GYSS 2025
Working Together to Solve Global Challenges
Over five days, 342 young researchers came together at the Global Young Scientists Summit 2025 in Singapore to hear from distinguished speakers and build lasting connections.
At the 13th iteration of the Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS), organised by the National Research Foundation (NRF), conversations on collaboration and common global challenges came to the fore.
From Jan 6 to 10, young researchers had the opportunity to visit state-of-the-art research facilities in Singapore, hear from 18 distinguished speakers in panels and plenary lectures and have their burning questions answered at small-group fireside chats. The speakers and eminent scientists in attendance included Fields Medal, Millennium Technology Prize and Nobel Prize winners.
While the summit regularly encourages connection and collaboration, this year, speakers additionally emphasised the global challenges that unite us and must be solved together. In his opening remarks, former Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the NRF, Mr Heng Swee Keat, shared his hope that the GYSS will stimulate and inspire a new generation of exceptional scientists.
“Big complex problems are difficult to work out. By bringing together more of our best minds [and] sharing a common purpose of tackling these challenges, we better our chances of success,” he said.
The programme began on Jan 6 with participants visiting several local universities including the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU) and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). They were also hosted at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) Food Innovation Tech Centre as well as NRF’s Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE).
Back at NUS, where the remaining days of the summit were held, the young researchers gathered to engage in panel huddles, plenary lectures and fireside chats with the distinguished speakers. Several scientists also had the opportunity to present their work in quickfire pitches.
True to the defining topic of the event, the first panel, Interdisciplinary approaches to solving global challenges, saw Professor Dame Sue Black, Professor Takaaki Kajita and Professor Wendelin Werner sharing their experiences working with collaborators from different fields and encouraging participants to cross the boundaries of their disciplines.
“At the threshold, you step from one world into another,” said Prof Dame Sue. “The threshold is where the excitement is: when an anatomist meets a physicist or a mathematician, where something another scientist says sets your mind off because you’ve never thought that way before.”
In his plenary lecture, after sharing his journey to the discovery of introns and gene-splicing, Professor Sir Richard Roberts echoed this sentiment. “It’s worth remembering that grouping together is a good thing no matter what you’re doing,” he advised.
Looking ahead towards an extremely prevalent topic for the future of research, at the final panel huddle, Professor Yael Kalai, Professor Joan Rose and Professor Adi Shamir discussed the Ethics of Scientific Research in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Young researchers are consistently wrestling with rapidly advancing technologies and methods—the rise of AI is no different. The panellists covered concerns like bias in data representation and offered their thoughts on the direction of existing government regulation.
Video and Photo Repositories
To look back on the memories and lessons from GYSS 2025, here are links to the full video playlists and photos of the plenaries, panel huddles, quickfire pitches and more:
For more information on GYSS 2025: