Introduction

iGEM stands for ‘International Genetically Engineered Machine” and as the first word of this acronym indicates, countries and universities from all over the world are well represented. The iGEM competition has grown into a diverse community with a great range of nationalities, cultures and languages represented. The competition took its name in 2005, when 14 teams from 4 different countries came together to develop novel ideas based on synthetic biology. At that time, German and English were the only two languages represented. Since then, the competition has grown, reaching the 100 team milestone in 2009 and climbing to a staggering 245 teams from 32 different countries with 20 language this year, its 10th anniversary. The competition has been expanding in all directions. Different teams compete in different tracks, for different awards and there is now a separation between undergraduate and overgraduate teams.

The language that all the teams communicate their project is English, as per lingua academica. In the spirit of synthetic biology, where standardization and application of the same principals throughout the discipline is promoted, it is certainly essential that all the stakeholders have a common language of communication. Rapid international expansion and the necessity of a single language however present many challenges which need to be addressed.

Study Methods

Language data was collected as follows: We looked into all the teams that participated in iGEM over the years (iGEM 2004 – 2014) and looked into the country. If the country has only one official language, that is considered the language of the team. For countries with more than one official languages, we looked into the specific language of the institution, as well as the location of the institution within the country (for example, in India and Canada, different languages are spoken in geographical regions). In order to get a better insight in the finalists of previous years, we contacted students of this year’s team from the same university and, when possible, members of the finalist team. That gave us a good insight in the teaching methods of their university and attitude to iGEM and how that reflects to the result of the competition. QS rankings was our university ranking system of choice, because it put a lot of gravity in Academic reputation of the institutions and citations per faculty, while it did not ignore the universities’ diversity, by looking into the international student ratio and the international staff ratio (QS 2014).

For data on judges The iGEM organization publishes the names of the participating judges from the year 2009 up to 2013. Between 2011 and 2013, when the regional jamborees occurred, there is a record of judges that were part of the regionals, as well as the championships. We first assumed is that all judges speak English. We then took each name and tried to match it to an individual and via online CVs, LinkedIn, academic and business profiles we tried to discover the lingual background of the particular individuals. The best case scenario was people listing the languages they can speak (and their level of competency) in their CVs and LinkedIn. If that was not the case, we moved to the university they come from and where they gained their undergraduate degree from. Finally, some judges mentioned their country of origin in their business/ academic profiles and the language was matched. While we recognize that a lot of mistakes could have been made in the process, we tried to be as precise as possible throughout the procedure.

Case Studies

The Countries and Continents

Over the years, 43 different countries have participated in the competition. North America is home to iGEM and the continent with most participating teams. With 33 of its universities in the top 100 of the QS rankings, it’s arguably the leading continent in academia. Over the years, 453 teams originate from the continent, mostly from the United States. Over the years, the US has had teams in the finalists (top 6), 9 times. Alongside North America, Europe was one of the initial participants in the competition when it became international in 2005. It has been represented by 343 universities and colleges over the years. Home to 41 of the 100 top universities in the world, according to QS rankings, Europe attracts a large student population from around the world to its academic institutions. Universities in the UK and Germany have had particularly strong presence in iGEM. European teams have been finalists in the competition an amazing 26 times, more than any other continent in the history of the competition. The best year for Europe was 2009, when all the finalists originated to the country. Last year, all of the Undergraduate finalists and 2 out of the 3 overgraduate finalists where European teams.

Asia is the continent whose participation in the competition has seen the most rapid increase. Between 2010 and 2014 the participation of Asian teams has grown 115% percent, compared to the 76% of Europe, 79% of North America and the 91% growth in the competition overall. The key player here is China, which has seen a huge 455% increase in number of teams, significantly more than any other participating country. Despite the growth of the continent in the competition, this has not translated into finalists. Only 12% of finalists come from Asia, a mere 5 out of 41 previous finalists. No more than one Asian team has been a finalist per year.

The Language

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Case Studies

The Judges

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References