Author: Richard Zeltner

Traditionally, the Young Minds programme chair is elected by the action committee during the annual leadership meeting. As the Corona-pandemic prevented a physical meeting in 2020 so far, the voting was instead held online early in May. Dr. Richard Zeltner, former president of the hBar Omega section in Erlangen and action committee member since end of 2018, has been elected and follows Dr. Roberta Caruso into office. During the electoral process he sketched and discussed possible new perspectives for the project`s in the upcoming years: First, the consolidation of the current infrastructure of the project, including the webpage and the social media presence. Second, the objective to develop Young Minds, its sections and its members towards being a voice of the new generation of scientists in Europe. In this vision Young Minds will contribute more strongly to raise the understanding on scientific practices and the awareness on topics of major concern, such as climate change, Fake News or disinformation campaigns, in the broad public on both the local, national and international level. As we are currently witnessing, in the midst of the Corona-pandemic, there are never enough efforts made to bring science and society closer together and to reduce communication barriers, creating mutual benefits. Third, increasing the prominence of industry-related activities in the project, thereby expanding and diversifying the network of its members, and opening perspectives towards career paths outside of academia.

Besides the election of the new chair there were further changes in the committee: Dr. Araceli Venegas-Gomez and Giorgio Nocerino left to pick up new challenges, and Hripsime Mkrtchyan (from Yerevan, Armenia) and Tanausú Hernández (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain) , who joined early this year, were formally introduced. Many thanks to Araceli and Giorgio for their valuable contributions over the years and all the best for their future and to Roberta for leading the project during the previous two years successfully, and welcome to Hripsime and Tanausú.

Moreover, during the meeting the newly composed committee decided to aim at organizing a series of online seminars on networking and professional development. As some sections have already successfully launched online formats during the crisis to stay in touch with their audience, e.g. the outreach format Fisica in quarantena from Naples, the Action Committee would like to provide the sections content that would otherwise be included in the postponed leadership meeting. The first edition will be launched on 9^th of June: Francesca di Franco, former member of the Naples YM section PONYS, will share her know-how on the production of multimedia contents to maximize the impact of science-related activities on social media.

From left to right: Hripsime Mkrtchyan, Tanausú Hernández, and Richard Zeltner