When Washington Dreams of the Moon, Europe Worries About Climate Change and the Power Bill

Reflections on the White House "Golden Age of Science" interview, and what its comment section tells us that the interview itself does not. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHv-vNM_XtU

Last month, Peter Diamandis sat down at the White House with Michael Kratsios, the President's science adviser and architect of the US AI Action Plan, the Genesis Mission, and the "Science and the New Golden Age" report. For anyone working in European research policy, it is worth watching twice: once for what was said, and once for how a quarter of a million viewers who viewed it and the 250+ who left a comment.

The American pitch

The vision presented is genuinely ambitious. Humans back on the Moon by 2028. A nuclear reactor in space. A scientifically relevant quantum computer within the presidential term. Five-year research grants funded on day one. Grant reviews in under a month. "Golden tickets" that let a single reviewer fund an unconventional idea against the majority. Autonomous laboratories where AI proposes the hypothesis, robots run the experiment, and the model designs the next one, around the clock, with no human in the loop. And a stated goal of not merely doubling but eventually 10x-ing the productivity of the entire scientific enterprise.

Kratsios also took a swipe at the Europeans, noting that the EU AI Act was finalized before ChatGPT even existed. As is often the case with his political master, this statement does not survice a simple fact check: ChatGPT was launched on 30 November 2022, the EU AI Act was approved by Parliament on 13 March 2024. There is almost 16 months between. The positive take is that the EU produced a substantial bit of legislation in record time.

The comment section is the real briefing document

Here is what struck me most. Once you filter out the noise, the most substantive and most upvoted comments were not about the Moon, quantum computers, or the singularity. They were about data centers. The explosive growth of investment in data centers has not happened (yet) in Europe.

The single most liked comment proposed that data center developers should offer major financial incentives to the communities that host them, "It's all about the money." Others described life next to a facility with hundreds of megawatts of gas and diesel generation, constant noise, all-night floodlighting, and rising electricity bills. One commenter carefully dismantled the claim that golf courses use thirty times more water than data centers, pointing out that golf courses largely use reclaimed water while data centers compete with households for potable supply. Another asked the question the interview never really answered: who actually captures the benefit from these breakthroughs?

The interview diagnosed AI's unpopularity as "a massive PR problem." The comments suggest something different. People in the USA were not asking for better storytelling. They were asking for benefit-sharing, accountability, and honest accounting of local costs. That is not a perception gap. That is a legitimacy gap.

Why this reads differently in Europe

And this is where the European perspective diverges sharply from the American one.

When Kratsios speaks of lunar bases and reactors in space as the missions that will inspire a generation, I suspect most Europeans feel a certain distance. Our anxieties are closer to the ground. After the hike in oil prices after Russia's invastion of the Ukraine in 2022 and after Israel's and the US's bombing campaigns of Iran this year, have lived through energy crises triggered by geopolitical supply shocks. European countries are more dependent on imports than the USA, which is a net exported. Households from Rotterdam to Riga still remember what happened to their bills when pipeline politics turned against them. The idea of adding gigawatt-scale AI demand to grids that are already strained, in a continent that imports much of its energy, lands very differently than it does in Texas.

And while the interview treated climate science mostly by omission (several commenters noted the defunding of NOAA programs and the absence of climate from the national missions), Europe does not have the luxury of omission. Our glaciers are measurably retreating. Floods, droughts, and heat waves are no longer projections in a report; they are line items in national budgets and insurance premiums. For a European audience, a "golden age of science" that does not include climate resilience and affordable clean energy is not a golden age at all. It is someone else's priority list.

This is not an argument against ambition. It is an argument about which moonshots matter. A European Genesis Mission would look different: AI-ready climate and earth-observation data, autonomous labs for better medicines, and better materials for battery chemistry and grid materials, fusion and next-generation geothermal, and compute infrastructure that comes with binding commitments on energy sourcing and community benefit from day one.

What Europe should actually take from this

Three things, in my view.

First, steal the boring parts. Fast-track grants, day-one funding, golden tickets, and institutionalized metascience units inside funding agencies are not ideological. They address problems Europe has in worse form than the US, where researchers lose close to half their time to administration. Much of the intellectual groundwork for these instruments is European anyway. We should implement them before Washington does.

Second, treat research data and lab automation as strategic infrastructure. The most consequential idea in the entire interview is making seventy years of US national laboratory data AI-ready and treating it as a public good. Europe's research data is richer than we admit and more fragmented than we can afford. If autonomous, AI-driven laboratories become the engine of discovery, the question of who owns and operates that infrastructure is a sovereignty question, not a procurement detail.

Third, learn from the comment section, not just the podium. The social license for AI infrastructure is earned with lower bills, quieter neighborhoods, and visible local benefit, not with optimistic narratives. The US administration has proposed a "rate payer protection pledge" requiring data centers to bring their own power. Europe should go further and make community benefit a condition of connection, before resistance hardens the way it visibly has in that comment thread.

The interview ends with a promise to aim for 10x. Fine. But speed without legitimacy is how you end up with 71 percent of your population opposing the very infrastructure your strategy depends on.

Europe's advantage has never been moving fastest. It has been, at our best, moving with consent. In the age of AI-accelerated science, that might turn out to be the scarcer resource.

#ResearchPolicy #AI #ScienceInnovation #Europe #EnergyTransition #ClimateAction #DataCenters #HorizonEurope

The ARWU Ranking Has 500 Seats. China Brought 71 New Universities in 2020

Introduction

Every August when ARWU university rankings are published, the same headlines return. A German university has slipped out of the world top 500. An Italian university is no longer listed. A French flagship has fallen. Commentators reach for the obvious explanation: these institutions or national university systems are declining.

The Dozen Universities Behind China's Tech Dominance (And Why "They Just Spend More" Misses the Point)

Introduction

Ask almost anyone why China now leads the world in solar patents, battery research, and semiconductor publications, and you will get the same answer: money. The Chinese state pours billions into its universities, publications and patents come out the other end, and industrial dominance follows. It is a satisfying story. It is also, according to a new analysis of four strategic technology fields, missing the most interesting part.

Your Universities Didn't Get Worse. The Scoreboard Ran Out of Seats

Every August, the same ritual plays out. The Shanghai Ranking, formally the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), publishes its list of the world's top 500 universities, and within hours the headlines write themselves. Another German university has dropped off the list. Another American state flagship has vanished. Japan is in free fall. Editorials demand reform, ministers promise reviews, and the story hardens into conventional wisdom: Western universities are in decline.

There is just one problem with this story. When you look at what actually happened to the universities that fell off the list, most of them were not getting worse. Many were getting better.

Who Runs the University? Governance for the Age of AI

A three-part explainer on university governance in Europe, the rhetoric that blocks reform, and the systemic changes the Fourth Industrial Revolution now demands.

Part 1: Two Models, One Question

European universities are being asked to do more than at any point in their history. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, driven above all by artificial intelligence, is compressing the distance between fundamental research and commercial application to almost nothing (Schwab, 2017). A breakthrough in machine learning moves from preprint to product in months, not decades. Universities that want to remain relevant in this environment cannot stand apart from industry; they must build deep, durable partnerships with companies whose planning horizons are measured in quarters and whose patience for institutional indecision is close to zero. Every one of these demands runs through the same bottleneck: governance. Whether an institution can decide clearly, quickly, and accountably has become the decisive variable.

Italy Teaches Business. It's Time to Let Students Do Business

By Gabby Goetz, Makena Maddigan, and Albert Schram, Ph.D.
USAC Verona, International Business Program

Italy is a nation of entrepreneurs. Ninety-nine percent of its businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises, family firms, workshops, and start-ups that together form the backbone of the economy (European Commission, 2024). And yet most Italian students finish secondary school without ever having run a business project, managed a budget, or pitched an idea to a real professional. Italian teenagers score below the OECD average in financial literacy (OECD, 2024), and employers report, year after year, that graduates arrive with strong theory but weak practical skills. Something does not add up.

Two students in the USAC Verona International Business program, Makena Maddigan and Gabby Goetz, spent their summer studying this paradox. Their research report, Integrating Junior Achievement Successfully into the Italian School System (Maddigan & Goetz, 2026), offers a refreshingly concrete answer: do not build a new system, strengthen the one Italy already has.

A gap everyone recognizes

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the shortcomings of Italy's national work-based learning framework, so a brief reminder suffices. The Pathways for Transversal Skills and Orientation (PCTO), successor to Alternanza Scuola-Lavoro, obliges students to complete hundreds of hours in workplace settings, but the quality of those hours is notoriously uneven. Placements vary enormously by region and school type, communication between schools and employers is inconsistent, students often arrive at internships underprepared, and many placements amount to observation rather than genuine skill-building (Maddigan & Goetz, 2026). The intent of the reform was sound. Its execution has left a gap between what students are supposed to gain and what they actually do.

The consequences show up in the data. In the 2022 OECD PISA assessment of financial literacy, Italian students scored 484, below the OECD average of 498 and well behind the United States at 505 (OECD, 2024). Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, especially in the South, at the very moment businesses report they cannot find young people with entrepreneurial and managerial skills. The knowledge is being taught. The ability to use it is not being built.

A century-old model with modern evidence

The students' report points to Junior Achievement, a nonprofit founded in the United States in 1919, as the missing piece. Junior Achievement does not lecture students about business. It has them do business. Through programs like the JA Company Program, students create and operate real student-run enterprises during the school year: developing products, conducting market research, managing finances, and presenting to investors and judges. Other programs simulate personal financial decisions, from budgeting and saving to understanding credit and recognizing fraud.

The evidence of lasting impact is compelling. An independent Ipsos study found that 76 percent of JA alumni feel confident managing their personal finances, compared with 67 percent of non-alumni, and 68 percent regularly save part of their income, compared with 59 percent of non-participants (Ipsos, 2022). In Junior Achievement's 2026 Education for What's Next survey, 91 percent of education leaders said there is a disconnect between what students learn in school and the skills the workforce demands, and 94 percent said schools should do more about it (Junior Achievement USA, 2026).

The numbers tell the story

Junior Achievement operates worldwide through national member organizations, and comparing their reach is revealing. The figures below are approximate, drawn from organizational reporting, and definitions differ across countries: JA Italia, notably, reports "educational experiences" rather than unique students, which flatters the Italian figure (JA Italia, 2025). Even so, the pattern is unmistakable.

Annual reach of Junior Achievement member organizations

Country	JA member organization	Students reached per year (approx.)	School-age population (approx.)	Indicative reach
United States	Junior Achievement USA	4,400,000	54 million	~8%
United Kingdom	Young Enterprise	250,000	11 million	~2%
Ireland	Junior Achievement Ireland	65,000	1 million	~6%
France	Entreprendre Pour Apprendre	100,000	12 million	~1%
Germany	IW JUNIOR	90,000	11 million	~1%
Italy	JA Italia	502,000 educational experiences*	8 million	well below potential

*One student may account for several "experiences"; the number of unique students reached is substantially lower. Sources: Junior Achievement USA (2025); Young Enterprise (2025); Junior Achievement Ireland (2025); Entreprendre Pour Apprendre (2025); IW JUNIOR (2025); JA Italia (2025).

Three conclusions leap out. First, no large European country comes close to the American penetration rate, so Italy is not alone. Second, Ireland proves the point within Europe: with reach approaching the American rate, it shows that deep penetration is not a peculiarity of the US system but a matter of national commitment. Third, and most importantly, the gap between Italy and the leaders shows what is achievable when a program of this kind becomes a normal, expected part of schooling rather than a fortunate exception. If Italy reached even half the American rate among its upper secondary students, hundreds of thousands of additional young people every year would graduate having actually practiced the skills employers say they cannot find. The room for growth is not marginal. It is the entire gap between a niche initiative and a national habit.

Junior Achievement is already in Italy, but unevenly

Junior Achievement has operated in Italy since 2002. Through initiatives such as Impresa in Azione, Idee in Azione, KidsVille, and Conta sul Futuro, JA Italia delivered those 502,000 educational experiences in the 2024-2025 school year with over 1,900 business volunteers and 1,200 teachers (JA Italia, 2025). Research by the Center for Young and Family Enterprise at the University of Bergamo found measurable improvements in entrepreneurial competence, digital skills, critical thinking, and career awareness among participants (CYFE, 2020).

The foundation exists. The problem is reach and consistency. Programs are concentrated in the North and Center, in Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, and Lazio, while the Southern regions that need these opportunities most, Campania, Calabria, Sicily, and Puglia, see the least of them. Participation depends on individual motivated teachers rather than national policy. Most Italian students will complete their entire schooling without ever encountering a JA program (Maddigan & Goetz, 2026).

The proposal: build on what works, in three phases

The heart of the report is a pragmatic plan (Maddigan & Goetz, 2026). Junior Achievement would be woven into subjects that business-focused technical and professional institutes already teach, economics, marketing, and entrepreneurship, and into the PCTO hours already required. Teachers gain no new burden; they gain a more engaging way to deliver existing objectives, and PCTO gains exactly the structure and quality control it has lacked.

Phase One, the first two years, launches pilots in professional institutes in regions such as Veneto, Tuscany, and Sicily, combining strong employer ecosystems with a deliberate attack on regional disparities. Success is measured concretely: participating schools and students, employer engagement, financial literacy gains. Phase Two, years three through five, extends to all business-focused technical and professional institutes, adding teacher training, regional coordinators, formalized Chamber of Commerce partnerships, and standardized assessment. Phase Three, years five through ten, pursues national integration: ministry recognition, dedicated funding, national entrepreneurship benchmarks, and presence in every region.

The report is honest about obstacles and practical about solutions. Teacher workload is managed by embedding JA in existing subjects. Volunteer recruitment leans on organizations with deep employer networks. Southern gaps are addressed through targeted investment and virtual mentorship. Funding can draw on national initiatives, EU programs, regional budgets, and private sponsorship. There is also an inclusion dividend: JA's hands-on, team-based approach fits naturally with Italy's individualized education plans and intercultural mediation, giving students with disabilities and migrant students concrete pathways to economic participation.

What heads of school can do now

School leaders do not need to wait for a national framework. Any dirigente scolastico of a business-focused institute can begin this school year:

1. Contact JA Italia directly through jaitalia.org and request information on Impresa in Azione and programs suited to your institute's specializations.

2. Map JA programs onto your existing curriculum. Identify where JA activities align with objectives in economics, marketing, administration, and PCTO hours, so participation replaces nothing and reinforces everything.

3. Identify two or three motivated teachers as internal champions and enroll them in JA teacher orientation before annual planning closes.

4. Approach your local Chamber of Commerce and employer associations to recruit mentors, asking for professionals willing to commit a small, defined number of hours per term.

5. Start with one pilot class, ideally a third or fourth year group, and run a full student-company cycle from idea to final presentation.

6. Measure from the start: participation, student and employer feedback, and simple before-and-after checks on financial literacy and transversal skills.

7. Share the results with your regional school office, neighboring institutes, and local press. Visible evidence turns one pilot into a regional movement.

A call to action for Confindustria and the Camere di Commercio

Schools can adopt programs and teachers can champion them, but experiential business education without businesses is a contradiction in terms. Students need mentors who have actually met a payroll, priced a product, and lost and won customers.

To Confindustria, at national and territorial level: your member companies say they cannot find young people with entrepreneurial and managerial skills. Here is the mechanism to build them, proven abroad and already producing measurable results in Italy. Encourage your associates, especially SMEs, to adopt a class, contribute volunteer mentors, and open their doors for job shadowing. A few hours per month from a handful of professionals in each territory would transform the reach of these programs.

To the Camere di Commercio: you sit exactly where this initiative must be coordinated. You hold the employer networks, the local credibility, and the convening power to match schools with businesses at scale. Formalize partnerships with JA Italia and the technical and professional institutes in your provinces. Fund regional coordinators. Host the year-end student enterprise competitions that give young people a stage and your members a first look at the next generation of talent.

Two students looked at Italy from the outside and saw what those inside sometimes miss: an economy built on entrepreneurship, schools full of capable young people, and a missing bridge between the two. The table above shows how far that bridge could carry us. Ireland has already crossed it. What Italy needs now is partners willing to build it.

References

Center for Young and Family Enterprise (CYFE). (2020). Monitoring and evaluation of the Impresa in Azione program. Università degli Studi di Bergamo.

Entreprendre Pour Apprendre. (2025). Rapport d'activité 2024–2025. https://www.entreprendre-pour-apprendre.fr

European Commission. (2024). SME country fact sheet: Italy. Publications Office of the European Union. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu

Ipsos. (2022). Junior Achievement alumni impact study. Junior Achievement USA. https://jausa.ja.org

IW JUNIOR. (2025). Jahresbericht 2024–2025. Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft. https://www.iwjunior.de

JA Italia. (2025). Rapporto annuale 2024–2025. https://www.jaitalia.org

Junior Achievement Ireland. (2025). Annual report 2024–2025. https://www.jai.ie

Junior Achievement USA. (2025). Annual report 2024–2025. https://jausa.ja.org

Junior Achievement USA. (2026). Education for what's next: National survey of education leaders. https://jausa.ja.org

Maddigan, M., & Goetz, G. (2026). Integrating Junior Achievement successfully into the Italian school system [Unpublished research report]. USAC Verona, International Business Program.

OECD. (2024). PISA 2022 results (Volume IV): How financially smart are students? OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/5a849c2a-en

Young Enterprise. (2025). Impact report 2024–2025. https://www.young-enterprise.org.uk

Why Is Everyone in Europe Talking About "Competitiveness"?

 

First, what does "competitiveness" even mean?

Imagine a shop on a street with ten other shops selling similar things. If your shop is slow, expensive, and hard to find, people will just walk to the next one. If your shop is fast, well-priced, and easy to reach, people choose you. That's competitiveness: how good you are compared to others, when everyone is fighting for the same customers.

Now scale that idea up to an entire continent. "European competitiveness" means: how good is Europe, as a whole, at making things, inventing things, and selling things, compared to the United States, China, and everyone else? Can European companies grow, hire people, and pay good wages? Can Europe make its own semiconductors, batteries, and medicines, or does it have to depend on other countries for everything important?

This matters because competitiveness is not just an abstract economics word. It affects real things: how many jobs exist, how expensive your electricity bill is, whether the app or gadget you use was built in Europe or somewhere else, and whether Europe can defend itself and its allies without depending entirely on outside suppliers.