In Helsinki 2022, the associations and academies of the Baltic and Nordic countries gathered to discuss two main themes, the war in Ukraine and multidisciplinary and cross-border scientific cooperation. In relation to the latter theme, low-threshold methods for cooperation between different countries in science communication were considered. This consideration gave rise to the idea of short science videos produced together.
In Oslo 2023, in August, the academies and associations will meet again. This time, one of the themes is science communication in native languages. How also secure the future of minor northern European languages as scientific languages? In keeping with the themes of these two meetings, the three participating countries (Finland, Denmark, and Latvia) decided to make short science videos in their native language. The idea was to use multilingual cooperation by subtitling the videos for all three languages (in addition to English). The result was short science videos by the Young Academies of Finland, Latvia, and Denmark, funded by NordForsk.
Antti Lindfors, a member of Young Academy Finland, studied stand-up comedy as a form of self-expression in his dissertation. His video discusses the significance of studying humor, its historical background, and its multidisciplinary nature. Denmark’s Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel examines antibodies and toxins in his work. Laustsen-Kiel talks about the importance of interdisciplinary research in generating new research results. Latvian Eduards Baķis is a researcher in the field of chemistry. He asks a rhetorical question: Is it worth investing in science? He answers by telling about the achievements of science through numerous examples. Science has a lot of value and a lot of that economic value as well.
See the videos below and other versions with different subtitles on our YouTube channel.