Young Academies from all over Europe met in Stockholm, Sweden, on 3-4 May 2023. The meeting, organised and hosted by the Young Academy of Sweden, brought together representatives from 21 young academies and academy initiatives and was the largest ever ENYA meeting to date.
The GYA was represented by Executive Committee member Filippo Rossi (Politecnico di Milano, Italy), GYA YASAS Delegate and Science Advice working group co-lead Markus Prutsch (European Parliament, Belgium), and Senior Project Officer Anna-Maria Gramatté. GYA member Jovana Milic attended for the Swiss Young Academy, alumni Javier Garcia & Javier Moguerza for the Young Academy of Spain, and member Tomislav Mestrovic attended on behalf of the Croatian Young Academy initiative.
Participants heard about current projects at some of the young academies, and discussed best practices and lessons learned about various young-academy-relevant topics. They also workshopped a draft version of the forthcoming Stockholm Charter on Academic Freedom.
A detailed mapping of the different characteristics associated with good and bad leadership was the result of a session on academic leadership. Input to this had come from a number of young academies, with Filippo presenting the GYA’s activities around science leadership, e.g., the various types of science leadershop workshops organized for members and other ECRs, or the 2022 edition of GYA Connections, which focused on Leadership.
On day two, the Young Academy of Sweden gathered policymakers, heads of funding bodies and world-leading researchers into academic freedom for a symposium on “Academic Freedom in a new era”. Four sessions considered various aspects of academic freedom, such as questions of funding freedom, or the role of a free scholar. A brief report from the symposium can be found on their website here.
As an outcome from the meeting, the Stockholm Charter for Academic Freedom was launched in January 2024 and signed by 20 young academies from Europe.
Next year’s ENYA meeting will be hosted by the German Young Academy in Berlin, with the GYA as co-host. The Swiss Young Academy will then welcome Europe’s young academies in 2025.
