Joy Zhang

In mid-September I visited China for the first time since the pandemic. I was thrilled to see friends and colleagues in Chengdu and in Beijing.

It was a real honour to discuss how to open up science communication with a distinguished panel this Tuesday in Beijing at the 2023 World Conference on Science Literacy (please see pic below). I presented my views on how we should radically rethink science communication and public engagement to align with the new forms of privatization in cutting-edge life science research.

I was especially pleased to discuss this at such a high-level forum in Beijing, considering our collaboration with Chinese academics in advocating for open and transparent science governance earlier this year (see https://lnkd.in/e3aSaJZJ).

I was delighted that after the event, China’s leading academic journal for science communication, Science Popularization Studies (科普研究), has invited me to turn the presentation into an article.

Prior to this event, I was very fortunate to be able to spend two days in Chengdu and discuss the idea of ‘circular economy’ with at a national conference for microbiologists and synthetic biologists at the invitation of Professor Shihui Yang. My talk was an extension of the ‘Bioeconomy for the Common Good‘ special issue that GSEJ organised.

Finally it was great to be invited to comment on a set of ethical guidelines on synthetic biology set out by China’s National Key Research Project, Research on the Bioethics and Policy Framework for Synthetic Biology, led by Ruipeng Lei. I said in my comments that the draft guidelines still require further incorporation of environmental ethics, and more coherency on social justice. But it was brilliant to see China is making concrete progress in this area.