Preparing Young Professionals for New Responsibilities
6th National Symposium on Developing Socially Responsible Professionals
City St George’s, University of London
15 January 2025
City St George’s, University of London hosted the outstanding 6th National Symposium on Developing Socially Responsible Professionals on 15 January 2025. The participants were welcomed by the President of the University, Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein. The topic was introduced by Professor Raj Roy who organised and chaired the symposium in an excellent manner. The focus lay on the question of how the next generation of professionals can reliably assume social responsibility under changed social and political conditions, and how universities can support them in teaching.
The symposium linked experts and stakeholders from academia, industry, charities and government organisations and: students of City St George’s, University of London.
Professor Dirk Lanzerath gave a presentation on the importance of professional ethics and how a successful reflection on this topic contributes to the improvement of health care through the joint action of different professions such as doctors, nurses, policy makers, politicians, health economists, manufacturers of medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
The subsequent panel, moderated by Professor Lanzerath, also discussed the fact that the areas of environment and health are much more closely intertwined from an ethical and practical perspective under the heading of ‘planetary health’. This not only expands the responsibilities for health sector professionals, but also makes it likely that environmental professionals will be even affected by health related problems – be it through pollution, heat stress, extreme weather, tropical diseases or other factors. Great contributions to the panel came from Dr Elizabeth Chloe Romanis (University of Durham), Dr Sabrina Germain, Dr Anna Pacholczyk, and Professor David Townend (City St George’s, University of London).
Dr Sionade Robinson (City St George’s, University of London) chaired the very practical session with the keynotes ‘Delivering Social Value’ by Olivia Sutcliffe (Savills UK Ltd) and the ‘Future Skills’ by Robert West (Confederation of British Industry).
The final panel, chaired by Professor Philip Thomas (University of Bristol), was also made up of highly experienced and inspiring speakers. There were contributions on the ethics of AR/VR in practice by Zillah Watson (Phase Space Ltd), the importance of ethics in engineering by Dr Natasha McCarthy (The Royal Academy of Engineering) and the often underestimated importance of ethics in mathematics by Prof Shabnam Beheshti (City St George’s, University of London). We need an ethos for all disciplines and professions with practical and social relevance, not just an ethos in medical professions.
6th National Symposium on Developing Socially Responsible Professionals