Interview and podcast with Dr Gergely Toldi, awardee of the André Mischke YAE Prize for Science and Policy in 2022
In 2022, at the Annual General Meeting of the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) and the joint YAE and Academia Europaea Building Bridges Conference in Barcelona, YAE awarded the André Mischke YAE Prize for Science and Policy to Dr Gergely Toldi from the Liggins Institute. The laudatio of the awardee and the related press release in 2022 is available here and his talk can be viewed on this link. Gergely also summarized his talk and most important statements in a paper published in European Review. Gergely was member of the Global Young Academy, initiator and founding member of the Hungarian Young Academy, who was also involved in preparations related to the launch of the UK Young Academy. Currently he is based in New Zealand, and after our interview was prepared he was also elected as co-chair of the Royal Society Te Apārangi ECR Forum, the equivalent body to a young academy in New Zealand. In order to increase the visibility and impact of the André Mischke YAE Prize for Science and Policy and present active researchers involved in science policy at the European level as role models, Katalin Solymosi, the Chair of the YAE interviewed the awardee about his scientific and science policy related activities. A podcast version of this interview is available here.
Katalin Solymosi: Hi, Gergely, we have known each other since 2018. But I have never asked you how you chose to become a medical doctor. And then in addition, how you chose to become an academic clinician? Did you have any inspirational teachers, mentors, family members that led you towards medicine?
Gergely Toldi: I’ve always had an interest for Biology at school. Initially, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be more involved with research or patient care. So, I decided to go to medical school where both paths were open. I later realized that I wanted to do and enjoy both, which is how I ended up as an academic clinician. Both roles, research and patient care, are very rewarding, but have their own challenges and require very different skill sets. In terms of motivation, I’m the only doctor in the family. Pretty much everyone else is involved with humanities and arts. My high school biology teacher, on the other hand, was also an eminent scientist, investigating bird lice out of all things on top of his teaching duties. Although I did not realize this at the time, his devotion to science turned out to be a great motivation.
Katalin Solymosi: How did you choose neonatology and immunology as your medical specialization and primary research field?
Gergely Toldi: I decided relatively early on that I wanted to specialize in neonatology. Although I was also considering obstetrics for a while. At the end of our first year of medical school, we had to complete a practical placement in nursing. And we were allocated to various wards, and I ended up at the Department of Pediatrics, changing nappies and feeding babies. I learned that fetal and newborn physiology, development and pathologies are a very interesting area of medicine with a lot of scope for improvement. My involvement with immunology was equally serendipitous. During my PhD, I investigated autoimmune disorders. And subsequently, it made a lot of sense to combine my clinical and research interests, as neonates have a lot of immunological and inflammatory complications that need novel treatment options to improve their overall outcomes.
Katalin Solymosi: As a mother of two with one child having been saved by neonatologists, your colleagues working at Semmelweis University, I can just confirm that you have a really wonderful vocation. What do you consider your most important scientific impact in research or which research questions you consider the most important to be answered soon by you or by others in your field?
Gergely Toldi: We had significant results on the immunological background of a common complication of pregnancy called preeclampsia. I was also heavily involved with developing new experimental and diagnostic methods using flow cytometry, which are mainly applied in the field of immunology, but in other areas of science as well. Then more recently we had very exciting results on how breast milk influences the evolving neonatal immune system. So, our research team at the Liggings Institute in Auckland is currently working on strategies to better control inflammation in babies building on those results. As I mentioned before, this is crucial to reduce the burden of complications affecting preterm and term neonates and this is a rapidly evolving area in neonatal medicine.
Katalin Solymosi: You left Hungary relatively early and then worked in the UK for several years. Now you are based in New Zealand. Are there any thoughts or stories you would like to share about researcher mobility?
Gergely Toldi: I think it is crucial for a researcher in any field to spend a longer period of time working abroad. Ideally, there will then be an opportunity for them to return to their home country, which is often more challenging than it seems. My recent experience is that mobility is becoming increasingly difficult. And I’m not sure if this has something to do with the political climate or a post COVID phenomenon. But it would be in every stakeholder’s best interest really to better support international research and mobility and exchange of ideas, skills and experience.
Katalin Solymosi: Yes, I can only confirm that I had a similar impression about some recent changes in researcher mobility. And I totally agree with you that it is an issue to be tackled soon. Now, let’s switch to a different topic. How did you get involved with the Global Young Academy? And what do you consider as your most important contribution to that organization?
Gergely Toldi: Yes, I became a member in 2016 for a five-year term, and it was a very nice experience, a very nice period in my life. My main contribution was towards documents and tools outlining the long term vision of young academies, and as a result, the declaration on the guiding principles of young academies was launched at the World Science Forum Meeting in 2019, in Budapest, with representatives of nearly 40 national young academies from around the world. And also, the young academy toolkit about how to establish a national young academy document was released in 2021.
Katalin Solymosi: I joined you after you already started to initiate the formation of the Hungarian Young Academy. Later, you have been also involved in the launch of the UK Young Academy. Are there any thoughts on these processes? And what was your primary motivation to launch the Hungarian Young Academy when you were already working in the UK?
Gergely Toldi: Yeah, I think the launch of new young academy is always an exciting process, as it usually needs to be embedded in an already existing science and science policy climate in a given country or region, which is traditionally governed by a senior academy. And in certain cases, there is already a strong desire to better involve ECRs (early career researchers), whereas in other cases, they need to better “justify” their role and contribution. So, either way, the process usually takes several years, and I was keen to initiate this dialogue in Hungary. And as a new member of the GYA (Global Young Academy) at the time, I had a good insight into good and less efficient examples from around the world. So fortunately, this motivation was very well supported by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and aligned with Professor Lovász’s vision for ECRs in Hungary, who was president at the time.
Katalin Solymosi: Are you involved in any science policy related activities now in New Zealand?
Gergely Toldi: Yes, I’m a committee member of the Royal Society Te Apārangi ECR Forum, which is the equivalent body to a young academy in New Zealand. (Since the preparation of this interview, Gergely Toldi was elected as co-chair of this Forum. Congratulations!) And the Forum was involved with numerous activities, and the main one being a two day long national event for ECRs called He Pito Tamata organized every other year.
Katalin Solymosi: After all these experiences in science policy, if there was something you could change in academia or in science policy, what would it be? Or formulating this question a bit differently: what do you see as the most important challenge for researchers and the researcher community?
Gergely Toldi: Yes, tough question, but in my opinion, scientometry and impact evaluation needs profound changes in academia. And I do acknowledge, of course, that these are very complex questions, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. And there are significant variations between various disciplines and fields. However, many of the issues we face as scientists on daily basis are, I think, directly linked to these questions. For example, the constant urge to publish, leaving gaps in the quality of science and allowing publishers to prey on the science ecosystem is a clear example, in my opinion. Funding allocation is also heavily influenced by impact evaluation. And we could, of course, always do with more budget and a stronger commitment from governments for science.
Katalin Solymosi: I can only agree with that. But let’s finish this short interview with something maybe more positive. Can you recall what was the most rewarding and positive experience for you with science policy at the national and global level, so while working with the Hungarian Young Academy and the Global Young Academy?
Gergely Toldi: I’m very proud of what the Hungarian Young Academy has become as an organization from the very initial discussions up to this point over the last seven years. And this is thanks to all the hard work of yourself as well as all the other co-chairs who have served and the membership in general. It is a truly member driven, dedicated and active body of top ECRs that has earned the respect of, and become a key stakeholder within, the Hungarian science policy ecosystem.
Katalin Solymosi: Thank you very much, Gergely, for these kind and humble words and also for this interview. And now in the name of the Young Academy of Europe I would like to congratulate you again for the well-deserved André Mischke Young Academy of Europe Prize for Science and Policy. And I do hope that those listening to the podcast also agree with us that you played an important role in launching several national initiatives advocating for early and mid-career researchers and were also involved in science policy at the global level. I would also like to thank you for all these and wish you all the best with your professional and science policy related activities in the future.
