In many ways 2021 was a challenging and hard year, but also a year with remarkable achievements.
Resilience is an important trait of any human endeavour and a tremendous resource in challenging times, such as during the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a crisis, resilience allows us to respond with flexibility and ingenuity, by quickly adjusting the way we do things, and finding new technical solutions. This preparedness takes its strength from our collective know-how, that has been generated by decades of research, and our capacity to convert this know-how rapidly into innovation.
As a scientific organisation, we applaud the fast development of vaccines against SARS-CoV2. This is another example of scientific development with a crucial societal impact, allowing society to save millions of lives and keep the pandemic under control. Because of the many challenges caused by the pandemic, the role of scientific research and technical innovation has become more visible to the general public and policy makers, who have had the opportunity to see how basic and applied research, when leveraged in the appropriate way, are indispensable to guarantee a better quality of life for all.
Read all about the year 2021 in our latest Activity Report here