Armenia’s ageing sciences: can the demographic decline be reversed? 

With universities and research institutes failing to attract young people, the sciences in Armenia are becoming the realm of the aged. But could a boost to funding, opportunities to study abroad, and attracting foreign scholars reverse the demographic trends in the country’s ageing sciences? In a small classroom at Yerevan State University’s Faculty of Physics, Hrachya Asatryan tells a group of teenagers about black holes, the structure of the solar system, and what exactly a ‘light-year’ is.