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Custom blood vessel grafts in minutes? Harvard engineers share vision of the future
Researchers have developed a new way to craft custom synthetic vascular grafts for patients in need of immediate care. The technique has shown early potential to be a game-changer for cardiovascular care.
2026 MLB Odds: Bettors Backing Brewers To Win World Series, 'Miz' For Cy Young
Are the Milwaukee Brewers worth all the hype? Bettors certainly believe so. See the latest.
Lamborghini Designed A Halo-Themed Urus You Can Drive In 'Forza Horizon 6' (More Importantly, I Got To Meet Master Chief)
You can't buy the real-life Master Chief Lambo, but you might be able to win a model version, and in just a few days, you can drive the video-game version.
Freddy Peralta reflects on Mets tenure with trade deadline on the horizon: 'I've let them down'
Musiala expected to start individual training from end of July
Although Bayern Munich's pre-season training camp is on the horizon, Jamal Musiala will miss out having undergone another foot surgery.However, Kicker.de have outlined his return to play schedule, wit...
On The Horizon: Cubs vs. Pirates series preview
The Cubs visit PNC Park.
Venice Lesbian Drama 'Big Little Things' Boards Moebius for Sales
Moebius Entertainment boards worldwide sales for Michelle Zhou's Venice Horizons title 'Big Little Things.'
Michelle Zhou’s Venice Horizons Title ‘Big Little Things’ Boarded By Moebius Entertainment For Sales
The Hong Kong-US collaboration follows a woman who returns to her hometown of Harbin after years living in the US.
Vikings May Have Found Next Hidden Gem in Undrafted Rookie
The Minnesota Vikings have several intriguing players as they head into training camp. Of course, veterans such as Justin Jefferson and Kyler Murray will take all the major headlines. However, one undrafted free agent is creating buzz as well. Wide receiver Dillon Bell is turning heads with training camp on the horizon.Bell was signed by […] The post Vikings May Have Found Next Hidden Gem in Undrafted Rookie appeared first on HEAVY.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft awakens from yearlong hibernation to do unprecedented science beyond Pluto
NASA's record-breaking New Horizons spacecraft has awoken from a 321-day hibernation in "good health" as it resumes unprecedented science at the solar system's edge.
Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 Is for Those of Us Who Can't Stop Scrolling
With a new 4:3 aspect ratio optimized for both horizontal and vertical content, Samsung's wide book-style foldable could be better suited to the way we actually browse, watch and consume content.
XBOX and Meta: More Ways to Enjoy XBOX Game Pass
Starting today, eligible Meta Horizon+ subscribers now get a starter edition of XBOX Game Pass – find out more inside.
Xbox Game Pass was a good idea in theory, former Forza Horizon 5 director says, but "the reality is not enough people have subscribed"
One of the lead creatives behind Forza Horizon 5, who departed developer Playground Games, still believes Xbox Game Pass was a solid concept.
A quarter-century of baseball, hoops — and scaling walls of ice? Denver Sports Commission celebrates 25 years
The group responsible for bringing sporting events to Colorado says there’s more fun on the horizon.
How much caffeinated coffee is too much for heart health?
New research shows that consuming 5 cups of caffeinated coffee a day is safe for most adults and may even benefit drinkers, according to the American Heart Association.
Keeping On the Move
Karen Lord set her eyes on the horizon from day one as the founder of her eponymous Pilates studio. Having started out in New York’s Meatpacking District
LSU Foundation names new president, WWII Museum leader departs, new BR chief at First Horizon
Take a look at some of the recent promotions and new hires announced at south Louisiana businesses.
Earth’s biggest volcanic event transformed an entire oceanic plate
Seismic waves have revealed that the oceanic plate beneath the Ontong Java Plateau was dramatically transformed by the colossal volcanic activity that created it more than 100 million years ago. Researchers found a complex structure of horizontal layers cut through by vast swarms of vertical magma channels, along with unusually slow seismic waves suggesting that deep-rising magma chemically altered the plate itself.
A Decade of Client-first Service in Music, Sports and Entertainment at First Horizon Bank
/PRNewswire/ -- First Horizon Bank (NYSE: FHN) (or "First Horizon") today announced the upcoming 10th anniversary of its Music, Sports and Entertainment Group....
A Decade of Client-first Service in Music, Sports and Entertainment at First Horizon Bank
/PRNewswire/ -- First Horizon Bank (NYSE: FHN) (or "First Horizon") today announced the upcoming 10th anniversary of its Music, Sports and Entertainment Group....
Pluto flyby mission wakes up after long sleep nearly 6 billion miles from Earth
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft recently came out of hibernation to continue its journey through an unexplored part of the solar system.
Lilly to acquire AtaiBeckley to advance therapies for treatment-resistant depression and other mental health conditions
/PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) and AtaiBeckley Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAI), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative...
Viking Project
NASA’s Viking Project found a place in history when it became the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars and return images of
“Worse Long-Term Outcome” – Sports Medicine Doctor Has Grim Prognosis of Conor McGregor’s Recovery After Upcoming Surgery
Conor McGregoris preparing for yet another major surgery after blowing out his knee at UFC 329 against Max Holloway. On X, ‘The Notorious’ confirmed that a grueling medical procedure is on the horizon, with subsequent reports also revealing that he is scheduled to undergo an MRI soon.
Account Takeover Fraud: How to Protect Your Business
Protect your business from account takeover fraud with tested prevention strategies. Learn to spot red flags and respond effectively.
Data Centers and Health: Understanding the Impacts and Taking Action
Join us for a webinar series that will equip attendees with the knowledge they need to speak confidently about the health and environmental justice harms from the rapid buildout of data centers.
Over 200 businesses hope to forge Sundance sponsor partnerships, Boulder Chamber says
With the Sundance Film Festival on the horizon, businesses can share details through an online hub, and will be contacted directly if their services or space matches the needs of a festival sponsor.
📸 This week's kit news 👕
Official announcements, leaks and great finds: OneFootball rounds up all the kit news from the week.⚫️ Germany home (leak)A new era is on the horizon for Die Mannschaft. After more than 70 years p...
Friday Sports: 1812 Tournament on the horizon
Here’s a recap of your North Country sports this Friday.
How climate change harms human health — and what can be done
From air pollution to wildfires, from heat waves to vector-borne diseases, climate change harms our health and causes significant stress to the healthcare system. Horizons moderator William Brangham explores what can be done to protect people from a warming world with Victor Tsao of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and Lisa Patel of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.
Colts 'overall roster health' among key storylines entering training camp
The Colts "overall roster health" is one of the big storylines surrounding this team with training camp on the horizon.
Fort Bend County Fair Announces 2026 Entertainment Lineup Featuring Sawyer Brown, Pat Green
ROSENBERG, Texas (Covering Katy News) — The Fort Bend County Fair has announced its entertainment lineup for its 90th annual celebration, featuring a mix of Texas country stars, Tejano favorites and nationally recognized performers during Championship BBQ Weekend and the fair's 10-day run. The 2026 Fort Bend County Fair begins with Championship BBQ Weekend on Sept. 18-19, followed by the fair Sept. 25 through Oct. 4. The entertainment schedule opens Friday, Sept. 18, with Tejano group Los Morales, followed by Texas country artist Cole Phillips on Saturday, Sept. 19. Phillips has gained attention for his traditional country sound influenced by classic honky-tonk music. The fair officially opens Friday, Sept. 25, with Tyce Delk, a New Mexico native whose touring schedule has expanded across the country. Country music veterans Sawyer Brown will headline Saturday, Sept. 26. The band, whose career spans more than four decades, remains known for hits including "Some Girls Do," "The Race Is On" and "Thank God for You." Go Tejano Day on Sunday, Sept. 27, will feature Prófugos de Nuevo León, along with performances by Los Rinches and Grupo Zenio. The second week of the fair begins Wednesday, Sept. 30, with Bellville singer-songwriter David Lewis, a recent Texas Country Music Association Male Artist of the Year nominee. Oklahoma Red Dirt artist Josh Meloy will perform Thursday, Oct. 1. Texas country star Pat Green returns to the Fort Bend County Fair stage Friday, Oct. 2. Green, whose career includes three Grammy Award nominations, has sold more than 2 million albums and amassed more than 200 million career streams. He is best known for songs including "Wave on Wave" and "Carry On." Country newcomer Vincent Mason will perform Saturday, Oct. 3. Mason has accumulated more than 500 million career streams and was recently nominated for Academy of Country Music New Male Artist of the Year. The fair concludes Sunday, Oct. 4, with Texas music legend Gary P. Nunn, whose "London Homesick Blues" remains one of the state's most recognizable songs. Weekend visitors also can enjoy performances on Music Row by J Paul Jr. & the Zydeco Nubreeds, Southern County Line, Los Rangerz and Horizon. The Fort Bend County Fair Association, a nonprofit organization, supports youth, agriculture and education. According to the association, it has awarded more than $2 million in scholarships during the past decade and generated $1.4 million through its 2025 youth auctions. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, July 10. Guests are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance and select the specific day they plan to attend, as tickets are valid only for the date purchased. Admission includes entry to the fairgrounds, access to the carnival, shopping, exhibits, food vendors and, when scheduled, admission to the rodeo and that day's concert. Season passes and single-day tickets will be available. For tickets and additional information, visit fortbendcountyfair.com or call the Fair Office at 281-342-6171. The address of the Fairgrounds is 4310 Texas 36 S in Rosenberg. 2026 Fort Bend County Fair Entertainment Schedule Championship BBQ Weekend Friday, Sept. 18: Los Morales Saturday, Sept. 19: Cole Phillips Fair Entertainment Friday, Sept. 25: Tyce Delk Saturday, Sept. 26: Sawyer Brown Sunday, Sept. 27 (Go Tejano Day): Prófugos de Nuevo León, Los Rinches and Grupo Zenio Wednesday, Sept. 30: David Lewis Thursday, Oct. 1: Josh Meloy Friday, Oct. 2: Pat Green Saturday, Oct. 3: Vincent Mason Sunday, Oct. 4: Gary P. Nunn × Expand FBCF Fort Bend County Fair 2026 Artist Lineup
Mary Means Business: Heritage Chophouse coming to Starkville
A new upscale restaurant is on the horizon for Starkville foodies.
New Horizons awakens after longest hibernation, resumes science mission 9.5 billion km from Earth
NASA announced on July 7, 2026, that its New Horizons spacecraft has resumed active operations after completing its longest hibernation period to date. The spacecraft emerged from a 321-day…
Another big premium hike on the horizon
FDA's crackdown on online ketamine retailers, unprecedented health care premium hikes, and more health news from Morning Rounds
Hungary moves to overhaul university models banned from Horizon Europe
Hungary’s new government is aiming to overhaul the governance model of the institutions and universities that lost access to Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ funds “in a short timeframe,” according to Péter Horváth, the new state secretary for science policy and innovation. “As of today, the two non-university foundation-controlled institutions under my remit have been transformed,” he told Science|Business. “We hope the universities will follow and that this will be enough to satisfy the EU’s demands.”Under the previous government, led by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party, many academic and scientific institutions were restructured and made into special public trust foundations, with members strongly linked to the government given lifelong mandates and significant decision-making powers with little oversight. The European Commission deemed that this undermined academic freedom and transparency in the country, leading to a ban on 34 institutions in 2022, including 21 universities, which saw academics in Hungary lose access to Horizon Europe grants. The new Hungarian government, elected in May and led by Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party, has promised to dismantle this governance model and restore the institutions to EU programmes. As a result, the European Commission has promised to return access to the Erasmus+ education mobility programme, but so far no concrete agreement has been made on the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation. Hungary has already made legislative changes in June to allow the institutions to be reformed and set a timeline for the implementation.The non-university foundations, which are mainly cultural centres such as the Foundation for Hungarian Culture or the Makovecz Campus Foundation, will all be dissolved by August 31 this year, a date tied to EU-set milestones that Hungary must meet to unlock frozen funds, with control transferred to relevant ministries. Meanwhile, the universities will have until 31 August 2027. For each university foundation, the government will set the dissolution date and the body to take over operations. There is no final decision on a permanent new model for the universities, according to Hungarian MEP Eszter Lakos, who is shadow rapporteur for the Horizon Europe specific programme, a separate piece of legislation detailing implementation rules for the EU’s next research programme, due to start in 2028. “The aim of the transition year is to settle this with [the universities], not to impose a model, and not to put them under state control,” she told Science|Business. “The goal is to give academic independence back to universities.”There are three models that are most likely to be implemented. One would be a return to a traditional, state-run model. Another could be a newer, more self-standing public institution. A third option would be a reformed version of the foundation models that meet EU standards. According to Lakos, the dismantling of the system put in place by the Orbán government is well underway and if all goes according to plan, Hungary could regain access to EU research money by the start of the next academic year in 2027. “I believe that the Hungarian government is doing the necessary changes so the universities could return as beneficiaries to Horizon from the next school year,” she said. In the meantime, “the universities, institutes and cultural assets carry on under proper public stewardship rather than a handful of unaccountable trustees,” said Lakos. The laws passed in June impose new safeguards: board terms are capped at four years and renewable only once, appointments are made through open competitions and sitting politicians cannot join joining these boards.It remains unclear whether a domestic science funding programme set up as a back-up scheme by the former government following the EU funding ban, called HU-rizon, could be continued. “This programme should never have had to have been established in the first place, but it has proven to be quite popular,” he said. “I am considering continuing this programme with a refined focus on helping international collaborations.”Re-organising the research network One of the first priorities for Horváth and his cabinet is to resolve questions over the future of the Hungarian Research Network, Hun-Ren. The network of academic institutes was taken away from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2019 and turned into a quasi-private organisation, with similarities in its governance to the public trust foundations.Horváth and his team have consulted over 5,000 representatives from the network and the conclusion is broad unhappiness with the directors of all the institutes involved. “We have presented the results to the president and the chief executive of the network and this is currently being discussed,” Horváth said. The plan is to re-integrate the network back into the Academy of Sciences but in an improved way, “learning from mistakes of the past,” he added. The government also wants to reintegrate four humanities and social science research centres into the network that the previous government had transferred to Eötvös Loránd University. The transfer brought sharp criticism from the academic community, with a group of Hungarian research heads, including European Research Council grant recipients, sending an open letter to Orbán warning that the transfer would “cause historically significant harm to the entirety of Hungarian scientific life.” The transfer was “one of the biggest shames in Hungarian research in the past 20 years,” Horváth said. “We want to immediately re-integrate them back into the research network and to regain the trust of these institutions, because the way they were treated was really unfair.”Another pressing issue is the Élvonal Excellence Research and Talent Development Foundation, led by Nobel laureate Ferenc Krausz. The foundation signed a financing agreement with the former government earlier this year for a budget of over €730 million over the next five years. The goal is to create a world-class centre to attract top talent from abroad and to develop local researchers. But there was little transparency about this foundation, and news of its huge budget, which is nearly as much as Hungary’s entire research budget, caused a stir in the media following the recent elections. Another issue is that, as with the foundation boards of the institutes banned from Horizon Europe, there was little-to-no oversight of decisions led by Krausz. “It was an excellent idea but an unacceptable execution,” Horváth said of the foundation. “The fact that this is out of the Hungarian funding scheme, mostly concentrating on one person who decides on the budget is unacceptable for us.”The government plans to merge the centre with the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, the country’s R&D funding agency, with a reduced budget. Horváth is hopeful that Krausz will still be involved. The new government’s R&D goalsA phrase that crops up regularly during the discussion with Horváth is “democratic process.” The new state secretary is determined to involve Hungary’s research community in shaping future policies. This marks a departure from the previous government’s approach, and several people in Hungary’s research community have commented on the openness of the new government. In terms of concrete goals, Horváth and his team already have plans. He wants to create a new science fund in Hungary, based on the best practices of other European countries. The fund would not be tied to annual government budgets and would provide long-term, stable financing. “If we were to succeed in creating this fund, then I think it would be one of the biggest achievements for me in this period of government,” Horváth said. On the innovation side, he is looking into how best to bring in the private sector. “We want to make sure that we are working with the private sector to support innovation,” Horváth said. One of his big aims is to introduce entrepreneurship teaching into high schools. Hungary already has a reputable national academy offering research and innovation training in the field of natural sciences, and Horváth wants to expand this to all disciplines and across the whole country. “One of the main ways to elevate our innovative businesses is to teach our children to be innovative,” he said. “This will probably need ten years to pay off, but this is what we should do. Our aim is to make Hungary strong in our region, and this is what is needed.” Related articlesHungary’s Horizon Europe performance in numbersCommission unlocks Erasmus+ cash for Hungary, Horizon could be next‘Academic Huxit.’ Hungarian researchers speak out on impact of EU ban A more difficult task will be funding. The new government is aiming to increase research spending to 2% of the GDP by 2030, and then increase it to 3% in line with EU objectives. Currently, spending sits around 1.3%. But according to Horváth, the current budget, inherited from the previous government, is “heavily in the negative,” so any plans to increase research spending will have to start next year. Achieving 2% by 2030 already needs a big push, almost doubling the research budget. “This is something we’d definitely like to reach, and something I can see us achieving,” he said. “From the 2030s, I’d like to see an innovative generation growing up that can help us reach the 3% target.” Positivity in the new governmentDespite the many challenges facing Horváth and his team, the mood is positive. “It feels a bit like a start-up right now. Everyone is working 24/7, day and night, trying to do as much as they can. There is a lot of energy,” he said. It is a big change for the state secretary who, like many in his cabinet, is coming from a background in research or business, and not in politics. “Six weeks ago, I was sitting with my microscope and my research PhDs, so it’s been a big change for me,” said the computer scientist, who was previously the director of the Institute of Biochemistry at the Hun-Ren Biological Research Centre in Hungary and worked at the Institute for AI for Health at Helmholtz Munich. But he is relishing the task to transform the country’s R&D landscape. “We feel enormous support from the Hungarian people, but also from Europe,” he said. “We’ve received a lot of letters of support from around Europe. There is big trust there, and huge responsibility on our side. We want to get everything back on track, and there’s a lot to do.”
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft wakes from its longest hibernation in good health
Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper ...
NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes from Hibernation in Good Health
Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting
NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes from Hibernation in Good Health
Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting
A dozen businesses have opened in Ardmore this year. Here’s a list of what’s new, and what’s on the horizon.
Newcomers to the Main Line community include mom-and-pop shops, national chains, and expansions of popular local names such as decorated Szechuan restaurant EMei and Jersey-based eatery Gouldsburgers.
Post-disaster toll on mothers linked to worse child mental health
A UNMC study related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill shows that Louisiana moms’ losses were associated with worse mental health in their children.
Scott Dixon Departure From Chip Ganassi Racing Confirmed
Scott Dixon is out at Ganassi. So what's next?
Scientists can now study the event horizons of black holes
They make the universe’s most extreme gravitational laboratories
Preparing your business for new shipping, packaging requirements
Any business using packaging and shipping material in Maine should familiarize itself with new compliance obligations and fees on the horizon, our guest contributor recommends.
Meta Summer Sale Offers Massive Savings On Hundreds Of Quest Games
Meta Horizon Store's "Peak Summer Sale" is on, offering major savings on hundreds of Quest, games, apps, and DLC. Here are some of the best deals.
Screens are virtually inescapable. What are they doing to our health?
They’re in our pockets, workplaces, homes and schools — screens are everywhere. Americans are spending more than seven hours a day looking at screens. What is this doing to our well being? And does all this screen time affect different generations differently? Horizons moderator William Brangham explores what we know and don’t know with researchers Kostadin Kushlev and Courtney K. Blackwell.
Moderna highlights expanding mRNA platform at Science Day
Moderna's Horizon programme contains a variety of mRNA assets in varying stages of development, including a preclinical in vivo candidate.
Old Town Moves Forward With Business Improvement District
City supports effort to strengthen historic district
The Big Summer Preview – New Ork miniatures and codex are coming
Updated Trukk, Mek and Warboss are on the horizon.
Bangor council rejects proposed rules limiting ICE cooperation
One councilor left abruptly in protest during a heated discussion over ICE.
Scientists May Have Detected The First Signature of a Black Hole's Event Horizon
We're getting closer to the brink.
'Fingerprints' of black hole's event horizon detected for first time
Scientists have detected the "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon -- the boundary from which nothing can escape -- for the first time, according to research published on Wednesday. The scien...
Advances in materials science are helping unlock secrets of nanomaterials
New instruments on the horizon promise the most precise tools yet to study and experiment on the smallest and most complex materials ever manufactured. In a paper published in the journal Nature Materials, ...
Mackenzie McMahon Earns "Best of Division III" Honor in College Sports Communicators Creative and Digital Design Contest
She had three entries place in the annual contest.
U.S. Small Business Administration ‘actively working’ to create veterans resource center in Idaho
At the request of U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, the federal Small Business Administration is looking at establishing a new, Idaho-based office dedicated to supporting veterans, military members and their spouses.
The science of 'Dad Brain' and how fatherhood changes men
While most scientific research has focused on men, when it comes to parenthood, it's all about mothers. But new research shows that men undergo profound changes biologically and psychologically when they become fathers. Horizons moderator William Brangham explores the surprising science of "Dad Brain" with Darby Saxbe.
Aura's impressive e-ink photo frame doesn't even look digital
What's the most cliche possible gift you can give a relative? A digital photo frame, displaying a rotating slideshow of family photos. Now Aura has
Zohran Mamdani: Welcome to NYC, Where Fútbol Meets Joy, Politics and Tacos
Mayor Mamdani on sports, immigration, ICE, Trump, and what makes a great taco.
FreeCast Launches Starlink Business Connectivity Solutions Through Strategic Reseller Agreement
FreeCast, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAST), a technology company providing streaming media aggregation, distribution, and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions, today an...
Yankees’ power parade flattens White Sox once again
With the Knicks’ parade on the horizon, the Bomber bats kept the good times rolling in the Bronx.
SGMC Health Welcomes Ashley Cooper as Director of Organizational Learning and Development
SGMC Health welcomes Ashley Cooper as Director of Organizational Learning and Development.
SGMC Health Welcomes Barry Fleming as Director of Main Emergency Department
SGMC Health welcomes Barry Fleming as Director of the Emergency Department at SGMC Health Main.
Latvia pilots citizen engagement in research grant evaluations
Latvia has introduced an element of citizen engagement to the evaluation of nationally funded research grants. The aim is to both create more connections between science and society, and to improve the quality of its evaluations. The move comes as research funders across Europe are experimenting with ways to improve evaluation processes in the face of a sharpened focus on science’s impact on society. Evaluators of grant applications submitted to Latvia’s Fundamental and Applied Research Programme (FLPP), the country’s main research funder, will this year have the option of consulting citizen feedback on challenges the public thinks science should focus on to inform their decisions. “In recent years, both public discussions and policy-level debates in Latvia have highlighted the importance of demonstrating how publicly funded research contributes to society, the economy and the resolution of real-world challenges,” said a source at the Latvian Council of Science (LCS), which manages the FLPP. “At the same time, research institutions themselves expressed interest in improving the project evaluation framework while continuing to ensure that funding is awarded to the highest-quality projects,” the source added. The citizen input comes from a survey that was conducted between 25 February and 16 March 2025, to which 1,737 people responded. It gathered information on what the public views as problem areas for Latvia, and the role of science and technology in providing solutions to these problems. A summary of these responses has been included as an annex to the FLPP 2026 call for proposals that evaluators can refer to, purely in an advisory manner, when judging proposals. Results from the survey show that the main problem areas identified by the public were in healthcare and public health, followed by the development of new treatment methods and medicines, and then digital technology, data security and cyber security. At the bottom of the list was research aimed at acquiring new knowledge about the universe, matter and the laws of nature. Further analysis looked at the public view of the possible role of science in solving these problems. The survey charted 4,167 individual responses based on open-ended questions that were derived from the participants’ answers. The analysis again found that medical and health sciences topped the scoring, with 788 responses referring to the field. Humanities and the arts were bottom of the list, with 625. Digging further into the details, the survey suggests citizens are aware of and concerned about a number of research areas. This includes technologies and innovation to improve the environment or reduce pollution, the development of modern military technologies and cybersecurity tools, and the development and application of artificial intelligence, among others. “We hope this initiative will help strengthen public trust in science and create a more meaningful dialogue between researchers and society,” the LCS source said, adding that it offers benefits to researchers, evaluators and to the general public. More space for citizen engagement in evaluationsThere is a gradual but increasing use of citizen engagement in research evaluation processes around Europe, especially in healthcare, but it remains relatively rare, said Henry Sauermann, a professor at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin and an expert in citizen science.“Given that we are at a point where citizen involvement is extremely limited, there is presumably space for more, but it's not that we should do it just because we want to do it,” he told Science|Business. He said some research lends itself better to having citizen input, and this usually tends to be on the applied end of the science spectrum where the public can offer useful feedback based on their experiences. He added that advising scientists on certain topics to study is also a useful approach, in the way that Latvia is doing. “The public does fund a lot of science, there's a lot of tax money going into this. We of course do want to preserve academic freedom, but it's also not unreasonable to incorporate more feedback or input from citizens where possible,” he said. Related articlesCitizen science: where, when, and how to let the public contribute to researchHow can Europe cope with a flood of AI-assisted research grant proposals?Data Corner: Horizon Europe’s AI, digital and data call success rate is 5.2%There are several ways of involving citizens in science funding. The most minimal way is having a few representatives on a panel, such as members of a patient group or union. The most direct way is crowdsourcing funding for specific projects. There is an increasing number of online platforms that allow the public to chip in to support scientific proposals.Sauermann studied this in a recent paper and found that it can have its uses, but it still is not clear if there are benefits to it. There are various assumptions linked to citizen engagement, for example that it increases public trust in science, or that it provides a representative view of what the public thinks about science. These are not necessarily true, Sauermann found. People who participate in engagement activities tend to already be very trusting of science, and, on the whole, it is generally the well-off and well educated who contribute, giving a narrow view of public opinion. On whether citizen input can help manage the increasing number of proposals that are being submitted due to assistance from AI, Sauermann is more sceptical. “The obvious answer to the flood of AI-written proposals is AI-driven evaluation,” he said, adding that it doesn’t mean citizen engagement shouldn’t be a part of evaluations in a well thought-out manner. Southern Denmark’s successful approachOne successful example of citizen engagement in science evaluations was implemented in southern Denmark. Between 2019 and 2025, citizens in the region were invited to vote to fund one of five pre-selected projects in the field of healthcare. The project, called A Healthier Southern Denmark, was a collaboration between regional authorities, the University of Southern Denmark, and two media partners. Over the seven years, there were 75,000 votes and significant public engagement online and on social media. “It was a bit of a wild project, we’d never done something like that before and we were a bit nervous about what would be said in the media about it. But actually, people were very positive,” said Anne Kathrine Overgaard, one of the main organisers of the project from the University of Southern Denmark. The university and its researchers have learned a lot from the experience, particularly about engaging with society and shaping their research to match real-world needs. This is important with Europe’s increasing focus on competitiveness and bringing innovations to market faster, Overgaard said. She hopes to see more citizen engagement in evaluation processes and in science more broadly. “For many years, citizen engagement has been a bit of an add-on to proposals, just to check a box. But I think things are changing,” she said. It’s less about citizens just gathering data and more “about the dialogue between the public and the scientists,” she said. The initiative ended last year as the team wanted to regroup to find fresh momentum. The development of AI and AI-written proposals has made Overgaard reflect on how the project could be reworked to help evaluators. She hopes to bring it back in the future. “It could be a good idea to try this initiative again in a slightly re-worked format,” she said.
Kansas City Athletics Partners with Playfly Sports on Sponsorship and Ticketing
NEW YORK, NY/KANSAS CITY, MO (June 16, 2026) Kansas City Athletics officially announced a four-year partnership with Playfly Sports, the sports industry's le...
Forza Horizon 6 update reduces 1,000-hour grind for multiplayer Xbox achievement
Playground Games has rolled out a new update for Forza Horizon 6, which makes an achievement easier to unlock and balances the game's crazy AI racers.
Bank Balances Rolled Back for Forza Horizon 6 Players Who Used Exploit to Amass a Billion Credits
In response to an arcane but incredibly lucrative exploit discovered by Forza Horizon 6 players, Playground Games has confirmed most of those credits gained will be removed.
Forza Horizon 6 Signals A New Peak For Open World Driving Games
Japan provides the backdrop for Horizon's most ambitious world yet
Is SMIC N+3’s Metal Pitch Smaller than Intel 18A’s?
Almost four years ago, we published that SMIC had started shipping 7 nm (N+1) chips. Now, SMIC is shipping its third-generation 7 nm (N+3) process in Huawei’s Kirin 9030, with a minimum metal pitch of 32.5 nm, about 10% tighter than the 36 nm minimum metal pitch shipping in Intel’s latest Panther Lake CPUs on 18A. The headline is true, but incomplete cherry picked metric. N+3 reaches the density of TSMC N6 through aggressive DUV multi-patterning and design-technology co-optimization (DTCO), but it pays for that in complexity, efficiency and process control. We found this and more in our reverse engineering and teardown where we cover SMIC’s N3 process technology, Huawei’s packaging, memory, architecture, and more. SemiAnalysis has been building a state-of-the-art teardown lab in Oregon capable of analyzing the world’s most advanced and important chips over the last year and half. We have already generated revenue on advanced datacenter chip teardowns including our recent reverse engineering of a major TSMC customer’s COUPE CPO optical engine + EIC 3D stack. This is the first public report from the SemiAnalysis Teardown Engineering & Evaluation Lab, or STEEL for short. The lab is aggressively scaling up and out and we’re excited to announce it publicly. This is a bit of inconvenient timing for TechInsights as they are private equity owned and currently being sold while having enjoyed virtually no credible competition for decades. This has led to TechInsights underinvesting in CAPEX. SemiAnalysis exceeds TechInsights in revenue despite no venture or private equity ownership and being founded only 6 years ago. Because we have no external investors and are founder led, we move faster, build faster, and we can release client chip teardowns for free regularly, while focusing on datacenter for our major clients. Here’s the first public image from our lab, the HiSilicon Kirin 9030 Pro SoC: This report will detail our teardown of the Kirin 9030 and our findings on SMIC’s N+3 process, the most advanced in China. For comparison, we’ll show our teardown of the MediaTek Helio G99, made on TSMC N6. Through this comparison, we can look at the effect of export controls – SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 are comparable nodes, but one is heavily export-controlled, the other free to use the West’s most advanced equipment. Here we see both China’s progress and constraints. SMIC N+3 reaches TSMC N6-class logic density, but it requires far more aggressive DUV multi-patterning, so it does not match N6 on process maturity or cost. The Kirin 9030 Pro performs similarly to three-year-old Android flagships, and trails far behind the current flagship SoCs from Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Samsung. The efficiency gap is even wider. Export controls have not stopped Huawei and SMIC from shipping advanced silicon, but they have forced a different path. Without EUV, SMIC is leaning harder on DUV multi-patterning, DTCO, and increasingly complex integration. The roadmap continues forward through tighter design rules and backside power, but each step adds cost and process risk. Huawei’s τ scaling and LogicFolding show another path: stacking active logic and recovering density through advanced packaging and system-technology co-optimization (STCO). To understand the Kirin 9030, we must first understand Huawei’s SoC history. HiSilicon is Huawei’s chip design arm, responsible for the Kirin smartphone SoCs, Kunpeng server CPUs, Ascend AI accelerators, and switch/router networking silicon. Before export controls, Huawei was TSMC’s largest customer – the only customer on TSMC’s first EUV node, N7+, and among the first on N5, alongside Apple. That ended in late 2020. Huawei switched to Qualcomm SoCs in its flagship smartphones, though export controls limited them to 4G-only variants. In late 2023, Huawei returned to in-house silicon with the Kirin 9000s, a successor to the Kirin 9000, fabricated on SMIC N+2 instead of TSMC N5. In the following years, they released the Kirin 9010 and 9020 on the same N+2 process. These chips used Huawei’s in-house TaiShan CPU cores and Maleoon GPU. We have not torn down a Kirin 9020 ourselves, so the predecessor die shot is from Kurnal. The die shots show how Huawei spent its silicon budget: which functional blocks are where, and how their areas compare to the predecessor. First, a quick guide to the major blocks on the die. The total die area is nearly identical, but the 9030 uses that area more aggressively. A denser process lets Huawei fit an extra middle CPU core, more GPU and NPU cores, and larger caches into the same footprint. In contrast, the Helio G99 is a much smaller, low-cost SoC, built for budget smartphones rather than a flagship device. While the Kirin 9030 is ~140 mm², the G99 is only ~29 mm², roughly one-fifth the area. The underlying TSMC process technology, however, is directly comparable as a baseline for analyzing SMIC’s. The Kirin 9030 is an evolutionary refresh, not a clean-sheet design. Its CPU, GPU and NPU cores carry over the 9020’s families, and the gains come from three levers: the SMIC N+2-to-N+3 process step, DTCO and floorplan work, and incremental microarchitecture. Area is where the first two show up, and the 9030 scales well here. Performance and efficiency are the harder test. Huawei’s design holds up better than its node would suggest, but the chip still trails, both because N+3 sits behind the leading-edge nodes and because its cores, while competent, remain a few generations behind the newest designs. The new prime core is an incremental update. The main changes are a 10% frequency increase from 2.5 GHz to 2.75 GHz and a doubling in the L2 cache from 1 MiB to 2 MiB. Despite the increased cache, the core size decreased by 7.6%. Excluding the private L2 cache, the core size decreased by 21%. This is a large reduction for an incremental node. Compared with the TaiShan New V120 core in the Kirin 9020, the Kirin 9030’s middle core is almost unchanged architecturally, yet each core shrinks by ~22%. Most of that comes from the move from N+2 to N+3, with layout likely accounting for the rest. Visually, the most noticeable change is the increase from 3 middle cores to 4. There is also a 20% increase in the shared L3 cache of the big cluster. This helps to improve multi-core performance without sacrificing much in terms of area. Even with each core shrinking, the big CPU cluster’s total area is essentially unchanged. The per-core savings went back into an additional middle core and larger caches. The tiny cores shrank less than the prime core (excluding its L2 cache) and less than the middle cores. This is likely because fixed overhead is a larger share on a small core. We cannot resolve any architectural changes from the die shot alone, but the per-clock and efficiency gains shown below point to more than pure process and layout scaling. The area reduction was offset by a doubling of the shared L2 cache from 2 MiB to 4 MiB, leaving the total tiny CPU cluster area slightly larger. Area is the easiest improvement to see from a die shot, but it is only one part of PPA (power, performance, area). For modern logic, power and performance matter just as much, and often more. Since Dennard scaling broke down in the mid-2000s, voltage and frequency have not scaled in step with transistor dimensions, so each node has had to fight harder for gains in performance and efficiency. The starkest comparison is not Kirin 9020 versus Kirin 9030 Pro. Apple’s efficiency cores run circles around Huawei’s prime core. Apple’s low-power core delivers 20% higher integer performance while drawing only 1 W, compared with 4.5 W for Huawei’s prime core. N+3 matches TSMC N6, but N6 is several generations old. Apple and Qualcomm build on N4 and N3P, which are denser and sit on a better voltage-frequency curve, giving them a larger transistor budget and more performance per watt. The 9030’s own cores did improve. The middle and tiny cores gained 17% and 14% in per-clock integer performance over the 9020, with floating-point flat on the middle core and up 11% on the tiny. The tiny core improves cleanly, with performance rising while power falls and efficiency increases by 45% in integer and 24% in floating point. The middle core is mixed: integer performance rises but power rises faster, cutting integer efficiency by 7%, while lower power lifts floating-point efficiency 16%. Per-clock gains at the same or lower frequency are microarchitectural, so the cores are tuned, not just shrunk. Both also failed to hold their rated maximum frequencies, pointing to thermal, power, or stability limits. Per clock, the middle core sits around Arm Cortex-A720 and the tiny core near the Cortex-A520; absolute performance trails because Huawei clocks them much lower. The prime core is roughly Cortex-X2 class per clock, a 2021 design. Apple’s 2020 M1 Firestorm core is still 35% higher per clock and 57% faster in absolute integer performance at a similar 4.5 W. The current leading edge is further ahead again: the Apple M5 P-core is 60% higher per clock and 2.7× faster, the Arm C1 Ultra 45% higher and 2× faster. Matching older high-end cores per clock is a genuine design achievement. What Huawei cannot match is the voltage-frequency curve and transistor budget of leading-edge nodes, which let Apple, Qualcomm and others spend more transistors in the same area on wider cores, larger caches and deeper buffers while running at lower voltage. Huawei’s LogicFolding roadmap is one answer, stacking active logic to recover density and shorten signal paths. We return to it later. The GPU compute units (CUs) changed more visibly than the CPU cores, moving to a more rectangular layout for both the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) clusters and the CU overall. Even with ray-tracing support added, a CU shrank ~28%. However, that shrink is offset by the increase from 4 to 6 CUs and the area outside the CUs grew 33%. Overall, the GPU cluster is larger by ~10%. The GPU is where Huawei makes its biggest gains. The Maleoon 935 is not competitive with current flagships, but it is a large step up from the 920 and reaches older-flagship territory. In 3DMark it is 70% faster in Wild Life Extreme (WLE) and 79% faster in Steel Nomad Light (SNL) than the 920; with 11% higher clocks and 50% more CUs, the ~67% theoretical uplift roughly matches WLE and is beaten by SNL. It edges ahead of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 in WLE and SNL, and the Dimensity 9200 and Apple A16 in WLE, but stays far behind newer parts: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Dimensity 9500 are ~2.4–2.6× faster in WLE and ~3.2× faster in SNL. The Maleoon 935 is Huawei’s first GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing; there it lands slightly ahead of the Exynos 2200, and on par with the Apple A16, with current flagships up to 3.7× faster. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) saw the largest structural changes of any block, moving from a Lite and a Tiny core in the Kirin 9020 to a Lite and two Tiny cores in the Kirin 9030. Both core types also show significant layout changes. This is a reversal in Huawei’s NPU design. The Kirin 9000 5G, its last flagship chip on TSMC N5, used two Lite and one Tiny core. The series of SoCs on SMIC N+2 moved to one Lite and one Tiny core, likely for area savings. With the Kirin 9030, Huawei has shifted back toward a larger multi-core NPU cluster, but with the additional area going to a Tiny core rather than a Lite core. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. Before diving into the process stack, the package and memory are worth separating from the SoC itself. The Pro variant of the Kirin 9030 carries 12 GB of Samsung DRAM, with two stacks of four dies each. The dies were identified as the K4L2E165YD, a 12 Gb LPDDR5X-9600 device fabricated on Samsung’s 1a node, the fourth generation of its 10 nm-class DRAM after 1x, 1y and 1z. 1a has shipped in volume since 2022, so this is current memory rather than older-node inventory. The 16 GB Pro Max variants we obtained were found with both CXMT and Samsung packages. The CXMT package is marked CXDD7JEDM, with two stacks of four dies, packaged in week 45 of 2025. The inferred die dimensions from X-ray computed tomography (CT) are consistent with a known density of ~0.3 Gib/mm² for the CXMT G4 process, roughly equivalent to other manufacturers’ 1z processes. The Kirin 9030 uses a typical integrated package-on-package (iPoP) stack: multiple DRAM dies in a memory package sit above an organic redistribution layer (RDL) interposer, which sits above the SoC and package substrate. The full package is then mounted to the printed circuit board (PCB) through ball-grid array (BGA) solder bumps. The memory package substrate is a thin bismaleimide-triazine (BT) laminate carrying the LPDDR5X stack. The organic RDL interposer over the SoC routes the PoP signals around the die and carries possible dummy thermal copper pillars. The package substrate, a thicker Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF) build-up over a BT core, fans the flip-chip bumps out to BGA pitch and embeds the power planes. The whole stack is organic. The only silicon is the SoC and the LPDDR5X dies; there is no silicon interposer. Keeping it all-organic brings the package’s coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) close to the PCB’s, reducing board-level warpage, and avoids the cost of a silicon interposer the SoC’s bandwidth does not need. In an iPoP stack, the memory package connects to the organic RDL interposer through an array of solder bumps. Underfill fills the gap around those bumps, adding stiffness and protecting the joints from mechanical stress. The Pro and Pro Max variants differ here, which we cover behind the paywall. The die shot and architecture tell us how Huawei allocated its silicon budget. The process tells us what SMIC can manufacture. We use the Helio G99 as the process reference for TSMC N6. Both SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 are evolutions of previous 7 nm-class nodes. We used targeted TEM cross-sections through logic and memory regions, imaged in both fin-cut and gate-cut directions. Each cross-section caption gives its horizontal field width (HFW), the real width of the imaged area. We start at the transistor fins, then move up through standard cells, local interconnect, and SRAM. SMIC has not overtaken Intel or TSMC. It uses aggressive DUV scaling and DTCO to reach N6-class density, but that density doesn’t translate into comparable performance and efficiency, for two reasons: the node gap to leading-edge nodes, and Huawei’s core designs. Fin Profile One of the most important knobs in a FinFET process is the fin profile: the shape of an individual fin and the channel where current passes from source to drain. The ideal fin is tall, narrow, and nearly vertical. A taller fin increases effective channel width, while a narrower fin improves electrostatic control by thinning the body the gate must control. Push either too far, and the process pays for it: weaker drive current, fragile fins, taper, footing and line-edge variation that hit yield and device variability. The Intel 22 nm, 14 nm, and 10 nm fin cross-sections show how FinFET nodes have improved over time. 22 nm fins were a first-generation structure, relatively short, wide and strongly tapered. The shape limits current density and reduces gate control uniformity across the height of the fin. At 14 nm and 10 nm, Intel pushed the fins taller and narrower while also making the sidewalls more vertical. Rather than shrinking the device, these changes increase the effective channel width per fin and improve electrostatic control. The trade-off is that taller fins at tighter pitches are much more difficult to manufacture. Now, let’s compare the Helio G99 on TSMC N6 with the Kirin 9030 on SMIC N+3. Both processes are in the same class, with fin pitch of 30-32 nm on N+3 and 34 nm in our N6 cross-section. The pitch for N6 is especially interesting as N7’s HD library is generally listed with a 33 nm fin pitch, and N6 did not shrink pitches directly. Its density gains came from DTCO instead of tighter pitches. The 34 nm pitch was stable across our sampled region and serves more as a comparison against the SMIC N+3 we have not investigated further. Pinning down N+3’s fin patterning scheme takes more than one core unit. The CPU cores show a dense ~32 nm pitch, with the pitch between N-P fin pairs alternating between 78 and 88 nm. Logic alone may be consistent with dual-pitch mandrels of 120 and 110 nm, but this is a complex and unusual approach. Combining the pitch from the the 8T SRAM, which has more complex repeat unit, with the CPU core sequence allows us to reverse engineer the patterning steps with more confidence. As both the logic and SRAM should share the same base grid, a single CD mandrel lithography pattern with 128 nm pitch undergoing SAQP produces a die-wide ~32 nm grid (128 nm/4), which supports the pitch sequencing seen in both logic and SRAM cells. In the sampled cross-sections, N+3 shows a taller, narrower, higher-aspect-ratio fin than N6. The measured fin aspect ratio is ~9.5:1 on N+3 versus 7.8:1 on N6. N+3 also shows less top rounding, with an estimated radius of ~2 nm, compared with 2.8 nm on N6. Even though the fin widths differ, the ratio of top rounding to fin width tells the same story, with N+3 at 0.37 and N6 at 0.44. In a geometric sense, lower is better; a perfectly rectangular fin would have no top-rounding penalty. These are single-digit-nanometer features measured from a handful of cuts, so treat the absolute numbers as approximate. The important result is the relative gap: N+3’s fins are consistently taller, narrower and less rounded than N6’s. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. Standard Cell A standard cell is the basic building block of chip layout: a fixed-height row pairing one NMOS and one PMOS transistor that share a gate, tiled in a grid to build logic blocks. The key dimensions are contacted gate pitch (CGP), cell height (CH), fin count, and the lower-metal routing grid. To measure density, we use the Bohr metric: a weighted average of NAND2 gate area (60%) and scan flip-flop area (40%). This represents a realistic mix of combinational and sequential logic. This metric has its limitations, especially for complex cell layouts like TSMC’s FinFLEX, which alternates cells with different fin counts. Even so, it is the best metric for a pure process-level comparison. Another important measurement is the fin pitch; it refers to the distance between two fins of the same transistor. In a FinFET process, multiple fins are used in each transistor to increase the drive current and thus performance. TSMC N6 ships both a high-density (HD) library with 2 PMOS and 2 NMOS fins per cell, and a high-performance (HP) library with 3 of each. More fins under the shared gate mean more effective channel width. HP cells switch harder at the cost of area. Designers mix the two on a die, primarily spending HP cells on timing-critical paths, and matching their PPA targets. In the Cortex-A55 core of the Helio G99, we found a cell height of 240 nm for the HD cell. MediaTek has used HD cells in the G99 to minimize die size and thus cost. As an SoC for budget smartphones at ~$100, this is essential. By contrast, we found only one library in the Kirin 9030, with 2 NMOS and 2 PMOS fins. This suggests a narrower library strategy than TSMC N6, where both HD and HP libraries are widely used. This likely reflects the smaller customer base and the more constrained domestic design and electronic design automation (EDA) ecosystem. In all three CPU cores of the Kirin 9030, we found cell heights of 228 nm, 5% smaller than on N6. This is also a reduction of 9.5% over SMIC N+2’s cell height of 252 nm. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6’s HD library both feature a CGP of 57 nm. For SMIC, this is a 9.5% shrink over N+2. In the past, CGP and cell height alone may have been enough to compare transistor density. Now, however, we must consider scaling boosters and DTCO as well. SMIC’s density gain does not come from EUV. It comes from using every available DTCO booster aggressively. First is fin depopulation: reducing the number of NMOS and PMOS fins in each cell. The first FinFET nodes started with 3 or 4 fins for each transistor. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 HD both use only 2 fins per transistor, trading drive strength for density. Next is contact over active gate (COAG). By landing the gate contact directly over the active gate, instead of out over the isolation region, the cell height drops. N+3 integrates COAG while N6 does not. Our N+3 gate-cut cross-sections indicate COAG, with the gate contact sitting over the active region, while N6 shows an off-gate contact. Last is single diffusion break (SDB). Diffusion breaks are inserted between cells in the same row to provide electrical isolation, but they also introduce local layout effects (LLE), layout-dependent shifts in electrical characteristics. In the past, a double diffusion break was used, consuming the space of two CGPs. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 instead use SDB, saving area but increasing LLE sensitivity. This must be controlled at the process level and accurately modeled in the process design kit (PDK) so that EDA tools can account for it. Overall, SMIC N+3 has a transistor density of 113.4 MTr/mm², slightly above TSMC N6 at 107.7 MTr/mm². Even without EUV, SMIC has achieved density beyond TSMC’s mature N6 node which utilizes EUV. Metal Stack The smallest critical dimension in the teardown is M0; SMIC N+3 uses a 32.5 nm local metal pitch. That is smaller than the 36 nm M0 pitch on Intel 18A in Panther Lake. However, this does not mean that SMIC has a better process than Intel 18A or TSMC N3P. M0 is a local intra-cell routing layer. Its usefulness depends on the full interconnect stack: M1 and M2 pitch, track count, via and line resistance, design rules, mask count, overlay control, and routing flexibility. The 32.5 nm M0 is consistent with self-aligned quadruple patterning (SAQP), whose four-population line-width loading we read coarsely as alternating widths of 21.5 to 24 nm; M1 and M2, at 38 and 40 nm, are consistent with self-aligned double patterning (SADP), a single A/B split. On TSMC N6, M0, M2, and M3 sit at a relaxed ~40 nm and are consistent with SADP-class double patterning, with no need for quadruple patterning. That said, we measure M2 for example at ~43 nm, likely inflated by sparse routing. We do not assign any specific layer to EUV from our cross-sections; the distinction we can draw is double versus quadruple patterning, not lithography wavelength. Transistor-level density in the front-end-of-line (FEOL) sets an upper bound, but the design is ultimately limited by what the interconnect stack can route. The lowest metals are the most important for standard-cell density, but the semi-global and global layers determine how usable that density is at the block and chip level. Two axes are commonly used for chip cross-sections: the fin-cut and the gate-cut. The micrograph above is a fin-cut and shows metals 0 through 3. This axis lets us see the even-numbered metals, with M0 right above the fins. There are two kinds of M0 lines. The first are the power rails; these are wide wires for the VDD and VSS running horizontally at the top and bottom edges of each standard cell. The wide wires measure 55 nm across, more than double the other M0 lines. Their width minimizes resistance and reduces IR drop. The second kind are intra-cell wires, short segments within the cell that connect terminals to M1. These have alternating widths between 21.5 and 24 nm. The M0 pitch is 32.5 nm, a 19% reduction versus N+2 and N6. At this pitch, DUV patterning requires more aggressive multi-patterning, increasing mask count, overlay sensitivity, process complexity and cost. M0 is below what a single DUV-defined spacer (SADP) can resolve, so SMIC cascades a second spacer step (SAQP). The cross-section reflects the cost: the M0 trenches are visibly more re-entrant (narrower at the bottom than the top) than M1 or M2 on the same chip and carry a bright barrier-rich foot where the trench meets the etch-stop layer. That shape is partly the intended damascene profile, as a slightly narrow bottom helps void-free copper fill, but its magnitude at M0 is driven by the tight pitch and the higher trench aspect ratio. Intel 18A supports an M0 pitch of 32 nm, although Panther Lake has only shipped with a looser 36 nm pitch. This is due to Intel’s heavy usage of HP libraries. Among leading-edge nodes, 18A has the loosest M0 pitches due to PowerVia. With power routing moving to the backside, congestion is reduced, and the entire front-side metal stack can be used for signal routing. M2 is the first true inter-cell routing layer. It runs horizontally like M0 but spans across multiple cells to carry block-level signals. The M2 pitch sets the cell’s track height – the number of M2 tracks that fit between the VDD and VSS rails, defining what the library calls a 6-track or 7.5-track cell. This layer is the most important, limiting the routing of entire blocks. SMIC N+3 features a 5.7-track cell. The M2 pitch is 40 nm, a 5% decrease over N+2 and the same as N6. This shrink keeps the pitch at the edge of what is possible with double patterning. Future nodes will need to increase the number of masks for M2 as reducing the number of tracks is much harder due to the limitations in routing. The micrograph above is in the perpendicular direction, the gate-cut, and shows metals 0 through 4. This allows us to see and measure the odd-numbered vertical metal layers. The M1 pitch is 38 nm, 9.5% less than N+2 and 33% less than N6. The M1-to-gate ratio matters because it sets local routing flexibility. N+2 and N+3 use a 3:2 ratio, while N6 uses a 1:1 ratio, explaining the huge differences in M1 pitch. The more M1 lines there are compared with the gates, the more flexibility there is for power and signal crossing within the cell. Routing flexibility enables more complex and better cells. Clean fractional ratios are also preferred as a grid is periodic and improves layouts. The 3:2 ratio gives SMIC more local routing flexibility than a strict 1:1 grid, but it also complicates layout and patterning. This is a DTCO choice, with SMIC increasing process complexity to recover density and routability without EUV. This 3:2 ratio is not very popular in the leading-edge nodes. TSMC has only used it on N7+, the N5 family, and the short-lived N3(B). They have switched back to a 1:1 ratio for N3E. Intel has only used it on the 10 nm/Intel 7 family, with Intel 4, 3 and 18A all using a 1:1 ratio. Samsung is the only one still using a 3:2 ratio at the leading edge, using it in the SF4 and SF3 families. It remains to be seen if SMIC will remain at a 3:2 ratio or move to a 1:1 ratio with its future nodes. The industry is still actively exploring these local-routing ratios. At VLSI 2026, imec will be presenting work on even higher ratios, including a 2:1 scheme that can reduce area by up to 14%. We will be covering the conference in a future newsletter article. Subscribe We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. The final local interconnect layer for N+3 is M3, with a pitch of 44 nm. The M3 pitch is the same as on N+2 and 10% larger than on N6. The semi-global layers carry the majority of block-level signal routing. They have a coarser pitch than the lower local layers. On leading-edge nodes, they are designed to sit at the limit of DUV single patterning. M4 through M11 pitches were found divided between 80–82 nm (M4–M6), 128 nm (M7–M10), and 148 nm (M11). Given limited sampling, it is possible these are divided further in dense routing areas. At the top are two giant metal layers, M12 and M13. These have kept the same pitches as N+2 at 1920 nm and 4600 nm respectively. While the lower layers’ pitches are generally fixed by the process and library, the upper layers vary much more in pitch and count, depending on the design. Even two smartphone SoCs on the same process can have wildly different metal stacks. The Helio G99 carries fewer routing layers, reaching coarse metal pitches of 850 nm by M9, while the larger and higher-performance Kirin 9030 keeps fine pitches until M11. SRAM At the leading edge, SRAM is much more difficult to scale than logic. TSMC’s latest nodes have seen little to no bitcell scaling, while logic still has more DTCO levers to pull. While looking for other logic libraries in the GPU compute units, we stumbled upon the SRAM. The most common type of SRAM has 6 transistors (6T), but this cell had 8 transistors (8T) instead. 8T SRAM adds two transistors to form a dedicated read port. Unlike a 6T cell, where reading disturbs the storage, the decoupled read port removes read-disturb, improving read stability and letting the cell be pushed harder for performance. At first glance, the cut looked like an unusual logic library, with each cell row having 3 fins of one polarity and 5 fins of another. The rows also alternated in orientation. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) resolved our confusion. The cut had not landed on the GPU logic, but on the SRAM macro beside it. The unusual fin pattern was due to the SRAM library. We return to EDS in the process flow analysis behind the paywall. SRAM libraries are not like traditional logic libraries. Due to the unequal number of PMOS and NMOS transistors, they require specialized rules and layout libraries. They do not need the flexibility of logic libraries, so they are hyper-optimized for one purpose: dense, reliable memory. The SRAM cell we found is a 1:2:2-2:2 cell. This means there is 1 fin per pull-up (PU) PMOS transistor, and 2 fins per pull-down (PD) and pass-gate (PG) NMOS transistor. These 2 PU, 2 PD and 2 PG transistors would usually form a single 6T high-current cell (HCC). An 8T HCC adds a read-pull-down (RPD) and a read-pass-gate (RPG) NMOS transistor, each with two fins. We measured a cell height of 406 nm, which brings the bitcell size to 0.0463 µm². That is a theoretical peak density of 21.6 Mib/mm². We estimate that a 6T HCC would have a cell height of 292 nm and a size of 0.0337 µm². This is ~12% larger than a 6T HCC on Intel 3 and 4. We also estimate the 6T high-density cell (HDC) to have a cell height of 228 nm and a size of 0.0260 µm². This is coincidentally the same as the logic standard-cell height measured earlier. The estimate puts the cell near Samsung 7LPP/5LPP and slightly below TSMC N7/N6. That is a theoretical peak density of 38.5 Mib/mm². 6T HDC is arguably the most important cell as it is used for the largest caches in a chip, the L3 caches and system-level cache (SLC). Both the Kirin 9020 and 9030 have split the SLC into 4 banks to raise total SLC bandwidth. In the Kirin 9030, the SLC increased from 2 MiB to 3 MiB per bank. Correspondingly, the number of arrays within the bank also increased by 50%, from 16 to 24. Each array can store 128 KiB and forms an orderly pattern on the die shot. From the Kirin 9020 to the Kirin 9030, the area of a 128 KiB SLC array decreased from 0.0477 mm² to 0.0392 mm², an 18% shrink. The achieved density is 25.5 Mib/mm², 66% of the theoretical maximum. While the SLC was quite similar across both chips, the L3 has seen some major changes, particularly in terms of its layout. The total capacity also went up from 10 MiB to 12 MiB. Much like the SLC, the L3 is also split into 4 banks. In the Kirin 9020, an L3 bank consisted of 16× 128 KiB arrays and 16× 32 KiB arrays. However, an L3 bank in the Kirin 9030 instead consists of 48× 64 KiB arrays. In the Kirin 9020 L3, a 128 KiB array was 0.0513 mm² and a 32 KiB array was 0.0154 mm². The size of the 128 KiB array is different on the L3 and SLC as the assist circuitry for the two arrays differs depending on their purpose. In the Kirin 9030 L3, a 64 KiB array is 0.0210 mm². Although not a like-for-like comparison, normalized for capacity, it is 18% smaller than the 9020’s 128 KiB L3 array and 31% smaller than its 32 KiB L3 array. The achieved density is slightly lower than the SLC, at 23.8 Mib/mm², 62% of the theoretical maximum. Unlike the L3 and SLC, the prime cores’ private L2 cache uses a 2-bank design. As the prime cores’ L2 is latency-critical, it likely uses 6T HCC instead of 6T HDC. The 9020 has 16 arrays in each bank while the 9030 has 32. Each array has a capacity of 32 KiB. A 32 KiB array in the L2 shrank from 0.0171 mm² to 0.0142 mm², ~17% smaller. The density is 17.6 Mib/mm², ~59% of the theoretical maximum for 6T HCC. SRAM scaled well from N+2 to N+3, shrinking by ~19%, close to the theoretical logic shrink. The caveat is that N+2’s bitcells were unusually large, bigger than comparable 7 nm-class nodes, so part of the gain is catch-up rather than true scaling. With the insights from STEEL’s teardowns, we will be doing a deep dive into SRAM in a future newsletter article. Subscribe Everything above came out of a single STEEL teardown: die annotation, block-level area analysis and TEM cross-sections through logic and SRAM. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Future Roadmap The same cross-sections that pin down N+3 also show where SMIC can go next. Although N+3 is already close to the practical limits of DUV multi-patterning in several layers, SMIC still has a few scaling levers left. A theoretical N+4 would likely start with cell height. N+3 uses 5 M0 tracks between its power rails. Moving to 4 M0 tracks, as on SMIC N+2 and TSMC N6, could reduce cell height by roughly 15%. The routing grid is only one side of the shrink; the front end also must fit into the smaller cell. One possible FEOL lever is reducing the p-to-n isolation spacing from two diffusion grid units to one. Intel used this scaling booster on Intel 4, and TSMC did so on its N3 family. This path trades layout flexibility for density. Fewer M0 tracks reduce local routing resources, while tighter p-to-n spacing raises integration and design-rule difficulty. M2 is also constrained by the cell height shrink. For SMIC to maintain a ~5.7-track cell, M2 would need to move toward ~35 nm. That would move another layer into SAQP territory. SMIC could also reduce the CGP from 57 nm to 54 nm. Intel reached a similar CGP on Intel 10 nm/Intel 7 without EUV. The local interconnect is also tougher. If SMIC keeps the 3:2 M1-to-gate ratio, M1 would need to shrink to 36 nm and would likely require SAQP as well. If SMIC moves to a 1:1 ratio, M1 could relax to 54 nm, but it would give up routing flexibility. Under this theoretical path, we estimate that SMIC N+4 could reach a cell height of 198 nm and a CGP of 54 nm, implying a Bohr density of 137.8 MTr/mm², on par with TSMC N5 or Samsung SF4. However, the difficulty is cumulative. Each step is individually plausible, but together they make N+4 harder than the transition from N+2 to N+3. It will likely take longer, cost more, and carry less process margin. A theoretical N+5 would require a larger integration shift. One possible path is backside contacts (BSCon), moving power routing and source/drain contacts to the backside, which would reduce front-side routing pressure and enable another reduction in cell height. The front-side metal pitches could relax to reduce the process complexity. M0 would likely relax slightly to ~34 nm, and M2 and M4 pitches could relax further. CGP is unlikely to shrink much further. Even with EUV, 48 nm has been the practical limit for yield and process control. This approach would allow N+5’s cell height to fall to 170 nm and its CGP to 53 nm. This implies a Bohr density of 163.6 MTr/mm², on par with Intel 18A’s HP library. However, this would not make N+5 cost-competitive with the leading edge. It would reach a similar density through a much more expensive route. The integration difficulty rises sharply, with new process flows for backside alignment, wafer thinning, contact reveal, and backside metallization. Past this point, standard density and interconnect scaling become increasingly unattractive. That is where Huawei’s roadmap stops looking like a normal foundry roadmap and starts looking like a packaging roadmap. At ISCAS 2026, Huawei unveiled its tau (τ) scaling law, reframing process scaling in the time domain. τ is the time cost of data movement and processing: switching delays in transistors, RC signal propagation delays in circuits, compute, memory, and networking latency. Outside Huawei’s terminology, this is called system-technology co-optimization. This is Huawei’s answer to its lack of EUV lithography. Without EUV, planar density cannot keep pace with TSMC, Intel, or Samsung. If transistor density cannot shrink further, Huawei’s alternative is to shorten wires, reduce buffering, and stack logic vertically. “LogicFolding”, Huawei’s implementation of this new scaling idea, is, in practice, an aggressive 3D stacking approach. AMD V-Cache places SRAM above or below a CPU die. AMD’s MI350X places active interposer dies (AIDs) underneath accelerator and compute dies (XCDs), with the AIDs handling cache, IO interfaces, the network-on-chip (NoC) and embedded metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors. With LogicFolding, parts of the same logic block are split across multiple active dies bonded face-to-face at ultra-fine pitch. This allows Huawei to shorten some critical paths and reduce buffer overhead, not merely add cache capacity or offload the IO and interconnect. Shortening wires is where the higher clocks come from. A large share of a modern core’s delay and energy budget goes into driving long interconnects and the repeater buffers along them. LogicFolding distributes a block’s critical-path gates across multiple stacked tiers bonded at a very fine pitch, so the bond interface behaves like an additional metal layer and the longest paths get shorter. That is how Huawei expects to recover frequency and efficiency it cannot get from the process alone. Huawei’s roadmap shows its intent. Prime core frequency is targeted to rise from 2.75 GHz in the Kirin 9030 to roughly 5 GHz by 2031, far beyond what planar scaling alone could deliver. Prime cores with 3.1 and 3.39 GHz clocks are being tested in its labs, although their power consumption is unknown. Beyond that, chips are in the design, simulation or pathfinding phase, meaning the frequencies are targets. However, the direction matters more: LogicFolding also helps with performance, not just density. The catch is that Huawei’s density claim is not directly comparable to foundry densities. A stacked design can report more transistors per package footprint by adding active layers, even if each patterned die remains well behind TSMC or Intel in front-end density. This is how Huawei can claim to reach foundry 14A-equivalent density by 2031. This is not a like-for-like foundry comparison, with Huawei using stacked logic and measuring density per package footprint. On a normalized Bohr-density basis, SMIC N+3 is ~114 MTr/mm², 38% less than Intel 18A’s HD library. Huawei’s 3D roadmap closes the gap by stacking active logic, reaching 215 MTr/mm² by 2030. In 2031, the roadmap density jumps to 295 MTr/mm², implying either a third active layer, partial EUV insertion or aggressive planar DUV scaling. Huawei’s methodology makes other foundries look much denser as well. Applying it to AMD’s MI450X with an N2 top die on an N3P base die yields a theoretical density of 460.2 MTr/mm² in 2026, compared with Huawei’s 295 MTr/mm² in 2031. This Kirin 9030 does not use LogicFolding, remaining in a conventional mobile SoC package. Instead, it forms the baseline for how far Huawei and SMIC can push planar scaling. Future teardowns of Kirin and Ascend chips will show both planar logic density and Huawei’s hybrid bonding solutions. Export controls changed China’s optimization problem rather than ending it. EUV restrictions raised the cost and complexity of leading-edge manufacturing without freezing it. SMIC reaches N6-class logic density through DUV immersion, SAQP and DTCO, while Huawei shifts more of the burden onto architecture, packaging and system-level integration. Future nodes will be tougher. N+3 still had room to tighten local metals and reduce cell height and CGP. Further scaling without EUV leaves fewer levers. More aggressive multi-patterning adds masks and overlay error. SMIC can keep pushing DUV, but each step will get more expensive and less forgiving. The design side is just as critical. Huawei had domestic EDA tools and flows before the Kirin 9030, with the Kirin 9000s, 9010 and 9020 making that clear. Huawei was able to ship multiple consumer SoCs on SMIC N+2 and N+3 while cut off from the Western EDA stack. US export controls restricted EDA tools for advanced chips in 2022 but did not target tools for more mature chips. In 2025, the US government briefly placed much broader restrictions on EDA software from Synopsys, Cadence, and others, before lifting them less than two months later as part of a trade deal tied to rare earths. Huawei has been unable to access those tools because it remains on a US trade blacklist. That forced Huawei, SMIC and Chinese academic institutions to build their own tools and flows. Researchers at Peking University recently announced a prototype EDA tool for Huawei’s LogicFolding architecture, which requires a new flow to handle the multilayer layout and floorplan. This is not the same as replacing the full Synopsys or Cadence stack, but it shows where domestic EDA is headed: toward tighter co-optimization between architecture, process and packaging. These advances are also diffusing into the Chinese ecosystem. SMIC is licensing its N+2 and N+3 processes to HLMC/Hua Hong at the government’s direction rather than by choice. If the same process learning feeds into Ascend accelerators for AI training and inference, the choke point shifts from one named fab to an ecosystem. Alibaba’s T-Head silicon arm and Cambricon, a Chinese AI chip designer that is expected to supply ByteDance, could also be major beneficiaries. Sanctions aimed at SMIC alone become less effective once the manufacturing knowledge has spread to other fabs and design houses. China is not closing the gap with Intel, Samsung and TSMC. The teardown shows the opposite in several places: no EUV, no backside power, higher process complexity, and visible trade-offs. But China is still advancing. If domestic chips become good enough for phones, inference, networking and security-sensitive workloads, they can matter strategically without matching TSMC at the leading edge. Behind the paywall, we show what else STEEL can do, with material and process flow analysis of SMIC N+3, and analysis of the Kirin 9030 package. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline, access the full Kirin 9030 and SMIC N+3 analysis or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com.
A dying star could create a new universe instead of a black hole
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Forza Horizon 6 devs address mysterious save file deleting bug, roll out fix for PC ahead of Xbox patch
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Trump Started a Plan to Eradicate HIV. He Never Finished It.
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Rural Health Transformation: Insights from States
The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) will provide $50 billion to states over the next five years to transform rural health care. States received award decisions in late 2025 and are moving fast, with funding deadlines and reporting requirements already on the horizon. This program is rolling out as rural areas face significant federal Medicaid cuts over the next decade. What does this mean for Congress? Join the Bipartisan … Continued
Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for 3% funding target
Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”
Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for better conditions
Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”
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