Author: Carlos Hidalgo

The meeting on "PHYSICS FOR SOCIETY: GRAND CHALLENGES IN THE HORIZON 2050" was held at the Magnus Haus in Berlin from 28 to 29 October 2021. It was jointly organized by the European Physical Society (EPS) and the German Physical Society (DPG) on the occasion of the DPG’s 175 year- Anniversary. The conference, with hybrid format, attracted nearly 300 people (on-line participation) as well as nearly 30 invited speakers (on-site) from different international institutions. The DPG hosts provided an excellent and unique atmosphere for the meeting (https://www.forumphysicsandsociety.org/).

The scientific committee, chaired by Carlos Hidalgo and session coordinators from different EU institutions (Ralph Assmann, Felicia Barbato, Christian Beck, Kees van der Beek, Giulio Cerullo, Luisa Cifarelli, Felix Ritort, Mairi Sakellariadou, Bart van Tiggelen, Claudia-Elisabeth Wulz), played a key role in the development of the programme. This addressed two major pillars: a) Physics as global human enterprise for understanding nature and b) Physics developments to tackle major issues affecting the lives of citizens.

The meeting offered plenary lectures covering a wide range of topics: Physics bridging the infinities, the smallest scales and the largest scales; Matter and waves; Physics for understanding life: searching for life in the universe and intelligence and life; Physics for health, accelerators and bionics & robotics; Physics for environment and sustainable development: earth, climate and energy; Physics for secure and efficient societies: large scale complex socio-technical systems information and communication. All these topics are widely recognised today as the most important global challenges in physics. The meeting also offered two round table discussions, chaired by Christophe Rossel, Luc van Dyck and Rüdiger Voss, addressing issues such as: Curiosity-driven research as a road to new paradigms and true innovation; Technology development: power gains and vulnerability; Education and research in an interdisciplinary environment; Open communication and responsible citizens; Science and ethics.

The objective of the meeting was to assemble contributions with depth and high quality from the entire physics community. Interdisciplinarity allows interconnections between many areas of knowledge (involving physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry) in such a way that the whole body of connected ideas might suddenly expand due to small advances within the islands of specialized knowledge. In this meeting, we have looked at all these aspects to explore what makes us, human beings, really unique in nature: our ability to imagine and shape the future by making use of the scientific method.

The meeting provided a glimpse of the on-going “Grand Challenges in the Horizon 2050” EPS project addressing world’s physics agenda to solve in science and technology. The resulting book to be published by IOPP, under the umbrella of the EPS, is designed to address the social dimension of science and the grand challenges in Physics that will bring radical changes to developed societies, to raise standards of living at the global scale and to provide basic understanding of nature on the Horizon 2050. This action is under development within the framework of the EPS Forum Physics and Society activities in the period 2019 – 2022.

The recorded meeting will also be available. Check the EPS website and social media.

Author: Gieljan de Vries

The European Physical Society and e-EPS are pleased to share the latest news for EUROfusion, an EPS Associate Member.

Author: Cultural Evolution Society, Durham University

The Cultural Evolution Society is running a funding scheme called Transforming the Field of Cultural Evolution and its Application to Global Human Futures, thanks to a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The scheme aims to transform the important, yet underfunded, field of cultural evolution. How our cultures evolve (including how information is transmitted, how people make decisions, and the interaction of culture with our biology) is a pressing issue in a world in which our cultural activities are causing rapid, and drastic, social and physical changes.

Through the scheme, the Cultural Evolution Society aims to tackle several issues:

1. The ever-increasing obstacles to success that early career academics face – this will be redressed through funding, mentoring and training opportunities.
2. Western-centrism, i.e. the tendency of research to focus far too much on the West and for only Western researchers to receive funding – researchers from countries outside of Northern America and Western Europe are especially encouraged to apply to this scheme.
3. Disciplinary divides (for example between psychologists and anthropologists or physicists and historians) that hamper research progress.
4. The gap between scientists and public policy makers – dedicated support is available to help communicate research activities to relevant contacts, in order to enable society as a whole to benefit from research in cultural evolution. Policy makers rarely draw on an explicit scientific theory of cultural change, and in contrast, the sciences often investigate what needs to be changed but invest less in how this may be achieved.

Research projects

The funding competition will fund 16 Research Projects in four broad areas. There is more detail regarding these themes on the website but in summary:

1. Variation in creativity and imagination (both across cultures and between species) and the impact this has on the evolution of our technology, as well as art, music, language and religion. We may also understand the influence of cultural norms and different educational practices on creativity throughout the life-time.

2. Cultural influences on access to ‘reality’ (or our rationality). When we think of rational thought, we often consider processes based on an evaluation of objective facts rather than supernatural beliefs or emotions. However, recent theories in many diverse disciplines have focused on human ‘irrationality’ and how this may be ‘sensible’ as we live in a world of uncertainty where logic is not a perfect guide. Investigating how cultural beliefs influence our perceived realities and ability to imagine future ones, as well as investigations of how, or why, we transmit so-called ‘fake news’ are important avenues of research.

3. The impact of globalization on cultures. We live in an ever more interdependent world, the current and future implications of which are ripe for investigation through a cultural evolutionary lens. For example, the effects of the hyper-availability of online information to enormous global audiences, and the novel features of digital information transmission, are only recently being investigated. Globalization also poses inherent risks, especially as we increasingly face cooperative dilemmas on an unprecedented global scale (e.g. climate change, pandemics). Likewise, it is also possible that the merging of humanity into a single “effective population” will erase cultural variation with negative impacts on knowledge diversity and our ability to adapt to new challenges.

4. Applying cultural evolution to enhance human futures. How cultural evolutionary insights can be used for positive change was identified as one of the ‘grand challenges’ in the field of cultural evolution. One key example is that an understanding of cultural transmission, and the various biases in when and whom individuals learn from, may be used to enhance the spread of desired behaviours. In principle, understanding of these processes could aid in the current Covid-19 health workers’ ‘war’ against misinformation. More generally, cultural evolution could inform ‘Behavioural Insights’ 'or ‘nudge’ theories used by institutions globally in an attempt to improve public policy.

Applied Working Groups

Alongside the funding of the research grants, there is also a competition to fund 5 Applied Working Groups. These will be designed by the applicants, to implement cultural evolution with real impact on, for example, policy (e.g. public health, education), politics, business, climate change, conservation and welfare. The workshops should include conversations between academics and relevant non-academics to disseminate cultural evolution insights to the general public and engage policy makers in using cultural evolution to help solve current and future real-world problems.

At the end of 2024, there will be a conference in Durham (UK), where the findings from all of the research projects and working groups will be presented to scientists, policy makers and the general public.
The application deadline is 5^th January 2022, and there will be a pre-application workshop in early November 2021. Details of the scheme are available here, and you can also find out more on the following social media accounts:

• https://twitter.com/CultEvolFunding
  
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/cultural-evolution-funding
  
• https://www.facebook.com/CultEvolFunding
  

The Magnus-Haus in Berlin (Photo DPG/Röhl)

Author: press release from the German Physical Society

The Magnus-Haus Berlin at Kupfergraben 7, directly opposite the Pergamon Museum in Berlin-Mitte, is closely linked to physics through the work of important scholars. This is the reason why the European Physical Society (EPS), designated the building as an EPS Historic Site.

Therefore, in a ceremonial act on Friday, 15 October 2021, the presidents of the European Physical Society, Dr. Luc Bergé, and the German Physical Society (DPG), Dr. Lutz Schröter, unveiled a commemorative plaque in the presence of other guests. The event started with a greeting by the two presidents and the welcome by the chairman of the Physical Society of Berlin (PTB), Prof. Dr. Oliver Benson. This was followed by lectures by Dr. Stefan L. Wolff from Deutsches Museum in Munich on the significance of the building as a historical site of physics development and by Prof. Dr. Ingolf V. Hertel, former chairman of the Magnus-Haus Board of Trustees, on central milestones of the DPG and the Magnus-Haus. The event concluded with the unveiling of the commemorative plaque.

In 1840, Heinrich Gustav Magnus, who gave the building its name, acquired it. He set up his private chemical laboratory there and later a physics laboratory, which was also available for university teaching and is considered the oldest physics institute in Germany. Today, the Magnus-Haus Berlin serves as a scientific meeting place primarily to intensify the exchange of ideas for solving problems that physics can help with and that are of general importance to our society. In addition, offices, the lecture Hall, conference rooms and the coach house with the garden are rented out for scientific or cultural events. Former Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker maintained an office in the west wing of the house until his death in 2015.

The festival guests watched the unveiling of the memorial plaque that marks the Magnus House Berlin as an EPS Historic Site. Right next to the board are (from left to right) EPS President Luc Bergé and DPG President Lutz Schröter. The PTB President and designated DPG President Joachim Ullrich can be seen on the far right. (Photo: DPG / Andreas Böttcher).

Nominations are now open for the Edison Volta Prize of the European Physical Society [EPS]. The award – intended to promote excellence in research – will be given in recognition of outstanding research and achievements in physics.

The EPS Edison Volta Prize is given biennially to individuals or groups of up to three people. The award consists of a diploma, a medal, and €10,000 in prize money.

The Prize was established in 2011 by the Fondazione Alessandro Volta, EDISON S.p.A. and the EPS. It was awarded for the first time in 2012.

The Prize Selection Committee is composed of:

• the EPS President
• an EPS Division or Group Chair
• an EPS Honorary Member
• a Representative of an EPS Associate Member institution
• a Representative of Centro Volta.
  

Nominations for the EPS Edison Volta Prize 2022 should include:

• personal details about the nominee(s), including biographical statements
• citations highlighting the work of the nominee(s)
• up to three statements of support from individuals who are familiar with such.
  

The deadline for nominations is 31st January 2022.

For more information, in particular to read the Prize Charter, and for the detailed procedure for nominations, please visit the European Physical Society webpage.