Better together
Globally, the chemicals sector continues to grapple with high energy prices, high interest rates and a weak economic outlook. Add to that the continuing conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East. Meanwhile, 2024 is not just an election year, but the election year, with 64 countries and the EU headed to the polls. Read the leader article from Sharon Todd, SCI's CEO.
Cryptocurrency of life
While the news is full of stories about the impact of AI on manufacturing and finance, for example the concept cryptocurrency, some researchers are looking to use the technology to delve into the origins of life on Earth – a subject that has exercised many researchers over the decades.
Reinventing business
What is keeping top managers awake at night at a time when the challenges seem to come from all directions, and all at once? Is it climate change or financial problems, or is it the global economy or finding or creating the best staffing solution, or even the long-term viability of the business? What, for example, will be the impact of AI on the business? Can the business survive?
Falling behind
In the race to build capacity for European battery production, the UK has not been at the front of the pack. The past couple of years have seen projects being announced and then falling by the wayside, in many cases due to a lack of consistency in the UK Government’s approach. There have been promises of funding support which have then melted away.
Drug shortages
US concerns about drug shortages and the likely impact of pricing measures within President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act have previously been reported in these pages. Nationwide shortages of over 128 medicines including some antibiotics and a number of chemotherapies have reached such a point that Republicans in the US Congress have taken action to pressure the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for answers to what they describe as a failure by the FDA to ensure these critical drugs remain available in pharmacies.
Let’s work together
Collaboration is the current name of the game as far as research is concerned. It is seen as a key aspect for the mobilisation of research capabilities around the world; no more so than in Europe, where the Horizon programme is top of the list.
Nuclear renaissance?
Energy and climate change remain at the top of agendas around the world. The oven-like temperatures around the Mediterranean and resulting epidemic of wildfires and ruined holidays made the headlines over the summer, matched by calls to delay measures that might in some way curb the seemingly unstoppable march of climate change.
US pharma flounders
It used to be simple – or at least relatively straightforward. Big Pharma relied on ‘blockbuster’ drugs to provide profits and financial support for R&D. Then biotech became the ‘next big thing’ with small start-up companies, often spin-outs from university research and funded by venture capitalists. Read the full article.
Paying the price for healthy living
How much is the average individual prepared to pay to meet, and hopefully overcome, the current environmental challenges that include plastic pollution, air and water quality, and of course climate change?
Confused taxonomy
Sustainability is very much at the top of most industry and governmental agendas. But the application of legislation to achieve a national goal of sustainability is as complicated as any other approach to meeting national goals, and further complicated by a nation’s particular position in the international world.