Periods Make Unicorns. July 2024 Science & Technology Insights

Looking for Unicorns? Read through, they are at the end ;D

What has happened in July?

1. 🍁 Canada officially joins Horizon Europe, and with the UK paying in to Horizon Europe, there will be €2.7 billion in funding in 2025.
2. 🗳 The UK has voted a centre-left Labour party with a huge parliamentary majority that is expected to seek far more cordial relations with the EU. However, universities are curious how this administration will fix a funding crisis. According to Vivienne Stern , from Universities UK , “For some [universities] there really is a genuine crisis”, as 40% of universities will run a loss this year. Considering that the UK’s entire R&D system is heavily concentrated in universities, the concern is major.
3. 🦙 “Complexity, inconsistency and uncertainty” in the application of regulation in the EU “risks putting people in Europe further behind other countries on their adoption of new technologies.” Says Meta (Facebook). Meta has already held off rolling out its Meta AI assistant 👓, over regulatory and data protection fears in the EU and the UK. The assistant is now available in 22 countries, including the US, Australia, and Argentina.

What About the Baltics?

🔵⚫⚪ Estonia 

4. University of Tartu will host the Estonian Cancer Center.

5. TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology is bringing innovation to the maritime industry, through Sustainable Solutions and Ice-Breaking technologies.

6. Also at TalTech, progress is being made in Chips as discussed with Jaan Raik , with a pressing need for energy-efficient AI chips. These topics, along with others were presented at the Three Top-Tier Software Science Conferences held in Tallinn earlier this month.

🔴⚪🔴 Latvia 

7.     Antibiotic misuse leads to Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which is directly responsible for 1.3 million deaths a year and between U$D 1-3 trillion in GDP losses. Silva Gradovska , an AMR researcher from Latvia, warns, therefore, that: “Monitoring wastewater in hospitals is particularly important […] because it serves as an early warning […] to prevent disease outbreaks.”

8.     A new programme at Rīgas Tehniskā universitāte (Riga Technical University) (RTU), will prepare leaders of entrepreneurship and innovation in materials science and nanotechnologies. RTU is also innovating inside the classrooms, creating new learning experiences with innovative technologies and methodologies in education.

9. The annual Riga Week of the European University of Technology (EUT+) gathered more than 120 participants from all 9 EUT+ partner universities. The next EUT+ week is set for October 2024, in Romania.

10. University of Latvia (Latvijas Universitāte) ’s efforts to improve its educational offers has not gone unnoticed by foreign students who this year comprise 7.3% of the total student count. UL established a Doctoral School envisioning a transition to employment-based doctoral studies and the strengthening of study interdisciplinarity.

Upcoming:  International Teaching Week will be held from October 14 to 18, 2024 at Riga Technical University (Riga, Latvia).

🟡🟢🔴 Lithuania

11. Lithuanian researchers keep conquering Journal covers, this time on "Advanced Optical Materials". The cover shows an array of nanoneedles formed by direct laser writing, in a thin gold coating. Kernius Vilkevičius Algirdas Selskis Evaldas Stankevicius

12. The wave of MedTech and biotech startups is rising fast in Lithuania, according to Tech-Park Kaunas .

13. And how can we talk about MedTech startups, without mentioning the unicorn in the room? Flo Health Inc. , the most downloaded women’s health app worldwide. After raising € 200 M, they became Lithuania’s 4th unicorn, and with HQs in London, is the first purely digital consumer women’s health app to achieve unicorn status. Over 380 million women around the globe use Flo as their ovulation and period tracker app, fertility calendar, and pregnancy assistant. 🦄

Thank you for joining me in this edition of Baltic Science News! I hope you enjoyed exploring the thrilling developments across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as much as I did. There’s no shortage of innovation and exciting projects in the Baltic region, and I’m already looking forward to sharing more with you next month.

If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or topics you’d like to see covered, feel free to reach out.

Until then, stay curious and keep an eye on the incredible advancements happening right here in our backyard. See you next month!