22/01/2009

Interview with Mr George Blaha, President of RS Dynamics Ltd, winner of the 2008 EUREKA Lynx award

The 2008 EUREKA Lynx award was given to a Czech-Spanish consortium (RS Dynamics Ltd and Sener Ingeniereia Y Systemas) that developed a new generation of reliable, robust and fast-acting portable explosive analysers and detectors to improve public security at airports, railway stations, sport stadiums, banks and nuclear power stations. Mr George Blaha, president of RS Dynamics, talked to the Greek CORDIS website about the project, the Eureka Award and the challenges innovative SMEs face...

22/01/2009

Interview with Arjan Kolling (Sensata Technologies), winner of the 2008 EUREKA Lillehammer Award

The 2008 EUREKA Lillehammer award was given to a Dutch-German consortium (Sensata Technologies and BERU) that developed an innovative cylinder pressure sensor for cars, the use of which optimises fuel combustion in car diesel engines to improve performance and significantly reduce exhaust gas and soot particle emissions. Dr Arjan Kolling, of Sensata Technologies talked to the Greek CORDIS web site about the project, the Eureka Award and the role of innovation in environmental protection...

29/09/2008

Interview with Eleni Tzavara, Senior Research Scientist at the INSERM Institute, Paris

Eleni Tzavara is working on creating new drugs for treating psychiatric conditions such as depression, manic depression and schizophrenia. She is one of the five young Greek scientists who have been honoured with this year's Bodossakis Foundation Scientific Awards. In the interview she gave to the Greek CORDIS site, she talks about the innovative dimension of her research work, about the progress and future developments in treating mental illness, focusing on recognising each patient group on the basis of clinical, experimental and genetic criteria and proposing the appropriate drug...

29/09/2008

Interview with Michalis Dafermos, Reader at the Cambridge University Pure Mathematics and Statistics Department

Mathematician Michalis Dafermos, is one of the five young Greek scientists who have been honoured with this year's Bodossakis Foundation Scientific Awards. In the interview he gave to the Greek CORDIS site, he talks about his research work and the potential of mathematics to interpret natural phenomena, as well as the progress Greece has made in the field of research. He underscores the need for a revolution in existing general mathematical techniques for studying differential equations, and, if true progress is made in that field, that much will be learnt about the theoretical predictions of general relativity under extreme conditions and, consequently, to what extent theory matches any astrophysical observations.

29/09/2008

Interview with Georgios Kondopidis, Assistant Professor at the University of Thessaly Veterinary Medicine Department

Georgios Kondopidis works on the targeted development of pharmaceutical substances. He is one of the five young Greek scientists who have been honoured with this year's Bodossakis Foundation Scientific Awards. In the interview he gave to the Greek CORDIS site, he explains the innovative dimension of his research and analyses the differences in conditions faced by researchers in Greece and abroad, with regard to the institutional framework and infrastructure. According to Mr. Kondopidis, the most impressive developments in the field of targeted pharmaceuticals' development pertain to the rapid progress of computational chemistry and computational biology, which lead to results at greater speed and at a much lower cost...

29/09/2008

Interview with Nikolaos Paragios, Professor of the Applied Mathematics Department at the ?cole Centrale de Paris

Nikolaos Paragios' research activity focuses on the development of artificial vision, the ability to process and analyse specific visual data, with the purpose of reproducing the system of human vision through computers. He is one of the five young Greek scientists who have been honoured with this year's Bodossakis Foundation Scientific Awards. In the interview he gave to the CORDIS Greek node, he talks about his research work, about the relationship between research and industry and about the prospects for improvement of conditions for young researchers in Greece. He points out that an important difference between Europe and the United States is that in the United States, development and recognition come about through the highly competitive system, while in Europe this occurs mainly due to the researcher's wishes and initiative.

29/09/2008

Interview with George-Mario Aggeletos, Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Economist George-Mario Aggeletos is one of the five young Greek scientists to receive a prize for scientific excellence from the Bodossakis Foundation. He presented his work in an interview with the Greek CORDIS site, while also commenting on current economic events and the circumstances faced by young researchers in Greece and abroad. He mentioned that there are currently no real incentives for research at Greek universities. A more competitive university environment would better reward good researchers by providing appropriate incentives for improved research while single-handedly seeking the most effective collaborations with the private sector

08/09/2008

Ιnterview with Professor Erik DeClercq, University of Leuven (Belgium), European Inventor of 2008

Belgian researcher Erik DeClercq, of the University of Leuven, talks to the Greek CORDIS website about his work, which was recently honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award, at the "European Inventor of the Year 2008" event. The "European Inventor of the Year" awards, which are run jointly by the European Commission and European Patent Office (EPO), recognise inventions which have had a significant impact on people's lives and which have been patented by the EPO. Professor Ε. De Clercq received the award for his work on antiviral drugs for use in the treatment of diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B and herpes. As well as developing some of the earliest drugs to fight HIV, the Leuven team also pioneered the use of a 'cocktail' of up to four drugs to treat HIV; previously just one drug was used at a time.

22/08/2008

Interview with Joseph Sifakis, CNRS Research Director, winner of the A.M Turing Prize 2007

Joseph Sifakis, the Greek researcher who received the most prestigious international award in the IT field, the A.M. Turing Award, talks to CORDIS in an interview with Aliki Marinou, about his research and developments in his field in general: about technology penetrating into our daily life and the risks and rewards entailed; about IT?s contribution to issues of concern to us today, such as ecology and energy saving, and the amazing future applications of nano-technology and embedded systems. J. Sifakis also comments on the status of research and technology in Greece and proposes measures to better exploit Greece?s major advantages in the field, such as its exceptional human resources.

10/07/2008

Interview with Professor Heinrich Miller, Coordinator of the EPICA Project

Professor Heinrich Miller (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research), talks to the Greek CORDIS website about the EPICA project that was recently awarded the Εuropean Descartes Prize for Transnational Collaboraive Research. EPICA is a large-scale project for the retrieval of ice cores from Antarctica that will provide scientists with valuable information regarding the climate changes that have taken place on the planet over the past 800,000 years. 12 research teams collaborated for the project, under the coordination of the Alfred Wegener Institute.