SCIENTISTS complaining about budget cuts and job insecurity is nothing new. But in Europe, they have had enough. This week, thousands will take to the streets in an orchestrated, continent-wide protest.

The action will culminate on 17 and 18 October in Paris, Madrid and Rome. The scientists taking part hope to highlight how Europe’s knowledge economy is being undermined by austerity, short-termism and a lack of adequate career structures.

In France, the protests are being organised by the Sciences en Marche movement. To minimise the risk of eliciting a Gallic shrug in a country famous for street protests, they are cycling to Paris from labs across the country, staying along the way with host families who have expressed their willingness to “adopt a scientist”.

To coincide with the arrival in Paris, researchers in Spain will take to the streets of Madrid. Activist groups there are organising under the “Red Tide for Science” umbrella. It will be the second such street protest in a month.

The following day, Italian scientists from the For The Sake Of Science And Culture movement will demonstrate in Rome.

The protests are part of a bigger movement. Last week, activists from the UK, Greece, Portugal and Germany joined forces with their French, Spanish and Italian counterparts to publish an to their governments and the European Union. It calls for an end to austerity and criticises their ignorance of “the crucial contribution of a strong research sector to the economy”.

In Spain, for example, research spending has been cut by 40 per cent since the start of the financial crisis. In Greece, university research budgets have halved. And half of Portugal’s state-funded research units are under threat of closure. The signatories hope to gain the support of many more scientists through a petition at .

It is ironic that it has taken so long for European scientists to take joint action on issues of mutual concern. After all, they have been collaborating scientifically for decades.

But now they have started, and the momentum is building. The activists have also launched a blog, , hosted on the Euro��è����Ƶ website. Named after what they fear is becoming an endangered species – the European scientist – the blog is an open forum for participants to debate issues and discuss action.

Europe’s scientists have been quiet for too long in the face of savage cuts. It is encouraging to see them collaborating across borders not just to do science, but also to make their voices heard on behalf of all Europeans.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Scientific revolutionaries”

The size and shape of a lipstick, each token can be programmed with a unique
code. The token snaps in half, to be shared between friends, acquaintances or
business contacts. Each half of a broken token has the same code. “You can
create a privileged communication channel by just halving a token into two
identical pieces and by sharing it with a friend,” says Uzi Malimovka, an
industrial designer at the Royal College of Art in London, who created the
token.

Both the giver and receiver of a token takes it home or to their office,
where they plug it into a base unit. This reads the code transmitted by a
transponder buried in the token. The base unit calls a central database to find
out where the other half of the token is, and puts through a phone call to it.
When either owner of a token calls, the other half of the token in the base unit
flashes. If either owner has called and left a message, the token glows.

Malimovka says that digital tokens have many possible uses. Members of a
sports team could share a token with the same code, enabling them to have group
conversations over the phone. Children could be given a reverse charge token to
allow them to call home from phones fitted with base stations.

Businesses and services could also benefit from this kind of selective
communication system, Malimovka says. People could buy a token enabling them to
download a digital film or try a computer game.

Malimovka worked with British Telecom to build the prototypes of his tokens.
He adapted a system developed by the American electronics company Texas
Instruments, and known as TIRIS, or the TI Radiofrequency Identification System.
TIRIS uses a radio transponder to send out coded signals. The tokens are making
their first public appearance this week at the Royal College of Art degree
show.