Frontiers Policy Labs participated in Euroscience Open Forum 2022, the largest biennial interdisciplinary meeting on science and innovation in Europe, for and with society.

The pandemic has made us aware of the importance of institutional action to protect individual and public health not only in times of crisis. More importantly, the need for preparedness in view of possible future health emergencies. Over the past two years, awareness of the importance of prevention in healthcare has grown. We have realised that health begins before the onset of a disease and presumes the ability to prevent (and predict) the effects of the ecological crisis on our lives..

War has often been used as a metaphor for health and disease, as in the “war on cancer”. However, to my knowledge, the prevention of poor health and premature death has never been used as a metaphor for prevention of war. In this short article, I propose that the principles behind public health models can be useful for preventing and “treating” war.

The Covid-19 crisis has raised many questions about other infectious diseases and ailments that still lack appropriate medical treatments. Many of these questions involve drug discovery and development, both in the private sector and in academic settings. It is common to see questions on social networks and blogs such as, “Is it possible to develop affordable new drugs quickly?”, “Why do so many new drugs seem to come from non-EU countries?” and “What lies ahead?”

War is an extremely polarizing phenomenon that divides nuances into black and white. As Russian forces rolled into Ukraine, the Western response was to shut Russia out of virtually all partnerships and areas of cooperation. It seemed a justified reaction to a country seeking to reintroduce war into Europe after decades of peace. But, as inexcusable as the actions of the Putin regime are, we risk being blind to the nuances of the situation as we respond. It is difficult to employ rationality in times of war, when emotion takes the driver’s seat, but it is nonetheless crucial to ask the following questions in assessing our response: Do these actions stifle the Kremlin’s war objectives? Do they help Ukraine? What is the impact on humanity at large?

In the long term, the principle of solidarity in the accessibility of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and essential medical supplies should drive the global reform of pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response protocols. The EU could play a leading role in this process, through the recently established European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA).

Professor Linqi Zhang,

School of Medicine, Tsinghua University
Chair of Comprehensive AIDS Research Center, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University
Chair of Global Health and Infectious Diseases Center

In this episode Jean-Claude talks to Danielle Cooper and Oya Rieger of Ithaka S+R about the cancellation of big deals between subscription publishers and university libraries. 

Food and energy prices are rising, economies in Europe are stretched due to the lack, or potential future lack, of fuels (particularly gas), food (particularly wheat and animal feed), and fertilisers, along with other materials, such as the metals needed for energy transition or other transition-related needs.

Frontiers Policy Labs spoke with Wim Thiery, an associate professor at the University of Brussels, a climate scientist who uses computer models to project how climate extremes will evolve in the future. Dr. Thiery, who was named one of Europe’s “30 Under 30” by Forbes, is a contributing author on two past IPCC reports and his research is featured in the report on climate change impacts that recently came out.

There is a long history of government intervention in energy markets. For both political and economic reasons, countries have always subsidized the production of cheap and abundant fossil energy. Over the last hundred years, the availability of inexpensive fossil-fuel energy has been a hallmark of the growth of most countries—including both the industrial growth of the last century and the information-intensive growth of our current era.

Emphasizing that the goals presented in the Paris Agreement, COP25, Fit for 55, and the upcoming COP26 are extremely ambitious and require urgent action, Vineis expressed the view that mitigating climate change will require a balance between two broad strategies. The first strategy, a big focus of recent agendas, is essentially technological, based on implementing technologies like green hydrogen or nuclear power and, in general, quick shifts towards renewable energy. The second strategy is partially non-technological, harnessing the health-related ‘co-benefits’ of certain societal approaches to climate change mitigation.

Frontiers Evidence Snapshots surveys 350 recent papers, reporting ongoing climate change in the atmosphere, the oceans, the Arctic and Antarctic - and the effects of these changes on sea levels and on so-called extreme events (tropical storms, droughts and floods etc.)