Dueñas-Cid is an associate professor at Kozminski University, Poland, and the director of the Public Sector Data-Driven Technologies Research Center. He researches the intersection between digital sociology and e-government, with a clear focus on electronic democracy and internet voting. Sven-Eric Fikenscher is a researcher with the Center of Excellence for Police and Security Research, at the Bavarian Police Academy (website in German) in Germany. He is particularly interested in refining our understanding of how disinformation campaigns online can result in criminality. For more info, visit: https://europa.eu/!mrpyYW

About 500 000 babies are born early in Europe every year, for some the condition is fatal. Complications relating to being born prematurely are the leading causes of death in the under-fives. Improving feeding, mitigating the impact on the brain and rethinking prevention – our three projects are doing what they can to push back these numbers.   Audrey van der Meer is co-director of the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory and professor of Neuropsychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. She is particularly interested in the infant brain, with its enormous plasticity and capacity to learn from day one. Isabel Hoffmann is a deep-tech entrepreneur. By harnessing technology and connectivity, she is working to help create a world in which food contributes to health, not to societal diseases. Her company Tellspec is developing innovative ways of personalising nutrition to help premature babies thrive. Julien Penders is co-founder of Bloomlife, a company designing wearable technologies and predictive analytics to promote prenatal health. Bloomlife has developed a device paired with data analytics to increase access to care, provide personalised feedback to mothers, and help doctors predict and manage pregnancy complications. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!BR3r43

Did the ability to feed babies porridge help to fuel the population explosion seen in the Neolithic period? Did people take to the seas far earlier than previously thought to chase whales and seals? What is the difference between a flourishing desert frontier fort and one that dwindles into dust? We take a look at three times when food was a catalyst for change. Bettina Schulz Paulsson, an associate professor of Archaeology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, specialises in research related to the Stone Age. Her interests encompass seafaring, megaliths, prehistoric whaling and scientific dating and methods.  Associate professor of Egyptology at the Polytechnic of Milan, Corinna Rossi, focuses her research on the relationship between architecture and mathematics in ancient Egypt. Rossi has been exploring the antiquities of Egypt’s Western Desert for over 20 years. Sofija Stefanović is professor of Physical Anthropology and Bioarchaeology in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. She is interested in the prehistoric patterns of fertility and the influence of the duration of breastfeeding on children’s health in the Neolithic period. For more info the projects featured, visit: ⁠https://europa.eu/!nFkxTW

Pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss are all threatening our sustainable use of marine resources – at the same time we need seafood. It’s a conundrum! Could lights help by deterring the wrong fish from getting into nets? Can AI help zap the virulent sea lice that plague fish farmers? And how do zebra fish bridge the gap between aquaculture and medicine? Listen on to get some answers! Rachel Tiller is a chief scientist and director of Biodiversity and Area Use, at SINTEF Ocean, Norway. She is interested in putting smart tools in the hands of the fishing community to help them catch what they are intending to catch. Margaret Rae is the managing director of Konree Innovation, based in Ireland. The company aims to harness the latest technological approaches to improve the health and welfare of farmed fish. Marc Muller , now retired, was a senior assistant professor at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), in the University of Liège. He studies skeleton formation in zebrafish, and the insights that gives us into human skeletal pathologies. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!RmVKTH

What do a mathematician, a palaeontologist and a researcher considering the rehabilitation of multiple sclerosis patients have in common? All three are women who have carved themselves successful careers as scientific researchers. In a change to our usual format, this episode of CORDIScovery invites three female researchers from completely unrelated areas to talk about their work, discuss their own experiences and offer insights into what helped, and hindered them, in the development of their careers. Elena Ghezzo is a fellow of Ca’Foscari University of Venice. She is particularly interested in screening fossils using spectral imaging, and in the distribution and extinction patterns of large carnivores before the Holocene. She is joined by Camilla Pierella, an assistant professor at the University of Genova. She studies the neural control of movement, robots for rehabilitation and body-machine interfaces. Erika Hausenblas is a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leoben, in Austria. She studies how stochastic systems, characterised by randomness and uncertainty, impact the modelling of a wide range of phenomena, such as weather patterns, stock markets and biological systems. For more info the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!QqDYJ3

Climate change is here: so what are we doing to meet the challenges in Europe? Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 28, we will be hearing from four cutting-edge researchers who are working to get us ready to deal with the coming changes in our environment. Using the internet of things (IoT) to track mosquitoes that carry diseases more often associated with the global South; protecting our woodlands and forests from the impact of destructive beetles and other factors; examining the impact of extreme storms on our architecture and working out how to keep people safe from waves that are higher than ever, overtopping coastal defences that were designed in another era – this episode is on adapting to climate change in Europe. Talking us through these and other ideas are: João Encarnação CEO of Irideon, who is particularly interested in the development of IoT sensors for insects with impact on public health, food safety and biodiversity. Along with Guillaume Marie, an independent researcher and part of the team of developers behind ORCHIDEE, the French land surface model used by the UN to predict climate change. They are joined by Marie Pia Repetto, professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Genoa, Italy whose main interest is in wind engineering, and Corrado Altomare. Altomare is a postdoc researcher at the Maritime Engineering Laboratory of Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona, and is actively involved in mounting Europe’s response to the problem of sea wave overtopping in coastal areas. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!RHTnb9

If you use a car, a phone or want to see more renewable energy sources in our electricity supply then listen on – this episode is for you. We need storage devices that can balance out the intermittent power produced by renewable energy sources and our demand. We have to identify viable, novel materials to make a new generation of batteries in order to get around bottlenecks in lithium supply – set to get even worse as demand for electric vehicles takes off. A whole new generation of cooling systems could speed up recharging time and prolong battery life. While paper-thin sheets of silicon with great conductive power could be a new boost to electric vehicle uptake. Explore these advances with our three guests: Juan J. Vilatela leads a research group at IMDEA Materials, in Madrid. His scientific career is focused on methods for synthesis and assembly of 1D nanomaterials into macroscopic nanotextiles for energy and structural applications. Pekka Peljo is associate professor of Materials Engineering at the University of Turku, Finland. He is interested in developing electricity storage technologies for wind and solar power. Matthieu Desbois-Renaudin, president and one of the co-founders of WATTALPS, is interested in electrification, batteries and their optimisation, including the patented cooling technology. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!YYnKjc

The diverse realm of microorganisms that plays a vital role in our digestion, interacts with our brain chemistry, and even influences our immune systems, is generating a lot of scientific interest. The question is, what else does it do, and how? This episode explores the impact of the chemical signals sent out to our organs by our microbiome, in real time. We look at how they work on a ‘brain on a chip’. And did you know our immune system interacts with the microbes we host , which seems to have an impact on a patient’s response to chemotherapy. Microbiome research has largely focused on humans and mice – but what about fish? We see what is going on inside a salmon. Carmen Giordano, associate professor of Bioengineering at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, has developed a tool to help researchers see what the signals coming out of bacteria in the microbiome do to the brain and other organs, in real time! Nicola Gagliani heads a laboratory of the same name studying the mechanisms of T-cell biology at the University Medical Center, Hamburg-Eppendorf. He’s looking into how quickly our immune systems respond to our diets, via the microbiome. Molecular and evolutionary biologist Morten Limborg is associate professor at the Globe Institute in Copenhagen. Morten is researching how to make farming more sustainable by fine-tuning animal feed in response to their microbiomes. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!pd3rGP

We hit the ground running in the COVID pandemic: EU support for scientific research helped projects develop responses rapidly and effectively. Which may be just as well. Avian influenza is having a devastating impact on bird populations and has been passed onto mammal populations. Getting funding to where it can be most effectively used, understanding the mechanisms behind public perception and behaviour, and gathering a living archive of viruses used by the scientific community across the world – this episode we are looking at the innovations which are ready to support responses to what might be coming next. Marina Brito is a business strategic relations officer based at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal. Máire Connolly is professor of Global Health at the University of Galway’s College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. They are joined by professor of Health Biotechnology and Virology at Aix-Marseille University in France, Bruno Coutard, the coordinator of the European Virus Archive, which identifies, collects and distributes viruses and related, non-infectious materials for the scientific community. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!TP6BG9

Energy, world grain supplies, consumer goods – so much more: ships transport a remarkable 90 per cent of the world’s commodities. As the UN’s Secretary-General António Guterres said: “Without ships and the women and men who work on them, economies would stall, and people would starve.” Founded by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) back in 2011, the Day of the Seafarer is on the 25th of June – so this episode we are looking at how EU funding is working to make life at sea, safer – for passengers and for crew. Franz Evegren, is director of the Fire Safe Transport Department at the Research Institutes of Sweden. Franz focuses ways to reduce the number of fires on board roll-on/roll-off car ferries. Luis Sanchez-Heres, is also at the Research Institutes of Sweden where he is working on harnessing the power of Ai and machine learning to improve location pin pointing. Lazaros Karagiannidis is concentrating on how smart applications and wearables can make ship evacuations faster and safer. Lazaros is based at the National Technical University of Athens. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!qD7RNV

The United Nations report, published in March 2023, is very clear, it says: “ (…) keeping warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels requires deep, rapid and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors.” In this episode we look at how biofuels can help us meet these imperatives. Using biomass as a source of energy is particularly elegant: you take waste that is all too often part of the problem when it comes to disposal, and you break it down to get gas which is then used as fuel. Our guests are: Yeray Asensio, based at the Spanish water management company, Aqualia is interested in ways of making sewage sludge treatment to produce biogas, easier and cheaper for smaller communities. Cristina González is head of the Biotechnology Unit of the Madrid Institute for Advanced Study. She is particularly interested in recovering carbon from waste to produce biochemicals and biofuels within the idea of the circular economy. Petteri Salonen is the CEO of Finrenes, a Finnish company that has developed a new way to turn wood and plant fibre waste into biomethane and fuel pellets, widening the range of fibres that can be used. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!qJHW36

From satellites observing Earth, to roots and the microbes that surround them: Today we are looking at soil and how our food security depends on its health. Our ‘crop’ of guests, all of whom have been funded by the Horizon 2020 programme, are here to help us understand how waste, fertiliser, soil protection and remote monitoring all interconnect: A researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Tania Galindo-Castañeda’s focus is on how the root anatomy and architecture of maize affect the impact microbes in the soil have on the plant. Frank Rogalla is director of innovation at Aqualia, a private provider of water services supplying 45 million people in 17 countries. His focus is on not wasting one drop of water, to which end he fuels his car with waste water. Frank is interested in recovering fertilisers to grow food and avoid pollution. Juan Suarez is looking at how to make the most of Earth observation technologies, such as satellite imagery, to improve food security and sustainable development. Juan is a senior manager at the Spanish company GMV. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!BBMgjg

22 March is United Nations World Water Day, so this episode of CORDIScovery is on water: its quality and security of supply. We will travel from the high Himalayas, and delve into the secret lives of freshwater snails to explore water cycles and the latest techniques for monitoring pollution. Walter Immerzeel, professor of Mountain Hydrology at Utrecht University, led the CAT project, which looked at the interface between climate change, glaciology and hydrology. Research scientist at the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture of the Spanish National Research Council, José A. Gómez combines a Background in agronomy and soil science. He helped coordinate the SHui project which bridged the gap between research findings and on-the-ground innovations in China and Europe. Didier Neuzeret is the CEO of ViewPoint, a French company that has been involved in environmental research and animal behaviour analysis for 30 years. ViewPoint hosted ToxMate, which video-tracked the behaviours of certain invertebrates to check pollution levels in wastewater. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!WpV7xG

New technologies, existing technologies applied to new challenges, understanding the role of cross-cultural influences in eyewitnesses’ examinations; all ways in which EU projects are helping to make evidence more accessible. This episode of CORDIScovery investigates. Rape is a global scourge. Millions of unsolved rape cases fail in the absence of evidence found. Current technical barriers to the identification and analysis of sperm traces are one key reason. The Themis project has developed a new technique that can find traces which would be missed by conventional methods and analyses them more quickly and effectively. What happens when you take green screens, gaming technology, lidar and other cutting-edge imaging techniques and apply them to evidence long buried? The Dig-For-Arch project has developed ways these tools can clarify crime scenes that might currently be hard to interpret. Our globalised world means cultures are interrelating more than ever – what happens when eyewitnesses give evidence in cross-cultural contexts? How do we unravel information through a cultural filter? The WEIRD WITNESSES project has some interesting findings to share. This episode of CORDIScovery features three guests who are ideally placed to tell us about the latest advances that are helping to refine criminal investigations. Their projects have all been supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme. Annelies Vredeveldt is an associate professor at the Faculty of Law at VU Amsterdam. She investigates psychology in the courtroom, from how eyewitnesses remember crimes to detecting lies in suspects’ statements. Dante Abate is an associate researcher at the Cyprus Institute. His various areas of interest include the application of digital and non-destructive technologies for the identification and documentation of historic crime scenes. Benjamin Corgier is currently the research and development director at AXO Science, a biotech company specialising in molecular biology and innovative technologies for forensics. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!Mrn7k8

Enthusiasts, people with hobbies, with spare time or concerned about their environment – you and me: all of us are potential collectors of data and information that can add a dimension to research projects. How can participation empower volunteers? And what’s the benefit for scientists? Listen on to find out! Xavier Basagaña is associate research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. Basagaña’s CitieS-Health project was interested in evaluating the health impacts of urban living. The project set out to encourage collaboration between researchers and volunteers, to generate solid, unbiased scientific evidence. Professor of Environmental History at the University of Stavanger in Norway, Finn Arne Jørgensen is the coordinator of the EnviroCitizen project. The team wanted to understand the ways in which citizen science projects can be used to cultivate new ways of thinking and acting in all aspects of life, to promote environmental, rather than national, citizenship. Kris Vanherle is a transport policy researcher, working at Transport & Mobility Leuven, a spin-off of the University of Leuven, Belgium. Vanherle was the coordinator of WeCount, which wanted to give people the tools they needed to monitor traffic, and to co-design solutions to tackle a variety of road transport challenges. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!fvVNMg

Perform a magic trick for a member of the crow family and it will show how startled it is by the unexpected. Crows are known for being the Einsteins of the avian world, but what about the animals that feed us, clothe us, entertain us – what is the nature of their intelligence? Will our growing realisation that animals may be experiencing the world around them in ways that would surprise us, reframe our understanding of animal welfare? Tune in for some ideas. Jonathan Birch is an associate professor at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. In 2021, the review he led into the sentience of invertebrates resulted in the amendment of the British government’s Animal Welfare Bill to include octopuses, crabs and lobsters. Associate professor at the University of Leuven’s Animal and Human Health Engineering Unit, Tomas Norton leads research on sustainable precision livestock farming and is particularly interested in the interface between animal health, welfare and productivity. Nicola Clayton is a fellow of the Royal Society and professor of Comparative Cognition in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Nicola is particularly interested in the processes of thinking with and without words, comparing the cognitive capacities of corvids, cephalopods and children. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!BFNQ97

Wearables have become ‘must have’ fashion – how can we make assistive technology as desirable? The most sophisticated device is useless if it is uncomfortable or unattractive. This episode, we are looking at the interface between design and engineering, and how the next generation of smart textiles could make assistive tech invisible. Today’s episode brings together guests from EU-supported projects working on user-focused design, the metallisation and conductivity of fabric and graphene antennas embedded in textiles which could help people with Alzheimer’s. Professor of Health Design and Human Factors at Coventry University, Louise Moody brought her background in psychology and user centric approach to design to the Maturolife project. Andrew Cobley is a Professor of Electrochemical Deposition and leads the Functional Materials and Chemistry Group at Coventry University. His expertise in the electrochemical metallisation of non-conductive materials was behind the production of Maturolife prototypes. Elif Ozden Yenigun is a Senior Lecturer in Textiles at the Royal College of Art. Her research concentrates on molecular materials design and innovative approaches to textile manufacturing, which she explored in her GFSMART project. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!hn6NJb