Latest UK news

£18 million for technology partnerships
Trade secretary Stephen Byers today announced eight new Faraday partnerships for researching environmentally friendly technology. The £18 million for the partnerships between researchers and industry has come from the Department for Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.

Survey reveals foot-and-mouth worries
Researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Centre for Environmental Risk have found high levels of concern about foot and mouth, with city dwellers as worried as those in rural communities. Almost nine out of ten people surveyed in Norwich and Bude, in Cornwall, said they had concerns about food safety, while over half said they had changed their eating habits in recent years.

OPEC chief opens oil conference
Ali Rodriguez Araque, the Venezuelan lawyer and former guerrilla leader who is the new secretary general of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, today opens the annual international oil and gas conference at Dundee University’s centre for energy, petroleum and mineral law and policy.