Friday
7 Jun/24
10:00 - 11:00 (Europe/Zurich)

Meet the authors - Shantha Liyanage, Markus Nordberg & Marilena Streit-Bianchi on 'Big Science, Innovation and Societal Contributions'

Where:  

52/1-052 at CERN Library

Join the videoconference here.

The event is aimed at the CERN community and CERN Alumni, therefore physical attendance will require having a valid CERN access card. 

CERN Alumni should use this form to request CERN access cards.


Shantha Liyanage, Markus Nordberg and Marilena Streit-Bianchi will present their new book at the CERN Library:

The book:

  • Contains interviews with Big Science experimental staff, providing information on the effective management of big collaborations

  • Gives insight into the experience of leading researchers of big experiments, revealing new approaches and epistemic cultures

  • Connects several academic fields, as well as performance management, international collaborations, building scientific infrastructure, research funding, and research-development-innovation management

Big Science, Innovation, and Societal Contributions offers a connection between Big Science and its societal impacts from a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on physics and astrophysics scholars to explain the reasoning behind their work, and how such knowledge can be applied to everyday life.

Through simplifying complex scientific concepts, Big Science, Innovation, and Societal Contributions explains the evolution of Big Science experiments and what it takes to manage and maintain complex scientific experiments with a human centred approach. Further, it examines the motivations behind international efforts to develop capital-intensive and human resource-rich, large-scale multi-national scientific investments to solve fundamental research problems concerning our future. Drawing on reliable scientific evidence, multi-disciplinary perspectives, and personal insights from collider physics, detectors, accelerator, and telescopes research, the volume outlines the mechanisms, benefits, and methodologies, as well as the potential challenges and short-comings, of Big Science, to learn and reflect on for future initiatives.

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A and signing sessions. The book is available from the CERN Library & Bookshop


About the authors (from OUP): 

Shantha Liyanage, Associate of CERN, ATLAS Project,
Markus Nordberg, Head of Resources Development, IPT-DI, 
Marilena Streit-Bianchi, Vice-President, ARSCIENCIA

Shantha Liyanage obtained a biological science degree, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and a PhD innovation management at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He held professorial appointments at University of Queensland, University of Auckland, University of Macquarie, and University of Technology Sydney. He directed the Technology Management Centre at the University of Queensland, Australia and held visiting professorial appointments with the Nihon University in Japan, Copenhagen Business School, and Zeppelin University Germany. His research covers education, management, and leadership including management research into CERN's ATLAS and CMS experiments. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Learning and Change, Inderscience, UK.

Markus Nordberg coordinates multi-disciplinary innovation projects at IdeaSquare at CERN, and is the co-coordinator of the EU-funded sensor and imaging R&D&I initiative ATTRACT, aiming at both scientific and societal impact of disruptive co-innovation. Prior to this function, he served 12 years as the Resources Coordinator of the ATLAS project at CERN. He is a member of the European Physical Society, Strategic Management Society, and the Association of Finnish Parliament Members and Scientists, TUTKAS. He has a degree both in Physics and in Business Administration.

Marilena Streit-Bianchi received a doctorate in Biological Sciences from the University of Rome and joined CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva in 1969. She has been a pioneer in the study of high-energy particles produced by accelerators for cancer treatment. She has held managerial positions on safety training and technology transfer, has been a senior honorary staff member at CERN, and actively engaged in multidisciplinarity. She is editor and curator of exhibitions in Europe and Mozambique promoting art and science, and is the Vice President of the international association ARSCIENCIA and member of the Italian Physics Society (SIF).