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Blanca Beato Arribas, Asset Performance Team Leader at BSRIA sheds light on how indoor air quality can impact working environments. Indoor environments may feel like a safe haven from external pollution, however, sometimes they can be 8- 10 times more polluted than the exterior, according to the World Health Organization...

Jody Goldsworthy, Senior Partner, GatenbySanderson outlines the ever-changing role of the public sector leader and what it entails...  The UK is facing an unprecedented period of change. Demand for public services is at an all-time high, meanwhile budgets are under more pressure. And, following the result of the EU referendum,...

Andy Slaney, Principal Consultant at BSI Group highlights some of the key things to ask your prospective lean six sigma (business improvement techniques) training provider before signing up for their course… The desire to improve process outcomes and the need to deliver those outcomes in the most efficient, cost effective,...

Environment Agency chief Sir James Bevan says waste crime costs England £1 billion a year while offering huge profits for criminals… According to the head of the Environment Agency (EA), Sir James Bevan, waste crime is the ‘new narcotics’, offering massive profits for criminals whilst costing the taxpayer in the...

Melinda Kelley from the National Institute on Aging in the US, speaks to Editor Laura Evans about raising awareness of Alzheimer’s disease and how funding for research is allocated to the National Institutes of Health… Alzheimer’s disease is a global health challenge. The most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease,...

Julian Francis, Director of Policy and External Affairs at ACE discusses what should be expected from the upcoming Autumn Statement and its impact on infrastructure investment… Westminster is in full swing following the recess and political turmoil of the last few months. As such, we are beginning to get a...

Arwyn Jones and Alberto Orgiazzi, European Commission Joint Research Centre Sustainable Resources Directorate - Land Resources Unit, discuss the importance of soil biodiversity... Soil condition underpins food security, green growth, bio-economies and aboveground biodiversity; it regulates climate, the hydrological and nutrient cycles, while mitigating climate change. Soils provide resilience against floods and...

Alberto Mantovani, Research Director, Istituto Superiore di Sanità discusses if conducting research into endocrine disrupting chemicals is still worthwhile... Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC) are chemical substances that can damage our health and/or the health of environmental organisms by altering the hormone function. Thus, EDC -like mutagenic or carcinogenic substances- are a group...

A UK laboratory has been granted £50,000 EU funding towards developing non-animal testing methods… XCellR8, based at Sci Tech Daresbury, has been granted £50,000 funding through the European Union’s flagship research programme Horizon 2020. The firm is a global leader in non-animal testing and instead uses human cell-based methods. Animal testing often...

Urgent action is needed on air pollution, says OECD Environment Director Simon Upton, particularly in coal-reliant economies like China and India… Air pollution takes years off people’s lives. It causes pain and suffering through lung and heart diseases. It harms food crops and suppresses agricultural output in a world with...

Rory Clarke, director at J R Rix and Sons, explores the potentially devastating impact of cyber crime and what you can do to protect your business… In this age of increased connectivity and data sharing, the danger of cyber crime is one of the most insidious threats a company can...

Dr Benjamin Van Voorhees, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, talks about the role of quantitative measurements in healthcare to ensure high standards of medical practice... “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”. “What you can’t count, doesn’t count”.  These bromides of the corporate world found a home in the...

Services offered for homeless young offenders have been criticised in a new report… A new report from the HM Inspectorate of Probation and the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales has criticised the measures in place to help homeless young offenders. The report revealed a third of young people between 16-...

Andrew Main Wilson, chief executive of the Association of MBAs (AMBA) outlines why an MBA qualification is worthwhile and what they can offer any graduate While the nature of our global economy makes future gazing virtually impossible, our increasingly volatile world has a huge appetite for quality MBA graduates. These...

Five new areas in Lincolnshire are set to see their street lights turned off as part of a council programme to save £1.7m… More street lights are set to be turned off under controversial plans from Lincolnshire County Council. Despite outcry from the public the county council turned off some lights...

Professor Martin Hoelzle from the Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg sheds light in the importance of measuring the increased fever of world’s climate… The cryosphere as a whole system consists of snow, river and lake ice, sea ice, glaciers, ice shelves and ice sheets, and frozen ground. The...

Bridge Health Coordination highlight the three main functions of public health. Public health policy and organisations aim to prevent disease, and to promote health and the quality and quantity of the life of populations. Public health has 3 main functions: (1) the continuous follow-up of the health populations and of...

Dr. Stefano Nativi, Project Coordinator,  National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research discusses geographic information and how technology can assist in this field... In the present era of big data, geographic information (GI) is ubiquitous and being characterised by a high level of variety as far as granularity levels, conceptual...

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, T.D outlines, how Ireland aims to become a global leader in innovation, research and development, highlighting the government’s Innovation 2020 strategy… Innovation has been central to securing Ireland’s economic recovery and the Irish government plans to continue building a sustainable economy...

Claire Brook, Partner at law firm Bond Dickinson, asks how the UK’s regulatory regime for unconventional hydrocarbon development might be impacted post-Brexit… We are in interesting and uncertain times. Attempting to predict the future for the shale gas industry in the current economic and political climate is not easy. In...