The long-reaching impact of Gregor Johann Mendel (and different interpretations of "Mendelism") go beyond the academic discipline of genetics. In October 2022, at the KLI Mendel Symposium, Barbara Fischer, Lynn Chiu, and Philipp Mitteröcker (University of Vienna) invited twelve scholars to give public lectures on the legacy of Mendel's work in the history of science, in the biological sciences, in the education and communication of science, in medicine, and also in social policies and society.

Group photo from the Mendel Symposium

You can now watch the videos on our Youtube channel. Speakers at the symposium include Blanka Krížová, Gregory Radick, Barbara Fischer, Amir Teicher, Maria Kronfeldner, Eva Jablonka, Isabella Sarto-Jackson, Lynn Chiu, Christian Bertsch, Brian Donovan, Kostas Kampourakis, and Markus Hengstschläger. You can find the program and videos here.

The Mendel200 team also worked with director and filmmaker Maria Pinto on five "Mendel Stories": short films that each explored a different aspect of Mendel's legacy in science and society. Evolutionary biologist Barbara Fischer talked about "Mendel's Vienna" while Blanka Krížová, Director of the Mendel Museum in Brno, introduced Mendel's life in Brno as "A Life of Challenges." Historian and philosopher Gregory Radick explains the status of Mendel's current legacy in "The Battle over Mendel." Explaining how we can move beyond said legacy, biologist and philosopher Eva Jablonka talks about "Inheritance beyond Mendel" while pedagogy scholar Kostas Kampourakis asks "Should we Teach Mendel Differently?" Watch the videos here on the project page.

The KLI Mendel Symposium videos and the Mendel Stories are some of the lasting outcomes of the cross-border INTERREG GJM200 project between Austria and Czechia. Mendel was one of the central themes of the Vienna Ball of Sciences 2023 (Wiener Ball der Wissenschaften). Members of the project were invited to celebrate their success with their mascot -- the 11m diameter Giant Pea.

at the Vienna City Hall with Mendel's Giant Pea
Left to right: Barbara Fischer, Lynn Chiu, Blanka Krížová, Ilona Med?anská, Filip Pardy