Genomics Forum Poetry Competition - update from Pippa Goldschmidt

This is truly an international poetry competition…

So far we’ve received about a hundred entries for the Genomics Forum poetry competition, and entries have come in from all over the world; from Uganda, Greece, New Zealand, USA, Malta, South Africa, Germany, Egypt, Australia…

This is terrifically exciting. One of the purposes of the competition is to get writers and readers of poetry to think about how an emerging understanding of genetics impacts on the way we see ourselves.

Getting our hands dirty

For nearly a year I’ve been planning the Genomics Network’s involvement in the Party Conferences – Green Party, Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservatives. I’m delighted to see this project coming to fruition with all four fringe events taking place in the next six weeks.

Getting the Network involved in the Party Conferences has been a personal goal for me since coming into post as the Forum’s Policy Research Fellow just over two years ago. Before joining the Forum I worked as a parliamentary researcher and political campaigner in Australia, as well as for a time in government policymaking. I strongly believe that influencing political parties is crucial if the Network is to make an impact on UK government policy across the full range of issues we work on – from agriculture, to pharmaceuticals, to bio-terrorism.