ESOF 2024 – a refreshing experience

ESOF 2024 was an in­credi­bly rich learn­ing expe­rience for me. It was cen­tered around the topic “Life changes sci­ence” and fo­cused on “sci­en­tific cul­ture, scien­tific re­search, and inno­va­tion.” The theme high­light­ed the co-evo­lution of sci­ence and socie­ty, fea­turing topi­cal issues such as cul­tural iden­tity and socie­tal trans­for­mation, digi­tal trans­for­mation, ener­gy transi­tion, and healthy so­ciety. As a social scien­tist work­ing on envi­ron­men­tal gov­ernance at the Helmholtz Cen­tre for Envi­ron­men­tal Re­search UFZ, and hav­ing writ­ten my mas­ter’s thesis on sci­en­ce-poli­cy inter­faces in the Glob­al Change Ecol­ogy Elite Graduate Pro­gramme at the Uni­versi­ty of Bay­reuth, I was inter­ested in ses­sions on sci­ence com­muni­cation and co-crea­tion meth­ods. I gained a multi­tude of in­sights from vari­ous talks which made a great im­pres­sion me. They repre­sent new direc­tions in sci­ence: action re­search, poli­cy im­pact, de­sign think­ing and artifi­cial intel­li­gence.

There were thought-pro­vok­ing talks on such di­verse topics as the im­plica­tions of AI for art and the ques­tion whether sug­ared bev­erage taxes can spur healthy food choices. I espe­cially en­joyed a con­fer­ence ses­sion about story­tell­ing and crea­tive visu­als as pow­erful, yet un­deru­tilized tools in sci­ence com­muni­cati­on. The ses­sion un­der­scored that the sci­ence field has yet to fully har­ness these tools to con­vey com­plex ideas effec­tively and cap­ture audi­ence atten­tion swift­ly.

Spe­cial recognition should be given to the Sile­sian Uni­versi­ty of Tech­nolo­gy for shar­ing with us their ad­vancements in the medi­cal and robot­ics fields and for their calm­ing nature exhib­it, which pro­vided a ref­uge amidst the bus­tle. Final­ly, the Polish Na­tional Sci­ence Cen­tre should be ap­plauded for pro­duc­ing a beau­tifully de­signed and us­er-friendly hand­book on the na­tional and inter­na­tional fund­ing land­scapes for re­searchers. Alto­geth­er, ESOF was a su­perbly en­gag­ing trans­disci­pli­nary space. Whether at an exhi­bition or work­shop, you could find your­self in con­versa­tion with a scien­tist, entre­pre­neur, poli­cy-maker, artist or jour­nalist. It truly em­braced the spirit of its mot­to: “cre­ated for the socie­ty’s bene­fit and car­ried out with the socie­ty’s par­tici­pa­tion.”

I was also grate­ful for expe­rienc­ing arts, cul­ture and sci­ence within the city of Ka­towi­ce. The city cap­tures the intri­cate cul­tural fabric of the Sile­sia re­gion, with its mul­tiple cul­tural and ethnic influ­ences. The lega­cy of its agri­cul­tural and indus­trial herit­age is still evi­dent in the land­scape, though Ka­towi­ce is now revi­talis­ing its urban fabric and be­com­ing a hub for busi­ness, sci­ence and cul­ture. The city host­ed spe­cial sci­ence events dur­ing the con­fer­ence - high­lights of my ad­ven­tures in­clude the flight simu­lator at the Plane­tari­um Śląs­kie, the grand Sile­sian Mu­seum and the juxta­posed archi­tec­ture styles. I am grate­ful to the Elite Net­work of Ba­varia for ena­bling this expe­rience.

Text: Sabina Khan