With their hands on the legal levers
It is wonderful news for the Scandinavian scientific community. At the end of May it stood clear that Lund will host to the European Spallation Source.
A great step for European science, said Colin Carlile, Director of ESS Scandinavia. He also graciously thanked the runners-up, Hungary and Spain, for offering top competition enhancing the quality of the race. The long-term commitment of the ESS Council countries paves the ground for a project that one country could never have achieved on its own. Which, of course, is the true essence of the benefits of European countries joining forces.
I am writing this the day after the elections for the European Parliament . Voters from all over Europe have elected new members to a political assembly with leverage on a number of issues very important to the life science community. During the last years Members of the European Parliament, the so-called MEPs, have discussed stem cell research, the use of primates in scientific research and how to battle a pandemic flu, to pick but a few topics. The European Parliament makes decisions that may affect research and biobusiness in a profound way. The new MEPs will have great influence on a number of crucial issues. In some questions their hands are at the legal levers. Let’s make it our joint responsibility to make sure that the newly elected MEPs are well informed in life science related matters. Just to be on the safe side.
This is the last editorial I pen for Biotech Sweden and Biotech Scandinavia. It has been my joy and privilege to work with this news service since it was founded in 2002, for the last three years as Captain of the Ship. I leave the ship in the steady hands of Camilla Wernersson, and wish her all the best! I would like to take this opportunity to express my profound thanks to everyone I have met with, along the way. I do not say goodbye. I say au revoir, or, as the Swedish say: på återseende!
Loth Hammar,
Former Editor-in-Chief
