Astrobiology and Society on June 03-04, 2022 in Loederup, Sweden

The meeting will start on 3rd June 2022 in the morning and finish on 4th June2022 in the evening. The detailed programme of the meeting will be available after the selection of the abstracts.The conference will deal with the following subjects:

Astrobiology in the scientific community

• The history and prehistory of astrobiology as a scientific field
• Epistemological and other issues in philosophy of science in connection with astrobiology
• Controversial issues in astrobiology (where is the borderline between controversies, misconceptions and fake science) and how do they affect the position of astrobiology in the scientific community and the general public
• Ethical, political and legal questions in space research and exploration and planetary protection (forward contamination, commercial space exploration including space tourism).
• Societal challenges of the New Space Race and the Billionaire Space Race
• Chances and pitfalls of multidisciplinary sciences
• Human imaginations of space travel and life in space
• How has the position of astrobiology been changed in the scientific community during the last decades?
• The future of astrobiology in Europe

Astrobiology and the media

• Interaction betwen scientists and media -chances and dangers
• How important is media presence for the success of different fields and individual scientists?

Astrobiology and the General Public

• Astrobiology in schools and school curricula
• Involvemernt of citizen sientists in astrobiology
• Can astrobiologists promote conservation of environments?
• Can astrobiology augment the interest of the general public in science?

The conference is co-organised by the European Astrobiology Institute and Lund University The event will be managed by David Dunér (Lund University, Sweden), Wolf Geppert (Stockhholm University, Sweden) and Erik Persson (Lund University, Sweden).

Venue
The meeting will take place at Åkersberg Herrgård; in Höör, Skåne (Scania) in Southern Sweden. The venue is only a 400m walk from Höör railway station. From Höör station there are direct connections to Copenhagen Airport every hour during daytime and the journey takes only 50 minutes. The event will start on Friday, June 3 in the morning (arrival of participants will be on Thursday, June 2 in the evening) and finish on Saturday, June 4 in the evening with departure on June 5th in the morning. Furthermore, the meeting is held after the summer course Life on Earth and Beyond: The History and Philosophy of the Origin of Life. on Ven Island. This course will thus be an excellent introduction into the conference. Furthermore, attendees will be able to go on an excursion to Stevns Klint (where the C-T boundary is clearly visible) on the day between the two events.. After the conference, the annual meeting of the European Astrobiology Institute will be held (5-6 June 2022).

Scope of the meeting
The meeting is open to interested scientists and students with background in natural, social and political sciences as well as those engaged in humanities from all over the world. However, invitations for visa applications can only be issued to invited speakers and invited poster presenters.

We from the European Astrobiology Institute are looking forward to welcoming you at the conference.