Posted on February 3, 2019

7th Annual Meeting of the Young Academy of Europe, 2018: an update from the Board

The new YAE Board, taken at the Barcelona AGM, November 2018 (Lydia Schumacher and Kate Black not present)
The new YAE Board, taken at the Barcelona AGM, November 2018 (Lydia Schumacher and Kate Black not present)

Message from the Chair

“I am very excited to have been elected as the Chair at our recent AGM in Barcelona. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you there, and I have big plans for the coming year. Some areas I would like to focus on are:

Communication

We need better communication within the YAE, and between the YAE and other organisations such as other Academies, and also European-level organisations. We have some ideas here, but please do contact us with your suggestions.

Changes in the Board

Marcel Swart, our previous Chair, has worked very hard in the last years. Together with the Board and other members, he has established strong connections between the YAE and the Academia Europaea, organisations such as SAPEA and EuroDoc, has pushed for the YAE to be registered as a charity, and managed countless documents and emails (I have no idea how he did this). Two other Board Members, Monica Brinzei and Karin Sigloch, are stepping down. Monica has joined the Academia Europaea, together with Yan Lavallee and other YAE members. We have two new Board members, Gemma Modinos and Zeila Zanolli.

Remember – you do not need to be on the Board to participate. All members represent the YAE, and your input is valued.

Best wishes for the holiday season, and a wonderful year ahead!”

Dr Mangala Srivinas, Chair of the Young Academy of Europe

Message from the Vice-Chair

“I am also very pleased to be elected Vice-Chair, and look forward to working with the Board to further improve and expand the YAE. One component of this is the survey we conducted of our membership in 2018, whose first results we are able to present here. In addition, open access issues have become very important in Europe with the advent of Plan S and its implementation guidelines.

Survey

We started a survey in late January 2018, which many of you have taken. We have about 100 responses so far, so there is quite a lot of data on work load, stress, tenure track requirements and so on. Please check out the very preliminary overview analysis that I presented at the Annual General Meeting, but be aware that there is a lot more that can be learned from the responses. Can you help with further analyses? If it falls within your expertise, please let us know!

Plan S

Academic publishing is undergoing big changes with coordinated action by the European Commission and the cOAlitionS of national funders aiming to achieve immediate open access to the results of publicly funded research starting from 2020. More funders are supporting the initiative, now including also The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the USA and several funders in China, and it seems certain that real change is finally happening. In September, the YAE made a joint statement on the plan’s principles with Eurodoc and the Marie Curie alumni association, and we are working on a new statement on the implementation guidelines. We will be circulating a draft with our members in early January and would love to hear your views.”

Dr Toma Susi, Vice-Chair of the Young Academy of Europe

Message from the Outgoing Chair

“After almost two years my term as Chair has now ended, and Mangala is now taking over as Chair after having served as Vice-Chair during that same two years, which means she is well prepared for the job. I will stay on the YAE Board for one more year as Outgoing Chair, mainly in an advisory role and where needed helping the new Chair.

Apart from the expansion of the membership in these past two years (we’re now close to 230 FYAE fellows); the participation in the Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA) and acting as portal to the European National Young Academies for it (more topics and news to come about SAPEA shortly); having successfully nominated our former Chair Nicole Grobert for the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific Advisors; helping shape the future of European research for young scholars through helping shaping Plan S; the most impactful event for the YAE in these past two years has been the unexpected passing away of our Founding Chair André Mischke. It is for this reason that the YAE Board, YAE Advisory Council and the AGM in Barcelona decided that the annual prize will be renamed to the André Mischke YAE Prize on Science and Policy, to be awarded for the first time at the next AGM in Barcelona (23-24 October 2019).”

Dr Marcel Swart, Outgoing Chair of the Young Academy of Europe

 

3rd February 2019. For further information please contact info@yacadeuro.org
Posted on October 17, 2017

The Joint YAE/AE/ALLEA Meeting

At the joint YAE/AE/ALLEA meeting in Budapest, it was great to see such a large input from many of our YAE fellows. One of the main contributions was from our Chair Marcel Swart, who was involved in a round-table session on SAPEA and joined by academies from the UK, Germany, Hungary, EURO-CASE, the Director-General Research and Innovation EU and the Presidents of ALLEA and Academia Europaea. Our Chair highlighted that the science policy discussed in SAPEA mainly affects young researchers in the future, and hence it is very important that young researchers should be involved in the SAPEA processes as they are through the YAE, with one of our fellows leading one of the chapters for the Food from the Oceans topic and another fellow being member of one of the Working Groups.

As well as taking part in many of the important discussion sessions in the joint meeting, some of our fellows also had the opportunity to share their research. In particular we heard from Mangala Srinivas who presented about Cellular Therapies in Europe: Current status and future possibilities in a plenary session titled Health and Disease, and Healthy Living. The session covered a broad area of health and disease, and ended with a panel discussion on the regulatory issues facing health care today. Regulatory issues are a major concern, given that many new types of therapies, including cell therapies, simply do not fit the schemes developed for traditional drugs and is something that Mangala highlighted in her talk. Mangala also commented,

“I’m not sure I would have received this invitation to talk if not for the YAE, so that’s just another benefit of being an active member!”

Another of our YAE members to talk about their research was Kate Hendry who spoke in the Climate, Environment, Water and Future Earth plenary session. Kate talked about the issues of high latitude and mountain glaciers melting at an ever increasing rate. Kate said,

“The removal of freshwater, locked up as ice on land, into the ocean is causing unprecedented rates of sea-level rise”

She also discussed the evidence that subglacial melt from the Greenland ice sheet releases a large quantity of key nutrients, such as phosphate and silicon, in addition to trace elements both in dissolved form and as reactive particles. As these nutrients escape into the ocean, they will have a major impact on the marine ecosystems, potentially changing algal populations that feed important fisheries. These changes will have clear impacts on local populations, reliant on natural marine resources. We can only mitigate against these impacts by curbing greenhouse gas emissions, which will take a global effort of multi-lateral agreements. We can also engage with local populations, and plan for changes and help with adaptation. However, we are only just beginning to understand the impact of ice sheet melt on nutrient cycling and oceanic ecosystems, and we don’t fully understand what the future holds for these marine resources. Kate ended her talk by reminding the audience that there is a clear need to put resources into modelling future outcomes, and include nutrient cycling and ecosystems into our future projections.

Having such a strong contribution from our YAE fellows in meeting such as the YAE/AE/ALLEA, is crucial in shaping future research and research policy. We hope that many more of our YAE fellows have the opportunity to speak and take a leading role in the next joint meeting.

Best wishes

YAE board

17th Oct 2017. For further information please contact info@yacadeuro.org
Posted on October 4, 2017

6th Annual Meeting of the Young Academy of Europe, 2017: an update from the Board

Dear Members of the Young Academy of Europe,

Many of you joined us in Budapest for our Annual General Meeting and joint meeting with the Academia Europaea. Those who were there, will agree that is was a wonderful occasion held in a beautiful backdrop of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. We had a very productive first day where we were joined by hfp consulting, who lead an informative workshop on time management. We all then went on to enjoy the Launch Party for the YAE charity, were new and old members got to network and form new friendships. Due to the new charity status of the YAE we spent some time discussing the Bylaws and also heard some interesting presentations from several of the National Young Academies, which we hope will join us in helping to grow the YAE in numbers and status.

YAE Annual Group Meeting in Budapest
YAE Annual Group Meeting in Budapest

Finally we had the important business of electing our new board members in which there were 7 vacant positions. Members of the Board who stepped down were: Sven Bestmann, Nicole Grobert, and Alexander Fidora. Their contribution and countless efforts on behalf of the YAE were enormous and we owe them a great debt of thanks.
Following the outcome of the election, the composition of the new Board for 2017/2018 is as follows:

YAE Annual Group Meeting in Budapest Election Outome

Marcel Swart Chair
Mangala Srinivas Vice-Chair
Sebastian Leidel Treasurer
Monica Brinzei Secretary
Yan Lavallee Selection Committee Chair
Lydia Schumacher Selection Committee Vice-Chair
Sylvestre Bonnet Selection Committee Vice-Chair
Toma Susi Membership Chair
Karin Sigloch Membership Vice-Chair
Manuel Fernández-Götz Membership Vice-Chair
Kate Black Communications Chair
Raúl Arenal Communications Vice-Chair

 

Following our own AGM, there was the Joint AE/ALLEA/YAE meeting, where the YAE was well represented during the scientific sessions, both by speakers and session leaders. The highlight of the Joint Meeting however was the very first YAE Annual Prize, which was awarded to Rianne Letschert, Rector of Univ. Maastricht, you can read more about Rianne and the prize here.

We have already started planning the next annual AGM meeting, which will most likely take place in Barcelona in the third week of November. We hope many of you will be able to join us then.

Best wishes
YAE Board

Posted on October 16, 2016

5th Annual Meeting of the Young Academy of Europe, 2016: an update from the Board

Dear Members of the Young Academy of Europe,

Some of us are just back from the Annual General Meeting which took place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Those who were there will agree that it has been a wonderful occasion and a feast in celebration of excellent scholarship, good company and delicious food!

The Board would like to thank Nicole Grobert and the outgoing Board of the YAE whole heartily for their efforts in organising this event. For those who have not been there, please see the photo to get an idea as to what you have missed…

As you may know, the AGM programme also included election to some four vacant positions at the Board and one vacant position of the chair. Members of the Board who stepped down are Alban Kellerbauer, Andre Mischke, Christian Doeller, and Christian Keysers. Their contribution and countless efforts on behalf of the YAE were enormous. We owe them a great debt of thanks and hope that we will be able to benefit from their expertise also in the future.

Following the outcome of the election, the composition of the new board for 2016/17 is as follows:

yae-board-2016

Chair – Hagit Amirav
Vice Chair – Sven Bestmann
Vice Chair Outgoing – Nicole Grobert
Treasurer – Sebastian Leidel
Secretary – Shaul Shalvi
Chair of Selection Committee – Angela Casini
Chair PE – Yan Lavalle
Vice Chair PE – Marcel Swart
Chair LS – Caroline Lynn Kamerlin
Vice Chair LS – Mangala Srinivas
Chair SH – Alexander Fidora
Vice Chair SH – Monica Brinzei

We hope to see you all in the next AGM, which will be co-organised with Academia Europaea and held in Budapest, 4-6 September 2017.

With best wishes, also on behalf of YAE Board

Hagit Amirav

Chair, YAE

16th October 2016. For further information please contact info@yacadeuro.org