Life changes science: Perspectives

Life on Earth has been around for some 3 billion 700 million years. Sapient human beings appeared on our planet 300,000 years ago. Most of what we call science began to be developed by humans only 500 years ago. Owing to science, we have learned to understand and control life on Earth, which has evolved for millions of years without the presence of humans, or, when they appeared, without their conscious participation. Science has changed, and is changing life on Earth irreversibly. Its discoveries have come to be a part in everyone’s lives when we learned to create technologies that apply the discovered phenomena and laws of science. From the Industrial Revolution to today's work on artificial intelligence, there has been a continuous process of changing our lives through science.

Here, in Silesia, whose economic success and modernisation of life grew directly out of the Industrial Revolution, we are the beneficiaries but also the victims of the uncontrolled development of applied sciences. Success has come to us at the cost of environmental degradation, depopulation, depletion of fossil fuels, and industrial diseases. Today, the region must carry out its own energy, environmental, economic and social transformation. It can only achieve this with the help of science. This time more conscious of its far-reaching consequences and, above all, more attentive and humble before the laws of life that science has discovered and allowed humankind to use to exploit nature. The time has come for life to change science so that it works not just for the benefit of one species, but for the benefit of all living beings on Earth.

The EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) is an international science event aimed at promoting open, accessible debate about science and its role in society to a wider audience. In particular, the ESOF2024 conference will focus on the challenges of energy transition as well as environmental, health, cultural and digital transformation, and how leading scientists can respond to these challenges. We would like to invite you to actively participate in the conference, which will take place on 12-15 June 2024 in Katowice and will be the culmination of the European City of Science 2024 celebrations.