Joy Zhang

Just got back from Prague, a wonderful city! Here I attended the conference, ‘Technology Assessment and Policy Areas of Great Transitions’, organised by the FP-7 project PACITA. The conference dedicated its ‘Author Meets Critics‘ session to my book ‘ The Cosmopolitanization of Science‘. I was asked to present the book I wrote in 4 years within 15 mins! Aaah! My biggest challenge yet! But thanks to the Chair, Linda Nierling, who didn’t really pressure me with the ‘3 min’ or ‘1 min’ warning signs. I think I just managed to power through the gist of it in 15 mins. The two critics, Ole Döring and Aditya Bharadwaj, each gave insightful comments. I thoroughly enjoyed the session.

My only regret was that there wasn’t enough discussion on the regulatory implications. I was curious if similar governance patterns can be seen in other countries, such as Czech. Oh well, perhaps another time. It is said that a second European TA conference will be held in 2015. I look forward to that (and hopefully I will be able to get away from teaching again).

More info on PACITA, visit here.