David Matthews
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International editor at @scibus & freelance writing. Covering science and technology policy and politics, with a focus on Europe.
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Articles by David Matthews
Companies pledge free software and computing for AI in science
The European Commission has announced that a group of companies and foundations will offer free services, such as software or access to supercomputers, to European scientists using AI in their research. Unveiled on October 15 at a conference in Dublin, the initiative is the latest step by the Commission to try to help researchers use the technology. Scientists have used forms of AI, such as machine learning, for decades.
Concern after Europeans endorse US science agenda
Germany’s biggest research funder has said it is “concerned” after Berlin, plus several other European countries, endorsed a controversial US-led science policy statement. On October 4, the White House announced that 16 countries, including Germany, the UK, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Poland, Japan and South Korea had backed the Kyoto Vision for a Golden Age of Science.
The Netherlands unveils its new innovation agency
The Netherlands has become the latest European country to launch a new innovation agency, running competitions between teams of inventors to get technologies off the ground. The National Agency for Disruptive Innovation (Nadi) will have a €500 million budget over the next decade to help bridge the R&D valley of death, funding technologies too advanced for academic research grants but too early for private investors.
Is metascience being co-opted?
In July, the White House released a report that argued academia is deeply dysfunctional and in need of radical reform. Science: A New Golden Age sets out a litany of problems many academics will recognise: interminable waits for grants; short-term funding rather than support for longer, more ambitious projects; ballooning administrative requirements; pressure to publish, and many more. “The scientific machine is getting bogged down,” it says.
The stats we need to better understand R&D
For R&D policy nerds, last week was like the World Cup and Olympics happening at the same time. Once every ten years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) hosts a conference to decide what new statistics are needed to better understand the fiendishly complex, multi-trillion euro global R&D system. The Bluesky conference, held in Paris on September 14-16, comes at a particularly crucial time.
Canada looks to deepen research and education links with the EU
Canada is looking for deeper research and education links with the EU, according to its prime minister, Mark Carney. His comments followed hard on the heels of an offer from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to give his nation associate membership of the EU, a status that currently has no legal status or definition. Both sides have yet to detail how this newfound political enthusiasm will translate into concrete action.
Can researchers trust that AI models won’t leak their ideas?
Research funders are asking how they can stop confidential scientific ideas in grant proposals from leaking out through large language models (LLMs), for example if reviewers use AI to help them judge applications. Last week, a row erupted in mathematics after OpenAI announced it had solved a notoriously difficult problem, only for another mathematician to demand answers over whether the company had used ideas he had fed into its models.
Why funders should investigate if AI is making research more conservative
When US researchers use large language models (LLMs) they appear to write grant proposals that are more conservative, hewing closer to previously funded work, a new study finds. According to one of its authors, science funders should crunch their own application data to see if the same thing is happening in Europe and elsewhere. “I think funders do have a unique opportunity to do a more in-depth study,” said Yifan Qian, a science of science researcher at Northwestern University in the US.
How geopolitical rifts cut scientific collaboration
Researchers have measured how worsening geopolitical relations hobble scientific collaboration, at last quantifying the impact of rifts between governments on cooperation between labs. Over the last decade, a tenser world has thrown up new barriers to cross-border science. Collaboration between the as the two countries have sunk into an ever-deeper rivalry. Links between Russia and Europe have collapsed following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Horizon Europe needs tailored biotech funding, report says
Horizon Europe needs to be better tailored to biotech firms, with current grants sometimes failing to have an impact on companies in the sector, a new report has argued. Instead of a one-size-fits-all model, the EU needs to tailor its support to take account of the lengthy regulatory approvals, expensive equipment and scientific uncertainty that makes biotech such a tricky sector, says Strategic Sector, Generic Funding, from the Centre for Future Generations, a Brussels-based think tank.
Russia widens targeting of European research centres
European academics say they are increasingly facing cyber-attacks and intimidation from Russia as Moscow’s attempts to stifle critical research expands into the EU. Several European research organisations that focus on the politics and history of eastern Europe say they have been hit by hacking attempts and designations as “undesirable” or even “extremist” organisations, which criminalise cooperation.
EU set to bring in world-leading screening to prevent man-made pandemics
The EU’s proposed Biotech Act will bring in one of the world’s first mandatory screening mechanisms to stop risky fragments of DNA falling into the wrong hands and potentially triggering a man-made pandemic. Under the proposals, released in December last year and now being discussed by EU governments and MEPs, all companies selling DNA in the EU would have to check the identities and positions of public and private scientists before shipping them potentially dangerous sequences.
Copernicus contract shortfall stirs exit debate in UK
The UK’s Brexit-related absence from the EU’s Copernicus Earth observation mission has seriously hit contract wins in the programme, sparking some to suggest the country should quit. A recent official report by the UK Space Agency concludes that it had only seen “modest contract returns,” and a number of UK space firms have downsized, although the report still concludes that membership is in the country’s interest.
US Stand Up for Science movement expands to Europe
A grassroots movement by scientists in the US pushing back against threats to academic freedom is setting up a Swiss outpost to take the movement global. Stand Up for Science started in February 2025 to protest against politically-motivated grant cancellations by the Trump administration. Since then, it has organised numerous rallies by scientists and turned into a broader campaigning organisation, supporting “pro-science” political candidates and attempting to impeach Robert F.
How to build a Darpa-like agency in Europe
Afraid of falling behind the US and China technologically, Europe is setting up a new generation of innovation agencies loosely modelled on the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), hoping they will seed world-changing new inventions. Germany’s Sprind, founded in 2019, has led the way. The UK set up an Advanced Research and Innovation Agency in 2022, while the Dutch and French governments are drawing up their own plans.
Japan and EU sign off Horizon Europe association
Japan has officially signed off a deal that associates the country to Horizon Europe, allowing Japanese researchers to apply to some of the programme on an equal basis to Europeans. The deal is the latest global expansion of the €93.5 billion programme, following agreements with New Zealand, Canada and South Korea. Japan is the most populous country to join so far.
The US ‘golden age’ science strategy: what Europeans need to know
The US has unveiled what officials claim is the most radical overhaul of the public R&D system in a generation, which if implemented could have significant implications for transatlantic research collaboration. Science: A New Golden Agederides universities as “legacy institutions” and instead wants to prioritise funding on technological challenges, new research labs and funding that follows individual scientists, rather than being linked to their institutions.
How Austria introduced grants for high-risk, high-reward research
A radical funding experiment in Austria to back “high risk, high reward” research ideas has been initially successful, a report has found, strengthening the case for other funders to follow. The 1000 Ideas programme, launched in 2019 by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), is a response to the widespread sense that the strictures of academic funding and careers prevent scientists exploring long-shot but potentially disruptive ideas.
European researchers sound the alarm that Trump rule changes will hit cooperation
Controversial changes that give US political appointees more power over research funding will also hit transatlantic science cooperation, European universities and researchers have warned. Sweeping changes to administrative rules, proposed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), include proposals that political appointees at US research funders should screen research grants to make sure they “advance the president's policy priorities,”.
Data Corner: Who is excluded from the latest Horizon Europe calls?
Twenty-eight Horizon Europe projects in sensitive research areas such as space and artificial intelligence will exclude at least some associated countries from outside the EU. Associated countries such as the UK, Switzerland, Canada and Türkiye pay to be part of the €93.5 billion research and innovation programme. But some fields are so sensitive that the EU restricts access, arguing it needs to preserve its autonomy and security.
Trust us on joint dual-use research in Horizon Europe, Türkiye tells EU
Türkiye is being excluded from key parts of Horizon Europe even as the country strikes defence and sensitive technology deals with individual EU member states, a leading official in the Turkish government has said.
Data Corner: US digital giants leave Horizon Europe in the dust on R&D spending
The latest figures for 2025 show that individual US digital giants are now outspending the EU on research and development by ratios of up to five to one. Since 2017, companies such as Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, have ratchetted up their R&D budgets on the back of enormous profits, overtaking the entire public spending of France, the UK and more recently Germany.
Europe agrees on plan to reconstruct Ukrainian R&D
European countries have hammered out a new agreement setting out how the continent will help Ukraine’s battered science and innovation system to emerge stronger from the country’s war with Russia. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, there have been numerous deals and assistance projects to help Ukrainian science.
New tool helps policymakers get the technologies they want
If you’re a policymaker or politician, and there’s a technology you’d like to create, such as a cheap anti-ageing pill, say, or impenetrable drone defences, how exactly do you bring it into the world? What kind of funding instrument do you use? On both sides of the Atlantic, philanthropists and new agencies are experimenting with new ways to fund public innovation.
How should European scientists respond to the US AI kill switch?
Earlier in June, Europe’s worst fears of technological dependence were confirmed when the White House ordered the AI firm Anthropic to stop non-US citizens using its leading models. This kill-switch moment crystalised anxieties in Brussels that the continent, lagging the US on the creation of leading-edge AI models, is now a technological of vassal of Washington. The shock has specific implications for European scientists and universities.
Data Corner: How newly associated countries are faring in Horizon Europe
Earlier in June, Australia officially signed a deal to associate to part of Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme. This means that Canberra will pay into Horizon Europe’s budget, and in return, Australia-based researchers will be able to bid for money on a largely equal playing field to Europeans, and receive money directly from the EU, making participation much less of a bureaucratic hassle.
France takes step towards creating new innovation body
France could become the latest European country to set up a new innovation body after a government-commissioned report recommended it create one “within months, not years.” French research and economy ministers were handed the report on June 18 during the VivaTech conference in Paris, a gathering of start-ups, scientists, politicians and companies.
European Research Council under fire over grant for Israeli ‘national defence’ drone project
The European Research Council (ERC) approved a €150,000 grant for an Israel-based academic to develop a drone identification technology even after he and his university publicly promoted that it could be used for “national defence.” In January this year, the ERC announced that Pavel Ginzburg, a lab leader at Tel Aviv University, had won a proof of concept grant, designed to allow ERC grantees to commercialise their discoveries.
Could European foundations kick-start technology start-ups?
Germany is a land of science foundations. These not-for-profit bodies sit on vast piles of money, invested in assets such as real estate or stocks, and use the returns to fund research grants. But what if European foundations could boost the continent’s science and technology not just through their grants, but where they invest their capital?
Data Corner: Cutting research grant bureaucracy: who is trying what?
Trying to cut research grant paperwork in academia is all the rage. Applicants are frustrated at having to submit seemingly enormous proposals for a tiny chance of success, and reviewers are burned out from a tidal wave of applications, increasingly generated by artificial intelligence.
European Darpas won’t create new industries overnight
Barely a week goes by in Europe without a call to set up an equivalent of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the body credited with some of the 20th century’s most transformative inventions, to end the continent’s technological vassalage. The EU’s high priest of economic decline, Mario Draghi, and economics Nobel Prize-winner Philip Aghion, have made the case for more Darpa-like agencies in Europe.
Singapore Horizon Europe talks have broken down
Negotiations between Brussels and Singapore to associate the city state to the EU’s €93.5 billion Horizon Europe research and innovation programme have broken down, the European Commission has confirmed. Instead of joining Horizon Europe, Singapore has launched grants for its researchers to join EU research consortia, although the part of the programme focused on democracy and human rights won’t be covered.
Reliance on Commission ‘infantilises’ European private firms, says innovation economist
An advocate for European technological independence has criticised the continent’s private sector for becoming “infantilised” and waiting on the European Commission to act. Cristina Caffarra, one of the economists behind the Eurostack movement for digital autonomy, told an audience in Berlin on May 21 that it was “maddening” that many in Europe passed the buck to the Commission or their national governments.
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Data Corner: Europe’s AI start-ups are here to help
European artificial intelligence start-ups are focusing on the bloc’s national strengths, new data suggests, with German firms around Munich heavily concentrating on manufacturing and supply chain tools, for example. This focus on one of Germany’s economic strengths is ground for “cautious optimism,” according to the Berlin-based think tank Interface, although in terms of raw numbers of AI start-ups, the US remains far ahead of the EU.
Five top tech policy ideas for the EU
This week, tens of thousands of tech policy people descended on Berlin for three days of discussion and debate at Re:publica, one of the continent’s biggest jamborees for digital ideas. This year, the mood at the left-leaning event was dark, but defiant. “Four minutes into any small talk, conversations now inherently turn to war, antisemitism, [far right party] Alternative für Deutschland, online hate, Trump, climate change or the uptick in openly stated racism,” the event’s organisers said.
Associated country universities demand place at FP10 table
University associations from four countries associated to the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme have banded together to warn that the programme needs to be “research-led” and include support for curiosity-driven science. In an open letter on May 13, the UK’s Russell Group, U15 Canada, Swissuniversities, and Universities New Zealand suggest they are concerned that the next programme, known as FP10, could drift away from a research focus and exclude them from sensitive projects.
How can Europe cope with a flood of AI-assisted research grant proposals?
The EU’s next Framework Programme for research and innovation could be dysfunctional from the outset, unless it adapts to cope with a wave of AI-assisted grant proposals that threaten to overwhelm the system, research leaders worry. Research funders across the world are being swamped by applications as large language models (LLMs) make it trivial for scientists to work up plausible-sounding project proposals, new data shows.
Science diplomacy lessons from a North Korean volcano
Mount Paektu, a mythic, active volcano on the border between North Korea and China, is almost the epitome of a scientific challenge that crosses political lines. In 946 CE, it erupted in one of the five biggest volcanic events of the past 10,000 years, kicking up huge quantities of ash and sending destructive mud flows down river channels for hundreds of kilometres. Should this happen again, the entire region, including easternmost Russia, South Korea and even Japan could be hit.
UK backs two new focused research organisations
The UK has announced funding for two new focused research organisations (FROs), projects designed to create new scientific platforms or tools that would struggle to win money from conventional sources. The country’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) has pledged £21 million for teams hoping to create new ways to monitor ecosystems and track connections in the brain in real time.
Germany, Netherlands and Italy gain AI researchers, France loses out
Germany and the Netherlands attracted thousands of new artificial intelligence researchers last year, while France shed talent, according to a new report that looks at the impact geopolitical upheaval is having on academic and expert migration. The number of AI researchers and engineers in Germany grew by 65% in 2025 to more than 17,000 compared to the previous year, according to data from the Berlin technology think tank Interface.
Largest Private Donation in GSSM History Announced by DeLoach Family
Harris and Louise DeLoach make largest contribution in GSSM history Harris and Louise DeLoach donate their home to the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics HARTSVILLE, SC, UNITED STATES, April 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics (GSSM) and the GSSM Foundation announce the largest private donation in the school’s history from Harris E. and Louise H. DeLoach.
Inside Germany’s Cyberagentur digital sovereignty agency
Germany’s Sprind innovation agency has captured Europe-wide attention for what it says is a new model of quick, bureaucracy-free and competitive public innovation funding. Both the EU and national governments such as the Netherlands hope to ape some of its features. But a year after Sprind was founded in 2019, Germany set up another innovation agency, also designed to shake up how public invention is done.
How defence start-ups can sell to the Ukrainian military
For European defence start-ups, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has opened up a multitude of funding opportunities, from the EU’s European Defence Fund and NATO’s Diana start-up accelerator, to big budget expansions for national militaries, particularly in Germany. But for a much quicker, less bureaucratic route to early revenue, firms should consider selling directly to the Ukrainian military, according to one of the co-founders of a network of European defence start-ups.
Israeli participation in Horizon Europe halves as boycotts bite
Israel’s participation in the EU’s €93.5 billion Horizon Europe research and innovation programme has halved since it began in 2021, data for 2025 shows, as the country’s wars on Iran and Lebanon have triggered fresh calls for the bloc to cut scientific links. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez earlier this month called on the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel, which underpins the country’s association to Horizon Europe.
Has Berlin discovered a new model for industrial R&D?
By inviting start-ups and academics into a working factory site, the Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry and Science hopes to speed up invention The Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry & Science’s test bed site. Photo credits: Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry & Science Discover the latest in research funding every Tuesday with Funding Newswire.
Horizon Europe is now truly global. But what comes next?
Australia has agreed to associate to Horizon Europe, capping the global expansion of the EU’s €93.5 billion research and innovation programme. A programme whose predecessors started in the 1980s as a way to link up scientists and companies across Europe is now arguably the world’s premier vehicle for cross-border research, having also brought in New Zealand, Canada, South Korea and Japan. India may also join in the near future.
European Innovation Council to investigate if AI is responsible for low success rates
The leadership of the European Innovation Council (EIC) is discussing whether artificial intelligence is to blame for a flood of applications to its new Advanced Innovation Challenges, which are already overwhelmed with proposals. Earlier this month, Science|Business reported that the EIC’s inaugural challenges are likely to have a success rate of just 2.8%. For its February deadline, the council received more than 700 proposals for just two challenges.
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