#experiencewithoutboundaries

Athar MANSOOR, a 2021 PhD graduate in Public Policy (PP), was nominated to participate in the Doctoral School on “Ethics of Science & Technology”, organized by the IDEA League, an alliance of 5 leading European universities of science and technology including TU Delft (The Netherlands) , ETH Zurich (Switzerland), RWTH Aachen (Germany), Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), and Politecnico di Milano (Italy).

The Doctoral School provides multiple complementary modules (each at a different partner university) during the same academic year and is attended by a combined inter-university group of second- or third-year PhD candidates. Due to the pandemic, the 3 modules this year from April to June 2021 were held online by RWTH Aachen, TU Delft and Politecnico di Milano respectively. The Doctoral School on “Ethics of Science & technology” focused on developing critical awareness about the values that are embedded in science and technology throughout the lifecycle from design to development, and management, control, production, adoption and use.

Athar found the Doctoral School provided him with an amazing opportunity to enhance his knowledge on the subject and build a strong network with global peers and faculty in his area of interest. Although the school was run virtually this year, he was very impressed with the way it was conducted. All the three modules were designed and run in a highly effective manner and participants were able to feel they were almost physically at the organizing universities. Highly engaging and interactive sessions with the expert faculty and peers from various top schools made the entire experience extraordinary and exceptional. Groups of participants were formed on the basis of commonality of interests and gave everyone a chance to advance his or her research agenda. Athar would like to thank HKUST and IPO for selecting him to attend the school and hopes to produce cutting edge research in near future for impacting the world.

In August 2021, Athar also published his research on child obesity in the British Medical Journal, along with other Salzburg Global Seminars (SGS) fellows, to call on governments to prioritise child obesity as they implement measures to recover from the pandemic. Previously a PhD student in Public Policy (PP), Athar was selected to join the Salzburg Global Seminar’s programme on “Halting the Childhood Obesity Epidemic: Identifying Decisive Interventions in Complex Systems” in December 2019.  It gathered 70 experts and students at Salzburg to discuss how to manage childhood obesity. This article stems from discussions that began during the interactions in Austria and has continued to be evolved in the context of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

You may read the full article HERE and find Athar’s Salzburg Global Seminars experience HERE.