Posted on February 8, 2022

Young scientists’ roles in European science-for-policy

On the 14th of March, from 15.00-17.00 (CET) the Young Academy of Europe and Finnish Academy of Science and Letters are co-organising a seminar on the roles young scientists can play in European science advice. 

(European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, How the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors works, Publications Office, 2021)

Young academies across Europe are attracting members who are increasingly interested in science-for-policy. But many young scientists are unsure about how science is marshalled for policy at the Europe level – for example via the European Science Advice Mechanism (SAM) and the Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA) – and how they can become involved. With the Young Academies Science Advice Structure (YASAS) hopefully becoming an official partner of the new SAPEA+ project, now is an important moment for young scientists to explore the formal, and less formal, avenues for getting involved in science advice.

This seminar provides a space for Young Academy members across Europe to learn about and analyse the workings of the SAM, SAPEA and YASAS structures of science advice, and think about how they can contribute to science advice within these structures or otherwise.

The seminar goes beyond giving participants a ‘script’ for fitting within science advice structures. It enables participants to be part of questioning why these structures are as they are, unpack the complexity and non-linearity of science-for-policy in practice, and broaden their perspectives on scientific impact and how science supports societal decision-making.

The seminar will be divided into three parts: 

1. an introduction to SAM, SAPEA and YASAS; 
2. an interactive analysis of the SAM model by a panel of scientists and policy-makers who are actively working within this structure, including Jacek Kolanowski, Moniek Tromp, and Marie Jose van Tol, Pearl Dystra and Toby Wardman; and 
3. a discussion on the roles of scientists in science advice, with presentations from Tommi Himberg and Eeva Furman, who are engaging with science-for-policy in various ways.

The seminar will be hosted on Zoom, and all registered participants will receive a Zoom link on the day of the seminar. You can register here:

We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted on January 10, 2022

The YAE 10-year anniversary seminar series

In 2022 the YAE will turn 10 years old, and in celebration we are organising a seminar series to showcase the diversity of fascinating research within the Academy. Each month we organise a one-hour seminar with three short, accessible talks for an interdisciplinary audience; one each from Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, and Social Sciences and Humanities. Seminars are on Zoom, open to YAE members and others, and will be filmed for wider dissemination.

There is one seminar left this year before the Annual General Meeting in October, and that will be on Tuesday the 27th of September, from 15.30 to 16.30. Please see the speakers and their topics below, and register via Eventbrite by clicking on the orange button. Registered attendees will be emailed a Zoom link the day before the event.

Moniek Tromp: Batteries: Towards Sustainable Energy Storage Systems

The urgency posed by global warming to transform our fossil fuel-dependent society into one based on renewable energy sources creates grand technological challenges, one of them being renewable energy storage for mobility and intermittent wind and solar electricity. Batteries are widely seen as key technology for electrification of transport, and for future medium-to-large scale electricity storage. This requires a huge leap in battery developments, especially regarding energy storage density, costs and materials (and process) sustainability, as well as recycling. 

Next generation battery chemistries that theoretically might fulfil these requirements are proposed, but to enable their implementation, parasitic reactions have to be diminished. These side reactions cause underperformance, degradation and finally battery failure. To improve battery performance, better insights in the reaction mechanisms occurring during discharge and charge cycles are required. Characterisation techniques and methods have been developed, with an emphasis on X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), providing detailed electronic and structural information, in a time- and spatially resolved manner. Insights in for example deactivation pathways, mobility of speciation through the battery, have already led to novel material and cell designs.

Jan De Graaf: Europe’s Postwar Consensus: A Golden Age of Social Cohesion and Social Mobility?

In present-day Europe, the 1950s and 1960s are viewed with increasing nostalgia. In the public debate and in historiography, these decades are often described as a period when life was more simple and overall better – if not necessarily from a material perspective then certainly from a moral perspective. My research focuses on two themes that we have come to associate with this supposed “golden age” of European society: social cohesion and social mobility. We investigate not only the extent to which the “post-war consensus” was founded on mutual trust, common purpose, and increased life chances, but also which social groups benefited from it and how this is linked to the memory culture of the age. In doing so, we take a pan-European perspective, probing how the communist East and capitalist West tried to impose very different models of social cohesion and social mobility from above, but often saw their attempts at social engineering disintegrate in the face of societal resistance.

Eider Arenaza-Urquijo – Topic to be confirmed

Posted on December 6, 2021

Film-viewing and discussion with film-maker James Muir

From 10-11am on Thursday the 16th of December, the Young Academy of Europe will host a film-viewing and discussion with New Zealand-based, award-winning documentary and film-maker James Muir. This event will appeal to scientists interested in the many roles film is coming to play in scientific research, as told from one film-maker’s perspective. 

Documentary-style film has long fulfilled a role in communicating scientific research to a broader public, but in recent years film has been added to scientists toolboxes of methods for conducting the research itself; from asking research subjects to film certain situations, to showing films to trigger workshop discussions. Indeed, with shifts toward conducting science in a ‘transdisciplinary’ mode, film-makers are becoming members of the research team, with a role in designing, conducting, analysing and communicating the research. This unlocks an exciting host of possibilities.

James Muir trained as a biologist specialising in behavioural ecology and conservation. He learnt filmmaking with Natural History New Zealand through his Masters Degree in Science Communication, and has since told stories that reveal the relationship between nature and human nature.

This event will be held on Zoom and is open to members of the Young Academy of Europe, but also non-members who find this interesting. On Monday 13 December, all registered attendees will be sent an email containing: (i) a Zoom link for the event; (ii) a link to Muir’s 30-minute long, documentary film ‘River Dog’, and (iii) a link to an accompanying scientific paper. Attendees should watch the film ahead of the Zoom event, because the event itself will consist of a live interview with Muir about River Dog and his perspectives on film in science, before opening up for a more general facilitated discussion on the topic among all attendees. 

This event is free. Please register your attendance before 5pm on the 15th of December, and note we cap the number of attendees at 100. You can register here.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Posted on November 4, 2021

10th Annual Meeting of the Young Academy of Europe, 2021: an update from the Board

This year, our yearly annual meeting (AGM) went hybrid, with members of the board present in Barcelona and members of the YAE participating in the event online. Despite the limitations of this format, we enjoyed a lively meeting with a full-day, diverse programme!

Gemma Modinos and Moniek Tromp opened this AGM by presenting the activities of the YAE in the past year, especially the role played by YAE in the creation of YASAS and in contributing to the next funding scheme to which SAPEA applied. The YAE board wished farewell to Sierd Cloetingh, who is retiring from his role as president of the Academia Europaea, and thanked him for his support of the YAE since its creation. We are looking forward to the collaboration with the new AE President-elect, Marja Makarow.

Four new members of the YAE presented their research, showcasing the diversity of profiles within our Academy. Matthias Urban from the University of Tübingen studies the languages of the Central Andes and their historical and linguistic diversity, comparing the languages currently spoken in this region with their situation in the 16th century. This research has the potential for many interdisciplinary developments, for instance in anthropology and ethnology. Félix Leroy from the University Miguel Hernández of Alicante presented his work on social memory and social behaviour. To understand what happens in the brain during social interactions, he studies the reactions of lab mice when faced with an intruding mice, to measure how their brain regulates different behaviours. Rieke Stelkens from Stockholm University presented her research which examines the role of hybridisation as a potential process for generating genetic variation available for selection under environmental changes using yeast as a model system. One of her research questions is: can hybridization generate a new diversity in species? Özen Nergis Dolcerocca from the University of Bologna works is developing a new approach to the study of literary modernity across cultures by studying three great modern empires (Ottoman, Russian and Japanese), to analyze how their intellectuals dealt with the influence of Western literature and how new typologies emerged in modern fiction, which can lead to writing a new world history of literature.

During the afternoon sessions, Katalin Solymosi and Scott Bremer gave an update on the task forces that were created this year and presented what they have done so far, such as selecting activities to which the YAE can participate (Science Outreach Task Force) and designing tools that can encourage Transdisciplinarity (Td Task Force). Members asked questions about diversity within the YAE: this theme is clearly an important topic for members and forms an important aspect to work on for the board. The brainstorm session also underlined the importance of devising new ways of getting members to engage more into joint activities within the YAE.

New YAE Board

At the end of the afternoon, Katell Lavéant announced the results of the elections: Gemma Modinos and Moniek Tromp were re-elected in their positions of Chair and Vice-Chair, and three new board members were elected. We congratulate Artur Ciesielski, Anna Kuppuswamy and Linn Leppert and welcome them in the board. We also thank warmly Giulia Grancini, Arild Husby and Mangala Srivinas for their work in the board in the past years. The members present at the YAE also voted in favour of the election of Arild Husby to the Advisory Council of the YAE.

Participation to Building Bridges

Members of the board participated in the joint conference Building Bridges 2021 with the Academia Europeae (20-21 October 2021), in which the YAE was responsible for two sections on October 21. Marian Verhelst (Leuven University, BE) received the Andre Mischke YAE 2021 Prize for her research on microchips and AI and her contribution to research policy making and public outreach. Her presentation highlighted how policy making and education in STEM in Europe are essential tools in the research and development of microchips, a field of applied sciences that has a huge impact on daily life for European consumers.

The YAE also organised a panel on ‘Redefining Rewards and Recognitions for European Scholars’. Several specialists of European policies debated on moving away from a system that requires from researchers to focus on excelling in their individual research and publications and lacks incentives to get them to engage in activities that can be immensely valuable for the whole scholarly community and the general public but are not considered as top output (yet). Creative solutions such as distributing grants via randomised attribution or anonymised applications were discussed during this panel, as well as complex questions such as how to change assessment criteria for applications for funding and permanent positions in academia.

Posted on October 14, 2021

ERC Starting Grant Mentoring Event Part 2 – Evaluation/Shortlisting

On 11th November 2021, between 14:00-16:00 CET, the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) in collaboration with the Academia Europaea (AE) Budapest Knowledge Hub will host an event for researchers who are interested in applying for the next round of European Research Council Starting Grants (ERC StG), with the ambition of widening participation to researchers from EU13 and Associated Countries.

In 2020, we organised a very well-attended virtual ERC StG mentoring event focused on providing guidance and support to applicants from countries under-represented among funded proposals. The event also included domain-specific break-out rooms with grant-writing advice by current YAE members who had successfully navigated through the process. The recordings and some more information from these sessions are available on our website and YouTube channel (Plenary Session and the domain-specific breakout sessions: Social Sciences and Humanities domain; Life Sciences domain and Physical Sciences and Engineering domain).

The second instalment of our mentoring events will be focused on how the ERC’s evaluation panels work and how decisions within evaluation panels are made to recommend a grant application for funding. This is an important opportunity for applicants to gain key insights into what makes a successful ERC application and a better understanding of the evaluation process.

The online event will include two parts. First, a plenary information session with a representative from the ERC Executive Agency (Janka Mátrai), and a talk by the ERC National Contact Point leader in Hungary (Gergely Bőhm) on typical comments of ERC evaluation reports. The main part of the event will include three parallel sessions, each with a mock ERC StG evaluation panel by domain: Physical Sciences & Engineering (PE), Life Sciences (LS), and Social Sciences & Humanities (SH).

Registration is free and can be done by clicking the button below:

Programme

Plenary session (14:00-15:00 CET)

  • 14:00-14:05 Opening (Gemma Modinos, YAE Chair; Éva Kondorosi, AE Budapest Hub Co-chair)
  • 14:05-14:30 Information session, The European Research Council: Funding opportunities and application and evaluation process (Janka Mátrai, ERCEA)
  • 14:30-14:45 Common mistakes and highly valued elements of ERC applications as seen by ERC evaluators (Gergely Bőhm, NCP Hungary)
  • 14:45-15:00 Q & A

Moderator: Katalin Solymosi (YAE, AE Budapest Hub)

Parallel break-out sessions (15:00-16:00 CET)

  1. Domain PE: Four panellists: László Forró, HAS; Eystein Jansen, AE; Katalin Kamarás, AE; Marcel Swart, AE. Moderator: Alina Mihaela Badescu (YAE).
  2. Domain LS: Four panellists: André Aleman, KNAW; Mara Dierssen, AE; Mandy McLean, AMS; Ole Petersen, AE. Moderator: Gemma Modinos (YAE).
  3. Domain SH: Four panellists: Marcel den Dikken, KNAW; Poul Holm, AE; Miklós Koren, AE; Peter Wagner, AE. Moderator: Pawel Korpal (YAE).
Posted on July 4, 2021

Young Academy of Europe 2021 Annual General Meeting

Register now for the 2021 YAE AGM! Due to the ongoing uncertainty regarding COVID-related travel restrictions, this will be a virtual meeting, held on Tuesday 19th October 2021, from 09:30 to 16:30. 

We will certainly miss seeing you all for in-person networking, but we know that the decision to go virtual is the right one, and the safe one. We are confident this high-quality virtual meeting will be an enriching, stimulating and enjoyable experience for all.

Registration to the event is free, by clicking the orange button below. We have put together an outstanding programme (below) that includes renowned invited guests, talks by our most recent members, and opportunities for brainstorming and collaboration.

Importantly, this year the joint Academia Europaea / YAE meeting – Building Bridges 2021 (BB2021) will also go ahead, immediately after our AGM. Among the AE’s excellent programme, we will be hosting two of the sessions on Thursday 21st: 

  • The 2021 André Mischke YAE Prize lecture by Prof. Marian Verhelst
  • A Panel Discussion on “Redefining Rewards & Recognitions for European Scholars” with four distinguished panelists

We wholeheartedly encourage you to join these sessions! You can register for BB2021 separately, following this link.

If you have any questions about the AGM or BB2021, please contact YAE Activities Chair Scott Bremer (email: scott.bremer@uib.no)

Sincerely,

The YAE Board

Full 2021 YAE AGM Programme:

09:30 – 10:00     
Welcome & update on activities 2020-21 (Gemma Modinos)
10:00 – 11:00   
Young Scholars for European Science Advice (Moniek Tromp)
11:00 – 11:30     Coffee break
11:30 – 12:00     
Welcome to the new 2021 YAE members (Gemma Modinos), Farewell to outgoing AE President (Sierd Cloetingh), and Welcome to new AE President (Marja Makarow)
12:00 – 13:00     
Research talks by new YAE members (moderator: Giulia Grancini)
13:00 – 14:30     Lunch break
14:30 – 15:15     
Updates by task forces (moderator: Scott Bremer)
15:15 – 16:00     
Brainstorming session – YAE in 2022 (moderator: Senem Aydın Düzgit)
16:00 – 16:15     Coffee break
16:15 – 16:25     
Election results (secretary: Katell Laveant; voting will take place online prior to AGM)
16:25 – 16:30    Close by newly elected YAE Chair
16:30.                End of 2021 YAE AGM  

 

Posted on April 12, 2021

Insight Out rescheduled! Insight Out event for women in exact, technical and natural sciences.

Save the date for the Insight Out event!

The third edition of the event themed ‘Learning from and inspiring each other’ will take place on the 7, 14, 21 and 28 of June 2021, from 13:00-15:15 CEST.

Insight Out – Inspiring women in STEM is a career event for women in exact, technical and natural sciences, organised by NWO, with input from LNVH, ECHO, KNAW de Jonge Akademie, PNN, PostdocNL and Young Academy Europe.

The programme of this year’s edition offers various inspiring talks, workshops, panel discussions and networking activities. You can find more information about the programme and registration on the NWO website.

Note: Participation is free of charge, the language of the conference will be English. If you have previously registered for the Insight Out event in March it is not necessary to register again. You will be registered for the theme and day previously selected. If you would like to cancel or change your registration for certain days, this will be possible via a notification email which will be sent to you at a later time prior to the event.

 

Posted on March 28, 2021

Webinar on research integrity: supporting early-career researchers in cases of alleged scientific misconduct

On 22 March, the Young Academy of Europe, SAPEA, the European Group on Ethics (EGE) and the AE Cardiff Hub organized an international webinar on the issue of scientific misconduct and support of early-career researchers in reporting such cases. The webinar was chaired by the Vice-President of Academia Europaaea, Professor Ole Petersen MAE. Almost 200 participants from 33 countries joined the live webinar and participated in the lively Q&A session.

 

The panelists of the Research Integrity webinar

 

The webinar was based on the article ‘A secure procedure for early career scientists to report apparent misconduct’, published by Professor Baruch Fischhoff, Dr. Barry Dewitt, Professor Nils-Eric Sahlin and Dr. Alex Davis. As highlighted by the authors of the paper, scientific misconduct can lead to potential damage for individuals as well as for society at large. The authors pointed out that early-career researchers often face the dilemma of whether they should report misconduct or not. A way to protect the wellbeing of early-career researchers could involve an institutional ‘scientific integrity official’, with the appropriate experience, skills and knowledge to manage the process effectively and fairly.

YAE Chair Gemma Modinos and Vice-Chair Moniek Tromp were among the panelists responding to the report. They pointed at the major factors that might lead to potential misconduct, such as heavy workload in the academy and the pressure to publish. Moniek Tromp highlighted that “The problem for young academics is still the hierarchy and their dependency. Groups are often very small and tight so the anonymity is very difficult to maintain – even if the person is not named, it can often be traced back.”

The panel presentations ended with Nils-Eric Sahlin’s reflections on the diverse range of national approaches to the problem. He advocated for a harmonized international procedure.

The webinar closed with a vivid Q&A session, where participants further highlighted the complexity of the problem, involving social, legal and financial aspects. The panelists once again emphasized the importance of adopting an international approach to the issue and pointed out that evaluation systems for career progression should include wider criteria which extend beyond high-impact publications to also include teaching, management and policy work.

The full recording of the webinar can be found on the Academia Europaea Cardiff Hub YouTube channel. 

Posted on March 24, 2021

Workshop: The impact of the pandemic on young scientists

The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive to scientific research, with a range of impacts on early career researchers and their career prospects. Various YAE members have voiced their frustration around the particular challenges they are facing – from conducting research to securing funding or building a curriculum vitae for instance – and saw value in having a forum for discussing these challenges, sharing experiences, and assembling coping strategies.

On 5 May at 13:00-14:30 CET YAE will host an online workshop to discuss the challenges of the pandemic for early career researchers and share coping strategies. The workshop will be hosted as a virtual event for YAE members on Gathertown. All participants will create avatars that can move around a virtual world and interact. The event will begin with a short plenary talk about the findings of the YAE survey on working during the pandemic, before moving into group discussions.

The workshop will cover following four themes:

  • Research groups at distance
  • Work-life balance during the pandemic
  • Research delays and career progression
  • The challenges of online conferences/webinars and networking
Posted on February 26, 2021

cOAlition S webinar: The Rights Retention Strategy and what it means for EU13 & Associated Countries

 
 
Join us for this live interactive webinar, organised in partnership by the Young Academy of Europe and ENYAs in EU13 and Associated Countries: Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Albania, Israel, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Turkey and Belarus.
 
When: Monday 12 April at 13:00-14:00 CET
 
Where: Online via Zoom
 
Schedule:
13:00-13:10   Welcome – Gemma Modinos, Chair of YAE 
13:10-13:30   The Rights Retention Strategy and what it means for EU13 + 
                        Associated Countries – Johan Rooryck, Executive Director of
                        cOAlition S
13:30-13:50   Q&A
13:50-14:00   Closing remarks

The webinar is free to attend and you can register buy clicking the button below.