The Euroscience Open Forum in Trieste Relaunches with a New Format and an Updated Programme
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Trieste European City of Science ESOF2020 Trieste Trieste 2-6 September 2020 The EuroScience Open Forum in Trieste relaunches with a new format and an updated programme New online sessions and themes tied to Covid-19 have been added. Relaunch has been announced today for ESOF2020, the largest European conference on science and technology, postponed from July to September due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With more than 150 sessions and over 700 speakers in an updated programme, including an innovative hybrid format and distinguished international guests, ESOF is more vital and attractive than ever. The Science in the City Festival has also been confirmed, with several events already taking place in the weeks to come Trieste, 30th June 2020 The EuroScience Open Forum - ESOF2020 Trieste will take place from 2 to 6 September with a renewed mission. Whereas, prior to the pandemic, the event represented one of the main fora for multidisciplinary discussion at a European level on changes in science and technology and their role in society, these last few months of generalised anxiety and uncertainty have added even more profound motivations for exchange and debate. “There will necessarily be fewer speakers physically present in the Old Port of Trieste, but many will connect online,” indicates Stefano Fantoni, Champion of the initiative, “but more than the organisational difficulties, the challenge was the urgency to address everything that has happened over the last few months. More than ever before,” Fantoni continues “the global scientific community has had to demonstrate that it is up to the challenges that await us, including new ways to continue circulating ideas. The pandemic has blatently revealed the importance of sound ethical behaviour in disseminating research results and of the amount of work needed to improve dialogue between science and policy, and between experts and the media. ESOF is an event that has been conceived from its inception to foster this kind of debate.” “Holding ESOF2020 immediately following Europe's post-Covid reopening is essential for timely debate on the role of scientific research, expertise and communication in this unprecedented context.” says Michael Matlosz, President of EuroScience. “The new hybrid format adopted for ESOF2020 offers the opportunity for all scientific professionals and societal stakeholders to participate actively in the discussions, whether in person or via virtual connection.” The updated programme and international guests Covid-19 takes the stage at ESOF2020 with a series of meetings between the scientific community and policy-makers on the implications of the Coronavirus on public health, economics and communication. For example Thomas Hartung, the world-famous toxicologist from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore will discuss the impact of the Sars-CoV-2 infection on our brain. Richard Horton, editor- in-chief of The Lancet, will explain why the global response to Covid-19 has been so bad. The interweaving of the production of knowledge and public information, which has been put to the test by the pandemic, will be debated by a panel of experts specialised in communication and publishing, including Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The spotlight will then focus on the dire economic consequences of the global spread of the disease. The general presentation of ESOF remains divided into three main topical domains: the Science Programme dedicated to frontier research and its implications for society; the Science to Business Programme focusing on the relationship between science and the business world; and the Science to Careers Programme covering job and career opportunities for the future. At the centre of the Forum’s agenda are some of today’s most urgent societal topics, including climate change and the transition to a green economy as renewable energy replaces fossil. The climatologist Filippo Giorgi, one of the authors of the first five reports on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC, is expected to attend. Other panels will focus on the impact of supercomputers and artificial intelligence on frontier pharmacological research using active principles from natural products, and on the importance of a European hub dedicated to the life sciences. There will also be sessions on pollution, technology transfer, science diplomacy and the crucial role in promoting peaceful coexistence among peoples and nations played by large-scale infrastructures such as CERN in Geneva, the SESAME particle accelerator in Jordan, or SEEIIST – the South East European Institute for Sustainable Technologies, which has recently focused on support for the treatmment of tumours based on subatomic particles. On the subject of human capital and mobility, Brain drain, brain circulation is the title of a session on the mobility of researchers and of knowledge organised by some of the most prestigious international scientific institutes, including the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and our own Accademia dei Lincei. There will also be room to discuss how the human factor impacts the development of industry 4.0 and how to promote female entrepreneurship. A significant part of ESOF will be dedicated to startups, to technology transfer and to the next European research framework programme, Horizon Europe. Several sessions, in collaboration with partners such as Fincantieri, will be dedicated to the blue economy, to safeguarding the sea as a resource and to sustainable maritime transport, thanks to technologies tied to the use of hydrogen. 2 Numerous prestigious guests and speakers have been invited. Amongst those who have confirmed is the mathematician Alessio Figalli, winner of the Fields Medal 2018. In addition to assuring us of his participation at ESOF in September, he will make an additional contribution through an online scientific seminar on 2 July 2020 organised by SISSA – Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati and the “Abdus Salam” International Centre for Theoretical Physics – ICTP in Trieste. Other partipicipants will include the lifetime senator Elena Cattaneo, known for her research on the Huntington disease and on stem cells, the director general of CERN in Geneva Fabiola Gianotti, the director of the Human Technopole in Milano Iain Mattaj, the immunologist and most cited researcher in the international scientific literature Alberto Mantovani, the German climatologist Gerald Haug, the physicist and founder of the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa Roberto Cingolani, the Harvard professor and one of the world’s leading authorities on the relationship between science and democracy Sheila Jasanoff, the Financial Times science editor Clive Cookson, and the French mathematician and former president of the European Research Council Jean-Pierre Bourguignon. Yet to announce confirmation of their attendance are the American economist and expert in sustainable development and public health policy and management Jeffrey Sachs, the 2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, the virologist Ilaria Capua and the Dutch architect and urbanist Rem Koolhass. Three testimonials for ESOF2020 will also be presented by the astrophysicist Marica Branchesi, the author Paolo Giordano and the architect Massimiliano Fuksas. The opening ceremony will be attended by the European Commissioner for Research Mariya Gabriel, the Italian Minister for University and Research Affairs Gaetano Manfredi and his counterparts from Montenegro, Sanja Damjanovic, and South Africa, Emmanuel Nzimand. Other institutional participants include the Governor of the Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco. The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will take part in the closing ceremony on 6 September. Both physical and virtual: ESOF accessible to all The event has been redesigned to allow physical and virtual spaces to work together. The Forum will be held in the Old Port of Trieste, and in particular in Warehouses 27 and 28, the heart of the new Trieste Convention Center - TCC, a multifunctional congress centre which will be inaugurated specifically for ESOF2020. Of the over 150 events scheduled from 2 September onwards, approximately 70 will be held in virtual format, another 70 in hybrid format and roughly a dozen events exclusively with physical attendance. Plenary conferences, addresses by major speakers, workshops, and special events will be made available by streaming, and most will also be recorded and subsequently made available on demand. The online platform provided by ESOF2020 will host almost all of the hybrid and online sessions and be available to all registered participants, reaching an overall potential audience of more than five thousand online. This significant extension to the audience for the event, made possible by 3 digital technology, together with the possibility of hosting promotional videos of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region and the city of Trieste on ESOF’s web site, will contribute to attracting future visitors who cannot discover the region and the city due to travel restrictions still likely to be in place in September. The opening and closing ceremonies, as well as other meetings, will be held in the presence of physical attendees in the Trieste Convention Centre. In particular, the most important events will be held in the congress centre auditorium, a new building known as “28 bis”, with a capacity of 1850 and laid out in conformity with the safety standards of the anti-Covid regulations. Warehouse 28 will have an area dedicated