Science medicine and society

Since the institute opened, part of its mission has been to establish a partnership between us and the community. Our Science, Medicine and Society programme is an effort to build a link between scientific research and society, and to discuss with our community the ethical, moral, economic and political challenges that are raised by rapid advances in science.

The programme includes talks which provide avenues for scientists and the audience to question the relationship between scientific discoveries and the social context in which research is performed. Speakers at these talks include many of the high-profile international scientists who regularly visit the institute.

We run an annual series of public lectures The Seasons of Life series, in which speakers who are leaders in their particular fields examine a specific issue in science or health from a number of angles.

Our LENScience programme provides opportunities for school teachers and students to access and interact with scientific research communities. There are significant reasons why this is important:

• The increasing complexity of science in our daily lives
• the global shortage of science graduates
• challenges posed by issues of sustainability, environmental management and adverse health statistics within our communities
• to support secondary science teachers as they face the challenges of keeping pace with rapid advances in science.