It was great to be a part of the bustling, lively Cities and Science Communication (CASC) Final Conference this last week. Over 80 people from across the EU had gathered at Thinktank to make policy recommendations for the decision-makers in Brussels -- for the blog about it all, click here, or get a flavour of the live reporting of it, just scroll down the twitter hashtag #eucasc.

Two of the New Optimists' scientists, plant science Dr Juliet Coates and the microbiologist Professor Peter Lambert joined me on a panel to discuss the making of this book and the whole New Optimists project as an example of science communication. Check this CASC blogpost about it, and see also a video summary here.

Lord Heseltine told Radio 4 this afternoon that as far as he knew, there have so far been no applications for a share of the £1.4 billion regional growth fund.

Applications for the first round of bidding close on January 21, so if you want a share of the cash then you may need to get cracking.

A panel of the great and the good, chaired by Lord Heseltine, will consider applications for the fund, which is designed to support schemes which will benefit the local economy.

All this time we've been under the impression that there was no money for Local Enterprise Partnerships, except what they managed to raise themselves.

The LEPs would be invited to bid for a share of the government's £1.4 billion regional growth fund - competing against businesses or any other body that thinks it could make good use of the money - but they wouldn't have any dedicated funding in the same way as the old regional development agencies which they replace.

Now it seems the Government has performed a minor u-turn and decided to provide some cash after all in the form of a new LEP Capacity Fund.