ERC President explains stricter application measures amid rising demand for funding The text of an open letter sent by ERC President Maria Leptin to ERC panel members, grantees and other stakeholders on 16 April 2026.

erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

⚡Within one week, two major European #research funders confronted the same problem, but sent very different signals.

ERC announced resubmission restrictions for unsuccessful applicants, saying that peer-review burden on panels became too high.

Cost of systemic overload is being passed downward.

4/4 This is not a full solution. But it is a positive signal: survival of a research system also depends on whether it creates viable paths to independence for the researchers it already trains.
#AcademicFunding #Science #ResearchFunding #HigherEducation #AcademicCareers

3/4 At a time when much of Europe is rolling out large funding schemes to attract researchers from abroad, often failing to address the "revolving-door" conundrum faced by its own ECRs, Switzerland seems to be taking seriously the question of how to retain and support its own talent.

2/4 With its latest changes to #funding, SNSF is taking step toward managing growing pressure of grant applications while refocusing support on domestic ECRs on their path to scientific independence. SNSF explicitly links these changes to a steep rise in applications and very low success rates.

Postdoc.Mobility, Ambizione: adaptations The SNSF is updating the eligibility criteria for Postdoc.Mobility and Ambizione before they are replaced by a new funding scheme in 2028.

🇨🇭Switzerland may be one of the first countries to openly acknowledge that research funding systems need to adapt if they are to remain sustainable. 1/4

#AcademicFunding #Science #ResearchFunding #HigherEducation #AcademicCareers #ECRs

www.snf.ch/en/kaczpDec5...

📚 Seminar is open to undergraduate students at Freie Universität Berlin and we hope it will also be accessible to students from other Berlin University Alliance institutions (HU, TU, Charité). Students interested in how environments interact with the brain and behaviour are very welcome to join. 3/

🌳 From greenspaces to digital environments, seminar spans wide range of contexts in which humans interact with their surroundings. We’ll explore how environments across different scales shape brain & behaviour. Course also includes lab visit and activities built around real research questions. 2/

⚡ Happy to share that Sonja Sudimac and I will again be delivering our environmental neuroscience seminar at @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social this summer semester: Exploring Minds and Environments. (125264-S26)

1/

@cen-mpib.bsky.social

a picture of a minion with the words whaaat written on it ALT: a picture of a minion with the words whaaat written on it

“Those skills (conflict resolution, accountability) are more important than learning how to spell.”

Higher-order socio-cognitive skills are constrained by underlying cognitive capacities, weakening those foundations predictably degrades complex social reasoning.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Te...

Epstein case has Russia's fingerprints all over it.

Why Owning Nothing Is So Expensive YouTube video by Business Insider

2026 - already called year of analog, as more people choose to "unplug", "unsubscribe" and shift away from tech.

Rebellion against subscriptions is just the economic dimension of broader tiredness with current socioeconomic model.

#society #unplug #digitaleconomy
youtu.be/8AKn-zJMIwY?...

Interesting longitudinal study on infants about development of representations of natural objects:

#neurocience

An interesting study on how gaze and gesture jointly support spatial reasoning in architecture. Mechanisms described may also be relevant for clinical conditions involving disrupted eye-hand coordination and visual-symbolic processing of the #environment.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/TPYTPN...

Wow, this has also potential to be great tool for teaching!

Happy 80th birthday to the iconic Dolly Parton.

Raccoons break into liquor stores, scale skyscrapers and pick locks – studying their clever brains can clarify human intelligence, too Trash pandas’ talent for escaping via lab vents may frustrate researchers, but their problem-solving skills make their brains a fascinating area of research.

Raccoons break into liquor stores, scale skyscrapers and pick locks. A behavioral neuroscientist explains what we've been missing about one of the animal kingdom's most underestimated minds. buff.ly/Uxj7boZ

On the move: MRI goes mobile

Great news:
Today, @mpib-berlin.bsky.social launched its first mobile MRI lab 🧠🚐

This opens up exciting new possibilities for @cen-mpib.bsky.social to take environmental neuroscience research far beyond the lab into the field.

www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/newsroom/new...

#neuroscience #environment

Eurasia Group | The Top Risks of 2026

top risks 2026 is officially out

after 28 years of analyzing geopolitical risks
this year is the tipping point:

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Ava Farnan, W. Taylor Kimberly, et al:

Detecting patterns of atrophy in cognitively impaired individuals using portable, low-field MRI

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

a man is pushing a wheelbarrow in a yard ALT: a man is pushing a wheelbarrow in a yard

So how is the first 7 days of 2026 going?

Let's just hope it is not representative.

Europe Needs to Get its Shit Together. NOW. YouTube video by Warfronts

❤️‍🔥"Either we're all Europeans, or none of us are"

From 13:40 @warfrontsweekly.bsky.social commentary absolutely nailed it 🔨 when it comes to what has to change in European mindset, for Europe to have future as a project.

#Europe #Geopolitics #Ukraine

youtu.be/5Qc2ZRV5znQ?... via
@YouTube

ICRC Annual Report 2024 In 2024, the ICRC navigated a complex and challenging operating environment to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of people in over 100 countries.

The number of armed conflicts worldwide has more than doubled in past 15 years, with around 130 ongoing today. These conflicts trap entire generations in cycles of violence and trauma, resulting in major physical and psychological health burdens at population level.

www.icrc.org/en/report/ic...

Mapping the genetic landscape across 14 psychiatric disorders - Nature Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders...

⚡Large-scale genetic study of 14 psychiatric disorders shows many diagnoses share common genetic roots. Comorbidity may reflect shared biology, not just clinical overlap.
Authors also point to prenatal and early-life factors shaping how genetic risk becomes disorder.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why America and Europe Have Fallen Out (again) YouTube video by TLDR News EU

It is the worst crisis in history of US-Europe alliance with signals indicating Europe needs to become independent, strategically autonomous and find new global partners.

#Europe #democracy #geopolitics

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW-h...

Zum Wochenbeginn noch etwas Herzerwärmendes:

Auf Sumatra brach ein Biologe in Tränen aus. Nichts Schlimmes war passiert, er sah bloss die überaus seltene Pflanze "Rafflesia hasseltii", nach der er über ein Jahrzehnt lang gesucht hatte. 🤗

Last year in North Sumatra, I witnessed the cascading consequences of rainforest destruction - a crisis no longer limited to ecosystems, but one that directly places local communities in the path of escalating climatic extremes.

#environment

The extent of Epstein’s social network knows no bounds, but it certainly knows Donald Trump YouTube video by The Daily Show

⚡American commentator Jon Stewart steamrolled global elites using the Epstein example. With the precision of a neurosurgeon, he laid bare the rotten core of a social class whose members share the same interests, even as they stoke political divisions.

www.youtube.com/shorts/RRvcE...

Never mind your children’s screen time. Worry about your parents’ A new generation of pensioners are glued to their smartphones

And it’s not just young. The Economist recently warned we should also worry about older adults’ screen time. If short-form content hurts focus in younger users, the risks for aging brains may be even greater.

www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

New analysis sends clear warning about short-form videos. Across 98,299 people, higher TikTok/Reels/Shorts use equals worse attention + weaker inhibitory control. The endless scroll isn’t just a habit, it’s linked to measurable declines in core cognitive functions.

psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...