Flanders could lose as many as 740 scientific researchers to unemployment or to other countries if the federal government carries out a threat to cut research budgets, the region’s top academics have warned. In an outspoken opinion article published last week in De Standaard, the rectors of Flanders’ five universities – Antwerp, Ghent, the Free University of Brussels (VUB), Leuven and Hasselt – criticised a “lack of vision and courage” and pointed out how governments in France and the United States were choosing precisely this time of crisis to increase investment in research.

In Brussels’ Jubelpark, 47 skulls and a total of 114 assorted bones lie in cabinets in Belgium's Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA). They are undergoing conservation to preserve their delicate coverings and analyses to determine their origin. The question is: could they be the bones of virgin martyrs and their leader Saint Ursula?