EX-POST EVALUATION OF THE DIRECT ACTIONS OF THE JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE UNDER THE SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMMES 2007-2013

The ex-post evaluation in this report provides the independent assessment requested in the Council Decisions concerning the specific programmes to be carried out by means of direct actions by the Joint Research Centre implementing the Seventh Framework Programmes (2007-2013) of the European Community and of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The evaluation has been conducted by a panel of independent external experts under the chairmanship of Professor Patrick Cunningham. In this report the Panel concludes positively on the effectiveness of the JRC as the Commission’s science service in support of Euratom and EU policies. It also concludes that the JRC has a respectable scientific performance in its areas of competence. In particular, the JRC standard is high as regards the scientific quality and impact of its publications. Besides a number of recommendations for incremental improvement of the JRC the Panel also flags two issues with a view to transformative change of the JRC. To begin with the JRC should establish a long-term strategy before the mid-term evaluation of the Horizon 2020 framework programme in 2017. As the JRC further develops its function as scientific service of the Commission, there is a need to address the JRC’s governance as well as its interaction with the scientific community in the Member States. In light of this the Commission should task a Group of eminent personalities to put forward options for JRC governance, adapted to its functions of the future. These include scientific support, research, scientific advice, and knowledge management in partnership with the Member StatesJRC.ADV02-Adviser for Evaluation and Scientific Integrit

EX-POST EVALUATION OF THE DIRECT ACTIONS OF THE JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE UNDER THE SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMMES 2007-2013

The ex-post evaluation in this report provides the independent assessment requested in the Council Decisions concerning the specific programmes to be carried out by means of direct actions by the Joint Research Centre implementing the Seventh Framework Programmes (2007-2013) of the European Community and of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The evaluation has been conducted by a panel of independent external experts under the chairmanship of Professor Patrick Cunningham. In this report the Panel concludes positively on the effectiveness of the JRC as the Commission’s science service in support of Euratom and EU policies. It also concludes that the JRC has a respectable scientific performance in its areas of competence. In particular, the JRC standard is high as regards the scientific quality and impact of its publications. Besides a number of recommendations for incremental improvement of the JRC the Panel also flags two issues with a view to transformative change of the JRC. To begin with the JRC should establish a long-term strategy before the mid-term evaluation of the Horizon 2020 framework programme in 2017. As the JRC further develops its function as scientific service of the Commission, there is a need to address the JRC’s governance as well as its interaction with the scientific community in the Member States. In light of this the Commission should task a Group of eminent personalities to put forward options for JRC governance, adapted to its functions of the future. These include scientific support, research, scientific advice, and knowledge management in partnership with the Member StatesJRC.ADV02-Adviser for Evaluation and Scientific Integrit

The Fukushima Daiichi Accident

The Fukushima Daiichi Accident consists of a Report by the IAEA Director General and five technical volumes. It is the result of an extensive international collaborative effort involving five working groups with about 180 experts from 42 Member States with and without nuclear power programmes and several international bodies. It provides a description of the accident and its causes, evolution and consequences, based on the evaluation of data and information from a large number of sources available at the time of writing. The set contains six printed parts and five supplementary CD-ROMs. Contents: Report by the Director General; Technical Volume 1/5, Description and Context of the Accident; Technical Volume 2/5, Safety Assessment; Technical Volume 3/5, Emergency Preparedness and Response; Technical Volume 4/5, Radiological Consequences; Technical Volume 5/5, Post-accident Recovery; Annexes. The JRC contributed to volumes 1,2 and 3, which are attached.JRC.F.5-Nuclear Reactor Safety Assessmen

Why nuclear energy is essential to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission rates

Reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is advocated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To achieve this target, countries have opted for renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar. These renewables will be unable to supply the needed large quantities of energy to run industrial societies sustainably, economically and reliably because they are inherently intermittent, depending on flexible backup power or on energy storage for delivery of base-load quantities of electrical energy. The backup power is derived in most cases from combustion of natural gas. Intermittent energy sources, if used in this way, do not meet the requirements of sustainability, nor are they economically viable because they require redundant, under-utilized investment in capacity both for generation and for transmission. Because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, the equivalent carbon dioxide value of methane may cause gas-fired stations to emit more greenhouse gas than coal-fired plants of the same power for currently reported leakage rates of the natural gas. Likewise, intermittent wind/solar photovoltaic systems backed up by gas-fired power plants also release substantial amounts of carbon-dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas to make such a combination environmentally unacceptable. In the long term, nuclear fission technology is the only known energy source that is capable of delivering the needed large quantities of energy safely, economically, reliably and in a sustainable way, both environmentally and as regards the available resource-base

An Official ATS/AACN/ACCP/ESICM/SCCM Policy Statement : Responding to Requests for Potentially Inappropriate Treatments in Intensive Care Units

Background: There is controversy about how to manage requests by patients or surrogates for treatments that clinicians believe should not be administered. Purpose: This multisociety statementprovides recommendations to prevent and manage intractable disagreements about the use of such treatments in intensive care units. Methods: The recommendations were developed using an iterative consensus process, including expert committee development and peer review by designated committees of each of the participating professional societies (American Thoracic Society, American Association for Critical Care Nurses, American College of chest Physicians, European Society for Intensive Care Medicine, and Society of Critical Care). Main Results: The committee recommends: (1) Institutions should implement strategies to prevent intractable treatment conflicts, including proactive communication and early involvement of expert consultants. (2) The term "potentially inappropriate" should be used, rather than futile, to describe treatments that have at least some chance of accomplishing the effect sought by the patient, but clinicians believe that competing ethical considerations justify not providing them. Clinicians should explain and advocate for the treatment plan they believe is appropriate. Conflicts regarding potentially inappropriate treatments that remain intractable despite intensive communication and negotiation should be managed by a fair process of conflict resolution; this process should include hospital review, attempts to find a willing provider at another institution, and opportunity for external review of decisions. When time pressures make it infeasible to complete all steps of the conffict-resolution process and clinicians have a high degree of certainty that the requested treatment is outside accepted practice, they should seek procedural oversight to the extent allowed by the clinical situation and need not provide the requested treatment. (3) Use of the term "futile" should be restricted to the rare situations in which surrogates request interventions that simply cannot accomplish their intended physiologic goal. Clinicians should not provide futile interventions. (4) The medical profession should lead public engagement efforts and advocate for policies and legislation about when life-prolonging technologies should not be used. Conclusions: The multisociety statement on responding to requests for potentially inappropriate treatments in intensive care units provides guidance for clinicians to prevent and manage disputes in patients with advanced critical illness