In the summer of 2019 as the UK was in the midst of heated Brexit debates and Theresa May’s minority government clung on to power, Professor Louise Ryan interviewed Professor Nira Yuval-Davis about her recent book Bordering (Yuval-Davis, Wemyss and Cassidy 2019). Although things have changed in some significant ways since that interview, for example Boris Johnson has now replaced Theresa May as Prime Minister, and won a landslide election victory in December, 2019, and the controversial Brexit Bill was passed by the British Parliament, many of the issues about borders and bordering remain extremely relevant today. The current pandemic has not only revealed Britain’s dependence on migrant workers, especially in health and social care, but also exposed health inequalities among migrants and ethnic minorities. As the post-Brexit immigration landscape begins to emerge, the analysis of Nira Yuval Davis remains as pertinent as ever.

Dr. Artur Binda, a bariatric surgeon from the Orłowski Independent Public Teaching Hospital in Warsaw, discusses bariatric surgery procedures, frequently the only treatment for patients with life-threatening obesity.

Is it possible to revitalize Europe without external interference and a shift in the geopolitical situation outside the Continent? An answer to this question is here offered by Prof. Jan Zielonka, a political scientist analyzing change in Central and Eastern Europe and a lecturer at the European Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

We talk to Dr. Katarzyna Błachowiak-Samołyk, professor at the Department of Marine Ecology at the PAS Institute of Oceanology in Sopot, about the impact of human activity on life in the oceans.

We talk to Dr. Bogdan Jaroszewicz, head of the Białowieża Geobotanical Station of the University of Warsaw, about how planned logging in the Białowieża Forest will damage not only the forest itself but also Poland’s image around the globe.

No one could have expected that on the first day that LIGO detectors were running, scientists would register signals of gravitational waves. We discuss the watershed discovery confirming the general theory of relativity with Dr. Andrzej Królak from the PAS Institute of Mathematics and Dr. Michał Bejger from the PAS Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre, both members of the Virgo-POLGRAW group.

Prof. Mirosław Kofta, a psychologist from the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Psychology and Institute for Social Studies, discusses political change in Poland, authoritarian personality, and civil society.

Prof. Przemysław Śleszyński from the PAS Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization in Warsaw (author of an extensive study of 122 medium-sized Polish cities) explains why Poland’s midsize cities are facing depopulation.

We talk to Prof. Małgorzata Kossowska from the Institute of Psychology at the Jagiellonian University about whether women are appreciated, the significance of openness and tolerance, and what makes a terrorist.

Prof. Hanna Bogucka, head of the Department of Wireless Communications at the Poznań University of Technology, discusses unnecessary inhibitions, the usefulness of microphones, and the links between people and technology.

We talk to Prof. Jerzy Jarzębski from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and the Eastern Europe State University in Przemyśl about Stanisław Lem and the future he foresaw, his cautionary tales and whether he is still an author often misunderstood.

Dr. Zofia Szweda-Lewandowska of the Warsaw School of Economics discusses the situation of the elderly and their caregivers in Poland.

Natalia Marek-Trzonkowska and Piotr Trzonkowski of the Medical University of Gdańsk talk about trust, coordination, and creative conflicts – in the first of a series of interviews with scientists who are partners both at work and in life.

Dr. Naomi Mandel from Israel, one of this year’s fellows of the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies (PIASt), studies how culture informs technology and, vice-versa, how technology informs culture.

Prof. Przemysław Perlikowski, a mechanical engineer, and his wife Asst. Prof. Renata Perlikowska, who studies opioid peptides used in medicine, discuss the challenges of research work and life.