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Sierd Cloetingh

Letter to AE and YAE members and guests from the President Sierd Cloetingh#

October 2017#

Dear AE member, member of the Young Academy and guest readers,#


First. The DISPUTATIO OF BARCELONA 2017. This is one of AE calendar highlights.

Ricard Guerrero (Academic Director of our Barcelona Hub) and his team have organised the fifth modern-day Disputatio of Barcelona, for 23 November, 2017, at the Institute for Catalan Studies (IEC). The session will take place in the Prat de la Riba Room of the IEC from 19.00 to 20.30 h.

The Disputatio of Barcelona 2017 will debate on “SUPERCOMPUTERS: An instrument for science, technology and the progress of society”.

The two scholars (disputantes) discussing different perspectives of the topic will be Mateo Valero, director of the Super Computing Center of Barcelona (BSC), who will present the “science and technology” aspects, and Alison Kennedy, director of the STFC Hartree Centre (Daresbury, Warrington, UK), who will present the “progress of the society” aspects.

The Disputatio debate will be coordinated by Josep M. Martorell (BSC) and Fabrizio Gagliardi (BSC). The debate will be followed by a Colloquium with the audience, in which the attendants will address questions of relevance to both disputantes.

After the academic session there will be a social drink in the Cloister of the IEC.

The day before, 22 November 2017, from 19.00 to 20.30 h, there will be a Concert at the IEC (also in the Prat de la Riba Room). The concert will be given by soprano Marta Mathéu, and pianist and composer Albert Guinovart. Guinovart will play an Érard piano from the late 19th century yielded by the Music Museum in Barcelona. The concert, under the title “The European dimension of Felip Pedrell,” will present songs by Felip Pedrell, Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina, Enric Granados and Albert Guinovart. After the concert, there will be a social drink in the Cloister of the IEC.

For more information, please look at:
Barcelona Knowledge Hub: http://barcelona.acadeuro.org
Academia Europaea: http://ae-info.org
http://barcelona.acadeuro.org/bkhaction/vimeochannel

Attendance is free, but we recommend previous registration by sending an email to Doina Bird, Hub Manager (dbird@iec.cat, or barcelona@acadeuro.org), to be guaranteed a seat in the main room.

Second. I want to congratulate Onora O'Neill (Philosophy), who has been awarded the 2017 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy & Culture and also Thiboult Damour (Physics and Engineering) who has been awarded a CNRS Gold Medal for his gravitational waves work.

Third. The deadline for us to submit the SAPEA final report on Food from the Oceans to the European Commission is approaching and all is on track. Louise Edwards and her team at Cardiff have managed this first major topic of the consortium in an exemplary way. In addition, the outreach events that I have previously reported on (that were held in Bergen, and Cardiff) have continued with another public event that took place in Hamburg as part of the German Wissenschaftsjahr 2016*17 – Meere und Ozeane (German Year of Science 2016*17 – Seas and Oceans). Ole Petersen was joint chair of the event. See https://www.sapea.info/food-from-the-oceans-in-hamburg.

Whilst on the SAPEA topic: I will repeat my invitation to AE members, through the Section committees: please propose potential new policy advice topics (not research topics) and submit your ideas to Louise Edwards (EdwardsL31@cardiff.ac.uk), who will then steer further development, as required.

Fourth. Louise and I have been involved in assisting in the preparations for a series of events to be held in October, under the auspices of the Estonian Presidency of the EU - “European Research Excellence – Impact and Value for Society” . There was an ERC Conference chaired by our Board member Eva Kondorosi (a VP of the ERC): “Strengthening Europe`s Science Base” on 11th October. There was also on 13th October, a one-day SAPEA workshop - “Crossing boundaries: new approaches to science for policy in Europe” – see this link . This was a high profile event and has resulted in a published "Tallinn call for action" issued under the Estonian Presidency.

So as always, my message to members is please keep looking at the corporate www.ae-info.org website and the links to our Regional Knowledge Hubs, who are constantly organising regional activities. Remember that as members, you can announce any events that you are organising in the future on the ae-info website. Send such information to Dana Kaiser to the AE Graz Information Centre (dkaiser@iicm.edu).

Finally, and with much sorrow, we have been advised of the passing of the following eminent members:

Corrado Böhm (Informatics)

Jesús Mosterín (Philosophy)

Maurice Nivat (Informatics)

Sierd Cloetingh
Utrecht, October 2017

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