Marked by the coronavirus pandemic of course, the year 2020 is also many scientific discoveries that have advanced research in the medical, energy and space fields.
The inescapable discovery of 2020 was undeniably the development of vaccines against Covid-19, developed and marketed in a few months, when it generally takes 7 to 10 years of research to develop a vaccine.
As malaria kills more than 400,000 people around the world each year and Ebola and HIV continue to rage with no solution found after decades of research, one might wonder if the speed of the development of the Covid-19 vaccine is not just a question of resources.
According to the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Frédérique Vidal, this phenomenally rapid development is also the result of exemplary international cooperation in the scientific field:
Science is regaining its universality, making all scientific data available without compensation. Sharing all this data is a magnificent success for the open science policy that we have been pursuing for the past three years.
Frederique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation
Last October, WHO announced the eradication of polio from the African continent, a third victory in the eradication of diseases, after smallpox and rinderpest, in particular thanks to mass vaccinations. France, country of Pasteur, plays a role of primary importance.
2020 saw the shutdown of the Fessenheim plant, after 44 years of service, a signal for renewable energies to take over. The battery and hydrogen plan will allow energy to be stored and certain innovations to materialize, such as autonomous cars or electric planes, promised for 2035.
For Frédérique Vidal, research has a central role to play in the energy transition: “All research and innovation efforts must be continued, which will increase the efficiency of solar cells, improve battery life, reduce dependence on rare metals and critical metals in wind turbine magnets. . “
The year was marked by the success of SpaceX’s first manned flights and its reusable rockets, the taking of an asteroid sample, and the Nobel Prize in Physics on black holes.
China and the United States are also discussing the possibility of exploiting the mineral resources of the Moon, in Helium 3 in particular. This isotope would make it possible to produce large quantities of nuclear energy, without radioactive waste: 40 grams of Helium 3 would give the energy equivalent of 5,000 tonnes of coal.
Helium 3 is a widely dispersed resource. Its recovery in the current state is still the domain of utopia. But it is also what makes science, not to mention that the Moon, like Antarctica, is considered a common good of humanity.
Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation
Listen to the full interview with the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation by Gérard Feldzer:
