Insights

_{Science for Good: (l-r) Anita Anand; Hayaatun Silem, CEO Royal Academy of Engineering; Dorothy Chou, Public Policy Leader at DeepMind; Professor Irene Tracey, Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford}

For the past four years, I have sat down with my friend Roger Highfield, who is the Science Director of the Science Museum Group and is also working, in a personal capacity, as my collaborator on the Braemar Summit, to discuss themes.

The first year, 2021, was straightforward. It was the year that the world looked to science to save it from an epidemic. In some places Covid deniers were offering lemon and ginger as a solution. Meanwhile, a group of scientists in Oxford were working on a vaccine. Roger and I discussed how the collaboration of scientists, academics, policy makers and investors had cracked a global issue and wondered if there was a way of continuing this intellectual exchange outside the laboratory. We continued the discussion in September 2021 as the Oxford scientists, including Dame Sarah Gilbert, stepped off the coach in Braemar and headed towards the Fife Arms to the sound of pipers. The Braemar Summit was born. The theme that year was the New Enlightenment.

Each year, we have tried to match the theme to the direction of science and global politics. In 2023 we called it the Great Acceleration, to take account of the super computers and the impact of AI. In 2024 we went for a warmer theme, Science for Good.

Despite wars, superstition, misinformation and incivility in the public sphere, we were witnessing beacons of science. We quoted Marie Curie; “Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

In medicine for instance, there have been landmark breakthroughs in treating some of the worst diseases and conditions, through drugs, or genetic interventions.

There is evidence that a bold and determined course on tackling climate change, including investment, will benefit the economy as well as human existence. And robotics, which has advanced enormously, is now looking for design. Hardware will be a new source of delight. So creativity, the collaboration between art and science has been another theme for this year.

We were in Braemar in spirit rather than in actual location, holding the summit this year in the second week of September at the studio of the inventor and designer Thomas Heatherwick, in King’s Cross, with a dinner at the Francis Crick Institute. Also in the spirit, we found an international concert pianist, Stefania Passamonte, to play Chopin and Liszt on a grand piano in the great hall of the Crick, with hologram screens on either side of her.

_{Performance by the Royal College of Music string quartet}

We were in the heart of the Knowledge Quarter and were delighted to welcome collaboration with DeepMind, based down the road, and our friends from Aria, Advanced Research and Invention Agency, housed within The British Library. Thomas Heatherwick spoke eloquently about his mission to humanise public space and humanity was at the heart of subsequent discussions.

We began with Professor Sir John Bell, on the title of science and ambition. As the new President of The Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) in Oxford, which aims to tackle health, food security, clean energy government policy Sir John has set himself a task.

^{Science and Ambition: Professor Sir John Bell, immunologist and geneticist}

In the same altitude, we continued with a discussion entitled, The Age of the Cure followed by The Future of the NHS from Richard Meddings, Chair of NHS England. The sessions and speakers on stage were exhilarating but it was perhaps the conversations in between, over coffee or dinner which were most memorable. Many guests who come to Braemar mention the intellectual stimulation but also the geniality. It is an open-minded, good-natured event where you can discuss anything. Computer scientists debate with philosophers, economists and business leaders listen to dreamers. Even physicists talk to biologists. It is not transactional; it is genuinely conversational. It is the joy of serendipity.

Sarah Sands, Partner, Hawthorn Advisors and Braemar Co-creator

For further information on the Braemar Summit please visit www.braemarsummit.com.