Leaving the labs and offices, talking about your own work, looking for interdisciplinary connections and taking on social challenges - these are also expectations of scientists today in addition to their traditional activities of research and teaching.
During the pandemic, this became clearer than ever before.
And other and future crises will also continue to require researchers to shift their activities into the public arena. There was agreement on this at the "Falling Walls" conference in Berlin this week.
All of this was implemented right away on the banks of the Spree.
Scientists of all ages and from all over the world mingled there with representatives of science policy and scientific institutions, with entrepreneurs, artists, media professionals and those interested in science.
Sibylle Anderl
Editor in the feuilleton, responsible for the "Nature and Science" department.
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Nevertheless: The fact that the global crisis of the past two and a half years has not only underlined the importance of research, but at the same time made many deficits, problems and challenges in the exchange with politics and the public visible, was at least as noticeable in the numerous discussions this since Annual event organized by the Falling Walls Foundation in 2009.
On Tuesday in particular, all of this was discussed on various podiums, starting with an update on the research situation in Ukraine.
The greatest damage caused by the war there affects not so much the infrastructure as the country's human capital, the migration of research talent to other countries and other fields of activity, reported Oleksiy Kolezhuk, head of the scientific committee of the Ukrainian National Council for Science and Technology Development and news Philipp Schwartz Fellow in Mainz.
Funding for research has collapsed, scientists can no longer work and are faced with the decision to leave research.
It is therefore particularly important to support scientists in Ukraine itself, to strengthen networks,