EU Science: Global Challenges, Global Collaboration #

March 2-5, 2015 in Brussels#

Academia Europa decided to actively participate in the Second Biennial Conference on EU Science: Global Challenges, Global Collaboration (ES:GC2) planned to be held in the European Parliament. A part of it dealing with “Science of the Future- Future of Science” was organized by members of AE (Hermann Maurer, Trustee for PR, and Kurt Zatloukal, Medicine, with support of President Sierd Cloetingh) and support of Mae Jemison, head of the 100 Year Starship program).

The conference “ES:GC2” was supposed to bring together scientists, high-level government officials, policy-makers and industry representatives from six continents, to explore the role of science and research collaboration in addressing global challenges. The event has several key elements including plenary sessions, scientific and technical seminars, consortium building meetings, and accompanying social events.

The first such conference took place on 4-8 March 2013 at the European Parliament in Brussels. It engaged over 1,000 delegates from 82 nations, including 27 science Ministers, and placed EU research at the centre of the international response to global challenges.

ISC (Intelligence in Science) was preparing the next ES: GC2 conference, to take place on 2-6 March 2015 in Brussels. Building on its predecessor, ES:GC2 2015 would again advance policy options for science to address global societal challenges as well as support the global research networks needed to facilitate collaborative science. For security reasons the conference has been postponed, but the stream organized by Academia Europaea and also stream on the 100 Year Generation Starship has been retained, yet an other venue was chosen. See program below and the report on the meeting.

The section “Science of the Future- Future of Science” for which AE has taken responsibility is based on two premises: (a) Some project that may sound like science fiction are already actively pursued with huge investments: a selection will be presented; (b) research as such will change due to technology by interconnecting disciplines and the effect of Big Data. AE is organizing four slots.

The venue for all talks was Stockholm Region EU Office (Avenue Marnix 28). The dinners March 3 and March 4 (the latter the as main social event to included all speakers, and a number of members of the EU Parliament and Commission) were by invitation only, but all presentations were open to all interested without charge.

Slot 1: Wednesday, March 4, 15:00 – 16:30#

Moderator: Hermann Maurer
Convenor: Academia Europaea

• Talk 1: Sierd Cloetingh, President of AE will start with an invited talk of 30 minutes with a general welcome, a very short presentation of AE and a talk: "Geothermal energy and the underlying geoscience base"
• Talk 2: Sibylle Günter, Director, Max Planck Institute for Plasmaphysics, Garching/Greifswald:
  “Fusion Energy - base load electricity for the second half of the century”
• Talk 3: Oskar Mencer, CEO, Maxeler Supercomputer Technologies, UK:
  "How to reduce the enormous energy consumption of future computer".
• Talk 4: Rainer Blatt Professor, Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences:
  "The Quantum Way of Doing Computations"

Slot 2: Wednesday, March 4, 16:30 – 18:30#

Moderator: Declan Kirrane
Convenor: Academia Europaea

• Talk 1: George Church Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of PersonalGenomes.org:
  "Big data driven medicine: Next generation sequencing and genome engineering"
• Talk 2: Hans Lehrach Professor for molcular gentics at Max Planck Institute, Berlin:
  "The virtual patient"
• Talk 3: Claudio Luchinat:
  " Metabolomics for preventive and personalized medicine"
• Talk 4: Christine Moissl-Eichinger:
  "The microbiome ecosystem"
• Talk 5: Jan-Eric Litton, Professor at Karolinska Institute and Director Genaral of DG BBMRI-ERIC:
  " Life Sciences Research Infrastructures"
• Talk 6:Kurt Zatloukal, MAE, Professor for Medicine, Graz Medical University: "Disruptive innovation in health care"

Slot 3: Wednesday, March 4, 19:00-22:00#

This Dinner Event was organized by Academia Europaea for speakers and selected members of the European parliament. Dinner speech by Sierd Cloetingh with short addresses by others.

Slot 4: Thursday, March 5, 9:00-10:30#

• Talk 1: Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Professor at Oxford University: "Big Data and how it changes research”
• Talk 2: Hans Sünkel, MAE, Past president and Professor, Graz University of Technology: “The Future of Research”
• Talk 3: Wolf-Tilo Balke, MAE, Professor at U. of Braunschweig and Director, L3S, Hannover: “Crowdsourcing, societal and research implications”
• Talk 4: Nara Kulathuramaiyer, Professor for Computer Science, UNIMAS, Malaysia: “How social networks will change research”

Special Slot 5: Wednesday, March 4, 14:00- 15:30#

Moderator: Declan Kirrane
Convenor: ISC-Intelligence in Science

• Talk 1: Mae Jemsion M.D., Principal, 100 Year Starship
• Talk 2: Roya Ayazi Nereus General secretary
• Talk 3: Dan Hanson Founder, Technology Innovation Group
• Talk 4: Kurt Zatloukal Professor, Medical University Graz

• Full Report including CVs of Speakers and their papers or abstracts
  

• Speakers in the Sessions sponsored by Academia Europaea