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News & Views item - December 2010 |
Let's Hear It For the Youngsters. (December 11, 2010)
Australians like to think of themselves of "giving it a go" or allowing their mates to "have a go". Germans on the other hand are often looked upon as being stodgy and hidebound.
Therefore, it may come as something of a surprise that the 77-year old Volker ter Meulen, past president of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and 66-year old Günter Stock, president of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, have teamed together to write this week's editorial in Science on "Cultivating Young Academies".
Noting first that currently Germany allocates 2.7% of its gross domestic product toward research and development, they go on to warn rather rhetorically: "the nation's growing need for well-trained and highly educated people raises the question of whether Germany is doing enough to support its future scientific leaders. The economic downturn threatens to decrease research career opportunities at a time when building scientific capacity to tackle global challenges has become a high priority."
They go on to explain that their academies a decade ago "recognized that nurturing young scientists would be the key to rebuilding a strong and competitive scientific environment" in a reunited Germany.
And thereby the creation of Die Junge Akademie (the Young Academy) with the intention of harnessing "the resources of both academies in ways that would fertilize research fields with new ideas and bolster career pathways, as well as invigorate older academies by involving the young scientific community in critical policy-related work".
In the view of ter Meulen and Stock the amalgam has achieved reasonable success. It has:
enabled young scientists to work together across disciplines and geographical boundaries;
established itself as an effective voice of the scientific community;
sometimes been a more effective advocate for science than the older academies...
as reflected by the new Junior Professorships established in almost all German universities;
become a principal point of contact for other organizations involved in higher education and research.
In addition its members are involved in public events that promote dialogue between science and society, inspiring scientists to engage more energetically with the public and media, and
they are increasingly active internationally, facilitating an exchange of ideas between researchers, business, and policy-makers, and stimulating the formation of similar young academies in other nations.
Over-and-above all, Die Junge Akademie has given young academics an effective voice in the political, scientific, and public dialogue with regard to their future career pathways.