News of the Global Young Academy

Below are some impressions from the 3rd day of the GYA’s International Conference of Young Scientists “Harmonising Reason with Sensibility: Regenerating science for an inclusive and sustainable future”

In the Science Fiction Prototyping Workshop, “Find your inner sensibility and experience creativity,” Yoko Shimpuku (Hiroshima University, Japan) described the objectives as gaining an intuitive understanding of the implications of the overall theme, “Harmonising Reason with Sensibility.”

Dojin Miyamoto (scientist/writer) then explained the workshop activities and participants were divided into small groups. The main activity was to create a new word by combining two very unrelated words. When participants started thinking about the meaning of the new words, it was quite funny but at the same time, it made them think that it could be a tool of science in the future.

Each group presented their invented words and how they felt through the activities. They realized that the activity could be better conducted with children as they have more “crazy” ideas, which could lead to the new discovery. It was recommended to repeat the workshop so that they could boost their inner creativity.

In Plenary Session 2, GYA Focus Area Group “Harmonising reason with sensibility” members presented “How might we contribute better to society through harmonizing reason with sensibility?”

Yoko Shimpuku (Hiroshima University, Japan), co-lead of the Focus Area Group moderated the session and explained the discussion pathway.

GYA alumnus Rob Jenkins (University of York, UK) started off by revealing the survey results about how much the GYA members/alumni value creativity, reason, and sensibility and how they consider how others think about scientists.

Dennis Sherwood (The Silver Bullet Machine Manufacturing Company Limited) then spoke about a way to strengthen creativity by using reasoning and sensibility.

Cristina Blanco Sío-López (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy) continued the discussion by saying that reason and sensibility were already balanced, and that we just need to unlearn and acquire different ways to see it.

Sandra López Verges (Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies, Panama) posed questions about how we could change the evaluation system and proposed the importance of education.

GYA alumnus Mitsunobu Kano (Okayama University, Japan) suggested including the viewpoints of funding agencies and the neccessity of communication with stakeholders and citizens.

Below are some images from the third day of the Conference.

See highlights from all conference days here: Highlights of the 2022 International Conference of Young Scientists and Annual General Meeting – Global Young Academy