Outside the mountain town of Sabiñánigo in northern Spain, an abandoned chemical factory stands on land still scarred by decades of Lindane production – a pesticide now banned worldwide – which left behind thousands of tonnes of toxic waste. Production ended in the 1980s, but the pesticide’s main by-product, hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), continues to
Francesco Grillo, Bocconi University European leaders must agree on how to respond to the accusation that their continent faces “civilizational erasure”. These were the strongest words used in the most strongly-worded national security strategy ever released by a US government, making it clear that allyship is no longer a given. And yet, what
When Professor Alicja Krzemień set out to turn one of Poland’s largest coal-mining waste heaps into a thriving meadow, she faced an uphill battle. Together with fellow researchers in an EU-funded collaboration called RECOVERY, her team revitalised the barren terrain at the Janina mine in Libiąż, southern Poland. They applied soil substitutes, aiming
In March 2025, a low-budget independent animation made history by becoming the first Latvian film to win an Oscar. Flow took home the award for Best Animated Feature, beating Hollywood giants Disney and DreamWorks. Co-produced across several European countries on a fraction of a typical Hollywood budget, the film delivered a powerful message about solidarity
Europe’s appetite for electronics keeps growing, but so does the waste. From smartphones and laptops to medical sensors, more devices mean mounting piles of discarded hardware. According to Eurostat, around 5 million tonnes of electronic waste is collected for recycling in the EU each year. That is more than 11 kilograms per household, enough
Ph. Group of elderly Italians sitting on a bench in the centre of Scicli, Italy. Eddy Galeotti/Shutterstock Javier Díaz Giménez, IESE Business School (Universidad de Navarra) and Julián Díaz Saavedra, Universidad de Granada In early October 2025, with his political future hanging by a thread, France’s resigned-and-reappointed prime minister Sébastien Lecornu pledged to
At this year’s International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, a small square house set up in Giardino delle Vergini told a story of resilience and ingenuity, demonstrating how innovation does not have to mean huge investment. Created by the Swedish non-profit foundation BetterShelter, it has become a common sight in emergency situations worldwide – from
One of the biggest challenges in studying how diet impacts disease is understanding what people really eat. Food diaries and surveys are still the standard tools, but they often fall short as people forget, misjudge portions, or play down less healthy choices. To tackle this, EU-funded researchers are testing something new: a discreet wearable
What if the biggest untapped resource in European agriculture is not technology or funding – but the women already working in the sector? At 34, Albertine Ekkels from the Netherlands found herself torn between daily life on a dairy farm and her dream of starting a business. “The biggest challenge for me was
Ph. Russian army special forces inspect vehicles at a checkpoint in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in February 2024. Sergey Nikonov/Shutterstock Christo Atanasov Kostov, IE University The scenes have become grimly familiar: Russian tanks rolling into Georgia in 2008, the seizure of Crimea in 2014, the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian military jets violating European