RSU ISC 22 First days highlights

The highly anticipated International Student Conference 2022 in “Health and Social Sciences” is taking place on March 24th and 25th at Riga Stradins University.

This year marked the 71st birthday of the conference as well as the 8th year that the conference was held on an international level, as students and jury members from near and far gathered for this great event. The quality of the International Student Conference 2022 was exceptionally high.

“Despite all challenges we have faced, it is a pleasure that we received a huge amount of applications from more than 15 different countries. Our team has come a long way to provide participants with the best of what hybrid conferences can provide!” said the project manager of ISC 2022 Aija Tumova.

In the Opening ceremony, one of the keynote speakers Mr. Marat Fatkhullin, Elsevier’s Vice Prezident of Global Strategic Networks. Mr. Fatkhullin, who has worked on many successful collaborative projects including developing regional economies through evidence-based partnerships between industry and universities and advising universities transformation into an entrepreneurial mode, told us more about science importance in education. The second keynote speaker was Mrs. Ceri Thompson – Deputy Head of the eHealth, Well-Being and Ageing Unit in DG CNECT. Mrs. Thompson worked previously on international cooperation for Eurostat, and on health issues in DG SANTE. Before joining the EU institutions, Ceri worked on global health policy at the UK’s Department for International Development, and for KPMG’s international healthcare practice, conducting strategic and efficiency reviews of health systems in the CARICOM and EECCA regions, and of various London hospitals. She has experience across a range of EU health policy areas, including nutrition & physical activity, alcohol and drugs, tobacco, pharmaceutical policy, and health inequalities and told us more about Digital Transformation of Health and Care. And third keynote – Tomass Pildegovičs (Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge) spoke about the current situation in the world. His current research focuses on small state influence in European multilateral organizations, particularly regarding the attempts of the Baltic states to position and assert themselves in the European foreign policy field.  

During the conference’s first day students were able to attend 14 Health Science Oral Online sections and 4 Case Report Online sessions in Pediatrics, Surgery and Internal Medicine, where participants presented their scientific works online in front of the audience and jury, as well as took part in a discussion with well known professors and specialists. Best 27 works in total from all these sessions will participate in Case Report and Grand Prix finals on 25th of March. Beside the presentations, there were numerous other opportunities for students. This year RSU ISC 22 organizers along with these student sessions there provided participants with more than 15 hands-on workshops and mastershops to improve practical skills and see the future of simulation based medical education as well as get acquainted with secrets of RSU Anatomy museum, make anatomy an art by drawing your own skull, understand the value of sleep, discover the ingredient of a tasty Ramen soup and etc., therefore each student could choose a workshop to meet their interests. Other opportunities included attending guestlectures from The Head of the Data Literacy initiative – Nika Aleksejeva told more about visual fact checking, this session covered visual evidence verification and geolocation methods using openly available online tools. Students studying Social Sciences had the opportunity to attend in a masterclass from RSU Faculty of Law about the court tasks and participate in paneldiscussion “Everything is normal under abnormal conditions”.

This years plenary sessions are focused on the main question of the Conference this year –  Science is our future: What if the future is already here? There was our 1st panel discussions “First steps to truly digital healthcare” which reflected the current situation and future goals in the healthcare system from various perspectives. With our guests Assoc.prof. Ardis Platkājis, Dr. iur. Karina Palkova, Kaspars Grosu , Emil Syundyukov – reflected the current situation and future goals in healthcare system from various perspectives.

Students from all over the globe were welcomed to participate not only in rich scientific programme as active or passive participants, but also to be a part of interesting social programme, filled with different activities, for example, tours and excursions giving a chance for all the participants to get to know and have fun with each other.

Thanks for being a part of the International Student Conference 2022 first day!