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Team:Imperial/The i in iGEM
From 2014.igem.org
The i in iGEM
Overview
As an international competition, every year iGEM welcomes teams from a great range of countries, with a variety of languages spoken amongst its teams and judges. This part of our Policy & Practices seeks to understand the effect of English as the lingua franca of science on the participation and outcome of the competition. In order to achieve this we have looked into the different nationalities of the teams and finalists and the different lingual backgrounds of teams and finalists over the years. We derived our conclusions by comparing this data with factors such as academic output and impact of their countries of origins, the lingual background of the iGEM judges, the international rankings of their universities and the English Proficiency Index of their countries of origin.
Key Achievements
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.
English as the lingua franca of science
The vast volume of scientific information available in today’s “Information Age” demands effective management and distribution to individuals and institutions. Such communication of ideas in across cultures and national borders requires the use of a common language. Within the 20th century , English has become the primary language for international communication in science and business (Tardy 2006) and English-speaking countries (mainly US and the UK) are the major players in the distribution and generation of knowledge, as demonstrated by their domination in the university and journal rankings.
The status of English as lingua academica does not come without its controversies. In non-English speaking countries, the main role of English is the reporting of professional knowledge, rather than direct communication between scholars. Whilst non-native English speaking scientists may have a good level of competency in jargon and understanding written English they are still at a disadvantage when called to communicate their complex ideas in an international setting. According to SCImago Journal & Country Rankings (SJR 2014), the majority of high impact journals are in English. This forces many non-English speaking scientists and engineers to communicate their science in English, in order to gain status and recognition. This is an additional disadvantage the researchers, who are trying to conduct high impact science from a nation with peripheral status (Tardy 2006).
Other effects of the language barrier can be seen in international scientific collaborations. It is established that the growing importance of international scientific collaborations requires not only common knowledge and understanding of the scientific terminology, but also clear communication. Using a common language is the intuitive way to achieve this and English has been filling that role (Hwang 2012). Again, non-native speakers are at a disadvantage, Babcock and Du-Babcok (2001) explain that “in communication encounters, low proficiency second-language speakers contribute fewer ideas than do fluent second-language speakers or first-language speakers”. Interestingly a study conducted by Yvanez and Shrum in 2009 showed that a reason behind the collaboration between Philippine and Japanese scientists and engineers was their similar, low levels of English competency (Yvanez & Shrum 2009), reflecting perhaps a method of compromise so the voices of both sides can be heard equally.
CS1
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CS2
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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
CS1
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CS2
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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 from the continent. 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
CS1
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CS2
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The Judges
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Recommendations
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For the Teams
For iGEM
References
