GYA members Benjamin Hennig (Iceland), Abdalhadi Alijla (Sweden) and Simon Elsässer (Sweden) participated in the first Baltic and Nordic Young Academies joint meeting in March 2019. The meeting was hosted by the Young Academy of Sweden and aimed at deepening collaboration between young academies from the region, sharing of best practices from the various young academies, and strengthening their role in a wider European and global context. Collaboration around the Baltic Sea has played a vital role in promoting democracy, security and prosperity to the region. Today, the Baltic-Nordic cooperation remains highly relevant both in itself and as a common platform within the EU.
More than fifty researchers from young academies in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden participated in the meeting, which focused on two overarching themes: gender equality in academia and science outreach. Benjamin gave a short presentation on the role of the GYA in the global young academies network.
The meeting’s opening keynote was held by Tiina Suopajärvi, a researcher at the NordForsk Nordic Centre of Excellence on Women in Technology Driven Careers (NordWit).
Day two of the meeting started with a workshop on outreach led by Rikke Schmidt Kjærgaard, Executive Director of the Videnskapsklubben (science club), the successful and innovative outreach project that started out as a small initiative within the Young Academy of Denmark. They have a successful concept for engaging children in science and research through an empowering and playful manner of exploration. Through this new collaboration between some of the brightest, younger minds of the Baltic-Nordic area, a platform will be created for sharing best practices, ideas for activities and a network for facilitating research collaborations. The aim is to empower young researchers to take part in outreach activities, and to join public debate.
