Joy Zhang

It was a great pleasure to share my ESRC project’s finding over two invited presentations at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing.

My first Summit presentation focused on the causes and possible solutions to the ‘public engagement-deficit’ I identified in China’s rise as a global scientific power. I urged for a professional cultural and structural change within China. I also argued that, as research projects increasingly rely on transnational collaborations, meaningful public engagement necessarily need to be expanded beyond a nation-state framework. In addition to collaborating with China scientifically, we should also co-develope public engagement capacity in and with China.

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I was delighted to hear the audience at the Summit responded to my presentation with a ‘Bravo’.  I was further encouraged by the fact that this presentation was also well received by the Chinese stakeholders. The following day, China’s leading science blog translated my speech in full. The full video of my talk and the panel discussion I took part can be accessed here.

In a post-summit event organised by the Royal Society, I delivered a second talk on how to interpret state-science-society relations in China.