YATSI – bridging young researchers, scientific disciplines and industry

01.03.2023 l Latest news

With DKK 5 million from VILLUM FONDEN and support from the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (ATV), the first Young Academy of Technology, Science and Innovation is founded in Denmark – with the acronym YATSI.

YATSI will unite young scientists and professionals from academia and industry across the STEM fields in a unique scientific network. The ambition is to create a public voice, to strengthen science-based innovation and entrepreneurship, STEM educations, and bridge industrial and academic science from the bottom up.

”We will work toward making YATSI an interdisciplinary forum with broad representation of the technical and natural sciences from across Danish institutions and companies, welcoming both national and international members. We are very grateful to ATV and the Villum Foundation for enabling the establishment,” says Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel, Professor, DTU and one of the initiators behind YATSI.

YATSI aims to:

• Foster the exchange of scientific ideas and interdisciplinary knowledge between academia and industry ranging across a multitude of STEM fields 
• Strengthen strategic collaborations as well as science-based innovation and entrepreneurship
• Support early-career professionals from the natural and technical sciences in establishing professional networks across both academia and industry.
• Amplify the public voice of young scientists and STEM professionals – in DK and internationally 

”YATSI is an exciting researcher-driven initiative that will foster new collaborations in research, development and innovation. I anticipate it will help young researchers and technologists to build their professional networks, and I hope it will lead to the establishment of new collaborations and potentially earlier adoption of new knowledge and technology in industry,” says Thomas Bjørnholm, Executive Chief Scientific Officer of VILLUM FONDEN.

YATSI will be a daughter organization of ATV. The members of YATSI have promising careers as researchers in academia or industry, and the intention is to create synergy between the two organizations.

Lia Leffland, Managing Director of ATV, elaborates:

“The Danish Academy of Technical Sciences is working on strengthening networks in the Danish Science & Engineering ecosystem, and for creating strong connections between research and business. In ATV, we have discussed, how a young academy would contribute to strengthening both research networks and the bridging to the industry – not least by having English as the working language, so that international young researchers also will have the opportunity to become part of the network.”