On February 21-22, 2024, Lodz hosted the “Science Joins Forces: Networking for Social Impact” conference. The event gathered over 100 participants, including researchers from various fields of science, university administration staff, representatives of cultural institutions, and non-governmental organizations.

It aimed to create a platform for exchanging ideas and experiences to explore the potential for cooperation and building networks to increase the social impact of science.

Vice-Rectors opened the conference – Prof. Agnieszka Kurczewska (University of Lodz) and Prof. Lucyna Woźniak (Medical University of Lodz), who both emphasized that the benefits of cooperation, networking, and consortia are much more significant than those that institutions, and even individual researchers, can achieve on their own.

On the first day of the conference, we featured two-panel discussions. The first, on effective institutional cooperation, was led by Prof. Agnieszka Kurczewska (University of Lodz), moderator of the second panel, devoted to academic networking, was Dr. Bartłomiej Grobelski (Medical University of Lodz).

Main topics covered during the conference:

Effective institutional cooperation: The speakers shared their experiences building effective relationships between different scientific institutions and discussed the benefits of such collaboration.

Academic networking: During the panel discussions, experts advised on effectively establishing and developing contacts in the dynamic world of science and sharing knowledge and experience with other researchers.

Communication with the external environment: A vital topic was effectively communicating research results to a broad audience. The speakers emphasized the importance of translating scientific language into a language understandable to the public.

Science for society: The session devoted to this topic discussed ways to increase the impact of scientific research on social and economic life.

In the science popularization section, participants could listen to a presentation by Szymon Bujalski, known in social media as the “climate journalist.”

The second day of the conference was practical. During mini-workshops and meetings with experts, journalist Monika Czerska, and trainers from the Academic Career Office, participants had the opportunity to work on their communication skills and cooperation with the media.

The conference was organized by the Medical University of Lodz and the University of Lodz, and the event was held as part of the project financed by European funds – Alliance4Life (https://alliance4life.ceitec.cz/).

 

We invite you to see the photo gallery from the conference:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/promocja_ul/albums/72177720315003862