52% of those polled in the latest Eurobarometer survey on biotechnology, published today, indicated a belief that biotechnology will improve their quality of life. The Eurobarometer "Europeans and biotechnology in 2005" shows that most Europeans are in favour of medical (red) applications of biotechnology when there are clear benefits for human health; and industrial (white) applications, but they are still mostly sceptical about agricultural (green) biotech, and will continue to be so unless new crops and products are seen to have consumer benefits.

The European Parliament has adopted the report outlining the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) by an overwhelming majority. This endorses the structure of FP7. The report now gives broad support to the European Commission's proposed work programme, which will have a budget of EUR 50,521 billion. The Parliament also adopted, by a large majority, the report on the proposed European Atomic Energy Community's seventh Framework Programme (EURATOM).

Following a wide-ranging consultation of stakeholders and Member States, the Commission adopted a new Communication fleshing out its plan for the establishment of a European Institute of Technology (EIT). Much progress has been made since the Spring European Council (March 2006) invited the Commission to continue developing its proposal to create a European Institute of Technology - a flagship project for excellence in higher education, research and innovation. Responding to the request of the Heads of State and Government in March, the Communication both clarifies its proposal and identifies issues that must be addressed next. The aim is to focus the ongoing consultation and debate in the coming months and prepare a formal proposal towards the end of the year.

To provide equal access and opportunity for everyone, the Web must be accessible. Although technical barriers can be overcome using Web technologies, what is the best approach? To answer this researchers are developing a common approach to evaluating and creating accessible sites.

CASCOM's main objective is to develop, implement, validate, and trial of intelligent, context-aware agent-based service coordination infrastructure for innovative Semantic Web service discovery, composition, and execution across mobile and fixed peer-to-peer service networks.

When Dr Javier Marco checks his patients he often uses a computer with a videoconferencing link. Many of his elderly patients live in remote villages in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees and no longer travel to where he works. "They're very satisfied. There is less inconvenience and the quality of care is better," he says.

The latest figures published today compares biotechnology sectors across some eighteen European nations and the USA.

The report finds that the European and the US biotechnology industries both have around 2000 companies, but the US sector employs nearly twice as many people, spends around three times as much on research and development, has twice the number of employees involved in research and development, raises over twice as much venture capital, and has access to 10 times as much debt finance. It earns twice as much revenue.