The corona crisis not only challenges disease control and crisis management, but may also have long-term and far-reaching impact on states, societies and international cooperation. There are increasing indications that the world will be different after the crisis, and that globalisation will be questioned in many areas. According to these observations, the corona crisis could mark a turning point. In times of deep uncertainty, science is asked to look to the future and to flank a rational discourse about how to react to the current global crisis, and also how to cope better with other tantamount global challenges such as climate change.

Since this challenge is genuinely interdisciplinary, the UBIAS network has decided to open a platform to discuss these questions in an interdisciplinary and international perspective.

Call for essays: how will/should the world change?

Scientific essays from all disciplines will be published on the blog Interdisciplinarity, managed by the University of Bielefeld's ZiF (Center for Interdisciplinary Research). The essays should be written in English and have a maximum of 10,000 characters, including spaces.

The essays are expected to sharpen our view of the current situation and contribute to the public debate about necessary structural changes. If the quality of the contributions suggests it, a subsequent UBIAS publication will be considered.

Please submit your paper before the end of May to: zif@uni-bielefeld.de or ubiasnetwork@gmail.com. Send us a copy (to: ias@uva.nl) if you want your essay to be published on the website of the UvA's IAS as well.

Discuss your ideas!

If you have an idea for an essay, we can help you to organise an online discussion to get some first reflections. Contact us to explore the options: ias@uva.nl.