Baltic Sea Science Day 2018

The second CBSS Baltic Sea Science Day was organized in Turku on the occasion of the 5th Baltic University Programme Rectors´ Conference and the centenary of Åbo Akademi University. Due to the wide representation of universities´ leadership, the event built wider awareness about the current thinking of policy experts on the macro-regional researchers´ mobility.

Ambassador Maira Mora, Director General of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, commended both cornerstones of the CBSS Science, Research and Innovation Agenda – Baltic Science Network and Baltic TRAM – for their fruitful work throughout 2017. Ambassador Mora encouraged to keep the same collaborative spirit alive also in 2018, namely, during the key phase dedicated to the preparation of transnationally coordinated national action plans.

Baltic Sea Science Day 2018 testified to the central role of CBSS in bringing together a wider community of national and macro-regional policy experts as well as the representatives of the academic and research sectors. In more precise terms, during the second parallel workshop dedicated to the international cooperation, thanks to the support of EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) Horizontal Action Neighbours, the Russian and Belarusian universities´ representatives, who thus far were not closely affiliated to the on-going work of Baltic Science Network, had an opportunity to engage in the public discussion on various aspects of researchers´ mobility.

Likewise, during the third parallel workshop with a focus on open science, universities not familiar with the European Open Science Cloud were briefly introduced to the initiative. Baltic TRAM was presented as one of the macro-regional model examples aligning its activities with this initiative.

The open science workshop was co-chaired by Tomasz Jałukowicz, Coordinator of the EUSBSR Policy Area (PA) Innovation, National Representative of Poland to the Baltic TRAM High Level Group, Chief Expert at the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Thus, the second CBSS Baltic Sea Science Day followed the tradition launched in 2017 of assembling also the key actors from various EUSBSR strands with a notable role in facilitating cooperation in research and innovation fields. The overall discussions were enriched by the EUSBSR PA Education flagships – Baltic Science Network and Baltic University Programme – as well as Baltic TRAM, being both endorsed by the CBSS and the successive stage of PA Innovation´s Baltic Science Link. Additionally, the Swedish Institute must be pointed out, since it is one of the key supporters of several EUSBSR flagships, as well as in 2018 offers support for academic cooperation and exchange for the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia.

The CBSS Secretariat encourages all interested parties to take a look at the CBSS calendar during the upcoming months in order to find out more information about the third CBSS Baltic Sea Science Day which will be hosted by the University of Latvia on the occasion of its centenary.

The conference brochure, including Ambassador Maira Mora´s welcome words, is accessible here.

The photo album is accessible here.