Join the experts from UBC’s Department of Physics and Astronomy to find out fun facts about everything from the Milky Way to radio waves in this new, accessible science series. All are welcome!
January [2026[: Particle Physics
Particle physics is the study of the smallest building blocks of the universe. By colliding protons at energies close to those present after the Big Bang, we are trying to uncover the mysteries of how we came to be. Despite the wealth of data that has confirmed the so-called “Standard Model” of particle physics, we know it cannot be the end of the story. This talk will overview what those fundamental particles are, how they interact, and what is being done to understand them.
Presenter: Alison Lister is a Professor in the department of Physics and Astronomy at UBC [University of British Columbia], where she has been since arriving in Vancouver in 2012 as an assistant professor. Her research is in particle physics, the goal of which is to understand the fundamental particles and their interactions. She is one of the 3000 members of the ATLAS collaboration. She has held a number of leadership roles, the most recent being co-chairing of the Canadian sub-atomic physics long-range plan which should help set the stage for the next decade of research within Canada.
Accessibility Information VPL is committed to making our programs accessible for all. If you have an access need that we have not addressed here, please email us at info@vpl.ca.
• Flexible seating options may be available upon request • The expected noise level is moderate • Participants may leave the room at any time
For more information on physical access, view the Accessibility information on the Central Library page.
For anyone unfamiliar with the ATLAS collaboration mentioned in Alison Lister’s biography, there’s this from its Wikipedia entry,
ATLAS[1][2][3] is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland.[4] The experiment is designed to take advantage of the unprecedented energy available at the LHC and observe phenomena that involve highly massive particles which were not observable using earlier lower-energy accelerators. ATLAS was one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012.[5][6] It was also designed to search for evidence of theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model.
The experiment is a collaboration involving 6,003 members, out of which 3,822 are physicists (last update: June 26, 2022) from 243 institutions in 40 countries.[1][7]
I have more about ATLAS and local participation but before moving on to that, here’s more about the series at the VPL from its partner, the University of British Columbia\s (UBC) Physics and Astronomy Department (PHAS), specifically from the PHAS Outreach » VPL Science Discovery Series webpage Note: I’m guessing the ‘How the Universe Works’ is a subseries within the VPL’s more comprehensive ‘Science Discovery Series,’,
VPL Science Discovery Series
Welcome to our Science discovery lecture series page, “How the Universe Works!“
The UBC Department of Physics & Astronomy has partnered with the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) to bring you a fun and accessible science series for adults who are curious about science, cutting-edge research and new discoveries that affect our lives. Presentations are by UBC Faculty of Science researchers and instructors, as well as local guest speakers, who come from a variety of science departments. We hope you enjoy this learning space that brings you into the science conversation.
Please register on the VPL webpage if you want to come!
Go to the VPL webpage here: in the search bar, you can enter “science” to bring up all future science events, or “how the universe works” to bring up this specific event. Registration is free!
We believe science is for everyone and we need everyone in science! Thank you for joining us!
Dr. Douglas Scott speaking on “The Physics of Christmas“, December, 2025
Reviews
Thank you everyone who has shared feedback on this event! Here are some comments collected from VPL re: the How the Universe Works talks:
“An educational and engaging lecture”
“It was stimulating and interactive”
“Great presentation and presenter! Made complex ideas easy for an amateur to understand and created foundation for further learning”
“It was pretty meaningful experience, it inspired me a lot to pursue my goal to be an engineer! Thank you so much to everyone who supported this meaningful session! Cheers!”
“Very valuable community presentation, great!”
A little more about ATLAS and scientists in British Columbia
ATLAS collaboration observes first entanglement of top quarks
Particle physics, the study of the behavior of matter and energy at the subatomic level, offers profound insights into understanding the workings of the universe.
The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The facility uses a 27-kilometer ring of magnets to push subatomic particles to near the speed of light, causing them to collide and allowing researchers to observe their behaviours. Simon Fraser University (SFU) has been a part of the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN since 2001.
Physics professors Matthias Danninger, Bernd Stelzer and Michel Vetterli and their research group SFU High Energy Physics work with data from the ATLAS detector, contribute to the smooth operation of the ATLAS experiment at CERN, host critical computing infrastructure for ATLAS at SFU, and support the development of key detector components.
The trio has recently contributed to major and high-profile papers on the Higgs boson particle, and the search for long lived particles. They were recently awarded the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics along with CERN researchers from around the world.
Working with LHC data often leads to the discovery of new and unforeseen phenomena. Just this month, CERN reported an intriguing feature in top quark data, the heaviest known elementary particle, pointing to the possible observation of toponium, a fleeting bound state of a top quark and its antiparticle. This result challenges long-held assumptions about the formation and detectability of such a state at the LHC.
In a recent article published in Nature, the ATLAS collaboration reported on the Observation of quantum entanglement with top quarks at the highest energy levels ever recorded.
Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in quantum physics where two or more particles become linked in such a way that the state of one particle is directly connected to the state of the other, no matter how far apart they are in space.
The scientists detected spin entanglement through a specific angular measurement, marking the first observation of entanglement in quarks and setting a new energy benchmark for such phenomena. Entanglement can be inferred by observing the directions of the charged particles emitted from top quarks as they decay.
ATLAS is an acronym for A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS, as the magnetic field is produced by toroidal magnets. It has the dimensions of a cylinder, 46m long, 25m in diameter, and sits in a cavern 100m below ground. It weighs 7,000 tonnes, similar to the weight of the Eiffel Tower. Image credit: CERN
The ATLAS detector. Eight toroid magnets can be seen surrounding the calorimeter that is later moved into the middle of the detector. This calorimeter will measure the energies of particles produced when protons in the LCH collide. Note person at bottom centre for scale. Image credit: CERN
We spoke to professors Danninger and Stelzer about this observation.
What did you learn about quantum entanglement from this observation? Why is the discovery significant?
While particle physics is deeply rooted in quantum physics, this is the first time entanglement has been observed in quarks,and it has several significant implications. It confirms that quantum entanglement persists even at the highest energy scales of LHC particle collisions, a billion times more energetic than table-top entanglement measurements, reinforcing the universality of quantum mechanics.
The discovery provides a new way to test the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Demonstrating entanglement in high-energy systems opens the door to exploring quantum information concepts in particle physics. This could lead to novel methods for studying quantum entanglement in extreme conditions.
How might this observation influence future analyses and experiments? What will you look for next?
This observation opened a window to entanglement measurements at the LHC which offers the opportunity to measure quantum systems with other particles of the Standard Model. For example, the SFU-led Higgs Boson analysis provides a sample of entangled W bosons, which could enable deeper investigations into quantum entanglement in particle physics, possibly including fundamental Bell test measurements. However, such analyses will likely require the full Run-3 dataset from the LHC, which we are still in the process of collecting.
Does this discovery have implications for quantum computing or other quantum technologies?
Measurements like this often inspire cross-pollination between disciplines. It is important to remain open-minded about how this work might inform future advances in quantum information and quantum communication.
What implications does it have for particle physics or our understanding of nature?
This is the first time entanglement has been observed between top quarks, the heaviest known elementary particles. It confirms that quantum entanglement persists even in the ultra-short lifetimes and high-energy environments of top quark production and decay, providing strong evidence that quantum mechanics governs even the most extreme regimes of the Standard Model.
What stands out from your experience working with the team at CERN?
Working with the team at CERN on ATLAS, one of the largest and most complex scientific instruments ever built, has been a profoundly rewarding experience, allowing us to explore the fundamental building blocks of matter under the most extreme conditions ever created in a laboratory, and to collaborate globally on groundbreaking discoveries like the Higgs boson.
Our team at SFU is excited to prepare the ATLAS experiment of the future, designed to harness these unprecedented data of the High-Luminosity LHC era and further push our understanding of the universe’s fundamental building blocks.
Congratulations to scientists Matthias Danninger, Bernd Stelzer, and Michel Vetterli.
Hopefully, this has whetted your appetite for particle physics and Dr. Alison Lister’s January 22, 2026 presentation, Register (See right hand column for button]
A team (ALICE or A Large Ion Collider Experiment [Wikipedia entry]) at CERN’s (European Organization for Nuclear Research) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has achieved a dream of alchemists everywhere, it has turned lead into gold. From a May 8, 2025 CERN press release (also here on the CERN website), Note: Links have been removed,
Near-miss collisions between high-energy lead nuclei at the LHC generate intense electromagnetic fields that can knock out protons and transform lead into fleeting quantities of gold nuclei. In a paper published in Physical Review Journals, the ALICE collaboration reports measurements that quantify the transmutation of lead into gold in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
…
Illustration of an ultra-peripheral collision where the two lead (208Pb) ion beams at the LHC pass by close to each other without colliding. In the electromagnetic dissociation process, a photon interacting with a nucleus can excite oscillations of its internal structure and result in the ejection of small numbers of neutrons (two) and protons (three), leaving the gold (203Au) nucleus behind (Image: CERN).
Calculations of the trajectories of various beams of ions emerging to the right of the ALICE interaction point (IP). Besides the main circulating lead beam, selected gold isotopes are shown together with the most intense products of other ultraperipheral interactions. The proton and neutron fluxes intercepted by the ZDCs are also indicated.
Transforming the base metal lead into the precious metal gold was a dream of medieval alchemists. This long-standing quest, known as chrysopoeia, may have been motivated by the observation that dull grey, relatively abundant lead is of a similar density to gold, which has long been coveted for its beautiful colour and rarity. It was only much later that it became clear that lead and gold are distinct chemical elements and that chemical methods are powerless to transmute one into the other.
With the dawn of nuclear physics in the 20th century, it was discovered that heavy elements could transform into others, either naturally, by radioactive decay, or in the laboratory, under a bombardment of neutrons or protons. Though gold has been artificially produced in this way before, the ALICE collaboration has now measured the transmutation of lead into gold by a new mechanism involving near-miss collisions between lead nuclei at the LHC.
Extremely high-energy collisions between lead nuclei at the LHC can create quark–gluon plasma, a hot and dense state of matter that is thought to have filled the universe around a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, giving rise to the matter we now know. However, in the far more frequent interactions where the nuclei just miss each other without “touching”, the intense electromagnetic fields surrounding them can induce photon–photon and photon–nucleus interactions that open further avenues of exploration.
The electromagnetic field emanating from a lead nucleus is particularly strong because the nucleus contains 82 protons, each carrying one elementary charge. Moreover, the very high speed at which lead nuclei travel in the LHC (corresponding to 99.999993% of the speed of light) causes the electromagnetic field lines to be squashed into a thin pancake, transverse to the direction of motion, producing a short-lived pulse of photons. Often, this triggers a process called electromagnetic dissociation, whereby a photon interacting with a nucleus can excite oscillations of its internal structure, resulting in the ejection of small numbers of neutrons and protons. To create gold (a nucleus containing 79 protons), three protons must be removed from a lead nucleus in the LHC beams.
“It is impressive to see that our detectors can handle head-on collisions producing thousands of particles, while also being sensitive to collisions where only a few particles are produced at a time, enabling the study of rare electromagnetic ‘nuclear transmutation’ processes,” says Marco Van Leeuwen, ALICE spokesperson.
The ALICE team used the detector’s zero degree calorimeters (ZDC) to count the number of photon–nucleus interactions that resulted in the emission of zero, one, two and three protons accompanied by at least one neutron, which are associated with the production of lead, thallium, mercury and gold, respectively. While less frequent than the creation of thallium or mercury, the results show that the LHC currently produces gold at a maximum rate of about 89,000 nuclei per second from lead–lead collisions at the ALICE collision point. Gold nuclei emerge from the collision with very high energy and hit the LHC beam pipe or collimators at various points downstream, where they immediately fragment into single protons, neutrons, and other particles. The gold exists for just a tiny fraction of a second.
The ALICE analysis shows that, during Run 2 of the LHC (2015–2018), about 86 billion gold nuclei were created at the four major experiments. In terms of mass, this corresponds to just 29 picograms (2.9 ×10-11 g). Since the luminosity in the LHC is continually increasing thanks to regular upgrades to the machines, Run 3 has produced almost double the amount of gold that Run 2 did, but the total still amounts to trillions of times less than would be required to make a piece of jewellery. While the dream of medieval alchemists has technically come true, their hopes of riches have once again been dashed.
“Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally,” says Uliana Dmitrieva of the ALICE collaboration.
“The results also test and improve theoretical models of electromagnetic dissociation which, beyond their intrinsic physics interest, are used to understand and predict beam losses that are a major limit on the performance of the LHC and future colliders,” adds John Jowett, also of the ALICE collaboration.
Richard Currie’s May 12, 2025 article for The Register (the link will take you to an excerpt on MSN) presents a practical perspective on the accomplishment,
CERN boffins turn lead into gold for about a microsecond at unimaginable cost
So alchemists had the right idea – they just lacked a 27 km particle accelerator
The dream of every medieval alchemist – turning lead into gold – has finally come true thanks to some impractical physics at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.…
Physicists at the multibillion-euro atom smasher near Geneva managed to transmute lead into gold during high-speed ion collisions, proving that you can defy nature if you throw enough money, energy, and hardware at the problem. Sadly – if you’re an alchemist, and less so if you’re a physicist – their golden bounty lasted for about a microsecond and weighed less than a fart in a vacuum.
…
Ulrik Egede’s (professor of Physics, Monash University) May 12, 2025 essay for The Conversation about the accomplishment adds more information, Note: Links have been removed,
Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider turned lead into gold – by accident
Medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead into gold. Today, we know that lead and gold are different elements, and no amount of chemistry can turn one into the other.
But our modern knowledge tells us the basic difference between an atom of lead and an atom of gold: the lead atom contains exactly three more protons. So can we create a gold atom by simply pulling three protons out of a lead atom?
As it turns out, we can. But it’s not easy.
While smashing lead atoms into each other at extremely high speeds in an effort to mimic the state of the universe just after the Big Bang, physicists working on the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland incidentally produced small amounts of gold. Extremely small amounts, in fact: a total of some 29 trillionths of a gram.
…
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Proton emission in ultraperipheral Pb-Pb collisions at √s NN = 5.02 TeV (journal or PDF) by S. Acharya, A. Agarwal, G. Aglieri Rinella, L. Aglietta, M. Agnello, N. Agrawal, Z. Ahammed, S. Ahmad, S. U. Ahn et al. (ALICE Collaboration). Phys. Rev. C 111, 054906 – Published 7 May, 2025DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.111.054906
This paper is open access. There were pages of authors for this paper; this is one big collaboration. I apologize for not tagging all of the authors as I usually do.
I believe this is an April (?) 2024 newsletter and it’s definitely from Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI). Received via email, I was able to find this online copy (Note: I’m not sure how long this copy will remain online) and am excerpting a few items for inclusion here,
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The current state of theoretical physics
Join the latest episode of Conversations at Perimeter as Neil Turok [director of the Perimeter Institute, 2008 – 2019] delves into the intriguing topic of the simplicity of nature.
Free tickets to attend the event in person will be available on Monday, April 22, at 9:00 AM EDT. Live-stream will also be available on the PI YouTube channel.
Hydrogen to Higgs Boson: Particle Physics at the Large Hadron Collider
Explore particle physics with Dr. Clara Nellist at the Perimeter Institute on May 8, as she discusses CERN’s groundbreaking research.
Date and time
Starts on Wednesday, May 8 [2024] · 6pm EDT
Location
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics 31 Caroline Street North Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5 …
Agenda
6:00 p.m.
Doors Open
Perimeter’s main floor will be open for ticket holders, with scientists available to answer science questions until the show begins.
7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Public Lecture
The public lecture will begin at 7:00pm, including a live stream for virtual attendees. This will include a full presentation as well as a Q&A session.
8:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Post-Event Discussion
Following the lecture, discussion will continue in the atrium, where you can ask questions to the presenter as well as other researchers in the crowd.
About this event
About the Speaker:
Dr Clara Nellist – Particle Physicist and Science Communicator, is currently working at CERN [European Organization for Nuclear Research] on the ATLAS experiment, with research focusing on top quarks and searching for dark matter with machine learning. Learn more about her work on her Instagram here.
About the Event:
Registration to attend the event in person will be available on Monday, April 22 at 9:00 AM EDT.
Tickets for this event are 100% free. [emphasis mine] As always, our public lectures are live-streamed in real-time on our YouTube channel – available here: https://www.youtube.com/@PIOutreach
…
The existence of the Higgs boson was confirmed (or as close to confirmed as scientists will get) in 2012 (see my July 4, 2012 posting “Tears of joy as physicists announce they’re pretty sure they found the Higgs Boson” for an account of the event. Peter Higgs and and François Englert were awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics.
If you are planning to attend the lecture in person, free tickets will be made available on Monday, April 22, at 9:00 AM EDT. Go here and, remember, these tickets go quickly.
This June 11, 2019 announcement (received via email) features an upcoming talk hosted by the local Café Scientifque community,
Our next café will happen on TUESDAY, JUNE 25TH at 7:30PM in the back room at YAGGER’S DOWNTOWN (433 W Pender). Our speaker for the evening will be DR. LARS MARTIN.
FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA – PARTICLES AND HOW WE DETECT THEM
Ever since the discovery of the electron in the late 19th century, physicists have used detectors to measure and identify particles. While today’s detector systems – like ATLAS at the Large Hadron Collider – are complex (and expensive) systems that detect obscure particles, the underlying principles of these detectors are relatively straightforward. The goal of this talk is to give attendees a basic understanding of what these machines actually do.
Lars Martin works as a detector physicist at TRIUMF, most recently supporting the ALPHA-g antimatter gravity experiment at CERN.
This is the second such conference and they are issuing a call for speakers; the first was held in New Zealand in 2014 (my April 8, 2014 post offers an overview of the then proposed science advice conference). Thanks to David Bruggeman and his Feb. 23, 2016 posting (on the Pasco Phronesis blog) for the information about this latest one (Note: A link has been removed),
The International Network for Global Science Advice (INGSA) is holding its second global conference in Brussels this September 29 and 30, in conjunction with the European Commission. The organizers have the following goals for the conference:
Identify core principles and best practices, common to structures providing scientific advice for governments worldwide.
Identify practical ways to improve the interaction of the demand and supply side of scientific advice.
Describe, by means of practical examples, the impact of effective science advisory processes.
Here’s a little more about the conference from its webpage on the INGSA website,
Science and Policy-Making: towards a new dialogue
29th – 30th September 2016, Brussels, Belgium
Call for suggestions for speakers for the parallel sessions
BACKGROUND:
“Science advice has never been in greater demand; nor has it been more contested.”[1] The most complex and sensitive policy issues of our time are those for which the available scientific evidence is ever growing and multi-disciplined, but still has uncertainties. Yet these are the very issues for which scientific input is needed most. In this environment, the usefulness and legitimacy of expertise seems obvious to scientists, but is this view shared by policy-makers?
OBJECTIVES:
A two-day conference will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th September 2016. Jointly organised by the European Commission and the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA), the conference will bring together users and providers of scientific advice on critical, global issues. Policy-makers, leading practitioners and scholars in the field of science advice to governments, as well as other stakeholders, will explore principles and practices in a variety of current and challenging policy contexts. It will also present the new Scientific Advice Mechanism [SAM] of the European Commission [emphasis mine; I have more about SAM further down in the post] to the international community. Through keynote lectures and plenary discussions and topical parallel sessions, the conference aims to take a major step towards responding to the challenge best articulated by the World Science Forum Declaration of 2015:
“The need to define the principles, processes and application of science advice and to address the theoretical and practical questions regarding the independence, transparency, visibility and accountability of those who receive and provide advice has never been more important. We call for concerted action of scientists and policy-makers to define and promulgate universal principles for developing and communicating science to inform and evaluate policy based on responsibility, integrity, independence, and accountability.”
The conference seeks to:
Identify core principles and best practices, common to structures providing scientific advice for governments worldwide.
Identify practical ways to improve the interaction of the demand and supply side of scientific advice.
Describe, by means of practical examples, the impact of effective science advisory processes.
The Programme Committee comprises:
Eva Alisic, Co-Chair of the Global Young Academy
Tateo Arimoto, Director of Science, Technology and Innovation Programme; The Japanese National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
Peter Gluckman, Chair of INGSA and Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, New Zealand (co-chair)
Robin Grimes, UK Foreign Office Chief Scientific Adviser
Heide Hackmann, International Council for Science (ICSU)
Theodoros Karapiperis, European Parliament – Head of Scientific Foresight Unit (STOA), European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) – Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel
Johannes Klumpers, European Commission, Head of Unit – Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) (co-chair)
Martin Kowarsch, Head of the Working Group Scientific assessments, Ethics and Public Policy, Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change
David Mair, European Commission – Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Rémi Quirion, Chief Scientist, Province of Québec, Canada
Flavia Schlegel, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for the Natural Sciences
Henrik Wegener, Executive Vice President, Chief Academic Officer, Provost at Technical University of Denmark, Chair of the EU High Level Group of Scientific Advisors
James Wilsdon, Chair of INGSA, Professor of Research Policy, Director of Impact & Engagement, University of Sheffield Format
The conference will be a combination of plenary lectures and topical panels in parallel (concurrent) sessions outlined below. Each session will include three speakers (15 minute address with 5 minute Q & A each) plus a 30 minute moderated discussion.
Parallel Session I: Scientific advice for global policy
The pathways of science advice are a product of a country’s own cultural history and will necessarily differ across jurisdictions. Yet, there is an increasing number of global issues that require science advice. Can scientific advice help to address issues requiring action at international level? What are the considerations for providing science advice in these contexts? What are the examples from which we can learn what works and what does not work in informing policy-making through scientific advice?
Topics to be addressed include:
Climate Change – Science for the Paris Agreement: Did it work?
Migration: How can science advice help?
Zika fever, dementia, obesity etc.; how can science advice help policy to address the global health challenges?
Parallel Session II: Getting equipped – developing the practice of providing scientific advice for policy
The practice of science advice to public policy requires a new set of skills that are neither strictly scientific nor policy-oriented, but a hybrid of both. Negotiating the interface between science and policy requires translational and navigational skills that are often not acquired through formal training and education. What are the considerations in developing these unique capacities, both in general and for particular contexts? In order to be best prepared for informing policy-making, up-coming needs for scientific advice should ideally be anticipated. Apart from scientific evidence sensu stricto, can other sources such as the arts, humanities, foresight and horizon scanning provide useful insights for scientific advice? How can scientific advice make best use of such tools and methods?
Topics to be addressed include:
How to close the gap between the need and the capacity for science advice in developing countries with limited or emerging science systems?
What skills do scientists and policymakers need for a better dialogue?
Foresight and science advice: can foresight and horizon scanning help inform the policy agenda?
Parallel Session III: Scientific advice for and with society
In many ways, the practice of science advice has become a key pillar in what has been called the ‘new social contract for science[2]’. Science advice translates knowledge, making it relevant to society through both better informed policy and by helping communities and their elected representatives to make better informed decisions about the impacts of technology. Yet providing science advice is often a distributed and disconnected practice in which academies, formal advisors, journalists, stakeholder organisations and individual scientists play an important role. The resulting mix of information can be complex and even contradictory, particularly as advocate voices and social media join the open discourse. What considerations are there in an increasingly open practice of science advice?
Topics to be addressed include:
Science advice and the media: Lost in translation?
Beyond the ivory tower: How can academies best contribute to science advice for policy?
What is the role of other stakeholders in science advice?
Science advisors and advisory mechanisms are called upon not just for nationally-relevant advice, but also for issues that increasingly cross borders. In this, the importance of international alignment and collaborative possibilities may be obvious, but there may be inherent tensions. In addition, there may be legal and administrative obstacles to transnational scientific advice. What are these hurdles and how can they be overcome? To what extent are science advisory systems also necessarily diplomatic and what are the implications of this in practice?
Topics to be addressed include:
How is science advice applied across national boundaries in practice?
What support do policymakers need from science advice to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in their countries?
Science Diplomacy/Can Scientists extend the reach of diplomats?
Call for Speakers
The European Commission and INGSA are now in the process of identifying speakers for the above conference sessions. As part of this process we invite those interested in speaking to submit their ideas. Interested policy-makers, scientists and scholars in the field of scientific advice, as well as business and civil-society stakeholders are warmly encouraged to submit proposals. Alternatively, you may propose an appropriate speaker.
The conference webpage includes a form should you wish to submit yourself or someone else as a speaker.
New Scientific Advice Mechanism of the European Commission
For anyone unfamiliar with the Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) mentioned in the conference’s notes, once Anne Glover’s, chief science adviser for the European Commission (EC), term of office was completed in 2014 the EC president, Jean-Claude Juncker, obliterated the position. Glover, the first and only science adviser for the EC, was to replaced by an advisory council and a new science advice mechanism.
David Bruggemen describes the then situation in a May 14, 2015 posting (Note: A link has been removed),
Earlier this week European Commission President Juncker met with several scientists along with Commission Vice President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness [Jyrki] Katainen and the Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation ]Carlos] Moedas. …
What details are publicly available are currently limited to this slide deck. It lists two main mechanisms for science advice, a high-level group of eminent scientists (numbering seven), staffing and resource support from the Commission, and a structured relationship with the science academies of EU member states. The deck gives a deadline of this fall for the high-level group to be identified and stood up.
…
… The Commission may use this high-level group more as a conduit than a source for policy advice. A reasonable question to ask is whether or not the high-level group can meet the Commission’s expectations, and those of the scientific community with which it is expected to work.
Today the High Level Group of the newly constituted Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM) of the European Union held its first meeting. The seven members of the group met with Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas and Andrus Ansip, the Commission’s Vice-President with responsibility for the Digital Single Market (a Commission initiative focused on making a Europe-wide digital market and improving support and infrastructure for digital networks and services).
Given it’s early days, there’s little more to discuss than the membership of this advisory committee (from the SAM High Level Group webpage),
Janusz Bujnicki
Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw
Professor of Biology, and head of a research group at IIMCB in Warsaw and at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland. Janusz Bujnicki graduated from the Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw in 1998, defended his PhD in 2001, was awarded with habilitation in 2005 and with the professor title in 2009.
Bujnicki’s research combines bioinformatics, structural biology and synthetic biology. His scientific achievements include the development of methods for computational modeling of protein and RNA 3D structures, discovery and characterization of enzymes involved in RNA metabolism, and engineering of proteins with new functions. He is an author of more than 290 publications, which have been cited by other researchers more than 5400 times (as of October 2015). Bujnicki received numerous awards, prizes, fellowships, and grants including EMBO/HHMI Young Investigator Programme award, ERC Starting Grant, award of the Polish Ministry of Science and award of the Polish Prime Minister, and was decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of the Republic of Poland. In 2013 he won the national plebiscite “Poles with Verve” in the Science category.
Bujnicki has been involved in various scientific organizations and advisory bodies, including the Polish Young Academy, civic movement Citizens of Science, Life, Environmental and Geo Sciences panel of the Science Europe organization, and Scientific Policy Committee – an advisory body of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland. He is also an executive editor of the scientific journal Nucleic Acids Research.
Professor of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Professor Dykstra has a chair in Empirical Sociology and is Director of Research of the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Previously, she had a chair in Kinship Demography at Utrecht University (2002-2009) and was a senior scientist at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in The Hague (1990-2009).
Her publications focus on intergenerational solidarity, aging societies, family change, aging and the life course, and late-life well-being. She is an elected member of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW, 2004) and Vice-President of the KNAW as of 2011, elected Member of the Dutch Social Sciences Council (SWR, 2006), and elected Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (2010). In 2012 she received an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant for the research project “Families in context”, which will focus on the ways in which policy, economic, and cultural contexts structure interdependence in families.
Professor, Materials Science Department of the Faculty of Science and Technology, NOVA University, Lisbon
Professor Fortunato is a full professor in the Materials Science Department of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon, a Fellow of the Portuguese Engineering Academy since 2009 and decorated as a Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator by the President of the Republic in 2010, due to her scientific achievements worldwide. In 2015 she was appointed by the Portuguese President Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Celebrations of the National Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.
She was also a member of the Portuguese National Scientific & Technological Council between 2012 and 2015 and a member of the advisory board of DG CONNECT (2014-15).
Currently she is the director of the Institute of Nanomaterials, Nanofabrication and Nanomodeling and of CENIMAT. She is member of the board of trustees of Luso-American Foundation (Portugal/USA, 2013-2020).
Fortunato pioneered European research on transparent electronics, namely thin-film transistors based on oxide semiconductors, demonstrating that oxide materials can be used as true semiconductors. In 2008, she received in the 1st ERC edition an Advanced Grant for the project “Invisible”, considered a success story. In the same year she demonstrated with her colleagues the possibility to make the first paper transistor, starting a new field in the area of paper electronics.
Fortunato published over 500 papers and during the last 10 years received more than 16 International prizes and distinctions for her work (e.g: IDTechEx USA 2009 (paper transistor); European Woman Innovation prize, Finland 2011).
Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Professor Heuer is an experimental particle physicist and has been CERN Director-General since January 2009. His mandate, ending December 2015, is characterised by the start of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) 2009 as well as its energy increase 2015, the discovery of the H-Boson and the geographical enlargement of CERN Membership. He also actively engaged CERN in promoting the importance of science and STEM education for the sustainable development of the society. From 2004 to 2008, Prof. Heuer was research director for particle and astroparticle physics at the DESY laboratory, Germany where he oriented the particle physics groups towards LHC by joining both large experiments, ATLAS and CMS. He has initiated restructuring and focusing of German high energy physics at the energy frontier with particular emphasis on LHC (Helmholtz Alliance “Physics at the Terascale”). In April 2016 he will become President of the German Physical Society. He is designated President of the Council of SESAME (Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East).
Prof. Heuer has published over 500 scientific papers and holds many Honorary Degrees from universities in Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada. He is Member of several Academies of Sciences in Europe, in particular of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and Honorary Member of the European Physical Society. In 2015 he received the Grand Cross 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Dame Julia Slingo became Met Office Chief Scientist in February 2009 where she leads a team of over 500 scientists working on a very broad portfolio of research that underpins weather forecasting, climate prediction and climate change projections. During her time as Chief Scientist she has fostered much stronger scientific partnerships across UK academia and international research organisations, recognising the multi-disciplinary and grand challenge nature of weather and climate science and services. She works closely with UK Government Chief Scientific Advisors and is regularly called to give evidence on weather and climate related issues.
Before joining the Met Office she was the Director of Climate Research in NERC’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science, at the University of Reading. In 2006 she founded the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at Reading, aimed at addressing the cross disciplinary challenges of climate change and its impacts. Julia has had a long-term career in atmospheric physics, climate modelling and tropical climate variability, working at the Met Office, ECMWF and NCAR in the USA.
Dame Julia has published over 100 peer reviewed papers and has received numerous awards including the prestigious IMO Prize of the World Meteorological Organization for her outstanding work in meteorology, climatology, hydrology and related sciences. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics.
Born in 1973 in France, Cédric Villani is a mathematician, director of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris (from 2009), and professor at the Université Claude Bernard of Lyon (from 2010). In December 2013 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.
He has worked on the theory of partial differential equations involved in statistical mechanics, specifically the Boltzmann equation, and on nonlinear Landau damping. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010 for his works.
Since then he has been playing an informal role of ambassador for the French mathematical community to media (press, radio, television) and society in general. His books for non-specialists, in particular Théorème vivant (2012, translated in a dozen of languages), La Maison des mathématiques (2014, with J.-Ph. Uzan and V. Moncorgé) and Les Rêveurs lunaires (2015, with E. Baudoin) have all found a wide audience. He has also given hundreds of lectures for all kinds of audiences around the world.
He participates actively in the administration of science, through the Institut Henri Poincaré, but also by sitting in a number of panels and committees, including the higher council of research and the strategic council of Paris. Since 2010 he has been involved in fostering mathematics in Africa, through programs by the Next Einstein Initiative and the World Bank.
Believing in the commitment of scientists in society, Villani is also President of the Association Musaïques, a European federalist and a father of two.
Executive Vice President, Chief Academic Officer and Provost, Technical University of Denmark
Henrik C. Wegener is Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer at Technical University of Denmark since 2011. He received his M.Sc. in food science and technology at the University of Copenhagen in 1988, his Ph.D. in microbiology at University of Copenhagen in 1992, and his Master in Public Administration (MPA) form Copenhagen Business School in 2005.
Henrik C. Wegener was director of the National Food Institute, DTU from 2006-2011 and before that head of the Department of Epidemiology and Risk Assessment at National Food and Veterinary Research Institute, Denmark (2004-2006). From 1994-1999, he was director of the Danish Zoonosis Centre, and from 1999-2004 professor of zoonosis epidemiology at Danish Veterinary Institute. He was stationed at World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva from 1999-2000. With more than 3.700 citations (h-index 34), he is the author of over 150 scientific papers in journals, research monographs and proceedings, on food safety, zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance and emerging infectious diseases.
He has served as advisor and reviewer to national and international authorities & governments, international organizations and private companies, universities and research foundations, and he has served, and is presently serving, on several national and international committees and boards on food safety, veterinary public health and research policy.
Henrik C. Wegener has received several awards, including the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics International Leadership Award in 2003.
That’s quite a mix of sciences and I’m happy to see a social scientist has been included.
Conference submissions
Getting back to the conference and its call for speakers, the deadline for submissions is March 25, 2016. Interestingly, there’s also this (from conference webpage),
The deadline for submissions is 25th March 2016. The conference programme committee with session chairs will review all proposals and select those that best fit the aim of each session while also representing a diverse range of perspectives. We aim to inform selected speakers within 4 weeks of the deadline to enable travel planning to Brussels.
To make the conference as accessible as possible, there is no registration fee. [emphasis mine] The European Commission will cover travel accommodation costs only for confirmed speakers for whom the travel and accommodation arrangements will be made by the Commission itself, on the basis of the speakers’ indication.
Good luck!
*Head for conference submissions added on Feb. 29, 2016 at 1155 hundred hours.
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