Author: Gareth Willmer

David Clarke has a busy life juggling two jobs. He works three days a week recycling waste at a supermarket in Drogheda, his home town in eastern Ireland. On other days, he takes the hour-long bus ride to the capital Dublin to work in a gift hamper warehouse. Aged 44 and living with Down syndrome, […]

A hospital in central Paris has had an unexpected helper: a full-sized talking humanoid robot. Created by an international team of EU-funded researchers, it can interact with patients, provide practical information and answer questions to help people navigate around the hospital. Trials of the orange-and-white robot named ARI have shown promise, according to the team […]

Central Macedonia, a region on the northern mainland of Greece, is an important producer of food. It generates a quarter of the country’s agricultural output and is the source of much of Greece’s table olives, peaches, wine and dairy products. But this productivity also results in large amounts of agricultural waste.  EU-funded researchers are now […]

In the village of Lerești, in the centre of Romania, a bus with a purpose pulled up last August. Having already travelled through Lithuania and Poland, it was on the third of its five stops in Romania, on a mission to raise awareness of cancer – both ways to prevent it and options for treatment. […]

German mechanical engineer and research manager Martin Osbild is a fan of avoiding waste. At home, he would far sooner repair than replace broken household items – from washing machines to food blenders and bicycles. At work, the same environmental principles are high on his agenda. Osbild is leading a team of researchers at the […]

Like civilisations, languages rise, fall and disappear. Even in Europe, which strives to uphold its linguistic diversity, dozens of regional languages are on the road to extinction. But the work of experts like Justyna Olko could help to change that. As a teenager in the 1990s, Olko became fascinated by the indigenous cultures of the […]