Dejan Vinković received his doctoral degree in astrophysics at the University of Kentucky, USA, and subsequently spent four years working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Since his return to Croatia he has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Science in Split, and during the last several years he has been running a private non-profit Science and Society Synergy Institute in Čakovec. His scientific interests are colourful, ranging from astrophysics to socioeconomics, biomechanics, analysis of statistical data in politics and society, as well as the unemployment-forecasting models. Since recently, he leads the international cooperation project of scientists in research of large amounts of data in astronomy and satellite observations of Earth.

 

 

Plenary lecture: How to prepare ourselves for life in "fourth paradigm" era

 

Until recently, development of society has been driven by accomplishments based on three paradigms: experimental observation of nature and society, theoretical models explaining the observed phenomena, and in the last few decades the computer simulations which integrated the experiments and theory. Therefore it is normal to strategically consider the development of society through these paradigms, especially reforms along the educational axis which are supposed to prepare the future generations for new scientific and technological realities. In recent years, however, we have witnessed a growing importance of a new, fourth paradigm - "e-science", or big data science, which also includes all three previous paradigms. This paradigm already has a great influence on our lives, and through the lecture we will become acquainted with some examples, as well as with the changes this paradigm brought into the consideration of future of education and labour markets.