STA, 31 January 2019 - The National Assembly passed legislative amendments on Thursday which transpose the EU directive setting down the conditions of entry and residence of third-country citizens for the purposes of research, studies and training.

The directive, which entered into force in May 2016, should have been translated into national law by member countries by 23 May 2018. Missing the deadline, Slovenia has already received a reprimand from Brussels.

The directive also deals with the entry of third-country nationals for the purposes of voluntary service, pupil exchange schemes or educational projects and au pairing.

Education Ministry State Secretary Jernej Štromajer said that the amendments to the research and development activity act entailed only minor changes.

The amendments were passed by unanimous vote, but many MPs said they expected much more from a bill reforming the act more thoroughly which is already in the pipeline.

However, the Left abstained from the vote, airing misgivings about the elimination of certain proofs in acquiring residence permits for third-country citizens hosted by research agencies.

The EU standards can be found in many languages and formats here

A Slovenian team, working for the Piran-based organisation Morigenos, has discovered that the common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) living off the coast share the Bay of Trieste, dividing it based on time of day rather than territory, the first time such behaviour has been observed.

A paper published in the journal Marine Biology, “Behavioural and temporal partitioning of dolphin social groups in the northern Adriatic Sea”, and written by Tilen Genov, Tina Centrih, Polona Kotnjek, and Ana Hace, outlines how the researchers carried out their work, and what they learned. The team used the distinctive features on the dorsal fins of 38 dolphins to keep track of each individual, noting when and where the animals were sighted in the bay. An analysis of the data showed that the dolphins were divided into two groups of 19 and 13, with the remaining six making up a loose group of its own. The larger group of dolphins tended to following fishing trawlers between the hours of 07:00 and 3:00. In contrast, the smaller group of 13 were seen swimming with the trawlers, and hunted in the bay between 18:00 and 21:00. Dolphins from each group were rarely in the same area at the same time.

Source: Tilen Genov

In addition to revealing such temporal segregation for the first time in this species, the study is of interest because – as the paper concludes – “We demonstrate how different segments of the same population may behave very differently and have differing effects on human activities such as fishing (through potential depredation or gear damage). In turn, they may respond differently to anthropogenic pressures, as temporal partitioning may make animals either more or less vulnerable to disturbance from boat traffic.”

The full paper can be found here, while those interested in learning more about Morigenos can read an earlier story about the organisation here. The study reported in this story is also summarised in a short and relatively simple Slovene-English dual text here.

STA, 16 December 2018 - Slovenia has the largest share of women graduates in sciences, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) among all EU member states, show figures released by European Commission earlier this week.

According to the study Women in the Digital Age, the share of women graduates in STEM stands at 20.5 per 1,000 persons aged 20 to 29 in Slovenia, which compares to the EU average of 13.1 per 1,000 graduates.

The study brings an assessment of the participation of women in the digital economy, showing women lag behind men in several areas in the EU.

Only one in six information and communications technology (ICT) experts are women, and although women represent 52% of the EU's population, only 17% work in ICT.

However, data for the 16-24 age group are more encouraging, as the gap in digital participation between women and men is fairly narrow.

In the age group, 55% of women are active in the digital world compared to 60% of men, with the trend even starting to reverse in certain countries, with women outperforming men in the category.

Slovenia is the 10th best performing country in terms of integrating women in the digital sector, while the leader is Finland, with Bulgaria at the bottom of the list.

Slovenia performed best in specialist skills and employment (3rd place) and worst in the use of the internet (19th).

The Commission's first annual review of women's participation in the digital economy is based on the Women in Digital Scoreboard, which brings together 13 indicators in three fields: internet use, internet user skills, and specialist skills and employment.

It is to serve as a tool for the Commission and national governments to identify shortcoming and take action to improve the situation.

STA, 6 December 2018 - A group of acclaimed scientists and researchers have addressed a letter to Prime Minister Marjan Šarec urging him to increase research funding in 2019 and laying out several issues. Among other things, they expressed concern that only 2% of Slovenian grant bids to the European Research Council (ERC) are successful, while the EU average is 12%.

So far only seven Slovenian research labs have been successful in acquiring grants from the ERC, notes the letter, signed by nine successful Slovenian researchers working either at home or abroad.

Science and research funds have remained virtually level in Slovenia since 2009. Many of the EU member states that joined the bloc alongside Slovenia in 2004, or later, have taken a much more ambitious path, the letter notes.

"The Czech Republic established several centres of excellence, allocating EUR 200m for each of them. Poland is building a synchrotron and a centre for cryo-electron microscopy."

Slovenia fares poorly even compared to the Balkans: Croatia has made it a priority to invest EUR 100m in the Ruđer Bošković science institute, while Serbia is investing EUR 40m in a nanoparticles centre, the letter says.

It adds that Romania and Hungary have each invested about EUR 100m in the past four years, while more developed countries are investing much more.

Austria, for example, launched in 2009 the Institute of Science and Technology, which in 2016 alone acquired more ERC grants than all Slovenian scientists in a decade, the letter illustrates.

The scientists also point to a fiscal policy that "punishes researchers working abroad and forces them to sever all ties with the homeland."

Slovenia unable to attract foreigner talent

What is more, the funds available in Slovenia do not attract top foreign researchers. "Salaries of Slovenian researchers are not even attractive to those from Eastern Europe and Asia, let alone from more developed parts of the world," says the letter, adding that Slovenia has a serious brain drain problem.

Slovenia will only be able to raise a new generations of scientists if it encourages post-doctoral students to join the best research teams around the world and then gets them to return back home by providing funding that allows them to start new research teams.

Moreover, the state should rethink the way science and research funds are distributed. It should move away from giving a little to everybody and make sure that the best and the most promising teams get the funds they need.

"A clear support for science excellence could reverse the trend and start seeing results in five to ten years," the letter stresses.

"We urge you to increase science funding already in 2019, at the very least in line with promises given in the coalition agreement: to increase science funding from 0.38% of GDP to 1% of GDP by 2022."

STA, 14 November 2018 - Slovenian researchers have made a tandem solar cell which transforms solar energy into electricity in the most efficient manner so far, which they see as an important step towards photovoltaics becoming more competitive in power production.

The new solar cell was developed by Marko Jošt from the Ljubljana Faculty of Electrical Engineering while on post-doctoral studies in Germany as part of a Slovenian-German project.

Jošt and several other researchers, among them fellow researchers from Ljubljana, published their findings in the prestigious journal Energy and Environmental Science.

Researchers from top-tier institutions around the globe have been competing since 2015 to develop the most efficient monolithic tandem solar cell.

Last month, Jošt, together with researchers from Germany's Helmholtz Centre and Slovenia's Ljubljana University, managed to set a new record by achieving 25.5% conversion efficiency.

The solar cell was improved with the use of a textured foil, which was produced in the lab for photovoltaics at the Slovenian faculty.

Although tandem cells are still in the R&D stage and there is a long way to go before their industrial use, lab boss Marko Topič says "such achievements prove that our goals are realistic".

The new tandem cell is according to the faculty a stone in the mosaic of knowledge and achievements which pave the way to photovoltaics being increasingly used for energy production.

Obstacles to a more wide use of solar energy are relatively low conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells, which are currently the standard in photovoltaics, and their relatively high price.

Jošt explained that silicon cells had reached their limit in conversion efficiency and low price, while the perskovite tandem cells have the potential for better conversion efficiency while increasing the price of a photovoltaic module just a bit.

Topič meanwhile believes that photovoltaics has already proved it could become "the key technology in the transformation of the energy system" and "as a low-carbon technology, the first solution to fight climate change".

STA, 24 August 2018 - Slovenian scientists in cooperation with their Canadian and Brazilian counterparts have solved a 150-year-old mystery about how light causes movement. They discovered that light can cause elastic waves, similar to those generated during an earthquake. 

STA, 28 May 2018 - A Slovenian-Chinese virtual laboratory for high-performance computing was launched on Monday at the Ljubljana Faculty of Computer and Information Science (Fakulteta za računalništvo in informatiko) in what is the first product of last year's memorandum on multi-year cooperation between the countries' scientists. 

STA, 14 May 2018 - The European Space Agency (ESA) has picked three candidates for its next middle class space mission, including Theseus, an early universe surveyor mission that includes Slovenian scientists from the Nova Gorica University and the Vesolje-SI centre of excellence. If picked, the mission is scheduled for launch in 2032. 

STA, 9 May 2018 - Researchers of the Jožef Stefan Institute (IJS) have confirmed four-decade old presumptions of Nobel Prize laureate Frank Wilczek of the existence of particles other than fermions and bosons. Their achievement is seen as an important step towards the creation of a topological quantum computer. 

The project includes turning the 11 km of roads in the shopping district into a testing area.