Visionary, high-risk, long-term and breaking down traditional boundaries. These are just some of the key ingredients in breakthrough technologies being targeted by FET researchers across Europe.

In April 2009, a devastating earthquake destroyed one of Italy’s most beautiful ancient towns, L’Aquila, killing more than 300 people and injuring 1600.

For David Bollier, cities are at a crossroads. As smart city initiatives and data collection increases, it’s essential that citizens use the ideas of the commons to retain control of the services that matter to them, and to ensure these work for the people of the city, not just for business or bureaucracy, he argues.

Would you dive into a body of water populated by about 150 robots? That’s what could happen if you were to fall off a “gondola” in the Venice lagoon, where scientists from an initiative of seven European research institutes, are giving birth to the world’s largest population of autonomous robots .

Can mathematics be expressed poetically through computational technologies? Visual artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith believe it can be and are collaborating with the Artificial Life Lab of the University of Graz, in Austria, on the Subcultron project (Submarine Cultures Perform Long-Term Exploration of Unconventional Environmental Niches).

Investors look for a number of things before betting on a company or product in the bioeconomy sector: prestigious and experienced team, economic sustainability, competitive advantage, and potential users.

Part of the solution to counter the devastating effects of floods on human communities could be long-term climate forecasting, backed by assessments on the vulnerability of towns and cities As centres of innovation and growth, European cities are home to around 75% of the continent’s population and use about 80% of the energy it produces.

From pollution levels and the number of traffic accidents to safer public spaces and more efficient heating in buildings:  to what extent can the smartness of a city be quantified?  And  is it possible to measure the quality of life  for an urban area through numerical parameters? It’s all about collecting data that is reliable and making sense of the numbers afterwards.

Richard Stallman , 62 years, is that kind of man who you could just think is a genuine down-to-earth dreamer.

How do you express the bliss felt in a concert? Why is the execution of a piece of music better than another? Is an ensemble of musicians engaging an audience? Antonio Camurri , professor of human ...

In science fiction, robots acts like human beings. A close look at the state of the art robotics would tell us that the technology is not likely to emulate science fiction yet. But there has been much progress in the field.

Plants, like almost all living organisms, have an internal communication system to respond to external stimuli. Whether they are exposed to sunlight, pollutants, nutrients or pests, plants react with a tell-tale electrical signal.

Multiple disasters can have a cumulative impact leading to great human and financial loss. The awareness of all possible risks is of fundamental importance.

Landslides and floods are increasingly occurring natural events . They continue to damage infrastructures and farmland across the EU. Meanwhile, they are also putting people’s life at risk.

Guy Weets, a telecommunications engineer and consultant for the research centre AMRA (Analysis and Monitoring of Environmental Risk) in Naples, is the scientific coordinator of the CLUVA project, funded by the EU.

The village of Olympos , located near the ancient city of Rhodiapolis, in the Antalya region of Turkey, escaped a wild fire, on 2 September 2012.

Just like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions are extremely difficult to accurately predict. Yet, the eruption of the Santa Ana Volcano in El Salvador was predicted a few days before it happened on 1 st October 2005.

Imagine that a hundred years ago it was possible to take the ‘digital fingerprint’ of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and store it in an international database.

Today, the male lobby -the “old boy network”- in Italy is preventing women from ascending within academies and companies’ hierarchy, despite their high qualifications.

Fire brigades will soon have access to a safety system which is able to accurately detect and locate people that may be trapped in debris after, for example, an earthquake.