Can Science win the sustainability and societal responsibility challenges?

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The past decade has brought to light many important issues and as scientists we have a role and a responsibility to tackle these enormous challenges. It is undeniable that globalization has made this planet a lot smaller. The covid 19 pandemic showed how fast a virus can spread around the globe and how it can put all human activities up-side down, affecting so many lives for years to come. Outside of the tragic losses of millions of lives, the pandemic highlighted the global supply chain weaknesses especially with the off shoring of essential supplies. We all remember the empty shelves for basic supplies such as flour and sugar and more painfully, the lack of surgical masks and PPE for the medical personnel who put their lives on the front line to fight this disease. Fortunately, once the political will aligned with science, red tape was removed, and a vaccination solution was developed in record time while antiviral drugs were also designed in parallel. Even though the virus is still present, humanity has gained significant knowledge in the development of mRNA vaccines in the process. This opens a new area of treatment that trains our immune system to fight diseases as well as certain type of cancers (1). But the pandemic also impacted how we work and socially interact. We all learned the intricacies of video conferences and how to wash our hands and wear a mask. But the pandemic also created a generation of students with knowledge of hands-on work based solely on virtual experiences since they could not physically be in the lab.
This turns out to be quite a challenge for recruiting and in response many companies have enhanced their in-house training programs to fill the gap.