Dec 2019 – UCU Strikes Back & SOAS
At the beginning of December, I had a dilemma: I’ve agreed a while back to give a seminar at the SOAS China Institute, but then there was the UCU strike. At Kent, or more specifically, at SSPSSR, my colleagues and I were protesting on universities’ failure to make improvements on pay, equality, casualisation and workloads. To … Continue reading
Nov 2019 – PEALS 20th Anniversary Seminar
It was a real pleasure to be able to contribute to the series of event celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the founding of PEALS centre at Newcastle University. And thanks to PEALS’s amazing organisation, besides the seminar, I had a full day of discussion with various staff beforehand. The day ended with a colleague thanking me … Continue reading
Oct 2019 – iGEM
Yes it’s THAT time of the year again! Another iGEM Jamboree! Another get-together of the Human Practices committee in Boston. This was not my first year to attend iGEM but my first year to act as judge – a steep learning curve! It happened that the day before the Jamboree was Halloween. Instead of trick-o-treating, … Continue reading
Oct 2019 – NSF success!
I’m delighted to say that the project, Ethical Issues Surrounding Human Germline Genome Editing, that I’ve been developing with Kathleen Vogel (PI, University of Maryland) and Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley (George Mason University) has been funded by the National Science Foundation in the US. In the next 36 months, we will collaboratively (1) examine how U.S. and Chinese scientists … Continue reading
Oct 2019 – World Conference on Scientific Literacy
Delighted to give a presentation at the World Conference on Scientific Literacy in Beijing this October at the invitation of China’s Research Institute for Science Popularisation. Hosting these international events may be the best way to speed up the creation of a more transparent and engaging research culture in China. At the end of the … Continue reading
Oct 2019 – Newton Workshop
In October, the six of us (see below) pulled off a very successful interdisciplinary and cross-cultural workshop on ‘Promoting Social Embeddedness of New Biotechnologies:Co-Developing Public Engagement in and with China’ , funded by the Newton Fund. – No modesty reserved, as we had a group of wonderful delegates from China and the UK. I’m confident … Continue reading
Sept 2019 – 4S New Orlean
(group photo from Session 1) Thanks to everyone who contributed to the two sessions on ‘Decolonizing Science: Where Have We Gotten To’ at the 4S annual meeting in New Orleans! The discussions further confirms how many epistemic hurdles the Global South collectively need to cross.
August 2019 -Taiwan
Can you believe it, this August was the first time ever that I visited Taiwan, despite the fact that I grew up reading Taiwan literature and listening to Taiwan pop groups! Also, can you believe that there is no direct flight from London to Taipei?! So although it was technically only a 3 days trip, it … Continue reading
July 2019- Shandong University Summer School
It was a real pleasure to teach at Shandong University’s 2019 summer school on ‘China in global governance’ along with Yves Tiberghien, Tim Niblock and of course Michael Barr. My lectures were, not surprisingly, focused on global science governance. It was a novel area to most of the students. But I was really impressed by their … Continue reading
July 2019-Risk Society Legacies Plenary, STEPS Uncertainty Symposium
It was a wonderful experience to be part of ESRC STEPSCentre symposium in July, The Politics of Uncertainty: Practical Challenges for Transformative Action. This was definitely one of most interdisciplinary conference I’ve attended on the topic of risk. A series of blog posts reflecting on the event includes contributions from Richard Bronk, Emery Roe, Mark … Continue reading
Joy Zhang 