NEWS FROM EMBO Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Advisor to José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, met with members of EMBL leadership and the EMBO management team on a recent visit to Heidelberg, Germany. Glover is the first scientific advisor to be appoint- ed in the office of the President of the European Commission. EMBO Director Maria Leptin provided an overview of EMBO programme areas and activi- ties. Discussions ranged from how to advance science policy in Europe to the steps needed to make scientific data published in papers more transparent and useful to the scientific commu- nity. The metrics needed for research assessment were also a topic of discussion. European Commission science advisor visits Heidelberg Left to right: Silke Schumacher, Director of International Relations, EMBL Iain Mattaj, Director General of EMBL Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Advisor for the European Commission Maria Leptin, Director of EMBO Didier Schmitt, Scientific Advisor and Foresight Coordinator, European Commission The visit took place on 9 January and included a tour of the Advanced Training Center building on the EMBL campus. EMBO, EMBC and the National Science Council of Taiwan sign cooperation agreement New ways of global scientific interaction have Fellowships. Young Taiwanese group leaders been created following a cooperation agree- will be eligible to benefit from the EMBO Young at Taiwanese institutes and universities. Travel stipends will be available for Taiwanese scientists to attend EMBO Courses & Workshops and The EMBO Meeting. This is the first cooperation agreement of its kind between EMBO, EMBC and Taiwanese scien- tists, represented by NSC and Academia Sinica. Together with the cooperation agreement with Singapore signed in 2011, it further increases interactions between Asian and European life scientists. ment between EMBO, its inter-governmental funding body, the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC), and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC). The agreement will allow Taiwanese scientists to participate in EMBO training programmes and activities. It also means that EMBO Courses & Workshops can take place at Taiwanese research institutes. Under the terms of the agreement, scientists can apply for EMBO Short-Term and Long-Term Investigator Programme. Taiwanese scientists and EMBO will also cooperate in the organization of EMBO Courses & Workshops, which will help to spark collabo- rations. Last year, Academia Sinica and EMBO jointly organized the lecture course Logic of Regulatory Circuits in Life Sciences in Taipei City. Conference organizers can apply for funding for plenary lectures given by EMBO Members or lectures given by EMBO Young Investigators 6 EMBOencounters | Winter 2012|2013 | communications@embo.org ©2013 EMBO © Academia Sinica © EMBL Photolab | M. Schupp