Asilomar at 50
In 1975, a group of leading scientists gathered at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in California to discuss the potential risks of recombinant DNA technology. The result was a landmark moment in the self-governance of the life sciences—a model of proactive ethical reflection that has since shaped decades of science policy and public engagement. This year … Continue reading
UK-US/ UK-Japan Meetings on Synbio
Over the past few months, two bilateral academic meetings on engineering biology have been particularly informative and stimulating. The first was the UK-US Workshop on Bioengineering Solutions for Critical Minerals, held on December 5–6, 2024, at the Earth Galleries of the Natural History Museum in London. The event brought together representatives from the UK Government, the US Department … Continue reading
EP PerMed meetings in Brussels
I was delighted to be appointed as a member of the European Partnership for Personalised Medicines ( EP PerMed)’ Citizen Engagement Board (CEB) since June. In the past three months, we’ve met online to comment on a pilot public survey (now out in Italy in Italian!). Apart from virtual meetings, it was wonderful to attend EP … Continue reading
UNESCO Roundtable on Science Communication
At the invitation of UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences, I had the great pleasure of contributing to the UNESCO roundtable, ‘Empowering the Global Community Through Scientific Literacy,’ held this week in Paris. I made three suggestions on basis of a draft white paper circulated: 1-Enhancing science literacy is not just about progress or development. … Continue reading
Knowledge Diplomacy
I attended a most rewarding three-day discussion at Wilton Park in late June on the topic of Knowledge Diplomacy. I consider it most rewarding because the event brought together both geographic and disciplinary diversity in examining the respective roles of higher education, academia, and industry in mitigating geopolitical tensions and potentially healing geopolitical divides. I’m … Continue reading
G7 Impact
For the past few months, I’ve been working with Suzanne Sincavage. Krishna Ravi Srinivas, Mei Lin Fung, Trevor Muehlfelder and Marta Bertolaso on a policy brief for the Think 7, the official think tank group of G7. I authored the four recommendations and it was my great pleasure to present the policy brief at the Think 7 in Rome … Continue reading
Sino-Eu Personalised Medicine Trip
I joined the Sino-Eu PerMed project’s Expert Task Force for ELSI at the beginning of this year. Following two online meetings, together with colleagues in Denmark, Italy, Germany, France and the UK, we were able to meet in person this April in China and visited a few research institutions and pharmaceutical companies. It was an … Continue reading
ISA Publications Committee Meeting
I was thrilled to visit Taipei again after the pandemic, this time for the International Sociological Association’s executive committee meeting. More specifically, I was there in my capacity as the editor for Current Sociology Monographs and SSIS book series. It was great to spend a few days with this group of lovely people. Academia Sinica … Continue reading
Three Conferences in China
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 … Continue reading
Co-Host UK-India G20 Event in Delhi
I felt very privileged to co-organise this UK-India dialogue on BioGovernance and Science Diplomacy with Krishna Ravi Srinivas at the RIS in Delhi last week, as part of a series of discussions leading up to this year’s G20 meeting. (Background paper and full agenda can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eMdA5Gzn) We were thrilled to have Dr Renu Swarup give the opening … Continue reading
Joy Zhang 