Joint Academy Day 2021

(Editorial by Anton Zeilinger): Our very first Joint Academy Day was held in 2018, together with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, followed by our collaboration with the five academies from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Poland in 2019. This year, we were very privileged to work with the Royal Society of Canada. We had, of course, hoped to host the event here in Vienna. However, the pandemic dictated otherwise, and this year’s Joint Academy Day was held entirely online. I am glad to say that this did not hinder our discussions at all as our Austro-Canadian alliance was already well established. The most important activity our two academies have in common is our joint scientific commission, the “North Atlantic Triangle”. Just one highlight of this collaboration was the 2018 keynote lecture given by Chad Gaffield, former President of The Royal Society of Canada, on “Embracing Transatlantic Research Collaboration in a New Era” – a subject closely connected to our first panel. This Joint Academy Day is another milestone in our ongoing and successful collaboration. I would like to thank the 30 academics who participated in our six panels, as well as Jeremy McNeil and Paul Young, President and International Secretary of the Royal Society of Canada. For the purpose of the present publication, the contributions and discussions have been edited and slightly abridged. I wish you a stimulating read. // (Editorial by Jeremy McNeil): Although we were not able to come to Vienna this year, we at the Royal Society of Canada greatly enjoyed the opportunity to engage in discussion with our colleagues at the OeAW. The OeAW rests on three pillars: the Learned Society, the various institutes, and the Academy as funding body. The Royal Society of Canada has three academies: arts and humanities, social sciences, and sciences at large. This structure enables us to nurture and support research across a wide range of subjects, including some areas of technology. However, we are currently undertaking a major evaluation of membership and qualification in response to the question of interdisciplinarity, which is becoming increasingly important. We are thinking about how to integrate sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities – how to support those who truly work across disciplines. The “fourth arm” of the Royal Society is the College, which is for younger scientists – much like the OeAW’s Young Academy. Consequently, we do not just have the interdisciplinary dimension; we have the intergenerational one, too. Several of our speakers at this year’s Joint Academy Day are active members of the College. It is a truly exciting dimension of our work. I am sorry that this year’s Joint Academy Day had to be a virtual one. However, if we have learned one thing from this pandemic, it is that we can conduct these events in a more inclusive way in the future. That does not rule out meeting face to face. But if we can have those face-to-face meetings while offering them virtually at the same time, we will be able to enable many more people to participate: a whole new dimension of collegiality.