Last Thursday, on November 4, Fulbright Denmark’s long-awaited Anniversary Symposium took place at Carlsberg Academy. The day was full of interesting presentations from our keynote speakers, and we had the pleasure to bring together Danes and Americans who all share a passion for making the world better through science, including HRH the Crown Prince.

The minute marks for each speaker can be found in the parenthesis below.

The day kicked off with introductory speeches by Mr. Stuart R. Dwyer, Chargé d’Affaires, U.S. Embassy Copenhagen (13:28), Mr. Mikkel Leihardt, Deputy Director, Danish Agency for Higher Education & Science (17:30), Prof. Flemming Besenbacher, Chair, Carlsberg A/S (24:40), and Ms. Marie Mønsted, Executive Director, Fulbright Denmark (33:35) who welcomed the audience, spoke about the importance of the relationship between Denmark and the US and elaborated on why science diplomacy is important in today’s world.

Next, the first session was started by Dr. Helle Porsdam who explained science diplomacy and discussed the right to science based on declarations from the past (42:53). Her presentation was followed up by Dr. Sudip Parikh who talked about his role as CEO of the American Association of Advanced Science and the inflection point he believes the world is heading towards and how science can influence it positively (1:02:33). The first session was concluded by an interesting debate where the audience asked questions for Dr. Porsdam and Dr. Parikh, moderated by Ms. Birgitte Borup (1:29:53).

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The symposium took place in the Pompeji Hall at Carlsberg Academy in Copenhagen, Denmark.

After a break, the second half began with Dr. Katherine Richardson’s presentation on why international academic collaboration is just as important today as in 1951, especially in relation to the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals (2:43:57). Next, the final keynote speaker, Dr. Mike Sfraga, presented the Fulbright Arctic Initiative and elaborated on the importance of bringing together individuals from the Arctic countries to collaborate on solving Arctic-specific challenges through science (3:15:09). This session was once again followed by an educational debate where Dr. Richardson and Dr. Sfraga elaborated on their presentation and shared their beliefs based on questions from the audience (3:39:38).

The symposium concluded with a few words from the Chair of the Fulbright Denmark Board, Ms. Cynthia Brown (4:09:29), and Executive Director of Fulbright Denmark, Ms. Marie Mønsted (4:14:14), who thanked the speakers and guests for joining the Fulbright Denmark’s 70th anniversary.

More pictures of the event can be found on Facebook here and LinkedIn here.