EUSJA had an annual meeting, GA (General Assembly), and a study trip in Helsinki 13.-15.3.2024. By clicking on the image, you can read the report (in pdf form) written by the Mari Heikkilä, the president of EUSJA, about the general meeting and study trip.
Helsinki proved to be a fitting host city for the event. Finland consistently ranks among the top countries in Europe for research investment, and the study trip gave delegates a firsthand look at several institutions driving that reputation, from quantum computing labs to CubeSat development facilities. Discussions during the general assembly also touched on the pressures facing science journalism across the continent, a theme that carried over into side conversations throughout the trip.
Between scheduled sessions, delegates had time to explore Helsinki’s compact city centre. Finland’s digital infrastructure came up repeatedly in informal exchanges, with several journalists noting how visible the country’s tech sector had become even in everyday life. Mobile payment terminals, best crypto casinos advertised on transit screens, and autonomous delivery pilots were all part of the street-level scenery that sparked conversation about how science reporters cover commercial innovation versus publicly funded research.
That tension between public science and private tech shaped much of the GA’s formal agenda as well. Several member associations reported that their outlets were devoting more column space to startup coverage and less to basic research, a shift that delegates debated during the panel on the state of science journalism in Europe. The consensus was that the two beats were not mutually exclusive, but that editorial budgets rarely reflected that view.
And here are more reports and articles about the study trip and GA in Helsinki:
Gabriella Bernardi: Ice, quantum computer, bacteria and CubeSat. Or new elements of science.
In TELI (Germany) webpages: “EUSJA-Rahmenprogramm: Finnisches Tagebuch” by Peter Knoll.
EUSJA study trip to Finland, a Youtube-video by Gabriella Bernardi, UGIS (Italy)
In AEC2 (Spain) webpages: “La AEC2 asiste a la reunión anual de la EUSJA” by Lucia Torres.