Global Young Academy

Top

00:00:07.17 My name is Eva Alisic,
00:00:10.00 I am the co-chair of the global young academy
00:00:12.26 and today I would like to take the opportunity to
00:00:15.23 introduce you to the Global Young Academy.
00:00:18.07 What is the Global Young Academy?
00:00:21.10 It's an international organization
00:00:23.05 of 200 excellent young scientists
00:00:26.11 from around the world.
00:00:27.20 Currently from 58 different countries.
00:00:31.14 And these young people,
00:00:34.02 usually up to 40 years of age
00:00:36.17 or 10 years post-PhD,
00:00:38.06 have been selected for their excellence in research
00:00:42.24 and for their commitment to service our society.
00:00:47.11 Some people say that
00:00:51.21 these people are your best bet
00:00:54.07 on the global scientific leadership
00:00:56.08 in the next 5 to 15 years.
00:00:57.29 What does the Global Young Academy do?
00:01:02.08 We have a couple of things that we do
00:01:05.09 and are passionate about.
00:01:07.03 And the most important ones are
00:01:09.26 support for young scientists,
00:01:11.28 in their career and development,
00:01:13.21 and making sure that they can be as effective
00:01:16.01 as they can be.
00:01:17.05 Capacity building, with the focus on
00:01:21.04 building bridges between low and middle income
00:01:23.19 countries and high income countries.
00:01:25.18 And service to society.
00:01:28.04 So, we try to contribute as much as we can
00:01:31.16 to society, in general.
00:01:34.09 So we do that in a number of areas.
00:01:37.01 One is the research environment itself.
00:01:40.06 Another one is education and outreach
00:01:44.07 to the general community.
00:01:45.29 A topic that we're particularly interested
00:01:49.21 about is contributing to policy on a global
00:01:53.22 level, global societal issues.
00:01:56.22 And open science is a topic we find
00:02:00.00 very important, and that is not only
00:02:02.18 access to journal articles
00:02:05.17 but also open data and open software.
00:02:09.19 So how do we do all these different things?
00:02:13.06 One is that we have this membership
00:02:17.16 of our 200 members, each serving
00:02:20.02 a five year term. And each year,
00:02:23.15 we get these members together for
00:02:25.11 our annual meeting.
00:02:26.24 A couple of days, one year in a high income country,
00:02:31.09 the next year in a low or middle income country,
00:02:33.10 to sit together, connect, get to know each other,
00:02:37.08 and work on our specific activities.
00:02:39.29 As well as build the skills
00:02:43.01 of our members, to make sure that they
00:02:44.18 are developing into those great
00:02:47.07 leaders of science.
00:02:49.15 One of our specific activities
00:02:53.14 is supporting national young
00:02:55.16 academies. So in a number of different
00:02:58.27 countries, young scientists come together,
00:03:02.15 just like some of -- you may know --
00:03:06.05 senior academies.
00:03:07.11 To connect and work on projects together
00:03:10.18 on a national level.
00:03:11.18 And what we do with the Global Young Academy
00:03:14.06 is provide support to those young academies.
00:03:17.09 For example, through technical support
00:03:20.00 and advice. We have, for example, a blueprint
00:03:23.04 of the constitution. We facilitate
00:03:26.12 contact with senior academies
00:03:29.02 in the country. We share best practices,
00:03:32.17 how to help setting up projects, liaise with
00:03:35.20 potential stakeholders, and we organize
00:03:38.21 regional and global meetings.
00:03:41.11 To connect those young academies, again,
00:03:45.04 with each other and send out
00:03:48.05 ambassadors from the Global Young Academy,
00:03:50.23 as well, to set up new and young academies.
00:03:53.24 So, before the Global Young Academy
00:03:57.01 existed, there were a few national young academies.
00:04:00.16 And among those, the most
00:04:03.26 -- the biggest inspiration for us have been
00:04:07.02 the German Young Academy and
00:04:08.25 the Dutch Young Academy.
00:04:10.02 Since the Global Young Academy
00:04:12.19 has started, there have been quite
00:04:15.25 a development in the National Young Academy
00:04:18.26 movement. And now we have 24
00:04:22.26 different Young Academies,
00:04:24.23 and hopefully many more to come.
00:04:26.20 In addition to building our own membership
00:04:32.04 and helping national young academies,
00:04:34.02 we contribute to or write
00:04:36.21 position papers. So, in this
00:04:39.29 slide you see a position paper on
00:04:42.11 open science. We write op-eds
00:04:46.08 and we have our own
00:04:48.07 magazine, where we write about
00:04:50.03 issues like global capacity building,
00:04:52.12 we showcase our young excellent
00:04:56.19 researchers, and our people come from
00:05:00.16 every discipline in science,
00:05:03.23 from humanities up to STEM sciences,
00:05:06.22 law, medicine, from every potential discipline
00:05:15.10 you can think of.
00:05:16.09 We also provide inputs to position papers
00:05:22.24 of other organizations
00:05:24.10 and make sure that they voices
00:05:28.03 of young scientists are heard.
00:05:30.08 And one particularly interesting
00:05:34.02 meeting this year was the
00:05:37.06 young inaugural meeting of the
00:05:39.19 Youth and Scientific Advisory board.
00:05:42.28 Where one of our members, as you can see
00:05:44.23 in this picture, met with the secretary general
00:05:48.10 of the United Nations.
00:05:50.04 Other organizations that are
00:05:53.24 inviting young scientists to contribute
00:05:57.24 often, or are supporting us to
00:06:00.10 do what we are doing
00:06:02.11 are a number of different organizations.
00:06:04.27 And to mention two,
00:06:07.00 one is the IAP, the global
00:06:09.03 network of science academies,
00:06:10.23 and another one is the Global Research Council.
00:06:13.25 Then to our particular or specific
00:06:20.21 projects, to give you a few examples,
00:06:23.09 one of our activities is
00:06:25.05 based on a project of the Dutch Young Academy.
00:06:28.28 They developed a science game
00:06:32.04 for youth, which is called Expedition Mundus.
00:06:34.22 And we as the Global Young Academy
00:06:36.27 help to promote that game internationally,
00:06:40.27 to make sure that we engage young people
00:06:43.24 in scientific thinking and enthuse them about
00:06:47.24 maybe becoming a scientist or
00:06:51.00 at least being interested in science.
00:06:54.14 Other projects are, for example, research
00:06:58.01 projects about research. You see an example
00:07:00.20 here of a paper that has recently been
00:07:04.07 published. And we focus on
00:07:06.15 skills building, so we train our
00:07:09.04 own members in how they can be
00:07:12.21 good leaders. How to communicate
00:07:15.03 with the media, or communicate with the general
00:07:19.02 public. How to lead a lab or
00:07:22.07 a research center.
00:07:23.28 Make sure that we, in addition to
00:07:28.02 science skills, equip our people with
00:07:32.07 good leadership skills.
00:07:34.05 The one specific research
00:07:37.28 project that I want to show you today
00:07:39.17 is the Global State of Young Scientists,
00:07:42.07 which is called GloSYS .
00:07:43.25 And we did this study, preliminary study
00:07:48.28 last year, and launched the report,
00:07:53.02 in which we looked not only at the
00:07:55.21 literature about young scientist and
00:07:57.27 research of young people,
00:08:00.00 but also interviewed a large number
00:08:02.00 of young scientist and did an online study
00:08:04.26 survey internationally.
00:08:07.18 This report was launched last year,
00:08:10.22 and the findings concluded that mentorship
00:08:15.03 is very important for young scientists. That
00:08:17.22 there are challenges, of course, for
00:08:24.26 young scientists, including work-life balance
00:08:28.18 being one of the major ones.
00:08:30.17 And we saw that there were quite big differences
00:08:34.15 between different regions.
00:08:36.14 So, in the next few years, we'll be
00:08:39.17 honing into that particular topic
00:08:42.29 and look at regional needs,
00:08:46.01 perspectives, and opportunities
00:08:48.12 for young scientists.
00:08:50.06 So, how does the Global Young Academy
00:08:55.15 exists? We have, of course, a number of
00:08:59.13 funders, who we are very grateful to.
00:09:02.00 And one of our main funders at this moment
00:09:04.28 is the German Federal Ministry
00:09:07.00 of Education and Research.
00:09:08.08 And they make it possible for us
00:09:10.10 to have an office in Berlin,
00:09:12.15 where we have managing directors, project staff,
00:09:15.04 that help us do the work that we do.
00:09:18.25 We have various other funders who
00:09:21.01 help us and support us for our projects and activities.
00:09:26.02 The GYA, the Global Young Academy, has
00:09:30.14 quite a bit of interest from the media
00:09:33.23 in the last few years, and here are some examples
00:09:36.15 on Science and Nature, and those especially regarding
00:09:43.17 the GloSYS project on the status of young scientists
00:09:46.15 have quite a bit of interest.
00:09:48.18 So what can the GYA do for you?
00:09:52.24 We can do a number of things,
00:09:56.20 depending on whether you're a young scientist,
00:09:58.20 senior scientist, or whether you are another
00:10:03.18 stakeholder. One of the main things we can
00:10:06.21 do is connect you with our network.
00:10:09.20 So we have our 200 members,
00:10:11.18 but we also have all those members of national
00:10:14.11 academies in our network.
00:10:15.26 And all the networks that they have
00:10:19.06 are available to us, as well.
00:10:22.00 So that makes sure that we have
00:10:25.27 this really global reach.
00:10:28.20 And we're very interested in
00:10:30.22 collaborating with you, regarding
00:10:33.06 a GloSYS study, for example,
00:10:34.28 and looking at the situation of young scientists,
00:10:37.15 to make sure that the voice of young scientists
00:10:40.24 are being heard in international and national
00:10:44.06 meetings, and to make sure that we invite young
00:10:48.15 scientists to those meetings and give them
00:10:51.01 opportunities to grow.
00:10:52.14 So if you're interested,
00:10:54.06 please do get in touch!
00:10:56.08 Either through our website,
00:10:58.00 email, Twitter, or Facebook.
00:11:01.28 And we look forward to hearing from you.

This Talk

Speaker: Eva Alisic

Audience:

Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: November 2014

Talk Overview

In this talk, Eva Alisic gives an overview of the Global Young Academy, an organization that brings together excellent young scientists (generally under the age of 40) from around the world. The Global Young Academy raises the visibility of early-career scientists and empowers them to address global issues in areas such as science policy, outreach, and education.

Speaker Bio

Eva Alisic

Eva Alisic leads the Trauma Recovery Lab at Monash University in Australia. Her main area of interest is how parents and emergency professionals can support children after events such as car crashes, disaster, violence, and the sudden loss of a loved one. Eva is the co-chair of the Global Young Academy. Continue Reading