Young Luxembourg Researcher Earns Silver in Social Sciences

On Monday 12 August 2024, the Fondation Jeunes Scientifiques Luxembourg (FJSL) announced that Luxembourg earned a silver medal in scientific research, in the under-20 category.

Nineteen-year-old Julia Bringewald, a young baccalaureate student from the Lycée de Garçons, won a “second place award” at the end of July at a prestigious international competition for young scientists, organised annually in mainland China: China Adolescents Science and Technology Innovation Contest - CASTIC, under the aegis of China Association for Science & Technology (CAST).

Coached and mentored by the FJSL, the young medallist earned this award with her concept of “cosmic compassion”. Her social sciences study aimed to demonstrate that adopting a cosmic perspective on our existence strengthens our altruism, empathy and pro-social tendencies.

Last spring, for her first participation in the national “Jonk Fuerscher” (young researchers) competition organised annually by the FJSL, Julia reportedly made it into the Top Ten of projects presented to the jury. This performance earned her a ticket to the 38th edition of the Chinese CASTIC competition, with generous financial support from the Fondation Jean-Paul & Nicolas Lanners.

In her research project, Julia, who has reportedly always had a passion for astrophysics and will be studying physics at the University of Aachen from the start of the new academic year, tried her hand at social sciences by exploring a gap in psychological literature. She developed an experimental protocol based on popular science videos, preceded and followed by questionnaires for panels of volunteers, FJSL explained.

Through a choice of content and questions, as well as a statistical analysis of the data, she was able to prove that adopting a “cosmic perspective” - to use the words of the famous American astrophysicist Carl Sagan - i.e. thinking about our existence with an awareness of our modest place in the immensity of the Universe, leads to more altruistic behaviour and a proactive commitment towards today's societal challenges. This has given rise to an innovative concept, that of “cosmic compassion”, one that can be adopted in everyday life.

The CASTIC jury granted Julia her medal at the end of a week of cultural activities in Tianjin. The event brought together over 600 participants from 24 countries/regions around the world (Asia, Africa, South America, Oceania, and Europe). From Europe, only six countries were represented (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania). This relatively low figure is probably linked to the slow recovery of international events in China in the post-COVID era (CASTIC unfortunately remained closed to international delegations between 2020 and 2023), FJSL added.

In addition to the traditional first, second and third prizes awarded by the Chinese organisers, CASTIC was also an opportunity for CAST's partner institutions in other countries to reward budding scientists with special prizes. In this context, the FJSL honoured Chinese secondary school students who proposed an optimisation of bus routes and stops in a mountain region of China. These young engineers will thus have the opportunity to take part in the next Luxembourg International Science Expo (LISE), which will be held at the Forum Geesseknäppchen from 4 to 8 November 2024: there will be free admission available during the open doors event on 6 and 7 November.