Dublin to host Europe’s largest interdisciplinary science conference in 2012

As the largest European gathering of its kind, the 5th Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF2012) will convene in Dublin, Ireland on 12–16 July 2012.


Dr Gail Cardew, Chair of the ESOF Supervisory Board and Vice President of Euroscience expressed her gratitude at Dublin's enthusiasm and commitment on behalf of the Selection Panel,


“We are delighted to have such strong candidates and it is always such a difficult decision to make. We were particularly impressed with Dublin's clear vision on opening the event out to the world and the lengths the Dublin Bid Committee went to bring international partners, including industry, on board. The emphasis on maximizing the latest communication technologies, allied to the availability of excellent infrastructure for an event of this magnitude was compelling.”


“The team involved demonstrated a clear passion for success, and we encourage all Irish science stakeholders, at home or abroad, to follow their example and get involved. We are particularly enthused about the prospect of helping raise awareness about the importance of science to society in Ireland and leaving a lasting effect after ESOF 2012 Dublin" Dr Gail Cardew continued.



Dublin’s bid had a particular orientation towards science and society, and outlined strong plans to enable ESOF to reach a new platform with respect to gathering those interested in science, society and policy together. Dublin had prepared the ground exceptionally well in their bid, describing a rich global network and an approach that was also geared towards higher business involvement.



Over 50 members of a Dublin steering committee representing the public sector, universities, research institutes as well as business and industry came together in a unique international partnership to deliver the bid under the stewardship of the Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, Professor Patrick Cunningham, who will be personally acting as the ‘champion’ for ESOF 2012.



Professor Patrick Cunningham commented, "We left no stone unturned and went about this from day one with great energy, vision and professionalism. While being utterly serious about science, our event philosophy is one of science serving society. We want the citizens of Dublin and Ireland to get involved. We have also given much thought to constructing parallel public outreach, media and marketing, and business and careers programmes that will bring the impact of ESOF 2012 to a new level, in Dublin, throughout Europe and to the world at large. We are simply delighted to have won. It has been an enormous effort with lots of challenges along the way but we remained focused and got there in the end.”



Further information is accessible on: ESOF2012

Raphaëla Kitson-Pantano and Peter Tindemans at the World Science Forum 2011 in Budapest.

After the successful test case of the Science Shuttle between Torino and Barcelona for ESOF2008, multiple shuttles were organized to bring young scientists to ESOF2010 in Torino. One of those was the Science Bus, organized by Janssen Research & Development, an important partner of ESOF.

20 students were selected to embark on a mind-blowing trip to Torino. The heterogeneous group was composed of students coming from the universities of Lund (Sweden), Copenhagen (Denmark), Amsterdam (Holland) and Antwerp (Belgium). They passed the application process, granting them the opportunity to participate in this reputed event.

In addition to their seat on the Science Bus, the privileged students got the assignment to outline their view on life sciences in 2030. The story of this exclusive journey is now published and bundled in a booklet, together with the students’ views on life sciences in the future. You can find a digital version on the website www.sciencebus.se.