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Along with 4,000 other delegates from across Europe and beyond, Dr Ruth Neiland, Scottish Crucible Director has participated in the 2018 international ESOF conference.
ESOF, the ‘European Science Open Forum’ is hosted by a different European city every two years and is the largest interdisciplinary science meeting in Europe. ESOF 2018 took place in Toulouse, France, which is renowned for its aeronautics and space research. The overall theme of this year’s Forum was “Sharing Science: Towards New Horizons”: https://www.esof.eu/en/
Topics discussed in the 150 conference sessions included global change, sustainable development goals, health in our societies, transport and smart cities, digital technologies, and science communication. The interplay between science and society was addressed throughout the conference with speakers from the European Commission, UKRI and other research and innovation agencies leading discussions on future science policies and research practice. A key topic of dialogue at ESOF2018 was career development for early stage researchers in Europe, including PhD students and research staff.
Dr Neiland said, “ESOF is an excellent opportunity for researchers, research leaders, policy makers and public stakeholders to come together to discuss our future collaborative endeavours around research in Europe. I was particularly pleased to be able to benchmark some of our researcher development initiatives at Heriot-Watt with those from other countries, and to network with European colleagues working to similar objectives as our own”.
Prior to attending ESOF, Dr Neiland was also invited to meet with colleagues at the University of Luxembourg to explore future Crucible collaborations for European “research leaders of the future”.
