State of the art review on climate change impacts on natural ecosystems and adaptation

Climate change has become unavoidable and the Netherlands has started to adapt the water systems and coastal defense to reduce vulnerability to the effects of climate change. These strategies to make the Netherlands climate-proof will also have its impact on nature and ecosystem functioning, in addition to the direct impacts of climate change. This report provides a state-of-the-art review of national and international research with respect to climate change impacts and adaptation, relevant to natural ecosystems in the Netherlands. This review is intended to serve as a reference of current available knowledge and will assist in programming new research required for climate-proofing the Netherland

Problems for Vulnerable Road Users in the Netherlands

INTRODUCTION In the Netherlands pedestrian and pedal cycle travel are important transport modes for the population. However, given the particularly vulnerable nature of these modes of transport, pedestrians and cyclists are involved in a large number of accidents and suffer a particularly high proportion of the fatalities and serious injuries. Technical measures to improve safety and efficiency focus almost exclusively on motorized traffic, disregarding the needs of the non-motorized traffic participants. In order to determine how technical measures, such as Road Tr&c Informatics (RTI) applications, can be used to increase the safety and mobility of pedestrians and cyclists, more information is needed about the causes of accidents to these groups. This report deals with a first analysis of the problems of cyclists and pedestrians in the Netherlands. Similar reports are being produced for Britain and Sweden which together will serve as a basic information source from which decisions can be made about which type of measures have potential to improve the situation of vulnerable road users. This report examines the nature and causes of accidents involving vulnerable road users (VRU's), their mobility patterns and their risk. It is intended to serve as a tool in subsequent stages of this project, and thus is not a general survey of safety and mobility problems for vulnerable road users, but rather a review of those issues that are related to the RTI measures envisaged by the project. The project is aimed at improving VRU safety and mobility both directly, through the enhancement of signalized junctions and pedestrian crossings, and indirectly, through the creation of a model of the traffic system incorporating vulnerable road users. It is intended that this model will permit the routing and guidance of motorized vehicles in such a way as to enhance VRU safety and reduce VRU annoyance and delay from traffic. Both the direct and the indirect measures envisaged will only be relevant to VRU safety and mobility on main roads in urban areas; they are unlikely to be applicable to residential streets or minor roads unless these have substantial VRU flows. The report therefore concentrates (in so far as existing information permits) on VRU safety and mobility on main roads and on VRU use of facilities that are intended to be upgraded through the planned RTI measures. The report covers both the national level for the Netherlands (about 14.5 million inhabitants) and the local level for the City of Groningen (about 160,000 inhabitants). Section 2 of this report seeks to define a number of the terms which are used throughout, and provides a basis for comparison between the findings from this report and those for Sweden and Britain. Section 3 identifies the sources of information from which the analyses of accident and mobility data have been derived. Sections 4 and 5 identify the safety and mobility situations of vulnerable road users at the national and local levels respectively. Section 6 examines the risk to pedestrians and cyclists, and finally Section 7 provides some conclusions and recommendations for RTI-measures

MIGRATORY PATHWAYS TO IRELAND FOR START-UPS AND INNOVATIVE ENTREPRENEURS. ESRI Research Series January 2020 102

The OECD recently noted a global trend towards introducing visas for start-ups and for entrepreneurs with innovative firms (OECD, 2019). That finding is borne out in this study which shows that 13 EU Member States now have a special admission scheme for start-up founders and innovative entrepreneurs from third countries in place. With the exception of those in Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, all schemes were introduced in the last three years. Other Member States, such as Germany and Sweden, use alternative entry pathways that nonetheless focus on attracting start-ups and innovative entrepreneurs. The EU-level synthesis report for this study shows that in many Member States, promoting start-ups and innovative entrepreneurship in general is a national policy priority (EMN, 2019)

Country overview Netherlands

Citizen engagement in the Netherlands is formalised at both national and local levels. The legal avenues for citizen engagement at the national level consist primarily of agenda-setting and advisory direct voting mechanisms such as citizen petitions and referenda. At the local level, citizens have a more diverse array of opportunities to engage in policy development. Yet, the availability of these opportunities depends on local administrative arrangements and as such it varies from place to place. This report aims at providing an overview of the normative and institutional state of art of ICT-mediated citizen participation in the Netherlands. The first section provides an overview of the political and civic liberties framework in the Netherlands. In the second section the landscape of ICT mediated citizen engagement is mapped. In the third section, the report engages with the implications of technology mediations for deliberative democracy and transformative citizenship. The findings of this report suggest that the Dutch e-government framework remains focused on service-provision, missing out on opportunities to foster the creation of ICT-enabled civic infrastructures that would enable citizens to engage in the governance of their lives. Furthermore, in addressing citizens mostly as consumers of digital governmental information or of online public services, this policy framework encourages the development of individual-centred information systems, ignoring the community-building potential of ICTs.DFIDUSAIDSidaOmidyar Networ

LULUCF values under the Kyoto Protocol : background document in preparation of the National Inventory Report 2011 (reporting year 2009)

This report collects all background information that is used for the 2011 submission under the Kyoto Protocol (KP) for the Netherlands. It includes the full text of the National Inventory Report (NIR)-II for LULUCF, as well as a description of the table-bytable methodologies, choices and motivations. In 2009 afforestation and reforestation activities produced a sink of 546.68 Gg CO2 equivalents while deforestation caused an emission of 780,45 Gg CO2 equivalents. These values were based on changes in above- and belowground biomass, dead wood, litter and soil (mineral as well as organic), and agricultural lime application on deforested areas. The values for 2008 were recalculated from last year, and the recalculation included changes due to: (i) This was the first year emissions from mineral and organic soils were reported for Afforestation, Reforestation, and Deforestation (ARD). (ii) An error in harvested wood was corrected, and (iii) The calculation of dead wood was improved. Some minor gaps remain to be solved in the coming year(s), especially for the estimation of uncertainty of all reported values

Who pays the taxes?

The European Union is legally entitled to the revenue from (1) agricultural and sugar levies, (2) customs duties, (3) a 1 percent rate on each Member States' value added tax base, and (4) a resource on the basis of GNP. Currently, the Union is actively involved in the search for a fifth own revenue source. Therefore, the European Commission (DG XIX) has invited the authors to trace 'who pays the taxes'. As requested, our report gives a general account of methods to investigate impacts of taxation. More specifically, we have estimated the incidence of national tax systems (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom), and the incidence of present own resources and prospective new (tax) resources of the European Union. Up till now, such information was not (readily) available.tax incidence in the European Union, prospective new EU tax resources

GENERA gender in physics days in Europe

The GENERA European Horizon 2020 project aims at designing and implementing gender equality plans customised for physics. The three-year project started in September 2015. GENERA's activities include the national Gender in Physics Day in each European country participating in the GENERA project. Typically, at these days, national physics managers, human resources managers, and gender equality policy officers meet with senior and early-career physicists to review the status quo and formulate recommendations for improving the gender balance in the national physics community. We will report on the recommendations of the first GENERA Gender in Physics Day organised in 2016 in the Netherlands.</p

Who pays the taxes?

The European Union is legally entitled to the revenue from (1) agricultural and sugar levies, (2) customs duties, (3) a 1 percent rate on each Member States' value added tax base, and (4) a resource on the basis of GNP. Currently, the Union is actively involved in the search for a fifth own revenue source. Therefore, the European Commission (DG XIX) has invited the authors to trace 'who pays the taxes'. As requested, our report gives a general account of methods to investigate impacts of taxation. More specifically, we have estimated the incidence of national tax systems (Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom), and the incidence of present own resources and prospective new (tax) resources of the European Union. Up till now, such information was not (readily) available.tax incidence in the European Union, prospective new EU tax resources