Science of the Unexpected: The ECHs Annual Research Retreat
This year’s ECH Research Frontiers Workshop focused on unexpected interactions between research fields. In the first week of October, the ECH-team and over 30 of the Hub’s members spent two days learning about a variety of unexpected research outcomes from a wide range of topics and developing new – and often unexpected – collaborations on emerging questions.
Nora Gau
This two day workshop featured nine different presentations from Hub members showcasing the diversity of research being conducted. Talks covered how the social science perspective can inform on the inner workings of the Microbiome, how economic models can capture disasters, why strategic litigation is a way to combat climate change, the anthropology of cycling, advancing radioisotope research for environmental sciences, and many more. In their presentations, researchers not only shared their findings, but also set up thought provoking discussions on the frontiers in their fields and the questions that need the expertise of other research areas in order to be answered.
This interdisciplinary exchange at the core of the ECH’s work was also the topic of a fireside chat between the ECHs co-directors Sabine Pahl and Thilo Hofmann, and ECH Ambassador Lora Fleming, hosted by ECH Research Facilitation Coordinator Gemma Carr. As co-founder of the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, Lora Fleming shared her insights on bringing together researchers from different fields, while Sabine Pahl, Thilo Hofmann and the ECH members discussed their own experiences on the challenges and break-throughs during their time working in interdisciplinary teams.
Across the two days of knowledge-exchange and discussion, the Hub not only created a space for researchers to develop new ideas. It also took away its’ own learnings on future developments, ending the retreat with a session, where members could share their ambitions for the ECH and what it could become in the next years.