The European Correspondent
Keeping Europeans up to date, all over the continent.
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- In 2024, more than 199,000 patents were filed in Europe. Patent filings are often seen as an indirect measure of innovation, even though not all inventions are patented, and not all patents represent meaningful breakthroughs.
- Of these applications, only around 25% list at least one woman inventor, reflecting broader gender inequalities in STEM fields.
- Spain stands out as a notable outlier: over 40% of its patent applications include one or more women inventors. Research suggests this is partly due to Spain’s industrial and technological profile, as well as the strong role played by universities and public research organisations.
- These institutions, particularly in fields such as chemistry, consistently show higher participation by women than private companies or individual inventors. A data story by Yanika Borg.
- Can you think of a word in your native language that is missing in English? Tell us in the comments which word we should cover next!
- A few weeks ago, we published a data visualisation about the land footprint of food. In case you missed it: the bottom line was that beef and mutton were much more land-intensive than any other food.
- We wrote that the land needed to produce one kilogram of beef could potentially grow 1000 kilograms of carrots. Since then, hundreds of people have responded on social media. One question came up more than any other: what about the relationship between land use and calories?
- Surely, a kilogram of beef contains more energy than a kilogram of carrots? Weren't we – so to speak – comparing apples to oranges? We love critical questions and decided to investigate.
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View full threadA data story by Ton Voos.
- “2026 is the new 2016” is all over our feeds, from Retrica haze to the comeback of Closer and Sorry. This chart shows why the nostalgia hits: since the 2010s, pop lyrics have grown more stress-heavy while positivity keeps dropping.
- For millennials and Gen Z, 2016 now feels like the last “lighter” year before permacrisis and the attention-optimised internet. The throwback isn’t just aesthetic — it’s a brief escape from a darker cultural mood. Read the full piece by Eliška Volencová on our website: buff.ly/GNA5CDf
- A pigeon with a camera backpack sounds like a meme, until it becomes a prototype. A Russian startup claims it can remotely guide birds using implanted neurotech, pitching “biodrones” for civilian infrastructure monitoring.
- But the line between civilian and military is thin, and the ethical questions are huge. Read the full piece by Dmitriy Beliaev on our website: buff.ly/1laE6SG
- As Europe is increasingly determined to achieve ”digital sovereignty”, it stings that its economy mostly runs on infrastructure it does not control. From cloud services to productivity software, US-based technology underpins daily operations across sectors.
- That dependence gives the American president an extraordinary lever: the ability to pressure, restrict, or disable systems used across Europe on a daily basis.
- Under Donald Trump – who has openly weaponised economic and political dependencies before – this is not a theoretical risk. The real question is no longer whether we’re exposed, but how exposed we are. A data story by Mandy Spaltman.
- Which article from our daily newsletter stuck with you the most? Huh? You didn't even know we had a newsletter?? It's free, too. Link in bio!
- Europe’s lift tickets are drifting out of reach. This map plots peak-season one-day pass prices across central and eastern European resorts, where costs vary wildly by country and mountain range.
- In the Alps, day passes commonly climb into the €80–€100 bracket, while parts of the Balkans still sell access for under €20. The spread underscores a sport being priced upmarket—even before equipment hire and accommodation are added.
- A data visualisation by Sebastian Gräff. Read the full piece by Toyah Höher on our website: buff.ly/uF1EWo7
- Even where trains can rival flying on travel time, Europe’s busiest short-haul routes still rack up dozens of departures each week, from London–Manchester to Paris–Lyon and Madrid–Barcelona.
- Low-cost airlines are helping keep these hops alive: Ryanair and Wizz Air added a combined 26 new connections to Bratislava last year, as carriers shift away from pricier hubs and towards smaller airports with lower fees and few environmental charges.
- With flights often undercutting rail fares, Greenpeace found train tickets can cost up to 26 times more, governments are responding with bans and extra taxes on routes where rail is under 2.5 hours, even as travellers complain the tracks aren’t yet ready to take the load.
- Read the full piece by Tamara Kaňuchová on our website: buff.ly/poYBX0c
