March 2021

Magazine of the Young Academy

MAJA

Post-Pandemic World Scenarios

Pandemic Edition

Almost a year later, the situation still seems worrying, although the

rapid development of a vaccine gives rise to some modest optimism. Belgian Public Health minister Frank Vandenbroucke recently expressed some cautious hope, by saying that “we are on a rough and unpredictable sea, but we can already see the island where we want to moor”,

In May 2020, when countries around the world were implement-ing radical measures to slow the spread of Covid-19, ranging from national quarantines to school closures, the Belgian Young Academy (Flanders) launched a call for inspiration: antici pating life after the Covid-19 pandemic. As an interdiscipli-nary group of young academics and artists, we were looking for perspectives that extend beyond the current paralyzing situ ation. By organizing a contest we hoped to collect inspiring contributions that could help prepare for the indirect, long-term effects of the current pandemic. 

PREFACE

COLOPHON

Responsible publisher: Vincent Ginis, Sylvia Wenmackers

Editor in chief: Nele Wynants

Editorial board: Rose Bruffaerts, Didier Caluwaerts, Marjan Doom, Vincent Ginis, Lynda Grine, Lies Lahousse, Tine Scheijnen, Bert Seghers, Beatrijs Vanacker, Joris Vandendriessche, Katrien Verveckken, Sylvia Wenmackers

Copy-editing: Leo Reijnen – Taal & teken vofGraphic design: achttien.euPrinting and binding: Zwartopwit

ISSN: 2295-6158

NELE WYNANTS

Cover illustration: Sarah Yu Zeebroek

4 WINNER: A Manifesto for a Better Post-Covid-19 World

9 Life After the Covid-19 Pandemic?

13 Memento Mori

16 Reflections of Young Residents Fighting Covid-19

20 Rethinking Connectedness from Past to Future

24 Designing Spatial Networks in the Dispersed City 28 Empirical Study of Prejudice during the Pandemic 30 Somewhere on the Silk Road 32 Creating a Europe of Regions 36 Towards an Ethics of Expert Communication 38 A Reflection from 2050 on

Learning Networks in Academia

42 New members 2020 – 2025 44 New members 2021 – 2026

46 Manifesto: In Defence of a Fallible Science 50 United forces against Covid-19 52 The Unequal Impact of Covid-19 in Academia

56 Science Meets Policy

59 VRT News Graphs February – April 2020

ANTICIPATING POST-PANDEMIC LIFE

NEW MEMBERS OF THE YOUNG ACADEMY

YOUNG ACADEMY AGAINST COVID-19

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Academy. The selection offers a wide range of perspectives: some worrying, others encouraging and full of hope. They provide a broad overview of the challenges we are facing in our globalized world in terms of health, climate, diversity, mobility, culture, economy, and academia.

A selection inevitably means that choices had to be made. Some contributions were not retained, but we still wish to mention some of those ideas here. For instance, the jury appreciated the concern for the enormous waste pile of medical materials and the plea for a circular economy in hospitals. Attention was also drawn to how the infectious pandemic is harming a growing local sharing economy, public transport, and work-life balance. We trust, however, that these ideas and concerns will find their way into future reflections.

While our magazine is usually written in Dutch, this special issue is published in English, which allows us to distribute it internationally. Moreover, the majority of the entries were submitted in English, including that of the winner. After having selected the winning entry, the jury was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was the work of an international consortium of 32 young academics, researchers, and students. Collaboration is a recurring theme in this issue.

This is indeed something we have learned from the crisis: the importance of local, national, and international cooperation and dialogue can

Post-Pandemic World Scenarios

hardly be overestimated. Here too, the Young Academy took an important initiative. During the first phase of the crisis, a Slack environment was set up to bring Belgian academics and scientists from various disciplines into dialogue with each other about acute themes and needs. The focus was on three major lines of action: (1) alternative production of ventilators, (2) supporting the Taskforce ‘Vlaanderen helemaal digitaal’, and (3) crowdsourcing on blended learning, telework, and social distancing.

Members of the Young Academy also took part in the public debate, for example on the role of science in advising politicians. We drew attention to the fact that the Covid-19 crisis risks to increase the existing (gender) inequalities in academia (as well as in the wider society) and we highlighted the importance of stakeholders in research processes. In a manifesto, the scientists and artists of the Young Academy call for more confidence in science and an acknowledgement of its fallibility. All these actions and initiatives are being reported in the second section of this special Covid-19 issue.

adding “the kingdom of freedom” is on the horizon again. With this biblical metaphor—also taken up by Hegel and Marx—the socialist politician appealed to a deep longing of people to be free.

It was this long-term perspective, the island in the distance, that the Young Academy had in mind when it launched its call. This will definitely not be a ‘return to normal’ as some might hope. What is certain is that we will dock in a changed world, although equipped with the new insights we have learned from this crisis. The aim of the contest was to enrich discussions and to encourage novel ideas and perspectives, irrespective of their originator. At the same time, the organizers wanted to collect good practices and pass them on to universities, (young) academies, governments, and other organizations.

Following an assessment procedure that was conducted anonymously, an interdisciplinary jury selected one prize winner from twenty submissions. In addition, the jury chose ten other inspiring contributions, which are collected in this special issue of Maja, the magazine of the Young

It was this long-term perspective, the island in the distance, that the Young Academy had in mind when it launched its call.

The selection offers a wide range of perspectives: some worrying, others encouraging and full of hope.

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A Manifesto for a Better

Post-Covid-19 World

A Manifesto foBetter

WorldCovid-19 is Showing the Fallacy of the Neo-liberal Age

Our ways of living, acting, and thinking are subject to—historically contingent—material, politico-economic, and socio-cultural framework conditions, and path dependen-cies. In the city, urban infra-structures are a good example of this. They shape our everyday practices: from mobility, dwelling, and leisure to care, working, and shopping. If there are no cycling lanes, it is difficult to use the bicycle to satisfy our need for mobility. If there are no green spaces, we cannot meet our demand for recreation without having to leave the city. If there is a lack of open urban space, physical distancing becomes impossible.

However, these collective systems, necessary for satisfying basic needs and gene-rating well-being, have been fundamentally undermined by a radical individualism that emerged in the neoliberal era of the 1980s. The individual (consumer) became the central locus of attention. Individual market choice (in line with rational-choice theory)

replaced common political decisions. The individual replaced the collective subject. Privatization, the retreat of the state and the commodification of ever-new areas of life have been logical consequences of this strain of thought. Within this dogma, it is the individual that is to blame if the virus cannot be contained or if a transition

INSIST network

winner

contest

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A Manifesto for a Better

Post-Covid-19 World

A Manifesto foBetter

World

to a more ecologically sustainable mode of living is not achieved. These actions are no longer conceived as a collective endeavour. Individual responsib ility replaced collective responsibi lity. Market logics characterized by an ability- to-pay morality replaced democratic delibe-rations and the negotiation of those values that structure our lives. Democracy turned into a supermarket, the city into a magnet for inter national capital.

Covid-19 has revealed this way of thinking for what it is: a dangerous fallacy. Coping with crises, be it Covid-19 or the climate crisis, cannot be left to market forces and the individual alone. Covid-19 demonstrates that we need to regain the ability to deliberate among a plurality of actors—to discuss, disagree, argue, gain new perspectives, disagree (again). And, ultimately, find compromises on how we want to live together, not necessarily as friends, but at least as equals and certainly not as enemies. Covid-19 has revived a new sense of com munity, mutual respect, and help. It has restored the insight that we are deeply embedded in and dependent on collective systems and those who maintain them—from infrastructures and health services to communities and (often) strangers (cashiers, delivery workers, nurses, sani-tation workers, and so on). Therefore, we need to build new forms of and strengthen colla-boration between a di versity of actors on multiple levels to shape our common paths towards the future.

We cannot go back to normal because normality was the problem

The Covid-19 crisis is simply an expression of a more significant crisis that humanity is going through: a civilization crisis. We must unlearn to consider ourselves as the most important beings on Earth, superior to other species. We all are part of the Earth; it does not need us, but we do need it. So, we must live with it. We must unlearn that development is only syn ony mous with economic growth, competitiveness, and pro ductivity. Development also has an immaterial side: health, fellowship, joy, the beauty of building something in com-monality, productivity as the fact of doing more with less, protecting ourselves in soli-darity, giving and receiving love.

During the 2008 economic crisis, we witnessed the rise of social movements outraged by neoliberal policies. Were these protests a fight for a fairer world, or did they arise from the recovery need of the artificial, comfortable, and individualis-tic world that had been sold to society?

The 2008 crisis created the perfect conditions for the emergence of neo-populism, a thought based on the rise of the emotional factor, nurtu-ring a brutalized and credulous society lacking critical capacity. The same community that, today, prefers to support people such as Greta Thunberg as the prophet girl of the apocalypse dramatically upset with the world, instead of acknowledging scientific arguments.

Compared to the Covid-19 outbreak, the climate crisis has never been recognized as a crisis, maybe because society has created the perfect framework to guide our decisions based solely on our emotions while discrediting the scientific. Or, perhaps, because the climate crisis does not affect the minori ty that dominates and commodifies most of the planet’s natural resources and has decision-making power. Isn’t that why, today, they force us to use the term ‘resilience’, to manipulate these vulnerable groups into accepting the persistent inequalities of this system and its effects, such as climate change?

‘A MANIFESTO FOR A BETTER POST-COVID-19 WORLD’ is a conclusion part of INSIST Cahier 4, the final output of the intensive International Module in Spatial Development Planning (IMSDP) programme in Leuven (Belgium), organized by the Planning and Development Research Unit, KU Leuven. Contributors are 32 young academics, researchers, and students, participating in IMSDP from March through May 2020. They represent various fields of study and come from almost all continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin-America. Therefore, the analysis presented varies, providing a kaleidoscopic understanding of Covid-19’s impacts as well as socially innovative responses from different perspectives. The writing and discussing process ran intensively for six weeks, exclusively through online meetings and collaboration, followed by three post-processing weeks. All contributors were actively involved from the beginning in a bottom-linked writing process. They generally used data sourced from digital media and primary data through observations/interviews/questionnaires. The framework uniting the diverse writing are the pandemic implications through the lens of social innovation.

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Today’s predominant politics are obsolete, inflexible, and inhuman, revolving around the state, institutions, and capital. Let’s not let this pandemic be a pretext to continue with failed recipes for economic reactivation policies that only benefit the minority of privileged individuals and corporations that have done nothing but produce greater inequality. We need to change current politics into one that is dynamic, adaptive, and interdependent, like life itself. For this, we could incorporate biology, ecology, and life sciences. In this way, we would live in a society that practices a policy of life, for life, and to live life.

As many people have been saying, “we cannot go back to normal because normality was the problem”. It is up to us to rethink what world or worlds we want for future generations. Perhaps it is about that—accepting that it is possible to live with different worlds respectfully and that, together, we can build universal ideas based on dialogue and conflict, with critical regard towards previous hegemonic impositions.

In the case of a crisis, the conflict between individual and community desires is enhanced. When resources are limited, people frequently rely on governments to provide an organized rescue plan. This

also evokes a moral dilemma as individuals wish to maintain the right to choose how to comply with legislation. Their practices are often driven by a cost-benefit evaluation between their needs and the social values as a whole.

Therefore, it is essential (for individuals, companies, and governments) to create a structure that delineates accountability while maintai-ning principles that underpin each community’s foundation. Realigning incentives are required to develop reserves in the best times to provide an efficient buffer and downturn response mechanism.

Rethinking within a ‘bigger nature’. People taking the lead, solidarity-supporting states, and the market back in its place.

People have proven to be able to organize, adapt, and take the lead in crises like these, mainly through cooperation and mutual collaboration. New partnerships and cooperation at multiple levels must be strengthened to successfully emerge from this crisis and should lead to a reorganization of communities, where people can truly take a stand as educated, adult, and resilient individuals.

Governments are vital in coping with crises and provi-ding democratic guidance when

needed, as well as supportive of healthy communities in general. They should provide the material, social, economic, political, and cultural basis for communities to thrive and be democratic, pluralist, diverse, alive, and accessible—refocusing their investments from merely ser ving markets and their influential players to supporting foundational economies, healthy and active communities, and bottom-linked governance.

Markets are assumed to be the pinnacle of human wisdom and technological improvement. In reality, large parts of societies have become subordinate to commodification. Building on heterodox thinking, markets should be reduced to mere resource allocation systems embedded in pro-social networks, solidarity economies, grounded democratic decision- making, and rich cultural practices, rather than enclosing nature and humans in vicious extractive growth.

Big governments, multinational corporations, and global markets have created autonomous, un-earthed, and socially detached spheres. The interactive and interscalar global and local dynamics and expressions of the pandemic have proved that ‘big’ government, corporations, and markets depend on the most local sphere, whether they like it or not, so they must start giving it the attention and importance it needs.

Urbanization and anthropocentric worldviews have led to a significant reduction in people’s contact with their natural environment. When Covid-19 and wild nature

This pandemic has proved that every nation, whether developed or not, needs to rethink how they undertake planning and development of their territories.

1. The presumed positive effects of Covid-19 on climate change in terms of more ecologically sustainable living conditions need to be interpreted in their broader socio-political context—by recalling long-standing challenges about political inertia, power struggles, and institutional assets.

2. Transformative endeavours need to shift their focus from market incentives to collective rules, institutions, and infrastructures.

3. A city’s functionality needs to be measured in terms of its ability to provide welfare-critical goods and services instead of its ability to attract international capital, tourists, investors, and highly mobile knowledge workers.

4. The agenda should focus on addressing the disproportion in service delivery— non-commodification of basic services. There is a need for immediate action for access to better health care for the urban poor and rural communities.

5. The closure of borders has revealed the extent to which food systems, which could (and should) be localized, are dependent on international labour and trade. Creating more sustainable and resilient food systems requires vision, effort, and long-term investment, and these systems need to be in place when new disasters strike.

forced us humans to restrict our activities, we saw the actual colour of our Mother Earth. It is high time for humankind to rethink and adjust its position as part of a more prominent nature. A starting point is seeing the planet as a global common that needs to be taken care of.

Our Notion for a Future Agenda

Covid-19 has been a disruption of the way we think about our cities and rural areas. This pandemic has proved that every nation, whether developed or not, needs to rethink how they undertake planning and develop ment of their territories. It has provided an opportunity to rethink governance systems, urban-rural linkages, commu-nity solidarity, inter national labour and trade, climate change, the provision of basic services, and the well- being and safety of residents. A shift to a more nature-embedded attitude is needed both for the environment and humanity. To prepare the post-Covid-19 world, the new ‘normal’ needs a radical agenda.

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6. Self-organization of communities should be stimulated to develop innovative interventions in the use of public spaces and mobility, the provision of different open areas on the neighbourhood level and scaled-down investment in people-driven mobility such as walking and cycling in cities.

7. Affordable housing should be a human right, in which the voice of marginalized communities should be heard; these communities should truly benefit from any development programmes aimed at their improvement.

8. Local-scale solidarity networks should be co-constructed and sharing values should precede actions in this process. Solidarity actions based on collective values have a reliable power to reproduce communities and become institutionalized.

9. Inter-community relations and diversity should be fostered since they play an essential role in the capacity of communities to reform themselves and overcome challenges such as a potentially socially destructive pandemic.

10. Proper care of physical and mental health during and after the pandemic is essential not only on a personal but also on an institutional level.

ABDELLATIF ATIF (Free university of Bolzano,

Italy), CARLOS ESCARPENTER MARTINEZ,

CANAVATE (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid,

Spain; KU Leuven, Belgium), CHRISTINE

MUCHIRI NJUHI (Technical University of

Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya), CLARA MEDINA

GARCÍA (KU Leuven, Belgium; UCM, Spain),

DAWIT GEBREHIWET (Ethiopian Institute

of Technology – Mekelle University, Ethiopia),

DORA BELLAMACINA (Mediterranean

University of Reggio Calabria, Italy),

ESHETE SITOTAW (Addis Ababa City Plan

and Development Commission, Ethiopia),

FARZANA YASMIN (KU Leuven, Belgium),

FEDERICA ROTONDO (Politecnico of Turin,

Italy), FRANK MOULAERT (KU Leuven,

Belgium), GENARO ALVA ZEVALLOS (IMSDP

Network), GRACE VALASA (Technical

University of Kenya, Kenya), HONGKAI

CHEN (KU Leuven, Belgium), ISYE SUSANA

NURHASANAH (KU Leuven, Belgium;

Institut Teknologi Sumatera, Indonesia),

JOAN NYAGWALLA OTIENO (KU Leuven,

Belgium; Technical University of Kenya),

JULIET NJERI RITTA (Technical University

of Kenya), KAMMERHOFER ARTHUR

(KU Leuven, Belgium; TU Wien, Austria),

MARJAN MARJANOVIC (Bartlett School

of Planning, University College London,

UK), MARTINA BOCCI (Politecnico di

Torino, Italy), MOHAK JHAWAR (KU

Leuven, Belgium), MONICA MARTINEZ

FERNANDEZ (KU Leuven, Belgium; ETSAM,

Spain), MULUBERHANBIEDEMARIAM

TASSEW (Shire Campus Aksum University,

Ethiopia), NINELIA MARKARIAN (KU Leuven,

Belgium), NUR HAMIDAH (Bandung Disaster

Study Group; U-Inspire, Indonesia), PIETER

VAN DEN BROECK (KU Leuven, Belgium),

RICHARD BÄRNTHALER (Vienna University

of Economics and Business, Austria), SONIA

MOLLICA (Mediterranean University of Reggio

Calabria, Italy), SYLVIA INZIANI (Maseno

University, Kenya), VIDYA SPAY (Nata Desa

Indonesia), WOSSEN GEBREYOHANNES

(EiABC, Ethiopia), YESCHA DANANDJOJO

(IMSDP Network)

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Life after what, exactly, are we talking about? Of course, Covid-19 is a virus with a disastrous effect on people’s health, a pandemic we must beat. However, it is also an archetype from old mythology or folk lore that suddenly appeared in our midst, handing out fearful blows to our economic system and human-centric worldview. It holds up a mirror to our deep assumptions about what it means to be ‘human’, how we relate to nature, and how we define human and scientific ‘progress’. It reveals the anomalies of our paradigm so blatantly we can no longer look away. However, in the cracks of that worn-out narrative, a new one emerges from niches of creativity, wisdom, and hope.

The Thief and The Witch

So what archetype is Covid-19? That is a question scholars may juggle with for decades to come. There are several options. It could be the Thief who lets us choose between relinquishing our money or our life. The swiftness with which the global economy came to a full stop to save lives is unseen in history. However, the corona curve is tiny compared to the

Anne Snick

Life After the Covid-19 Pandemic

graphs depicting threats such as climate change, biodiversity loss, or ocean acidification. Like the pandemic, those are unintended effects of an expansive economic model, fuelled by an entanglement of fossil energy, extractive money, and technological innovations devised to exploit nature. Since the 1970s, concerned scientists, civil society actors, and entrepreneurs have urged to “flatten those curves”, and

nations everywhere have signed agreements to fight global warming, protect biodiversity, and promote sustainable development. Nevertheless, those concerns never seemed urgent enough for mainstream economic and political powers to stop exploiting nature to make money. Until corona arrived.

FROM FULL STOP

to Full Steam Ahead

Paradoxically, life after the pandemic will only start when we realize there is no ‘after’.

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gave us nature as a resource we can own and exploit for our sole benefit. For a long time, this paradigm looked successful. Until we started seeing and feeling its anomalies.

Fostering new paradigms

Thomas Kuhn shows that anomalies—phenomena not predicted by the dominant science model— foster new para digms. Life after Covid-19 will start anew once we let go of our Holocene assumptions; after all, science should allow us to adapt to life’s evolution and learn from nature how we can thrive on Earth. Already a new epistemology is emerging in niches of the research landscape. Systems thinking—studying the interconnectedness of all living and non-living beings—saw the light in the mid-twentieth century. In 1977, Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine earned the Nobel Prize for his work (with Isabel Stengers) on autocatalysis, i.e., the process whereby from intense interactions among

So maybe the archetype is the Wise Woman disguised as a Witch, who came to teach humans painful yet crucial lessons. She warns us that unrestricted expansionism turns the planet into an unsafe place, a twilight zone called ‘Anthropocene’. Yet, we also learned that there are safer pathways available. Citizens and peer-to-peer platforms responded massively by making the face masks and respiratory devices that private and public sectors were unable to provide, working for the common good. Consumers discovered that locally grown food is safer and healthier than the agro-industrial produce supermarkets sell, and that care is best organized collectively. The pandemic let us rediscover the beauty of clear skies, the joy of riding bicycles, and our deep need to be close to our loved ones. In a profound, meaningful way, we learned what truly matters in life: community, health, solidarity, beauty, and love, things deemed of no value in the dominant model of economic growth, competition, and technological control.

Paradoxically, life after the pandemic will only start when

we realize there is no ‘after’. Threats like an unstable climate and animal-borne diseases will not go away; they are here to stay. Life will reboot only when it dawns on us that we may win a battle against a virus but not the war against nature. The Holocene, the past era of 12,000 years with its exceptionally stable climate, allowed humans to settle, develop agriculture and writing, and create civilizations. That stability gave Western culture the idea that nature runs like clockwork. It made us believe we can change one part of it and predict (‘ceteris paribus’) how that will impact the whole. It nourished the ideology that humans are separate from nature and can know reality ‘objectively’. Today, we still believe technologies ‘proven’ in the artificial conditions of a lab will also be beneficial to society when applied at a large scale in the messy dyna mics of the real world. Moreover, science implicitly embraces the ancient Indo-European narrative that God created us in His image and

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simple systems, more complex ones emerge, with behaviours that cannot be derived from the features of the earlier (sub)systems. All life began as single cells and grew more complex and diverse over time, with organisms depen ding on each other for cocreating life-supporting physical and social ecosystems. One cannot study a beehive by obser ving bees under a microscope. Neither can we make sense of life by focusing on humans only.

Today, from global economic and technological systems’ intense interactions with nature, new planetary processes emerge. They display volatile, unstable, complex, and uncontrollable dynamics; they appear as ecological and social disruptions that could not be predicted from the planet‘s previous state while using a mechanistic worldview. The Anthropocene signals the evolution of life towards the next level of complexity, and it takes a relations-based paradigm and an advanced methodological framework for science to understand its emergent features. To realign

science with society’s needs and values, the European Commission launched Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), which may leverage a new paradigm. However, not all RRI uses a systemic lens or restores peace with Earth since scientific practices and institutions are formatted within the old, separatist model; to see with a new lens, researchers must first unlearn what they took for granted and learn to embrace a new framework.

STEAM

How to make this paradigm shift happen in time, i.e., before we reach a point of no return? Let us be pragmatic. Many societal actors recognize that to face current complex issues, STEM-research (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) needs additional skills, knowledge, and capacities (summarized as STEAM); this can create momentum. However, what does the A stand for? Before the pandemic, it was understood as Arts and Humanities, add-on specialisms that can highlight the societal benefits of (implementing) science and technology. Covid-19 reveals that A stands for Anthropocene, understood as humankind’s responsibi-lity for all life on Earth. Life is a self-propelling process of increasing interdependency and complexity, which cannot be understood by separate disciplines using a single lens. Therefore, A stands for All forms of knowledge that allow humans to make sense of life. It also stands for Adaptation, for

If a critical mass of researchers embraces this paradigm, they can appeal to policy makers and funding agencies to support it.

learning to ‘land on Earth’ and act as guardians of abundant ecological processes — which do not function like clockwork but evolve in uncontrollable ways.

What we are dealing with today are not temporary crises that technology can solve by itself, but signs that the world is now a different place, robbed of its stabilizing buffers. Therefore, research can no longer make relevant progress in ivory towers where parameters are kept stable. It needs real-life labs to gather knowledge from as many sources as possible for mapping the new landscape’s features. Science can learn from pioneers, from sites of resilience, natural intelligence, and indigenous wisdom to gather insights into creating the conditions for us to adapt. Specialists can elucidate more technical and institutional (legal, financial) lock-ins and leverages for change. As life’s evolution is unpredictable, we must accept that our best strategy is to make careful judgments on how to move forward while showing restraint in our dealings with nature. STEAM-education, therefore, must address the learners’ heads (to understand the world as a complex system), as well as their hearts (to foster modesty and empathy with all of life), hands (empowering them to co- create a better future) and hopes (grieving for a lost world and embracing the emergence of an abundant, regenerative society, safer and healthier than today). Where to learn this?

More and more academics, students, and other (public and private) actors start exploring pathways towards a ‘new

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normal’. Students launched the ‘Rethinking Economics’ initia tive in response to the 2008 financial crisis; it now has active groups worldwide, including in several Belgian higher education (HE) institutions. Platforms such as the Copernicus Alliance support the uptake of education for sustainable development. Initiatives such as Ecoversities and Complexity University bring together worldwide networks of learners and communities reclaiming diverse knowledges, relationships, and imaginations to design new approaches to higher education. International networks promoting post-colonialism, complexity-based ‘schools of thinking’, or global governance for sustainable development attract young researchers who want to look beyond the disciplinary boundaries. European projects and partnerships develop frameworks to foster STEAM-education, Responsible R&I, or transdisciplinary research. Various Flemish HE-institutions have established living labs, honours programmes, or service- learning projects where students colla borate with societal actors on real,

place-based challenges. These initiatives show the resilience is there; however, they remain small niches in an academic system that is still mostly tributary to the separatist, Holocene paradigm. In terms of funding, career deve-lopment, and university ran-kings, the established system is slow to adapt. However, if a critical mass of researchers embraces this paradigm, they can appeal to policy makers and funding agencies to support it. The Jonge Academie can be a catalyst to foster its uptake and launch communities of practice where early career researchers share ideas and lessons learned. Online platforms can make this go viral. No curriculum reform battles are needed.

The Midwife

Our life is deeply intertwined with that of viruses, soils, oceans, and forests, and our chances of survival depend on accepting this undeniable fact of life. Whether or not one accepts to be vaccinated against Covid-19 not only concerns our individual health but affects the well-being of the entire community, both physically and mentally. Therefore, this pandemic urges citizens to relinquish the individualistic mindset and question the personal

freedom they thought was normal. Maybe the archetype that most accurately portrays Covid-19 is that of the Midwife assisting in the birth of a new paradigm. She helps us leave the cramped space of separatism and individualism and delivers us to an interconnected world. She urges us to take courage-ous steps, accept the loss of a familiar worldview, and open our minds and hearts to a vision of life in peace with nature. She welcomes us to the growing community of people explo ring relational and regenerative models. Full steam ahead, wiser thanks to a pandemic.

This pandemic urges citizens to relinquish the individualistic mindset and question the personal freedom they thought was normal.

ANNE SNICK is an inde-pen dent researcher. She obtained a PhD in Philosophy in Education at KU Leuven. After years of academic research, she engaged in fieldwork in the domains of gender, poverty, and the social economy, focusing on systemic drivers of exploitation and regenerative alternatives. She wrote several peer-reviewed publications, serves the community through public speaking and workshops, and is engaged in organizations promoting social justice and sustainability. Her current projects focus on sustainable Higher Education and Responsible R&I. She is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science, and a Board member of the Club of Rome-EU.

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Tori Langill Memento Mori

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Besides conducting research in microbiology, you also make drawings. What is the link between these interests?

Drawing and writing have always been a fun way for me to relax while being creative at the same time. Connecting it to my work, it stems from way back when I was still in high school and many of our projects included explaining science in a creative way. I always made comics or stories. I remember one comic in particular about the DNA replication cycle that I made, and also one about weather. That aspect of storytelling has always stayed with me, and so I love to continue to draw and use creative storytelling methods. Recently, for the Day of Science, I created a ma gical choose-your-own-adventure story with pictures that explain what my research group does.

The first part is dark and gloomy and reflects the fear and guilt many of us experienced during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The last panel of the first part takes a dark turn by stating that people died anyway. Can you elaborate on the meaning of this last panel?

The title of my work is Memento Mori, which is Latin for “Remember that you [must] die”. This phrase also has a mirror meaning, because it reminds us that we must live! We cannot con-trol everything that happens in our lives and we cannot control how we will die. The Covid-19 measures play a role in preserving life, but some of them pay no heed to the quality of this life. That is the true meaning behind the comic. Our lives

must continue to have quality, and the things that give them quality are non-negotiable. Connection with other people is crucial for the quality of life because humans are social creatures.

We cannot let fear run our lives. Everything has a risk factor and the person most suited to know what is best for you is most likely you.

In the first part we see black and white drawings, with red accents. In the second panel, a warm yellow is added. What do these colours represent to you in terms of the pandemic?

The colours represent the effect on the mood each meas-ure has. On the first page, the grey and black represent fear, panic, depression, while the red which carries over throughout the entire story represents life. In the final panel you can see life being swept away, by the grim reaper. On the second page, the warm tones of yellow repre-sent hope and happiness, while red once again represents life. Overall, it is a symbolic way of saying the choices we make and the paths we choose to follow play a role in how situations make us feel. Are we making choices that will give us hope?

Interview with Tori Langill on her Memento Mori comic

TORI LANGILL is a Canadian, who has been living in Belgium for five years. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in microbiology and molecular biology, a Master’s in biomedical science, and is currently working on her PhD at Hasselt University. Her research focuses on bacteria from seeds, and how we can potentially use bacteria to treat crops and make them grow better when situations are less than optimal (i.e., in cases of drought, pollution, poor nutrients, and so on). Her passion lies in scientific communi-cation through creative means.

A Pandemic in Colour

JORIS VANDENDRIESSCHE AND LYNDA GRINE

16

Your text strongly suggests that you were sent into the lion’s den. Did you see that as an opportunity or were you both also fearful of what awaited you?michiel: It’s not like we were alone in this: this situation was also completely new to our supervisors, the consultants. They may have had more experience, but in this case, they too were insecure. This contributed to a special group feeling. For example, cardiologists would come and help out the pneumologists on

Reflections of Young Residents Fighting Covid-19

the Covid-19 ward. This extra multidisciplinary team effort did bring the entire hospital closer together.

faro: Many of them would be on the Covid-19 ward only occasionally. We were there full-time and so we became the ‘hands-on’ experts. We received input from everyone who had learned something about Covid-19, which was very instructive, and on top of that everyone shared their specific knowledge with us. It was

nice to think about a patient together with many other doctors. It led to know ledge integration.

michiel: During the first wave, the regular daily rush in the clinic was gone: many consul-tations and imaging procedures completely stopped, leaving more time to consult with each other. In addition, we were able to provide extra input based on our own experience with other patients. Our supervisors were very open to that input.

As junior residents in internal medicine, with only six months of clinical practice, Michiel Beyens and Faro Verelst witnessed the outbreak of the pandemic from the frontline. In no time they were recruited at the Covid-19 wards. A new chapter in their medical training began. They were constantly balancing providing good medical care and trying to effectively protect themselves against the virus. Nothing during their medical training had prepared them for an outbreak of such proportions. Michiel, Faro and their colleagues wrote a moving testimony about their experience, which they submitted in response to the Young Academy's contest.1 As they describe, feelings of uncertainty very much prevailed in this first stage of the pandemic. In December 2020, during the second wave, Maja invited them to look back on their experience.

ROSE BRUFFAERTS AND LIES LAHOUSSE

17

Drs. Faro Verelst (L) and Michiel Beyens (R)

michiel: Definitely. I was mostly afraid of contaminating my parents, so we maintained a very strict distance. Even now we don’t see each other often. It’s hard, as I miss them. But I wouldn’t forgive myself if I infected my own mother.

faro: This was especially so du ring the first wave. When I came home, the first thing I always did was take a shower. I am more relaxed about it now, but naturally you wish to prevent infecting a family member at all cost. One has a responsibility to one’s patients, but also to one’s family. Care workers are punish ed somewhat extra because they can meet fewer people than others. It is a mixed feeling.

Did it change you as doctors?michiel: I have seen many people die, especially older people, over a brief period of time. It makes you think more about how to give the best palliative care. You start to realize how fast things can happen. Even with old people who were quite fit before, are very vulnerable to the virus.

faro: One thing we learned is that informing the family is extremely important. The worst part is accepting the strict rule that they cannot visit the patient. I understand the need for this rule, but family members are worried. And when the patient dies, it can be very difficult for them to accept this because they haven’t seen their loved one anymore. Normally, in a dying process, people notice the condition of their loved one deteriorating

And was this solidarity something that remained?faro: By now, everyone is focusing more on their own discipline again. Regular healthcare has started up again, which of course is very positive! Now, during the second wave, the residents, the consultants-in- training, are on duty more often. We no

longer have the assistance of the medical specialists from other disciplines and this extra work now becomes our burden. Sadly, the group spirit from the first wave has dis appeared somewhat.

michiel: In the hospital where I am currently working, a crea tive solution was found by calling upon the surgery residents, in addition to the internal me di cine residents. Under normal circumstances there is not much contact among us. They took some of the workload from us, which was very positive and nice.

Care workers may be apprehensive about the possibility of transmitting the virus to their family members. Was that a concern for you?

michiel

I have seen many people die, especially older people, over a brief period of time. It makes you think more about how to give the best palliative care.

18

and that makes it easier to accept than when it all takes place suddenly and behind closed doors.

Should that be an item in your training? Should there be more attention to palliative care and communicating with family?michiel: It certainly merits more emphasis. For example, we had to ask people of 92 who arrived in the emergency room in an unstable condition whether they had already discussed issues of their life’s end with their family doctor. Having that conversation at that moment is not a matter of course.

While lacking obvious therapeutic treatments, you attempt to provide the best possible care. Still, you are confronted with obvious limits that perhaps do not occur in other pathologies. Did this pandemic influence your job satisfaction?faro: Working on the Covid-19 ward and wearing that suit creates a physical distance to your patients. Under normal circumstances, patients will recognize you in the corridors,

they know who you are and what you did for them. Not this time. I treated one seriously ill patient for four weeks who in the end pulled through. But when this patient later came in for a regular consult, he didn’t recognize me. I find this regrettable: the inte resting thing about my work is to be close to people. That closeness is no longer there, if only because of that suit.

You may survive these moments of crisis purely on adrenaline, but have you been able to find any time to relax mentally in the past year?faro: Very little. On the Covid-19 ward no one dared to take leave, as there was always the possibi lity that the ward would overflow in the week to come. This short period around the holidays was also busy, and now the second wave is back in full force.

michiel: When the peak was over, we could let off some steam. Just before the second wave, I had booked a one-week holiday, but then one of my colleagues fell ill. I did feel guilty about ta king a holiday, but other people said: “You’d better go now, as you may not get a second chance.”

faro: That was the scary thing about the first wave. When you’re young you sometimes feel invincible. You don’t really believe you can become seriously ill. But then we saw colleagues who did really become ill. We started this pandemic feeling invincible, but gradually we realized that the picture wasn’t all rosy for young people either.

How do you deal with images in the media and social media or with events in society where people do not follow the rules?

On the Covid-19 ward no one dared to take leave, as there was always the possibility that the ward would overflow in the week to come.

faro

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faro: In July, after a difficult period of hard work, I saw many friends posting on social media about travelling, even to regions that had ‘code red’. I tried to tell them that we still had to be careful. As care workers we are supposed to be very responsible. That’s a good thing, but if you then see people not taking any responsibility, I can help but feel disappointed.

michiel: As long as people agree that they should limit their contacts with others and stay home when they feel ill, it’s fine with me. But on the Covid-19 ward I’ve also had patients who hadn’t taken these precautions. I don’t mind confronting them:

“By travelling and meeting friends while you were already ill and coughing, you have put your friends and family at risk.” This may give them something of a shock, but I think it’s good for people to reflect on this. The clinical picture of this disease is strange, though. Sometimes you may think it’s not so bad when you see patients making a quick recovery and so I do understand why some people

wonder why our entire society must be put on hold for this. At other times, reality hits… Just the other day we had to put a thirty-year old patient to sleep who will likely wake up with a lung transplant. It can often be so extreme. The media sometimes imply that people are being scared, but I feel that it is sometimes ne ces sary to make them see how serious the situation is. We are right in the middle of it, which is of course different from the remote experience of it that most people probably have.

What is the most important thing to remember from this crisis and keep in mind for the future, according to you?michiel: It used to be that co-workers often still came to work when they had a fever, simply because they were on duty and thought that no one else could take over their shift. Covid-19 has made us more keenly aware that this is really not okay. This may mean that people stay home sooner when they are not feeling well, but I think we should be flexible

We had to ask people of 92 who arrived in the emergency room in an unstable condition whether they had already discussed issues of their life’s end with their family doctor. Having that conversation at that moment is not a matter of course.

MICHIEL BEYENS studied medicine at the University of Antwerp. He started his medical career as a resident in internal medicine in October 2019 and has a specific interest in rheumatology and immunology. At the start of the pandemic, he was working as a first-year resident in the gastro-enterology service in Deurne at the AZ Monica Hospital, together with Faro Verelst.

FARO VERELST studied medicine at the University of Antwerp and is a resident in internal medicine. During the first wave of the pandemic, she worked in the Covid-19 unit in Deurne at the AZ Monica Hospital together with Michiel Beyens. Right now, she is a resident in internal medicine in Antwerp at the ZNA Stuivenberg.

michiel

about that. When you’re feeling ill, you have to stay home in order to protect others.

Do you have any messages for your younger colleagues? What message should Maja definitely bring to young researchers and young residents?faro: All things pass. I wish to hearten everyone. It is important not to give up hope. This is a difficult period, but we are writing history here. This is not a regular experience and it asks a lot of us as care workers and as individuals, but we do learn from it.

michiel: Team spirit accom-plishes more than people think. Fortunately, there are also positive sides to living in this pandemic.

1 Beyens, Michiel; Faro R Verelst, Greta Moorkens and Marcel ThB Twickler. “Trials and tribulations of young residents fighting Covid-19.” Eur J Clin Invest, vol. 50, no. 7 (July 2020), e13336.

Dries Daems

20

Rethinking Connectedness from Past to Future:

An Archaeological Perspective on the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted lives across

the globe and will have lasting effects for years to come. How can we as archaeologists reflect on these changes and inform our understanding of their implications for the future? If we are to understand how to properly address this situation or future ones like it, we need to consider the implications of connected ness on multiple scales, that is, interactions and exchanges between people, groups, societies and states across the globe. Can we use

the past to gain new insights on how to act during and after a pandemic? We have several potential historical points of comparison. The Athenian Plague in 430 BCE, the Black Death in the 14th century CE or the global flu pandemic in the aftermath of World War 1 can be used as comparators. While I will draw attention to one particular historical parallel – the Roman empire – I want to go beyond direct comparisons with the past, but rather focus on using the theories and methods of social-ecological sciences in long-term perspectives to interpret the current situation and provide insights for the future.

The present and future through the lens of the past

In my work, I use the model of adaptive cycles to study long-term patterns of social change on multiple scales (Gunderson

& Holling. 2002. Panarchy).1 The adaptive cycle (Figure 1) describes changes in available capital, connectedness and resilience of a society through four phases: exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization. The first two respectively refer to rapid initial growth and the sustained conservation of the system, whereas the latter two refer to its disruption and (potential) reorganization into a new cycle. The model predicts that, as societies develop, they will become increasingly interconnected, resulting in increased capital availability as well as decreased resilience.

Let us take the example of the Roman empire, which at its height during the second century CE, comprised regions as far apart as Britain and Iran. As the empire grew, evermore regions were incorporated in a densely interconnected social,

The model predicts that, as societies develop, they will become increasingly interconnected

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political and economic network of people, goods and ideas. The empire prospered through this connectivity, ushering in a period of economic growth, social mobility and wealth (at least for parts of the population). However, it also became less resilient to disturbances. At the end of the second century CE, the empire was hit by a pandemic, followed by a second outbreak around the middle of the third century CE. Ancient sources relate how the disease first appeared during the Roman siege of Seleucia, a Parthian city in Mesopotamia in what is now Iraq, and subsequently spread throughout the empire by the Roman armies. Estimations of the casualties vary, but numbers of up to 20% of the population are not uncommon. The effects of the disease were also not limited to the Roman empire. Historian Rafe de Crespigny has suggested that descriptions

of a pandemic ravaging the contemporary Han Empire in China could be related to the same disease.2

We are dealing here with a disease spread across large parts of the (Eurasian) world by the movement of individuals and groups, facilitated by a densely connected network of people, cities and regions. The similarities with circumstances today are clear to see. For past events, we can already trace some of their long-term effects. From the perspective of the adaptive cycle, the Roman empire was at the height of the conservation phase when this shock induced a first shift towards release and reorganization. Typical of the latter is the loss of connectedness between system components. While trade, mobility and interaction did not cease in the Roman empire, connections across the network became far more sparse. The

loss of interregional integration (among others) led to the gradual dissolution of the empire, first in a western and eastern part, and later in its regional components.

Lessons from the past: Connectivity in the present

Connectedness is what makes a society tick. This is true for today as much as for the past. Yet, as in Roman times, the Covid-19 pandemic is caused by over-connectedness on multiple levels. In contrast to the Romans, however, we have a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the disease and can act accordingly.

All viruses work by hi jacking trans mission mechanisms between organisms. As con-necti vity between organisms increases, so does the trans-mission rate. Ergo, more densely packed spaces result in higher infection rates. In this case, however, it is not

Figure 1: Adaptive cycle (Gunderson and Holling 2002, 41).

Conservation

Reorganization

Exploitation

Release

High

Low

High

In today’s technology-obsessed society, we often seek salvation in technological innovation and scientific discoveries.

ResilienceConnectedness

Capi

tal

22

only micro-level biological transmission that is affected, but macro-level social transmission as well. Global connectedness in modern- day society has turned this disease into a worldwide pandemic. Over the last few decades, humans have expanded throughout ever more parts of the world, destroying or usurping existing environmental niches, a process typical of the exploitation phase of the adaptive cycle. One of the hypotheses regarding the origins of the virus states that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted from bats to humans, caused by our co-existence in the same niche, paving the way for the virus to transmit from animal to human. As connected-ness between the human and natural worlds increased – in other words, as the system moved toward a conservation phase – potential dangers grew accordingly.

It is likely that the current pandemic will prove to be a major disturbance event with significant long-term effects. If we want to meet these effects on our own terms, we will need to act proactively to self-induce a reorganization phase of

society and define the course of a new adaptive cycle, built around fundamental solutions for the trade-offs between advantages and downsides of connectedness.

One common policy response has been to break up connections so that the virus is given no chance to be transmitted. Individuals self-isolate, societies go in lockdown, and countries close their borders. But is this a

viable long-term solution? As lockdowns are dragging on, psychologists and other mental health practitio ners are increasingly sounding the alarm for our wellbeing. In today’s technology-obsessed society, we often seek salvation in technological innovation and scientific discoveries. Contact-tracing apps have already proven useful in tracking the spread of the disease among individuals, albeit in some countries more effectively than others. The rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines seems to justify our trust in science as supreme saviour. As an academic, you will not hear me object. I will add, however, that the time has come to fundamentally rethink our societal structures and ways of interaction in order to move beyond the immediate threat of the current crisis and raise the resilience and sustainability of our society and

Over the last few decades, humans have expanded throughout ever more parts of the world, destroying or usurping existing environmental niches, a process typical of the exploitation phase of the adaptive cycle.

23

environment for years to come. As aptly noted by the historian Arnold Toynbee, it are ideas, not technology, that drive the biggest historical changes.3

One potentially fruitful approach would be to rethink connectedness as a fundamental property of human societies. Rather than dramatic and society-wide ruptures in connectivity implemented today, an informed policy of ‘thinned’ connectedness with selective targeting of connections to regulate the flows of people and goods may come to play an important role. The burgeoning field of network science will be indispensable to provide deeper understanding of network structures and the role of hubs across multiple scales (local, regional, national, international, global) and domains (social,

political, economic, etc.). This scientific knowledge needs to be embedded in proactive and goal- oriented policies. These need to be tailor-made for the task at hand, without discarding previous experiences, for example from the Ebola outbreak in 2014 where the key breakthrough came from medical policies targeting the surrounding areas rather than directly addressing the centre of an outbreak in order to dam further spreading. Again, proper understanding of network structures and targeted interventions are key. Finally, we must think about the connected ness between society and nature. This does not mean that humans will not be allowed to go into nature anymore, but rather that spatial planning policies must be geared towards distinguishing human and natural zones of activity. Such policies include increasing and protecting our natural assets, as well as optimizing land use related to human habitation and food production.

These are only some examples of policies with the potential to radically change connected ness and the ways we interact with the wider world. The ultimate goal of this overhaul is to boost the resilience of our society in drastic, yet sustainable ways, both for ourselves and the environment. This will be a massive undertaking, requiring active engagement and collaboration between academics from various disciplines, as well as practitioners, politicians and the general public. Do we know for certain where we

DRIES DAEMS obtained his PhD at KU Leuven. He is Assistant Professor in Digital Archaeology at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, academic staff member with the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project and interim lecturer at KU Leuven.

3 Toynbee, Arnold J. A Study of History: Volume I: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI. Oxford University Press, 1988.

The time has come to fundamentally rethink our societal structures and ways of interaction.

The ultimate goal of this overhaul is to boost the resilience of our society in drastic, yet sustainable ways, both for ourselves and the environment.

are going next? Probably not. However, the importance of understanding the dynamics of complex networks and social-ecological systems employing long-term perspectives cannot be overstated if we are to adequately sketch potential scenario’s and develop policies to deal with this new reality. One thing is certain, if we are to find the proper ways to steer society towards a sustainable future, scholars able to contextualise the present through our past will need to sit at the table. Luckily, us archaeologists are eagerly awaiting to be invited to the conversation.

1 Gunderson, Lance H., and C. S. Holling. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems. Island Press, 2002.

2 Crespigny, Rafe de. A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD), Brill, 2006.

Global Challenges and Local Conditions

24

Urban environments are under constant transformation, responding to timely socio-economic challenges. Likewise,

Flanders’ dispersed urbanization and its supporting infrastructure is currently facing a number of complex urban questions. Here, a business-as-usual scenario fails to meet the needs of a growing population in a sustainable way, resulting in numerous unwanted effects such as traffic congestion, flooding, impending electricity shortages and ecological decrease. These crises, directly or indirectly linked to supportive infrastructural networks, have the potential to give rise to a new urban form: think of the Great Stink, a hygienic crisis in nineteenth-century London, urging the construction of a large-scale sewerage network underground, which also created a new system of public spaces above ground. Considering crises as leverage to reimagine urban environments, a global challenge such as a pandemic offers the opportunity to imagine long-term local change. In the particular case of Flanders, the current crisis uncovers the potential of existing spatial networks to shape a sustainable constellation of dispersed urbanization.

Spatial networks can be considered the ‘lifelines’ or carriers of urbanity, as they support the way societal processes such as living and working are organized and vice versa. One can distinguish different types of infrastructural networks in the Flemish dispersed urbanization: territorial (rivers and creeks), mobilizing (canals, roads, and railways) and servicing (energy distribution, food production, sewage). It is clear that the carrying capacity of each of these networks is currently being exceeded and a tipping point has been reached. Infrastructural networks are either lacking (such as the envisaged construction of

sewage), in constant need of renewal (such as rapidly obsolete road infrastructure) or simply given up (such as demolishing power plants). This presents the choice of either limiting the exploited capacity of the existing networks and opt for a more selective infill of the territory or, more fundamentally, of rethinking the existing networks and thus also the reciprocal relations between urbanization (human) and the territory (land) in a resilient way.

By starting from the inherent qualities of dispersed urbanization, one can start to imagine a number of exemplary, nodal interventions that are capable of addressing urban questions in a multiscalar way (addressing global challenges in local conditions) and/or interdisciplinary way (linking different types of networks). They are part of the collective layer of infrastructure, as an entry to rethink the reciprocal relations between human and land and thus inducing long-lasting effects of incidental crises. The aim of this exercise is not to introduce full-fledged solutions, but rather to provide a critical design reflection acknowledging the inherent potential of dispersion and exploring the possibilities to shape a more resilient and sustainable future constellation of the dispersed city.

SOPHIE LEEMANS (1996) obtained a Master’s in Architecture at KU Leuven Sint-Lucas Brussels campus where she graduated summa cum laude and was laureate of the Master’s programme. Her thesis ‘Adaptive Architecture and Flood Permitting Cities’ emphasized the positive impact of water infrastructure on daily life and received several awards. After gaining practical experience in the Berlin-based architecture and urban planning office TSPA, she is now a full-time PhD researcher at the Department of Architecture of KU Leuven. Her research is part of the All City/All Land Research Cell and focuses on the design potential of infrastructural networks to shape a more qualitative and sustainable dispersed urbanization in the Eurometropolis region (Kortrijk – Tournai – Lille).

Sophie Leemans

A Designerly Exercise to Uncover the Potential of Spatial Networks in the Dispersed City

25

... through making use of the inherent de centralised productive potential of relatively large gardens adjacent to dwellings to enhance food security and sustainability

foster local, self-sustaining

(food) production cycles

complement lacking

sewage network

... with small-scale water cleaning facilities such as reed beds to prevent pollution of the natural brook system and enhance independence from centralised service networks

... as a base for micro-natural reserves shielded from future human intervention to enhance both biodiversity and flood resilience

restore natural floodplains

26

... through permeable roadway as part of a regenerative strategy to (re)connect and restore soft tissue by making connections on a local scale

... as visible infrastructure raising awareness of its impact and topping up infrastructure with collective added value instead of a mere supportive, technical intervention

... to absorb evolving societal conditions and at the same time meet incidental spatial requirements in times of systemic shock and fulfil the adequate, needed function

enable flexible infill of existing

road infrastructure

minimise cutting impact of

mobility networks

articulate local energy

exchange networks

27

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To Punish or to Assist

Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, societies face the

formidable challenge of developing sustainable forms of sociability-cum-social- distancing—maintaining social life while containing the virus and preventing new outbreaks. As has become clear in these past few months, governments are adopting a wide array of potentially effective confinement measures, often walking a tightrope between assistance (solidarity-based; e.g., infor mation and sensitization campaigns) and retributive measures (punishment-based; e.g., penalty fees for citizens who disobey the regulations).

Yet, the uncontrolled spreading of the disease has divided public opinion as to which measures are best suited. We were inte rested in what type of confinement measure people preferred, and whether people reacted differently when fellow nationals or foreigners disobeyed the coronavirus guidelines.

Together with Dr Emanuele Politi (KULeuven), Prof Dr Karen Phalet (KULeuven) and Dr Pieter Van Dessel (UGent), I conducted an online experi-ment.1 We invited 377 British citizens to read a scenario about a target group’s behaviour. Each respondent read one of four possible scenarios:

1 - fellow nationals (Britons) conforming to the British governmental corona-virus guidelines;

2 - fellow nationals (Britons) deviating from the British govern mental corona-virus guidelines;

3 - foreigners (Italians) conforming to the Italian governmental corona-virus guidelines, and

4 - foreigners (Italians) deviating from the Italian governmental coronavirus guidelines.

How do we React to Fellow Nationals or Foreigners Disobeying Social Distancing

Jasper Van Assche

29

To Punish or to Assist

Participants were then asked to report their feelings towards the target national group (i.e., ‘good’ or ‘bad’ Britons or Italians), and also indicate their support for assistance measures (aimed at informing and educating the target group) and/or retributive measures (aimed at punishing the target group).

measures, indicating that people might blame foreigners for spreading the virus rather than fellow nationals who neglect hygiene standards and social distancing.

These findings have important implications for how different national groups are evaluated during this pandemic. Italy was the first European country where Covid-19 hit hard, and was readily accused of spreading the virus around Europe. People also tend to present their own group in a better light than other groups. Hence, news about other Italians breaking ‘corona measures’ elicited very strong negative emotions among Britons. Furthermore, such emotions further translated into a stronger endorsement of punishment-based governmental decisions to contain the virus.

The consequences of such attitudes towards foreigners should not be underestimated. As the Head of the United Nations, António Guterres, stated, the Covid-19 outbreak is unleashing “a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering”. Seven hundred years ago, there was an increase in anti-Jew hatred during the plague of the Black Death. Nowadays, during the Covid-19 pandemic, scholars have noticed a rise in prejudice towards Asians (in other studies), and towards (disobeying) Italians (in our study). We hypothesize that when governments blame foreign groups, they might opt for harsher confinement measures against incoming foreigners as well as against

their own citizens. These citizens might perceive such decisions as more legitimate, and potentially become more hostile towards foreigners.

Such a negative spiral readily exacerbates tensions among groups in a society. It is therefore of the utmost importance to avoid thinking in terms of the ‘us- versus-them’ divide. Our research team therefore advocates policy makers to create a sense of inclusive togetherness and promote collective resilience and international solidarity. As an optimistic endnote, it seems that people endorse such solidarity- based measures to a greater extent than retributive measures, even for deviant foreigners. The ‘new normal’ way of living can be constructive, and sensitization campaigns can inform citizens on how to maintain social life while simultaneously containing the spread of the coronavirus. Time will tell whether or not such methods will be effective to fight future pandemics.

JASPER VAN ASSCHE is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology at Ghent University, and a lecturer at the Centre for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven. His main research interests are intergroup relations (e.g., ethnic diversity and intergroup contact), individual differences (e.g., ideology and prejudice), and political attitudes (e.g., cynicism, populism, and far-right party support).

In general, retributive measures were supported less than assistance measures, because such policies go against core democratic values (e.g., personal freedom). However, respondents who read news reports about norm-deviating groups reported more negative emotions (e.g., anger, condemnation, disgust), which led to more support for retributive measures and less for assistance support. Interestingly, respondents who read about norm-violating foreigners showed the highest support for retributive

Seven hundred years ago, there was an increase in anti-Jew hatred during the plague of the Black Death. Nowadays, during the Covid-19 pandemic, scholars have noticed a rise in prejudice towards Asians (in other studies), and towards (disobeying) Italians (in our study).

1 Van Assche, Jasper; Politi, Emanuele; Van Dessel, Pieter; Phalet, Karen. “To Punish or to Assist? Divergent Reactions to In-Group and Out-Group Members Disobeying Social Distancing.” British Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 59, no. 3, 2020, pp. 594-606.

a summer night

somewhere on the new silk road

beneath a shiny silver moon / in a container city

that was / more or less the size of Calais / before the crash

whispers of young voices and a fluttering of sneakers on grit

faster damnit / catch up / keep close to the pounding heartbeat

with some quick slits of the pliers / and gone through

the fence in an instant / out of the floodlights into

the dim / corridors of metal boxes

to hidden cargo

Somewhere on the Silk Road

Covid-19 is a crisis beyond doubt - which means mechanisms of shock doctrine - as described by Klein - are acting upon the worlds as we - read into thiswhat you want and dream about - without dogmaof positive outcomes and non-violent faith keeping.Which geo - ideology is doubling - down right now theminds - media and more are filled - to the brim with singlefocus - making movement more - easy for certain powers?

the next morning / in a Confucianly designed office space / there is a manager

with questions / why didn’t the system notify us / immediately / now the birds have

scattered / no alarm / and this system is supposed to be state of the art / full recognition

get Megvii on the line / those ching chongs / better have an explanation / we all could hang

M V d B

M V d B1 is a contemporary artist working and living in Brussels. He’s a jack of all trades: active as a poet, researcher, theatre maker, and curator. For this piece he was inspired by the destruction of the Hong Kong democracy and the signing of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. 1 maartenvandenbussche.be

30

[beep / beep / beep / miaow / miaow / miaow]

SAN ZI MAO PA DAO SHUNSHU ZU SAN / a young Asian man in a hoody and blazer appears on the screen / I am so sorry sir security

expert san my Chinese is / interrupted / learn the language loser / MAO MAO MAO he counts the words on his fingers / three cats

that’s the verdict / most likely lured by the aerosols released by yesterday’s shipment of salmon / once hailed by Norwegians as pink

gold / European fish transformed into a staple of traditional sushi cuisine / all thanks to a clever marketing campaign / now just

another market / dominated by those yellow squinty-eyed fuckers / what is it

gin sputters the manager / gents people persons /

that’s it / they cut a hole / breached a container / ripped open fillets and whole fish / meat everywhere / going off in the sun / rotting

we have proof / a picture / made with the mass-produced smartphone of a nameless and flexible intern / the cheapest model / cats

don’t act like that / qing kautau could we xiexie / the camera footage before annotation and recognition / with due respect / xiexie

again / I know it’s abnormal / the manager stammers

oh you are in trouble / white boy / the chink grins and bleeps out / the footage

three bodies in nothing but sneakers running fast / zoom in all over their naked skin / a pattern of black lines and strange polygons

flashing in the moonlight / algorithmic camouflage / heard some rumours about it / but never / the screen goes black / the manager

looks at the intern / the intern looks back / you are the one who discovered this / he says clinging to his desk / I am sorry sir sorry is

never enough

one has a job at the delta works / the walls that keep the water at bay / requiring continuous maintenance

they work in shifts / so now this one is snoring in bed in a single-room flat / between concrete walls and low

ceilings / we’re on the eleventh floor and there is puke on the elevator floor / in the corner / lives old Kathrine

who bought the flat in full when her husband died / in the outbreak / windows on the corners / great harbour

view / their old house felt too big / so she sold it / can you believe it / a house with a garden all around / next

door along the dimly lit corridor / the crazy cat couple they’ve got nine of them and no life / working double

jobs to cover rent / litter and cat food / organic / they are young / twenty-somethings / probably vegetarians

then I prefer old Kev / my left-door neighbour / used to be a big shot academic / head full of crazy theories

never a dull moment / always an extra beer on hand I do his shopping / healthy stuff too / not just alcohol

all the stuff actually / hasn’t left his room since normal became new / still I shouldn’t complain / got a place

of my own / not like those poor souls / on lower floors sharing what space they have left / with five six seven

eight / or even more / causing trouble / understandably speak of the devil / with the buzz of drones / sirens in

the air / flickering with blue dots / here we go again / you look deep into the window / see the police pulling up

like tiny black ants / all the way down / but they don’t enter the tower / not this time / not now / as if like a miracle

31

Covid-19 and Globalization

If there is one thing the corona crisis has taught us Europeans, it is that national governments on our continent have proven their inherent ineffectiveness in dealing with the (coming) global crises of the twenty-first century. The rapid spread of the virus from China over the world and from Northern Italy through Europe has shown the negative side effects of globalization, notwithstanding its predominantly positive results over the past few centuries. In recent times, however, the radical wings on both sides of the political spectrum have managed to introduce a strong anti-globalization discourse into the public debate. Both the radical left and right seem to seize every opportunity to dismiss globalization as an ‘ideology’ propagated by and merely serving the interests of the ‘elites’. In the wake of the health and subsequent economic crisis, this critical

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Creating a Europe of Regions

discourse has, at least in part, been adopted by regular media and the political mainstream.

And yet we must recognize that in reality globalization is not a transitory phenomenon. Rather than an elitist hobby horse, it is a historically rooted process, tied biologically to basic human curiosity. As science journalist Charles C. Mann has shown in his work 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, we can trace the historical roots of globalization back to the discovery of the Americas by Columbus. 1492 can accordingly be dubbed the ‘Year 0’ of globalization, giving rise to an unprecedented exchange of products, people, and ideas. This global revolution obviously generated some highly questionable practices and events such as large-scale slave trade and—of particular relevance to our present time—the spread of diseases. Nevertheless, these black pages did not simply originate in globalization itself. Although their effects were aggravated by it, globalization’s role as a positive ‘force multi plier’ was infinitely stronger. Globalization processes have formed and continue to form the basis for the free dissemination of new ideas and innovations, a steady improvement of the global population’s health, and an unprecedented increase in prosperity. These trends have accelerated exponentially in the previous decades, with hundreds of millions of Asian citizens being lifted out of poverty in the past thirty years alone.

Cyril de Beun

32

In this essay, Cyril de Beun develops the thesis that further European integration can best be attained by replacing our current nation states with separate regions and city states, all united under a European flag.

The Ineffective Crisis Management of European Nations

Even if it were at all possible to halt or even reverse globalization, which is a highly unlikely possibility, there is no reason to assume that deglobalization would yield any positive effects. The corona crisis is a case in point. In its beginning stages, national governments—not just those in Europe—were hesitant in dealing with the rapidly ‘globalizing’ virus. While the munici pal authorities in Wuhan, the epicentre of the crisis, were already well aware that the situation was running out of control, the threat of being accused of fearmongering by the central government in Beijing prevented their timely response. In Europe, too, national governments proved unable to respond with coherent and effective measures. And when they finally swung into action, they did so without properly consulting one another. This belated sense of urgency resulted in a plethora of nationalist reflexes that in hindsight come across as puerile, were it not for their painful consequences: even the tiniest of countries closed their borders, basing their decision on haughty criticisms of their neighbours’ coronavirus policies (conveniently ignoring the fact that there was no perfect approach for solving the impending crisis, once the containment of the virus had failed). A low point was arguably reached when news media started publishing rankings of contaminations and deaths by country. All the while, European citizens were suffering at the hands of haphazard policies conducted by their national (!) governments.

A similar hotchpotch of improvisations could be witnessed during the economic slump caused indirectly by the medical crisis. Governments moved quickly to give financial support to businesses, cultural organizations, and other national sectors. But a well-directed and long-term European plan was conspicuously absent from the start. An economic relief package called Next Generation EU could only be agreed upon after fierce resistance from various member states had been overcome. The principal objection of these obstructive voices boiled down to concerns about a loss of sovereignty, not about the effectiveness of the plans themselves. While

many countries showed reluctance to transfer power to the European Union, they were at the same time not too keen to delegate responsibility to the local level either. The entire situation exuded an embarrassing lack of coordination among member states.

What does this say about the legitimacy of nation states on our continent? Clearly, the diminishing effectiveness of national governments in Europe is delegitimizing the overwhelming power granted to those governments through their electoral systems. In other words, the dismal performance of nationally oriented policymaking no longer justifies the electoral mandate backing it, for in order to gain and maintain legitimacy a government’s effectiveness must match, and preferably even exceed, the power granted to it by its citizens. In Europe, this is clearly not the case.

Beyond a Europe of Nations: Integration and Regionalization

I would like to propose two solutions in tandem. The first one includes a political scale-up, which will accelerate the process of European integration. The ultimate aim would be to create a European state that is able to act with confidence on the world stage. The second

33

solution would involve a concurrent delegation of powers to the local level of cities and regions.

But how can we achieve these aims with the inefficient national structures existing on our continent nowadays? As has happened so often in the past, the European Union was blamed for its assumed ineffectiveness during the initial stages of the corona crisis. It is worth noting, however, that the crisis was aggravated precisely because of the national states’ unwillingness to collaborate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was hardly any praise for the EU once it had managed to secure a vaccine portfolio of over 2 billion doses, to be distributed fairly among member states.1 These were, of course, eager to accept this bounty, seeing that they would never have been able to acquire the vaccines so efficiently and at so advantageous a price all by themselves.

After being confronted not only by the ineffectiveness, but also by the navel-gazing of Europe’s nation states, shouldn’t we direct our attention to more refined structures of governing on, say, a micro level? Structures that may very well enhance European integration and, on top of that, may function more smoothly within the context of a European state? Strikingly, for all the hesitant reactions of those at the helm of the member states, one level of governance performed quite well given the gravity of the situation: that of the cities and regions. Even though the virus has been transmitted on a global scale, the hot spots were concentrated in certain regions and metropolitan areas. Despite dealing with some disadvantages, most notably high infection rates in more densely populated areas such as cities, local governments generally proved to be more decisive in tackling

the crisis, accustomed as they were to micro-management. In addition, contrary to their national govern ments, these authorities put the ideal of European cooperation into practice, precisely at some of the most critical moments during the crisis. The German State of North Rhine-Westphalia, for instance, refused to close its borders with the Benelux countries, realizing that such a random move would be of no help whatsoever in managing local outbreaks of the coronavirus. In doing so, the state government acted counter to Germany’s national policy, which had already led to the closing of its borders with other neighbouring countries. Simultaneously, hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia took in Belgian and Dutch Covid-19 patients to relieve the pressure on the healthcare systems of their neighbours.

Towards a Unified Europe of Regions

So, what lessons can be drawn from the corona crisis as far as the EU is concerned? First and foremost, we need to be aware of the absolute necessity to expand and deepen our collaboration on a European level. This is not a novel insight, yet it should be guided by a clear strategy, which is where problems generally occur. The majority of the Next Generation EU recovery funds, for instance, are meant to be allocated to the member states themselves, which will then further distribute them among their various crisis-ridden sectors. Thus, the principal issue is left unresolved: how can we protect and strengthen European workers, European industries, the European cultural sector in a more direct way? Paradoxical though it may seem, the path towards a unified and more decisive Europe can best be carved out at the

Globalization processes have formed and continue to form the basis for the free dissemination of new ideas and innovations, a steady improvement of the global population’s health, and an unprecedented increase in prosperity.

34

micro level of governance. We should realize that any future form of pan-European collaboration can only be successful if it is implemented on the level of individual regions and metropolitan areas. The advantages of such a system are evidently of a practical nature: we would be joining forces on our continent by leveraging the positive aspects of globalization, thus creating a synergetic effect; yet at the same time, individual regions and cities would be able to fine-tune policies in a manner that better suits their own wants and needs. National governments are less attuned to this type of refined decision-making: they are trapped in the vacuum between effective and efficient pan-European governance on the one hand and the hands-on, direct leadership of regions and cities on the other.

This combination of the macro and micro level may well turn out to be the winning formula of the twenty-first century, an era that has the potential to develop into the ‘century of the region’ as much as it will be the ‘century of the city’.2 This winning formula will enable Europe to successfully compete in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, to locally implement the European Green Deal initiatives, and to foster the distribution and integration of migrants, to name but a few examples. Crucially, it will increase public support for a unified Europe. In the past, there have been too many instances

1 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_2467, 21 December 2020 (retrieved 6 January 2021).

2 For the latter, see Benjamin Barber’s book If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. Yale University Press, 2013.

The EU’s motto is In varietate concordia, United in diversity. Let us finally live up to this ideal: by fulfilling the dream of European unity, by aiming for genuine regional diversity; in short, by standing at the cradle of a ‘Europe of Regions’.

of national governments playing the European peoples off against one another. Now is the time to dismantle these outdated structures and replace them with smaller-scale alternatives better representing what we actually are: regionally rooted, thinking as Europeans.

The EU’s motto is In varietate concordia, United in diversity. Let us finally live up to this ideal: by fulfilling the dream of European unity, by aiming for genuine regional diversity; in short, by standing at the cradle of a ‘Europe of Regions’. When the time comes, I will be more than happy to get rid of my national passport in favour of a European one. How about you?

35

CYRIL DE BEUN works as a postdoctoral researcher in Modern German Literature and Literary Theory at KU Leuven. He took a PhD in Literature with a dissertation on the public speeches of German modernist writers, 1880-1938. His current research deals with changes in communication around 1800 (most notably the transition from rhetorical to interdiscursive language) and their impact on German literature between 1815 and the March Revolution of 1848. De Beun has a profound interest in geopolitical issues, and he is an ardent proponent of pan-European unity.

What guides the expert? Often the only guidance experts receive is to “speak truthfully”.1 Existing codes of conduct give scientists ethical guidance on publishing, supervising, or reviewing—but none of the major codes even mention the activity of giving expert advice to the public and policy mak-ers.2 Yet, it has become clear that scientists, in giving expert advice, must exercise their own individual judgment beyond merely conveying the scien-tific state of the art. Does one emphasize the uncertainty of scientific findings? Or should one emphasize the potential dangers of the disease? These are difficult decisions, and the Covid-19 crisis has shown that, in times of acute crisis,

the societal need for actiona-ble advice can be so great that scientists cannot avoid mak-ing these decisions. This essay proposes these decisions need to be guided by an ethics of expert communication in the post-pandemic world.

Expert Communication is Never Purely Scientific…

The basic premise of this pro-posal, namely that dispensing scientific expertise involves considerable individual discre-tion, is not necessarily obvious. Consider the standard unit of scientific communication, namely, the scientific paper. In this communication format, the sender (author) can assume considerable background knowledge, and can assume that the receiver (reader) will be able to interpret statements about the relative uncertainty of results. Conclusions are never certain, and are only ever with caution and caveats, whether

Towards an Ethics of Expert Communication

Hugh Desmond

As the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the globe, our daily environments were drastically altered. The dependable rhythms of work, family, and friends were shattered. In this state of uncertainty, we turned towards scientific experts as steady hands. Yet, as we did so, it became apparent how relatively minute alterations to the decisions of scientific experts could have an outsized impact on the lives of citizens.

in terms of limiting assump-tions, confidence intervals, or effect sizes. By contrast, when expert advice is given, the target audience is the public, media, or politicians. The focus is on actionability: the public and politicians want to know what needs to be done. They do not need or want the level of detail and caution one can find in scienti fic communications.

This means that the expert must not only translate the scientific state of the art into terms that non-experts can understand, but must also make decisions about which uncertain dangers and which uncertain opportunities to emphasize. Should one empha-size the potential benefits of mouth-masks, or rather the false sense of security they can bring? Should one advise that rules on the sizes of groups are very strict, or should one allow deviations as long as people fol-low common sense? Should one emphasize the possible dangers of the worst-case scenario—to jolt the public into action—or only of the most-likely scenario, to prevent unnecessary panic? These are not purely scientific decisions, but complex ones that involve weighing the science against multiple social factors as well as ethical values such as respect for autonomy.

HUGH DESMOND is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp and a postdoctoral researcher at the IHPST in Paris (CNRS/Université Paris 1 Sorbonne). He works on a spectrum of issues spanning philosophy of science, moral psychology, social epistemology, and ethics.

36

… and Yet It Can Be Wholly Trustworthy

There is a danger in acknow-ledging the ethical aspect of expert communication. We live in a society where scientists enjoy high levels of public trust—a stark contrast with the trust placed in politicians. To admit that scien-tific experts must employ indivi-dual discretion seems tantamount to admitting scientific experts are biased and political.

However, as a scientific com-munity, we must confront this challenge inherent to scientific expertise head on. Currently there is arguably a greater danger in not acknowledging the dis-cretional side of expert com-munication. The increased role of scientific experts in political decision-making has revived concerns about democracy being undermined by paternalism and technocracy. More worryingly, a sizeable minority of citizens now has sympathy for conspiracy theory and science denial, often among those who feel alienated and left behind by society as a whole.3 This deep distrust of sci-ence involves attri buting various nefarious motives to scientific experts, such as collusion with large corporations for financial gain or population control.4 In this context, claims by scientists or politicians to be “merely fol-lowing the science” are not only not believed, but also interpreted as a cover for immoral action.

This brief essay has the posi-tive message that some of the dynamics of distrust could be pre-empted by shifting the focus from demanding trust of the public (in virtue of scientific expertise) towards demonstra ting trustworthiness. Scientific experts should take the initiative in showing how exactly they have extracted take-home messages from the state of the art, and turning this into actionable advice. This allows non- experts to participate in their reasoning, thus both pre- empting feelings of alienation and strengthening a democratic public discourse.

Towards an Ethics of Expert Communication

This ‘ethics of expert communi-cation’ would be a new dimen-sion of scientific integrity, stipulating what it means to give expert advice in a way that is as professional and integrous as possible. It is well acknow-ledged that research and teach-ing activities should conform to general principles of integrity; now the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated how expertise activities also need guidance by norms of scientific integrity.

This would result in a short code of conduct that could be of practical use to science experts. The code would be the result of collaborative reflection. For instance, it could contain at least the following principles:

1 O’Neill, Onora, A Question of Trust. The BBC Reith Lectures 2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2 Desmond, Hugh. “Expert Communication and the Self-Defeating Codes for Scientific Ethics”. American Journal of Bioethics, 2021. DOI:10.1080/21507740.2020.1830874

3 Larson, Heidi J. Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start -- and Why They Don’t Go Away, Oxford University Press, 2020.

4 Douglas, Karen M., Joseph E. Uscinski, Robbie M. Sutton, Aleksandra Cichocka, Turkay Nefes, Chee Siang Ang, and Farzin Deravi. “Understanding Conspiracy Theories.” Political Psychology vol. 40 (S1), 2019, pp. 3–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12568.

Of course, the roots of distrust undoubtedly lie at least in part in conflicting political and financial interests, and hence one should not hope that even a fully-fledged ethics of expert communication can dispel all distrust in experts. Nonetheless, we should strive to be as irre-proachable as possible in expert communication, and one way would be to demonstrate trust-worthiness. This seems like a small, eminently achievable step towards increasing trust in these polarized times.

Seek to speak appropriately. Public communication and even media appearances should be approached with the same scrupulousness as ethical deliberation. Experts’ words have significant consequences and so must be weighed carefully.

Acknowledge the balance between scientific and public service ideals. In choosing what to communicate, the scien tific expert must weigh the needs of the scientific service ideal and the public service ideal.

Be transparent in your reasoning. In order to minimize the probability that the expert’s message or advice will be experienced as paternalistic by the public, it is important that experts communicate not just the conclusions of their deliberation, but also the most important steps in their reasoning. In this way they show how their communication is justified, even if it turns out in the future that they were wrong.

2

1

3

37

It is june 23, the year 2050. i will earn my emeritus status in about two months. This

morning, a colleague told me that it had taken her three years of cultivating, coaching and intellectual investment, but that her intellectual effort had finally paid off. One of her transdisciplinary student teams had managed to sell an idea to a private business partner for renting out temporary office booths. The team had already pitched their flexi-space concept to three other companies but failed to convince the board members. I congratulated her on this achievement. The news came at the right time. The professor was close to bankruptcy after an economic stakeholder sued one of last year’s student teams: they had developed a robotically driven swing system for children to

temporarily relieve parents from their care duties at home. Yet, the student team had failed to mention in their mission statement that they used upcycled materials. According to the stakeholder, this significantly deteriorated the quality of the product. “How could I have missed it in my team’s report?” the professor sighed. I replied: “Come on! This is the year 2050! Even junk material is ultra-advanced nowadays. Why would it pose any threat to the safety of the children?” Anyway, a new team of students had been assigned to the challenge ‘re-inventing the workspace of the future’ she was coaching. I wished her good fortune in dealing with these legal issues and logged back into my learning environment, where my own student team was discussing how to restore the food production, consumption, and distribution chain in a city nearby.

about twenty years ago, somewhere in january 2030, universities collectively decided to stop paying professors to coordinate bachelor, master, and PhD programmes. This partly explains the financial situation my colleague now finds herself in. This decision was motivated by a small-scale ‘pandemic preparedness’ initiative from a diligent female virologist in the year 2020 (commonly referred to as the Covid-19 pandemic year). The initiative was picked up by university policy makers because they regarded it as a potentially

PORTFOLIO NR. 2 HUMANS AND NATUREChallenge nr. 1 Pandemic PreparednessA Future Perspective on Corporate Transdisciplinary Learning Networks in Academia

Karin Hannes

38

useful model for collaborative student and research work. In less than two months, the virologist had managed to set up a transdisciplinary Covid-19 expert cell to respond to the pandemic challenge and issued a call to all students to commit themselves to developing innovative, scientifically sound solutions, scenarios, and policies for dealing with Covid-19. The collective energy released from her initiatives generated multiple ideas, lines of argument, and practical solutions that caught the attention of the university management board, societal stakeholders, and funders alike.

This example has had a sincere impact on the way tertiary educational environments are now organized. The Covid-19 pandemic that swept across the world in the period 2019-2021 was not only a wake-up call for the virologist, but for all professors. Going back to education as usual no longer seemed a viable option. Many of us were reluctant to move

back to a system in which students would be instructed with suboptimal video productions, writing disposable assignments, and chasing grades rather than engaging with the issues of concerns presented by the lecturers. At best, passing such a course provided access to yet another year of ‘sitting and receiving’ that would only hinder the development of the students’ lateral thinking capacity. The Covid-19 pandemic changed the role of students, too. It activated their personal responsibility, not only by taking control over their own educational trajectory, but also by responding to the needs of fellow citizens: people in poverty, in isolation, in pain or despair. It illustrated that most students were easy to activate if the conditions were favourable for societal action.

Little did the female virologist know that the pilot project in which she brought smart minds together in a pandemic preparedness initiative would slowly steer the whole university in a different direction. It released the collective, intellectual energy and imaginary power needed to provide better answers.

Figure 1: Challenge nr. 2 Inclusive Cities; Discussing how to achieve a zero-waste

rate and work towards inclusivity from an urban food perspective in the online

environment ‘Cantina’.

The professor was close to bankruptcy after an economic stakeholder sued one of last year’s student teams.

39

it is June 23, the year 2050. My involvement in the pandemic preparedness initiative from the female virologist still brings back good memories. I was a mid-career enthusiastic professor back then, who volunteered for a coaching position in the transdisciplinary honours programme to support researchers and students in successfully connecting the dots between expert advice and the various pieces of information found on the world wide web. For the past twenty years, I have relied on specialist input from my co-coaches, all of them former professors who had been stripped of their titles, due to this new mantra in our universities: equal intelligence and the power of collaboration. This will be my last year of involvement as a coach in the universities challenge-based portfolio project. I am not sure how many of these portfolios are currently circulating, or how many transdisciplinary bubbles are still active, but it must be close to 200 given the number of staff members and students involved. And the number of challenges submitted by citizens, societal stakeholders, economic stakeholders, researchers, policy makers, and professionals keeps on growing.

I am one of the steering group members who judge these challenges for suitability and applicability in an academic, educational context. When this is done, coaches can vote challenges into their portfolio, according to personal preferences and expertise available in their team. Groups

of students initially enter a transdisciplinary bubble with different disciplinary interests. The coaches’ job is to further spark these interests and mentor students into developing knowledge and skills based in humanities, science, and technology or biomedical sciences. In working their way through the educational programme, they specialize in certain domains. However, they also join a common transdisciplinary track of education in which we train them in the use of collaborative virtual platforms, system thinking, co-creative research, grand theories and research paradigms, agent-based modelling, participatory research, and co-creation. From this know ledge base, we encourage them to build equitable and resilient societies, develop their Young

Person’s Guide for the Future, develop models for managing

infection diseases in conflict zones, design the future

of dairy farms or develop sustainable and inclusive

cities. The more knowledge the students gain over the years,

the more responsibility they are given in coaching younger

generations of students entering the transdisciplinary bubbles.

my university has become a factory of ideas in response to societal challenges. Students have turned into change makers engaged in immersive learning-by-doing. Over the years, the university stopped giving coaches financial incentives for the work they do in developing elegant, responsible, and sustainable answers for the progress of humanity. The transdisciplinary bubbles’

core objective is still to

40

KARIN HANNES is associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium and coordinates the research group SoMeTHin’K (Social, Methodological and Theoretical Innovation/Kreative). She evaluates, improves, and develops qualitative research methods for use in a multiplicity of different fields, including urban development, health humanities, the public art and design sector, community-based research, and sustainable development. She specializes in arts-based, place-based, and multisensory designs as well as qualitative evidence synthesis as a meta-review technique. Her group works from an inclusive, academic activism perspective and engages in creative research dissemination. She partners the Institute of the Future, KU Leuven.

move an idea from an early stage of incubation to a stage of maturation, while at the same time securing the theoretical and methodological grounding and technical robustness of both procedures used and products, programmes or lines of argument delivered. Financial conditions in universities have been aligned with the level of uncertainty, agility, volatility, and complexity that characterizes most of the challenges included in the portfolios. When my corporate student teams perform well in responding to a challenge, it pays my bills and at the same time, it might buy my students a job. Nowadays, I am compensated for my intellectual input into the process. I can claim approximately ten percent of the earnings made or added value achieved by the organizations, companies, institutes, or collectives that opt in on responses my teams developed. In theory, it might only take one good idea from one promising corporate student team to earn a lifelong living. In practice, I would need a vast number of ideas that have reached a stage of maturation before I would earn my pension. After all, I must share the income with co-coaches contributing to the portfolio of challenges in

Ancient labels such as tenure tracks, doctorates, and master degrees are no more than a ghost from the past.

My job was to create change makers; people who can take stock of our uncertain future.

my transdisciplinary bubble. By now, it should be clear that I owe my success as a coach to a select group of smart, motivated individuals: clever and bright students and streetwise people with creative, innovative ideas. Successful teams include both in-depth and lateral thinkers. So obviously, the coaches compete for the best students to enter their transdisciplinary bubble.

There are times when I catch myself thinking about the days when things were simple. We were professors paid to teach, research, write reports or books and

peer review the work of our colleagues. We chased

research grants and impact factors to boost our scholarly careers. I mean, what were we

thinking back then? That we could really make a difference

this way? For new generations of students, it no longer makes

sense. Ancient labels such as tenure tracks, doctorates, and

master degrees are no more than a ghost from the past. They have

been replaced by a project-driven logic, wherein success is measured in terms of the quality, likeability,

applicability, meaningfulness and popularity of innovative solutions

and lines of argument proposed. As an (almost) emeritus, I look back on

a diverse and interesting career. I encourage my university into

adopting an experimental, open, and playful attitude towards transdisciplinary

forms of education. I have never considered it my

job to deliver ready-made

‘little entrepreneurs’ to society, neither do I consider myself a supporter of the corporate business logic that slowly infiltrated our educational system. My job was to create change makers; people who can take stock of our uncertain future. I have completed this mission.

acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the teams of coaches and students involved in the Transdisciplinary Honours Programme KU Leuven over the past years for their inspiring responses to existing and emerging societal challenges and illuminating moments of discussion for growth. Special thanks to Anne-Mieke Vandamme, Andreas De Block, Karel Van Acker, Griet Ceulemans, Anne Snick, and Jorge Nova Blanco for the relentless energy they have donated to the programme, its journal, and the further development of the Institute for the Future.

41

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uck

e (U

Gen

t an

d V

IB) s

tudi

es h

ow t

he

com

mun

ica-

tion

bet

wee

n b

ody

and

brai

n t

akes

pla

ce

unde

r h

ealt

hy

circ

umst

ance

s an

d in

cas

es

of b

rain

dis

orde

rs s

uch

as

Alz

hei

mer

’s a

nd

Par

kin

son

’s, w

ith

th

e ai

m o

f ide

nti

fyin

g n

ew s

trat

egie

s fo

r tr

eatm

ent.

Bas

ed o

n h

er

know

ledg

e of

th

e bl

ood-

brai

n b

arri

er s

he

and

her

team

stu

dy n

ew m

eth

ods

for

brin

g-in

g dr

ugs

into

th

e br

ain

mor

e effi

cien

tly.

Jori

s Va

nd

end

ries

sch

e (K

U L

euve

n) i

s an

his

tori

an o

f med

i-ci

ne

and

scie

nce

wh

o st

udie

s h

ow

know

ledg

e is

arr

ived

at

and

how

it

is d

isse

min

ated

. Wh

o h

ad a

cces

s to

kn

owle

dge

in t

he

past

? H

ow d

id

scie

nti

sts

deal

wit

h e

ach

oth

er’s

w

ork?

Wit

h h

is h

isto

rica

l vie

w

of t

he

cult

ure

of p

ubli

cati

on a

nd

the

rela

tion

ship

bet

wee

n r

elig

ion

, id

eolo

gy, a

nd

scie

nce

, he

refl

ects

on

to

day’

s sc

ien

tifi

c en

deav

ours

.

42

NEW

MEM

BER

S

OF

THE

YO

UN

G A

CAD

EMY

1 APR

IL 2

020

- 31

MA

RCH

20

25

Tin

e D

estr

oop

er

(UG

ent)

stu

dies

how

so

ciet

ies

can

dea

l wit

h a

le

gacy

of v

iole

nt

con

flic

t an

d la

rge-

scal

e h

uman

ri

ghts

vio

lati

ons.

Sh

e sp

ecifi

call

y ex

plor

es t

he

ques

tion

of w

hat

rol

e vi

ctim

s ca

n p

lay

in s

et-

tin

g up

tri

bun

als,

tru

th

com

mis

sion

s, a

nd

oth

er

mec

han

ism

s ai

med

at

avoi

din

g a

recu

rren

ce o

f th

e co

nfl

ict.

Arn

e Sm

eets

(KU

Leu

ven

, R

adbo

ud U

niv

ersi

ty

Nijm

egen

) con

duct

s re

sear

ch in

to fu

nda

men

tal

mat

hem

atic

al s

truc

ture

s at

th

e in

ters

ecti

on o

f al

gebr

a, g

eom

etry

, an

d n

umbe

r th

eory

. Dio

phan

tin

e pr

oble

ms

are

ofte

n e

asil

y fo

rmul

ated

, but

to s

olve

th

em

we

nee

d to

dev

elop

new

, mod

ern

m

ath

emat

ical

tool

s ba

sed

on r

ecen

t in

sigh

ts

gain

ed in

ari

thm

etic

geo

met

ry.

Art

ist

Kev

in T

rap

pen

iers

cr

eate

s vi

sual

an

d ph

ysi-

cal w

ork

that

osc

illa

tes

betw

een

th

eatr

e an

d vi

sual

art

, wh

ich

he

pre-

pare

s du

rin

g lo

ng

peri

ods

of r

esea

rch

. He

mov

es

free

ly b

etw

een

diff

eren

t ar

t di

scip

lin

es, m

ixin

g th

em

in b

oth

th

eatr

e an

d pu

blic

sp

ace.

His

wor

k fo

cuse

s on

hum

an

pres

ence

an

d ab

sen

ce, i

den

tity

an

d sp

atia

lity

, an

d in

terh

uman

rel

atio

ns

in to

day’

s so

ciet

y.

Roo

smar

ijn

Van

den

bro

uck

e (U

Gen

t an

d V

IB) s

tudi

es h

ow t

he

com

mun

ica-

tion

bet

wee

n b

ody

and

brai

n t

akes

pla

ce

unde

r h

ealt

hy

circ

umst

ance

s an

d in

cas

es

of b

rain

dis

orde

rs s

uch

as

Alz

hei

mer

’s a

nd

Par

kin

son

’s, w

ith

th

e ai

m o

f ide

nti

fyin

g n

ew s

trat

egie

s fo

r tr

eatm

ent.

Bas

ed o

n h

er

know

ledg

e of

th

e bl

ood-

brai

n b

arri

er s

he

and

her

team

stu

dy n

ew m

eth

ods

for

brin

g-in

g dr

ugs

into

th

e br

ain

mor

e effi

cien

tly.

Ber

t Ve

rcn

ock

e (K

U L

euve

n)

sear

ches

for

the

buil

din

g bl

ocks

of t

he

univ

erse

. As

a th

eore

tica

l ph

ysic

ist,

he

and

his

team

stu

dy b

lack

h

oles

an

d co

smol

ogy

wit

hin

str

ing

theo

ry.

He

lin

ks t

he

theo

reti

cal

pred

icti

ons

that

ext

end

Ein

stei

n’s

th

eory

of r

elat

ivit

y to

th

e la

test

obs

erva

tion

s as

obt

ain

ed

by, f

or e

xam

ple,

gra

vita

tion

al w

aves

.

Sara

h V

erh

uls

t (U

Gen

t) is

an

el

ectr

onic

s an

d ac

oust

ics

engi

nee

r w

ho

does

inte

r-di

scip

lin

ary

rese

arch

into

th

e m

ech

anic

al a

nd

neu

ral b

asis

of

hum

an h

eari

ng

(an

d it

s im

pair

men

t). S

he

deve

lops

in

nov

ativ

e te

chn

olog

ies

con

cern

ing

hea

rin

g, s

peec

h

reco

gnit

ion

, an

d ac

oust

ics,

suc

h a

s sp

eed

test

s fo

r h

eari

ng

impa

irm

ent

and

algo

rith

ms

for

hea

rin

g de

vice

s an

d h

eara

bles

of t

he

futu

re.

Bio

en

gin

eer

Sam

my

Verb

rugg

en (U

An

twer

pen

) st

udie

s, w

ith

in c

atal

ytic

tech

nol

ogy,

how

su

nli

ght

can

be

used

dir

ectl

y in

var

ious

en

viro

nm

enta

l an

d en

ergy

app

lica

tion

s.

Usi

ng

a m

ulti

disc

ipli

nar

y ap

proa

ch, h

e co

nve

rts

fun

dam

enta

l res

earc

h o

f lig

ht-

sen

siti

ve n

anop

arti

cles

into

con

cret

e ap

plic

atio

ns

for

air

puri

fica

tion

, hyd

roge

n

prod

ucti

on, s

enso

rs, a

nd

self

-cle

anin

g m

ater

ials

.

Sop

hie

de

Bu

yl (V

UB

) stu

dies

th

e dy

nam

ics

and

pred

icta

bili

ty o

f bi

olog

ical

net

wor

ks a

t va

riou

s sc

ales

. Wit

h h

er te

am, s

he

atte

mpt

s to

iden

tify

fun

ctio

nal

str

uctu

res

in

biol

ogic

al n

etw

orks

by

crea

tin

g m

odel

s ba

sed

on la

rge

quan

titi

es o

f dat

a. T

o th

is

end,

sh

e us

es n

on-l

inea

r dy

nam

ic s

yste

ms,

st

atis

tica

l ph

ysic

s, a

nd

info

rmat

ion

th

eory

.

43

Lara

Piv

odic

(VU

B) s

tudi

es, f

rom

an

inte

rnat

ion

al p

ersp

ecti

ve, h

ow

hea

lth

car

e an

d so

cial

pol

icie

s ar

oun

d ca

re m

ay c

ontr

ibut

e to

a

good

-qua

lity

fin

al s

tage

of l

ife

and

a go

od d

eath

for

the

elde

rly.

Usi

ng

rese

arch

met

hod

s fr

om b

oth

med

-ic

al a

nd

soci

al s

cien

ces

she

stud

ies

the

fin

al y

ears

an

d m

onth

s in

th

e li

fe o

f eld

erly

peo

ple

in v

ario

us

coun

trie

s, e

valu

atin

g th

e eff

ects

of

pal

liat

ive

care

pro

gram

mes

on

pa

tien

ts, l

oved

on

es, a

nd

care

give

rs.

Chri

stin

a St

uh

lber

ger

(LU

CA

Sch

ool o

f Art

s, K

U L

euve

n) i

s a

docu

men

tary

film

mak

er w

ith

a

part

icul

ar in

tere

st in

th

e po

etry

of

exch

ange

in c

inem

a. S

he

stud

ies

the

docu

men

tary

inte

rvie

w a

s a

cin

emat

ic s

trat

egy

for

neg

otia

tin

g eq

uali

ty a

nd

expr

essi

ng

eth

ical

co

nsi

dera

tion

s.

Loes

Mee

uss

en (K

U L

euve

n &

Th

omas

Mor

e)

stud

ies

soci

o-ps

ych

olog

ical

pro

cess

es o

f in

equa

lity:

on

the

one

han

d, in

equa

lity

in th

e ro

les

of m

en a

nd

wom

en in

wor

k an

d fa

mily

life

, on

the

oth

er h

and,

ineq

ualit

y in

cul

tura

lly d

iver

se

orga

niz

atio

ns

and

sch

ools

. How

do

peop

le d

eal

wit

h th

e ex

isti

ng

ster

eoty

pes

abou

t th

eir

grou

p?

An

d w

hat

ch

arac

teri

zes

incl

usiv

e co

nte

xts

in

wh

ich

eve

ryon

e ca

n fu

nct

ion

opt

imal

ly?

Ku

rt B

erte

ls (K

U L

euve

n -

LUCA

Sch

ool

of A

rts

Cam

pus

Lem

men

s) is

a s

axop

hon

e pl

ayer

. Th

roug

h h

is r

esea

rch

he

reco

n-

stru

cts

the

nin

etee

nth

- an

d ea

rly-

twen

tiet

h

cen

tury

sax

oph

one

prac

tice

. For

this

in

form

ed p

erfo

rman

ce p

ract

ice,

he

mak

es u

se o

f his

tori

cal i

nst

rum

ents

, so

und

reco

rdin

gs, m

anus

crip

ts, a

nd

inst

rum

ent m

eth

ods.

Wit

hin

sax

olog

y,

his

res

earc

h o

pen

s up

new

per

spec

tive

s fo

r th

e sa

xoph

one

prac

tice

, for

the—

Bel

gian

—h

isto

ry, a

nd

for

the

role

of c

om-

mis

sion

ed w

orks

in s

axop

hon

e cu

ltur

e.

Kim

De

Veir

man

(VU

B) i

s a

bio

med

ic w

ho

stud

ies

new

, per

son

aliz

ed

trea

tmen

ts fo

r pa

tien

ts w

ith

h

aem

atol

ogic

al c

ance

rs. U

sin

g n

ano

bodi

es—

tin

y pr

otei

ns

that

are

pr

esen

t in

th

e bl

ood

of c

amel

ids—

and

imm

unot

her

apy

(in

clud

ing

CAR

-T-c

ell t

her

apy)

sh

e at

tem

pts

to c

omba

t re

sidu

al c

ance

r ce

lls.

H

er fo

cus

is o

n t

ran

slat

ion

al c

ance

r re

sear

ch w

ith

th

e ai

m o

f im

prov

ing

both

dia

gnos

is a

nd

trea

tmen

t of

h

aem

atol

ogic

al c

ance

rs.

1 APR

IL 2

021

- 31

MA

RCH

20

26

NEW

MEM

BER

S

OF

THE

YO

UN

G A

CAD

EMY

44

Chri

s B

urt

in (U

Has

selt

) stu

dies

th

e im

por-

tan

ce o

f fitn

ess

and

mot

ion

beh

avio

ur

in p

atie

nts

suff

erin

g fr

om s

erio

us lu

ng

dise

ases

, suc

h a

s CO

PD

an

d lu

ng

can

cer.

He

look

s in

to w

hat

rem

edia

l in

terv

enti

ons

may

lead

to t

he

mos

t op

tim

al im

prov

e-m

ent

in li

fe q

uali

ty, r

elie

ve o

f sym

ptom

s,

and

decr

ease

of m

orbi

dity

in t

hes

e pa

tien

ts in

bot

h t

he

shor

t an

d lo

ng

term

.

Liek

e va

n D

ein

sen

(KU

Leu

ven

) stu

dies

the

pub-

lic im

age

of s

chol

ars

and

wri

ters

from

an

inte

r-di

scip

linar

y pe

rspe

ctiv

e. S

he

spec

ifica

lly lo

oks

at

the

stru

ggle

of e

arly

mod

ern

fem

ale

inte

llect

uals

to

mee

t th

e—pr

edom

inan

tly

mal

e—id

ealt

ypic

al

imag

e of

sch

olar

ship

. An

alys

ing

thei

r vi

sual

an

d te

xtua

l por

trai

ts, i

t bec

omes

app

aren

t how

thes

e w

omen

intr

oduc

ed a

lter

nat

ive

role

mod

els.

Her

re

sear

ch m

akes

a h

isto

rica

l con

trib

utio

n to

the

topi

cal d

ebat

e on

div

ersi

ty.

San

dra

Van

Pu

yvel

de

(UA

ntw

erpe

n a

nd

Un

iver

sity

of C

ambr

idge

) doe

s re

sear

ch in

to

the

evol

utio

n o

f bac

teri

a, m

ore

spec

ifica

lly

the

path

ogen

s Sa

lmon

ella

an

d E

sch

eric

hia

col

i. Sh

e st

udie

s bo

th t

he

effec

t of

evo

luti

on o

n t

he

type

of

infe

ctio

ns

caus

ed b

y th

ese

bact

eria

, how

th

ey

spre

ad, a

nd

how

th

ey b

ecom

e re

sist

ant

to a

nti

-bi

otic

s. S

he

does

so

by c

ombi

nin

g m

eth

ods

from

bi

o in

form

atic

s an

d m

olec

ular

mic

robi

olog

y.

Bar

bor

a W

oute

rs (V

UB

) is

a re

sear

ch

prof

esso

r in

geo

-arc

hae

olog

y. S

he

spec

iali

zes

in t

he

mic

rosc

opic

stu

dy

of e

arly

med

iaev

al c

itie

s in

th

e Lo

w

Coun

trie

s an

d V

ikin

g ci

ties

in S

can

din

avia

. In

add

itio

n, s

he

con

trib

utes

to p

ubli

c ar

chae

olog

y in

, for

exa

mpl

e, t

he

mag

azin

e E

x si

tu a

nd

advo

cate

s eq

ual o

ppor

tun

itie

s in

th

e fi

elds

of a

rch

aeol

ogy

and

acad

emia

.

Céli

ne

Gil

leb

ert

(KU

Leu

ven

) stu

dies

th

e n

euro

-psy

chol

ogic

al e

ffec

ts o

f non

-con

gen

ital

br

ain

dam

age.

It c

an n

ot o

nly

lead

to p

arti

al

para

lysi

s or

loss

of s

igh

t bu

t al

so to

ch

ange

s in

co

gnit

ion

, beh

avio

ur, a

nd

pers

onal

ity.

In o

rder

to

bet

ter

unde

rsta

nd

thes

e di

sord

ers

and

min

i-m

ize

thei

r im

pact

on

th

e pa

tien

ts’ d

aily

live

s,

she

and

her

team

are

dev

elop

ing

adva

nce

d m

easu

rin

g to

ols

and

reh

abil

itat

ion

pro

toco

ls.

All

cur

rent

mem

bers

of

the

Youn

g A

cade

my

Bel

gium

(Fla

nder

s) -

Orh

an A

gird

ag, F

rede

rik

Ans

eel,

Nic

olas

Bae

yens

, Ann

Bes

sem

ans,

Cam

illa

Bork

, Ros

e Br

uffae

rts,

Did

ier C

aluw

aert

s,

Elke

Clo

ots,

Sop

hie

de B

uyl,

Kate

lijne

De

Cort

e, L

ars D

e La

et, J

ozefi

en D

e Le

ersn

yder

, Dav

e D

e ru

yssc

her,

Bert

De

Smed

t, Fr

eder

ik D

e W

ilde,

Ugo

Deh

aes,

Tin

e D

estr

oope

r, H

elee

n D

ewit

te,

Mar

jan

Doo

m, L

ende

rt G

elen

s, V

ince

nt G

inis

, Jok

e Go

ris,

Lynd

a Gr

ine,

Kri

stie

n H

ens,

Lod

ewijk

Hey

len,

Ath

ar Ja

ber,

Lies

Lah

ouss

e, D

amya

Lao

ui, S

teve

n La

tré,

Silv

ana

Man

dole

ssi,

Caro

line

Mas

quill

ier,

Fran

k M

erkx

, Kri

s Myn

y, M

iche

lle P

lusq

uin,

Mag

aly

Rodr

ígue

z Ga

rcía

, Am

r Rya

d, A

rne

Smee

ts, K

evin

Sm

ets,

Eve

lien

Smit

s, B

ram

Spr

uyt,

Kevi

n Tr

appe

nier

s,

Ale

xand

er v

an N

uijs

, Birg

it V

an P

uym

broe

ck, B

eatr

ijs V

anac

ker,

Laur

a Va

nden

bosc

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45

Covid-19 put more pressure on scientists than ever before. The

speed at which the corona virus struck forced virologists and researchers from related disciplines to take on a visible

public role at a time when the scientific knowledge about this new infectious disease was limited. They captured the pandemic in numbers, but were also asked questions about unknown aspects of the affliction or about the future course of the epidemic, which they couldn’t possibly answer with the swiftness expected of them. In addition, they were not only advising politicians behind the scenes but were also asked to clarify the policy measures that were taken, in the media. In the process, the boundaries between science and politics sometimes became blurred.

Scientists were also faced with the limits of their own

expertise. For example, the analysis of the corona epidemic as a medical and social problem required a multidisciplinary approach in which, for instance, the importance of the role of (motivational) psychologists was only recognized late and not without difficulty. At the same time, the virus also exposed the boundaries of science, of measuring, counting, and analysing, while demonstrating that thorough research required time. The loss of life and the experiences of the lockdown were after all widely accompanied with feelings of deprivation, discomfort, and loneliness— feelings that not only needed

46

In Defence of a Fallible

ScienceThe Young Academy’s

Post-Corona Manifesto

Fallible Science

JORIS VANDENDRIESSCHE WITH ALL MEMBERS

to be ‘measured’ but also to be shared, processed, and articulated. More so, in such times the need for art and culture became apparent, but this sector was ignored during the first stage of the crisis.

How does the general public see all this? The Science Barometer 2020 showed that among the general public trust in science has increased since the beginning of the corona crisis, if only slightly. No doubt the successful development of vaccines will further strengthen this trust. Many people regard the corona vaccines, and rightly so, as an outstanding accomplishment of biomedical science, building on decades of research. At the same time, this trust is fragile. More than a few people have questions about the safety of the vaccines that were developed in such short time. All sorts of conspiracy theories are circulating on social media. Advancing scientific insights are sometimes seen as contradictory. Moreover, the role of pharmaceutical companies in the production and distribution of vaccines clouds the ideal image of a disinterested practising of science for the common good, as economic motives also enter the picture.

What lessons are to be learnt by young scientists from this ‘stress test’ for science? The Young Academy aspires to start the post-corona era with a plea for a widely supported, ‘fallible’ science. It defends science as a community of (fallible) people seeking truthful knowledge, a well-functioning community that—precisely because its results are subject to continual critical revision— is our best guarantee for reliable knowledge. At the same time, science operates through mechanisms that we can and must continuously question and improve, while allowing it to function at its own pace.

How Science Works

Debate is an innate aspect of science. Even more so: debate is a necessity of life for science. After all, reliable knowledge is only produced thanks to critically debating and evaluating the results of research. However, this need for debate and continuous reflection is not always easy to understand for the general public and this is partly due to how this aspect is presented in the media—or rather, is not. On the one hand, the media—having to operate within a

commercial logic—sometimes opt for a ‘false balance’ with regard to issues about which there is broad consensus within the scientific community by also providing a platform for dissenting opinions or the sensational claims of individuals. This neglects the healthy, mutual criticism among equal discussion partners. On the other hand, in public space research is often presented as—ever newer—‘facts’, ‘numbers’, and ‘curves’. This sheds insufficient light on the fact that these are ‘only’ representations of the collected data, the interpretation of which is open to debate.

Can these scientific ‘facts’ provide answers to, for example, the doubts about vaccination against corona or the misinformation contained in conspiracy theories? Up to a point, they can. However, in her book Why Trust Science? the American historian of science Naomi Oreskes states that piling on facts to refute anti-scientific claims may be counter-productive. After all, those who spread misinformation operate upon the premise that accepted scientific knowledge can most definitely be contested, also publicly. Those who counter this with more facts or defend

Debate is an innate aspect of science. Even more so: debate is a necessity of life for science.

Many people regard the corona vaccines, and rightly so, as an outstanding accomplishment of biomedical science, building on decades of research. At the same time, this trust is fragile.

47

In Defence of a Fallible

Science

facts as being facts, conform to that premise, says Oreskes. It is therefore better to change the framing of the debate itself. This can be achieved, for example, by exposing the motives—economic, cultural, or other—behind the argumentation. Or by better explaining how science works and why we can reasonably trust science.

The latter approach starts with an inconvenient truth: the process by which we arrive at scientific knowledge is rather ‘messy’, as it requires constant debate and revision. After all, science is practised by people and therefore it is fallible. The road from an idea, via study or experiment and checks to publication and, in some cases, clinical application is extremely complex. Frequently, different scientists arrive at different

interpretations of results. They have their doubts, dismiss elements, correct hypotheses, set up a new study, and so on. In exceptional cases, ethical or deontological rules are violated in the process, but in the main are respected. In addition, in reviewing scientific articles and projects numerous criteria and preferences are at play. But there is also good news: in general, scientific knowledge has proven to be reliable in the long term. It is precisely thanks to the continuous critical questioning of each other’s ideas that scientists ‘as well as is humanly possible’ manage to guarantee and safeguard the quality of science.

In order to arrive at valid knowledge, science relies on the collaboration with and review by peers (i.e., other scientists

with relevant expertise). This mechanism may at times falter but it has proven its merit more than ever in the fight against Covid-19. As in other societal domains, the pandemic has shown that the importance of collaboration, also in science, can hardly be overestimated. Without fear of exaggerating, we may state that science has outdone itself by developing a vaccine in record time, also thanks to the simultaneous roll-out of the various research stages and related checks. Contrary to previous health crises and in dealing with other global problems, since the beginning of this crisis scientists all over the world, significantly and in the spirit of open science, have shared their data and observations disinterestedly, across institutional and national borders. Yet, at the same time, we regret the lack of such transparency by governments and Big Pharma regarding the global pricing, distribution, and (uneven) accessibility of vaccines.

Real innovation, especially in the post-corona era, requires combining the knowledge, observations, and input from both scientific and non-scientific disciplines.

48

Openness Builds Trust

The Covid-19 epidemic was a stress test for both society and science. The Young Academy wishes to act on the insights gathered thus far. Now that the post-corona era will hopefully dawn soon, we young scientists want to fully engage in strengthening an open scientific community. On the one hand, for us this means adopting an open attitude internally, in how scientists interact with each other and enter into dialogues across disciplinary boundaries. On the other hand, we also aim for more openness towards all those who have a stake in scientific research, feel engaged with it, and/or are keenly interested in it.

In this we stress the importance of various insights contributing to the solution of complex societal issues. An open interdisciplinary dialogue allows for bringing together perspectives from different branches of science. The result is more than just the sum of these perspectives. But interdisciplinarity goes further, beyond the boundaries of professionalized science. To be sure, science defines the methodology by which to arrive at reliable knowledge. But at the same time, society requires a broader view of the issues people are struggling

with. We have that experience in the Young Academy too: as an interdisciplinary meeting place it is not only populated by scientists but by artists too. Real innovation, especially in the post-corona era, requires combining the knowledge, observations, and input from both scientific and non-scientific disciplines.

This creative dynamic can only be realized in full if knowledge is freely accessible. The Young Academy therefore wholeheartedly supports a robust ‘open science’ policy, by which preferably not just

publications appear in ‘open access’. The data on which these publications are based should be shared generously as well, and making them available should be appreciated without taking anything away from the continued importance of interpreting research results.

Today, more than ever, science concerns everyone. Citizens keep a close track of scientific developments through the media. Some even contribute to large-scale projects as ‘citizen scientists’. Being stakeholders, patients have a clear interest in the outcome of medical research. Politicians, policymakers, and actors from industry conduct a dialogue with scientists in determining the research agenda.

We conclude with a call to make all of these actors more aware of the process that all scientific research goes through, including the methodological difficulties involved, the time it takes, and the unsolved questions that inevitably remain. Being aware of a fallible—and precisely therefore reliable—science represents to us a guarantee for the successful functioning of science in the society of the future.

Being aware of a fallible—and precisely therefore reliable—science represents to us a guarantee for the successful functioning of science in the society of the future.

49

Young Academy of Belgium (Flanders) Joined Forces Against Covid-19

The Young Academy thanks all academics and members of other organizations who helped in some way!

In March and April 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic and drastic measures struck, the Young Academy took various initiatives to tackle the societal impact of the virus.

50

#CovidCampus

Crowdsourcing methods for a rapid transition to distance teaching and telework with help from many academics on social media, resulting in an online overview document #CovidCampus.

Translating into Dutch a Medium article by Tomas Pueyo on the need for rapid action.

On Thursday 19 November 2020, the Young Academy organized an online inspiration event on the involvement of stakeholders in research. This is the theme of an internal working group, of which the members are organizing focus groups and preparing a report with guidelines. Involving patients in medical research has become relatively well established, but we wanted to explore the advantages and risks of extending this practice to other fields of study. In the context of the current pandemic, for instance, it seems that every citizen is a stakeholder.

For the event, we invited our own stakeholders to participate in various ways: by entering the competition on life after the pandemic, by participating in the panel, and - more tradionally - by attending the event and asking questions.

If you missed it, you can see an overview in the sketchnotes or check out relevant sections of the recording on https://jongeacademie.be/iedereen-betrokken

Gathering volunteers from the Belgian scientific community into a Slack environment “Mitigate Corona”.

Monitoring and connecting bottom-up initiatives in Belgium to design and build emergency ventilators and supplies (which fortunately were not needed in Belgium).

Co-founding the taskforce “Vlaanderen Helemaal Digitaal” of the Flemish Government, which connected providers of digital solutions with companies, organizations, and governments that were facing new challenges.

DIGITAAL

VLAANDERENHELEMAAL

51

The Unequal Impact of Covid-19 in Academia and What to Do About It

The corona crisis has hit many people hard, but not everyone equally. As an academic community, we are quite privileged as compared to other groups in our society – no jobs are threatened, we already have quite some experience with working online and for most of us, flexibility and autonomy are core aspects of our jobs. However, the impact of the past and current Covid-19 period is not the same for everyone within academia: it disproportionately affects academics (m, f, x) with care responsibilities and/or high teaching loads, which are more often taken up by women. As a result, the Covid-19 crisis threatens to exacerbate the existing (gender) inequality in academia.

Covid’s unequal impact

National and international data on both junior (pre- and postdocs) and senior (PI’s) academics (collected in the summer of 2020) showed that about 70% of them experienced a negative impact of the Covid-19 crisis on their usual research time; the remaining 30%, however, experienced no (9%) or even a positive (21%) impact. This negative impact was much more severe for those academics (m, f, x) who reported to have care-duties at home. Especially parents of (several) young children (age 0-11) experienced a severe drop in their available research time, most likely because many

day-care facilities and schools were closed or required home-schooling for several months.

A similar disproportionately negative impact on research

time can be expected for academics with a heavy teaching load – or those who took over some courses from colleagues with many care-duties – since the shift to online teaching requires a lot of extra coordination and extra work in terms of rethinking didactic approaches, tools and sometimes even the content of a course.

Why would Covid-19 exacerbate gender inequality?

Graph 1 show the Covid-19 impact on researchers regardless of their gender. Yet, there are reasons to suspect that the negative impact on female academics by the Covid-19 crisis

Source: Myers et al., Nature in Human Behavior (2020)

Graph 1: Impact on Research Time

negative impact

% re

spon

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s

0

20

40

60

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no impact

52

JOZEFIEN DE LEERSNYDER AND MEMBERS OF THE GENDER WORKING GROUP

is larger because, on average, they take up more caring and teaching tasks than men.

Supporting this idea, a diary study of the VUB among the general Flemish population showed that women spent on average 13 hours a week more time on care duties during the lockdown in the spring of 2020 than before. In contrast, men reported on average more leisure time than before and did not feel hindered in their work by the presence of their children. These figures suggest

Source: Myers et al., Nature in Human Behavior (2020)

Graph 2: Average Decrease of Research Time in relation to Number of Dependants

has partner

has 0-5 year old dependent

has 6-11 year old dependent

has 12-15 year old dependent

has 16-65 year old dependent

has >65 year old dependent

has >1 dependent

RESEARCH TIME-30% -10%-40% -20% 0

Graph 3: Average Decrease of Research Time in relation to Number of Dependants for women

has partner

has 0-5 year old dependent

has 6-11 year old dependent

has 12-15 year old dependent

has 16-65 year old dependent

has >65 year old dependent

has >1 dependent

RESEARCH TIME-30% -10%-40% -20% 0

that care duties were mostly taken up by mothers in Flemish households – something that is also reflected in the fact that 70% of the 265,000 parents who took ‘corona parental leave’ were indeed women.

Although we should be careful to assume that the gender dynamics that are at play within the larger population are exactly reproduced in the subpopulation of academics, the international study on PI’s by Myers and colleagues shows that the decrease in research

time was larger for female than for male PI’s, even if they have a similar number of dependents to take care of. Graph 3 shows the average decrease of research time for female researchers – a decrease that easily adds up to 40% – in comparison to the average across all (m, f, x) researchers (dark red lines).

All in all, the careers of female academics may be harmed more by the Covid-19 crisis than those of their male colleagues. First indices of the exacer-bation of already existing gender inequalities during and after the Covid-lockdown are now visible across different

‘performance-indicators’ and academic disciplines. For instance, three databases with registered-reports (n = 14,000) found that the number of research projects registered by female PI’s was significantly lower in March and April 2020 than in the same period in 2019. In addition, female researchers are underrepresented in Covid-19 related research as compared to in non-Covid-19 research (e.g., 12 vs. 21% in economics). And, even when female academics applied to calls to get their Covid-related research funded – such as the first FWO special Covid-19 call that had its application window during the spring-lockdown – their success rates were far below those of men: only 14% of projects that had a female main applicant got funded as compared to 35% of projects who had a male main applicant; in the end, barely 5% of the total budget went to the project(s) of a female main applicant.

53

We may expect that this lower involvement in research projects will eventually result in fewer publications by female authors in the (near) future. This is especially problematic since the past period of lockdown in the spring of 2020 was already characterised by a lower number of publication registrations and submissions by (especially junior) women than before.

Taken together, the Covid-19 crisis unequally impacted the research time of academics (m, f, x) such that those with high care duties or a heavy teaching load experienced a severely negative impact on their work. As these first studies show, the Covid-19 crisis has especially reduced the research time for (young) female academics, and consequently their time to apply for research funding and publish results. This may exacerbate the already existing gender-inequalities in academia.

What did the Young Academy do?

To put this issue on the agenda of policy makers and to en courage them to take action to minimize the unequal impact of the Covid-19 crisis

on academics at Flemish uni-versities, the Young Academy taskforce Gender in Academia started to collect facts and fig-ures as well as best practices in June 2020. The resulting memo was presented to the rectors of all Flemish universities via the Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad (VLIR), and after the summer break, we organized a series of ‘advisory meetings’ in which each university’s rector and rele vant policy makers engaged in a dialogue with an interdisciplinary and interuni-versity team of Young Academy members to draft ideas and best practices for potential actions that would fit their particular university. By the end of October, we collected all universities’ individual action plans into a ‘synthesis docu-ment’ that was discussed at the VLIR board to further exchange best practices on reducing the negative Covid-19 impact. A similar exercise was done with the policy makers in charge at the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO).

What can universities and policy makers do?

Although each university and the FWO developed their own tailor-made action

We may expect that this lower involvement in research projects will eventually result in fewer publications by female authors in the (near) future.

plan, the Young Academy encouraged them to focus on at least 5 dimensions that, to some extent, correspond to important recommendations of the VLIR-JA Gender charter all universities signed in June 2019 (see: wetenschapismvx.be).

Firstly, we encouraged them to consider extending the temporary contracts of young researchers who could clearly demonstrate a negative impact by Covid-19 due to either care or teaching duties, or who had to rethink or even pause their research projects due to the pandemic. By doing so, universities can guarantee equal future career opportunities for all young scholars.

Secondly, we advocated that all researchers across all career stages should have the opportunity to document the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on their work whenever they would apply for funding, positions, or promotions. Relatedly, we highlighted that selection committees and evaluation commissions should be informed and trained in taking this information into account and to approach applications in a rather holistic way instead of only looking at quantitative performance indicators that may be biased by the Covid-19 impact.

Thirdly, and embedded in a longer-term perspective, we encouraged all employers to facilitate academics in taking up parental leave or other forms of care-leave. This could

54

Inform yourself about the impact of Covid-19 on researchers Become more informed on the facts and figures related to the unequal and often gendered impact of Covid-19; to this effect, you will find a selection of scientific stud-ies underpinning the central arguments and actions mentioned in the Young Academy report on our website wetenschapismvx.be.

Communicate openly on the impact of Covid-19 on your workCommunicate widely and openly on the negative or positive effects of the Covid-19 crisis on your past, cur-rent and future work. Do so towards your PhD-students and colleagues as well as to evaluation committees and (future) employers. Let them know which of your research, teaching, or other objectives were not achieved while clearly indicating the limiting factors.

Raise awareness about the unequal impact of Covid-19Be open about your situation and raise awareness about the negative or positive impact on yourself and your colleagues. You could, for instance, share our fact-sheet through social media, or add a statement on the impact of Corona-19 to your email signature.

Take Covid-19 impact into account during evaluationsDuring evaluations, (convince your colleagues to) take into account the specific effects of the Covid-19-crisis on the individual researcher, as scientific studies indicate that the effects can vary significantly depending on the personal situation. Account for the long-term effects on research, because there is no straightforward way to compensate for lost research time.

Maintain a healthy work scheduleAvoid (over) compensating and maintain a healthy work schedule. Be gentle with yourself and others. Take up (corona) parental leave or take other time off and share this openly through various channels. Advocate a pro-rata extension of your contract for the duration of the leave. As a supervisor, be a good role model, facilitate the use of parental leave and actively support a healthy work-life balance for your coworkers.

be achieved by installing a ‘more workable work-culture’ as well as guarantees that no leave would ever harm one’s career or the workings of one’s research group (e.g., by setting up a replacement pool for teaching duties, taking effective research time into account when evaluating academics, etc.).

Fourthly, we stimulated universities to better appreciate the teaching efforts and shifts to online education, such that research and teaching would become equally important when evaluating academics’ performance.

Finally, we urged all universities and the FWO to monitor the gender inequalities in academia even more closely than before in order to be able to add or change initiatives to counter the negative impact of Covid-19 whenever that would appear to be necessary.

What can I do?

Since all of the above-mentioned actions should be taken at the level of funding institutions and university policies, one may wonder to what extent indivi dual academics can contribute to fighting the resulting inequali-ties of the Covid-19 crisis for themselves and their (junior) colleagues. We are convinced, however, that each one of us can make a difference by taking one of the following actions that increase awareness on this theme within our academic community. Specifically, we would like to encourage you to:

55

ScienceA Plea for Scientific Literacy and Structural Legitimacy

Predictable pattern

Normally, the interaction between science and politics follows a predictable pattern: politicians pose questions to a group of scientists and use their answers to inform new policy decisions. However, this approach has two drawbacks.

First, the answer one receives from ‘science’ strongly depends on what questions you ask and whom you ask. In the past year, this model has repeatedly shown its limits: the (limited) representation of disciplines, the selection of scientists, and how some of them fulfilled that role have been widely criticized.

Covid-19 made the interaction between science and politics front page news. On 21 April 2020, together with the rectors of the five Flemish universities, we published an opinion piece in which we asked for understanding for scientists’ uncertainties. We tried to show the same understanding for the difficult decisions that politicians had to make. Our text emphasized the importance of a good relationship between both actors. Now, nearly one year later, we reflect on this nexus again.

Meets

Secondly, scientists rarely formulate clear-cut answers. Sometimes the required research is still in progress, sometimes it has yet to begin. Even when the results are in, there may be knowledge gaps, for example, between lab studies done in highly controlled conditions and what may happen outside the lab. Moreover, simulation studies are often reported in terms of possible scenarios rather than univocal conclusions ready for implementation. A correct assessment of these uncertainties (and their consequences for policy-making) requires a lot of disciplinary knowledge. And the assumptions that go into these studies need to be critically examined as well. Yet, the translation of scientific results into practical measures is a task that both scientists and policymakers are rarely trained in.

During the Covid-19 crisis, many scientists felt powerless. Some had crucial pieces of the puzzle, but found no audience among policy makers. Meanwhile, science itself went into overdrive, resulting in an avalanche of Covid-19-related publications. It was difficult to amplify the signal of high-quality information in such a way that policy makers would pick it up.

Moreover, scientists are often reluctant to share their knowledge because of the uncertainty

56

VINCENT GINIS & SYLVIA WENMACKERS

Towards a culture of scientific literacy

In our view, the long-term solution requires strengthening the scientific culture. After all, greater scientific literacy in society would lead to more informed questions and a more critical approach to the answers.

A first special role in this process is played by scientists who move into politics, such as the Chancellor of Germany, Dr Angela Merkel, who has received international praise for her scientifically informed approach to the corona crisis.

A second crucial task lies with the media. A good example is New Zealand, where journalist Tova O’Brien openly rebuked politician Jami-Lee Ross when he tried to profit from spreading disinformation. Closer to home, when lobbyists claimed that there was no scientific evidence that their particular industry was responsible for many infections, they used a typical denialism strategy: undermining science by making impossible demands. In a society with a strong scientific culture, a critical journalist can call out such a strategy. Moreover, in such a society, different opinions are not automatically given equal weight. After all, it is crucial to base conclusions only on the best possible analysis. The truth lies rarely in the middle, as scientists who are most knowledgeable often express themselves most cautiously.

The answer one receives from ‘science’ strongly depends on what questions you ask and whom you ask.

of their models, the incompleteness of their disciplinary perspective, and the changeability of insights. Combined with the fact that the traditional process of internal discussion became overwhelmed by this publication avalanche, this meant that there was little consolidated knowledge on which to base unambiguous advice.

The challenges are clear. It is less clear how this vital connection between science and policy can be organized better. We seek a solution to three main questions. (1) How can policy makers ask better questions? (2) How should it be decided who will be consulted, both in terms of disciplines and representatives of those disciplines? (3) How should partial answers from different disciplines be integrated, without pitting them against each other and without diffusing the quality?

Policy

57

?

This culture of scientific literacy is a long- term goal, which can only be influenced indirectly. In the shorter term, we can invest in sound policy advisory structures that mediate between science and politics. Such structures are crucial to managing the role of the scientist as expert, so that the mandate is clearly defined and society as a whole can benefit from policy choices supported by reliable knowledge. In this way, they can immediately act as a lever and contribute to the required long-term cultural change.

Protocols for policy advice

What structures are there in Belgium? Sciensano, the scientific health research institute, played a leading role, despite the structural underfunding of federal scientific institutions. In addition, departmental administrations, personal staff of ministers and study departments of parties in our country are important places where scientific studies and advice are translated into policy proposals. This creates a fragmented landscape, in which no one has enough clout to manage a crisis of this magnitude. We do not need so many structures, we need the right ones.

The best time to install protocols for organizing time-sensitive policy advice is between crises. Doing this well ensures that all people involved know the scope of their role (for example, when and how the consulted scientists should make their reports public) and that the process as a whole is trustworthy (for example, independent of who is in power). It makes sense to incorporate this task into politically independent structures for policy advice. There are good examples of these abroad. The Netherlands, for instance, has the Scientific Council for Government Policy (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid, WRR) and the European Union installed SAPEA: Science Advice for Policy by European Academies. Although these are not intended to provide advice in an acute crisis, we believe that they can play an essential

Changing structures, following the example of institutes abroad, can be done in the short term.

We do not need so many structures, we need the right ones.

coordinating role in times of crisis. Starting from an existing network of experts and existing protocols to ask the right questions, designating new advisory boards, and pooling responses is easier than starting from scratch.

Vital nexus

It is a poignant paradox: we live in a country with enormous scientific capital, with many policy makers, scientists, journalists, and opinion makers, the vast majority of whom want to contribute constructively to the solution of this crisis, and yet the impact of the pandemic on Belgium is immense. In recent months, many reasons for this have been put forward, but we think that the deeper causes of many of these factors are a matter of culture and structure. A culture in which the general level of scientific literacy is too low and a structure that lacks essential channels to streamline the interaction between science and policy adequately.

With the Young Academy, we want to contribute on both fronts. Changing structures, following the example of institutes abroad, can be done in the short term. We hope that the necessary steps will be taken now, at a time when the Covid-19 crisis is still fresh in our minds. In addition, we reconfirm our commitment to our Science-Meets-Parliament initiative and to the many projects on education, scientific communication, and journalism. In this way, we also hope to contribute to a long-term culture shift, in which science and policy cooperate optimally with each other in dealing with complex, societal challenges. After all, we need this vital nexus not only in times of crisis.

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Dear viewer, if you have watched the 7 o'clock TV news on VRT during March and April of 2020, you know that Covid-19-related numbers were mentioned daily. Sometimes the numbers were even presented as graphs! We wanted to do something in return, so we put these broadcasts into 4 graphs.*

VRT TV NEWS (7 o'clock) Graphs February – April 2020

Percentage of items on Covid-19

100%

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0%

13-3-2020

3/2 10/217/2 24/2

2/3 9/3 16/3 23/330/3

6/4 13/4 20/427/4

The percentage of items on Covid-19 reached 100% on the 13th of March and this happened more than ten times after that day. At least this indicator could not get any worse.

Total number of items in the TV news

25

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0 13-3-20203/2 10/2

17/2 24/22/3 9/3 16/3 23/3

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*For the labelling of the news items we relied on the VRT NU website (without correcting any errors in the indexing).

Duration of the news in minutes

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13-3-202027-3-2020 15-4-2020

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6/4 13/4 20/427/4

… while their duration increased. Covid-19 was underreported during the weekends, so this graph shows a pronounced weekend effect.

The start of the Belgian lockdown on the 13th of March 2020 is clearly visible in these graphs. For instance, the number of news items decreased …

To end appropriately, we now have to turn to sports. As this graph clearly shows, even a pandemic cannot stop the reporting on (cancelled) sports events.

Percentage of items on sports

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Only if we adhere strictly to all preventive measures will the duration of the news broadcast stay below the critical threshold. Thank you for watching and stay safe!

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SYLVIA WENMACKERS

YOUNG ACADEMY OF BELGIUM (FLANDERS)

JongeAcademie.be | info@jongeacademie.be | @JongeAcademie | fb.me/JongeAcademie

Hertogstraat 1, B-1000 Brussels – BELGIUM | +32 2 550 23 32

Maja is the annual magazine of the Young Academy of Belgium (Flanders), an interdisciplinary and interuniversity meeting place for young top researchers and artists with their own view on science, society, art and policy. Through opinion pieces and events on current topics, it aims to contribute to the public perception of science and the debate on science policy, specifically from the perspective of the young academic and artist.

The Young Academy is part of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts and can work thanks to a subsidy from the National Lottery.