Between 26-28 November 2024, Academia Europaea (AE) and the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) co-organized the Building Bridges Conference (BB2024) in Wroclaw. The event’s programme is available at the homepage of the AE Wroclaw Knowledge Hub.
On the first day of the event, YAE held its own meeting, with detailed programme of the event being available here. In the morning session, in a panel moderated by Katalin Solymosi (Outgoing Chair), YAE members discussed YAE’s recent and upcoming activities and plans for the next year to improve the visibility of early to mid-career researchers, and also listened to scientific talks by members. In the afternoon, we hosted a panel discussing the state of the art of early to mid-career researchers’ organisations in Europe at the institutional, national and regional level, as well as the role of Young Academies in the scientific development of early career researchers. We invited speakers from Academia Europaea, from the Academia Iuvenum of WroclawTech and from the Polish Young Academy as well. (Detailed list of the programme and speakers is available here and is also provided in the figure legend below.) A key point of discussion was the comparison of research careers across different countries, highlighting distinct challenges that require collective consideration. There has been notable progress in fostering new collaborative relationships with various institutions and senior academies. However, certain aspects have been identified as necessitating further attention, particularly in relation to funding sources.
Participants of the afternoon panel of the YAE Conference held at Building Bridges’24 in Wroclaw (in the picture from left to right): Łukasz Sadowski (Polish Young Academy), Anna Miśniakiewicz (Academia Iuvenum), Katalin Solymosi (YAE), Maciej Sałaga (Polish Young Academy), Anna Dzimitrowicz (YAE), Slawomir Czarnecki, Jacek Kolanowski (Polish Young Academy) and Steve Evans (Academia Europaea)
On the second day of the BB2024 Conference, directly after the keynote lecture of the 2020 Chemistry Nobel Laureate, Emmanuelle Charpentier, the André Mischke Young Academy of Europe Prize for Science and Policy was awarded to Jacek Kolanowski, who gave a presentation entitled: “Opportunities and Challenges for Early-and-Mid-Career Researchers in Trans-Sectoral and Community Engagement: A Chemical Biologist’s Methodological Perspective”. This presentation outlined the challenges encountered by new scientists and put forward innovative solutions to address problems from a multidisciplinary perspective. The laudatio of the awardee was given by Katalin Solymosi (Outgoing Chair). The video recording of this second day of the conference, featuring the laudatio and the award lecture (from 3:31:30) is available here.
Handing over of the certificate of the André Mischke YAE Prize for Science and Policy to Jacek Kolanowski by Katalin Solymosi (Outgoing Chair)
During the event and the President’s Dinner, YAE members had the opportunity to discuss with AE members about potential future collaborations of AE and YAE. Also, in the third day of the event, Edyta Roszko (FYAE) presented a keynote lecture on her research entitled “The importance of global indigenous history in the era of climate change”. The video recording of this third day of the conference is available here, Edyta’s speech can be watched from 4:16:00.
Finally, the ‘Art & Science Exhibition’ of members of Academia Europaea, Academia Iuvenum (of the WroclawTech) and YAE curated among others by Katalin Solymosi (Outgoing Chair) and Anna Dzimitrowicz (FYAE) was also inaugurated, featuring photographs in which art and sciences intersect. For more details about the exhibition see here.
Selected microscopic images of the Art&Science exhibition at the conference venue of the Building Bridges 2024 Conference in Wroclaw