Research Week 2023: Registration Now Open for Biggest Science Event of The Year

Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) is opening registration for RSU Research Week with the announcement of an impressive opening programme.

Five major conferences will take place over five days from 27 to 31 March focusing on health care, medicine, and social sciences. The event will bring together researchers, students, cooperation partners, representatives of public administration and non-governmental organisations, including diaspora organisations, as well as the media. This year, 1,188 researchers, both young and experienced, from Latvia and abroad are getting ready to present their research papers.

‘We live in a time when the importance of science and innovation cannot be overestimated.

Rīga Stradiņš University is a research university – we are actively creating a research environment that is as interdisciplinary and international as possible. This is particularly reflected in Research Week.

During this one week, RSU will host the best local researchers and brilliant guest speakers from 20 different countries and scientific institutions, such as the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Karolinska Institute, the University of Cambridge, Yale Medical School, and others,’ says Professor Aigars Pētersons, President of Research Week 2023 and Rector of RSU.

Research Week will be opened in the RSU Great Hall by Prof. Pētersons, Klāvs Putenis, a representative of the International Student Conference Health and Social Sciences 2023, Agrita Kiopa, RSU Vice-Rector of Sciences, Līga Meņģelsone, the Minister of Health, and Anda Čakša (TBC), the Minister of Education and Science. The opening event will feature performances by cellist Valters Pūce and pianist Dainis Tenis (Dagamba), but the spotlight will be focused on the authors of the introductory lectures. 

Janet Kelso, PhD in Bioinformatics, represents a new sub-field of science – paleogenomics. She is currently working in tandem with Nobel Laureate Professor Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig on DNA sequencing the genomes of extinct hominins. Discoveries in this field lead to constant updates to textbooks on human evolution. The speaker will talk more about this in her keynote address “Ancient Genomes, What They Show Us and How They Can Help in Our Future”. 

Dineke Zeegers has been the Executive Director of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) for many years and is now the EUPHA Strategic Advisor. In her keynote address, “The New Role for Public Health: From Analysis to Advocacy and Action”, Zeegers will speak about the changing role of the public health sector today. 

The opening programme will conclude with a talk by Marianna Prysiazhniuk, a political journalist from Ukraine, now based in Moldova. Prysiazhniuk’s organisation Stopfake.org is the biggest player in the region in promoting media literacy. The organisation works mainly in Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania to promote quality journalism and oppose propaganda. The journalist will present her paper “Disinformation and Fight Against It” at the opening event.  

Registration