IASS Potsdam: Unveiling the connections of a complex world

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted economic and social life across the globe, causing over 800,000 deaths worldwide so far. The pandemic and our responses to it raise fundamental questions about sustainability: how can we redesign our health, social, and economic systems to be resilient in the face of eminent crises? How can we make our societies more resilient to cope with severe threats?

In our event we will explore these questions and the role that science can play in offering solutions - solutions that go far beyond the development of a vaccine. Whether it be the next pandemic or the climate crisis, our global society is increasingly confronted with so-called wicked problems: complex phenomena characterized by uncertainties in causal relationships, ambiguities in interpretation of the problem itself and possible solutions, and often related to issues that are highly controversial.

Facing these challenges requires integration of knowledge from many academic disciplines as well as from non-academic practitioners (e.g., from civil society and politics), an idea which is encompassed in the concept of transdisciplinary research. Our event provides diverse perspectives on the complex interconnections between human health, the health of the planet, and the societal structures support and hinder the sustainability of both.

Registration available online here