I came to IAS with genuine pleasure, after leaving research years ago convinced my unruly curiosity made me unfit for academia—only to find here that such tendencies were no handicap but a strength.

I did my fellowship at IAS from February to July 2025. The IAS is a great place for getting new research inspiration after a busy teaching period. The fellow room with comfy chairs and a beautiful view on the city ...

From April to June 2025, I had the great privilege of being a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Amsterdam. This experience was truly special—not only did I get to work in a beautiful and ...

During my IAS fellowship, the print copy of Tom McCarthy’s novel The Making of Incarnation (2021) was constantly on my desk in the hospitable ‘white room’ (aka fellow’s office) at Oude Turfmarkt 147. The cover of the ...

When faced with complex phenomena such as mental health, climate systems, or societal transformation, established paradigms frequently demonstrate important limitations. In response, a growing number of scholars from ...

The university institution emerged as an exercise in balancing. In Medieval times, universities grew out of two very different societal traditions: the medieval guilds and the Christian monastic tradition. The guild ...

Being one of the first policy fellows at the IAS, this fellowship was an experiment. At the same time, returning to the university where I previously worked, this time as a Policy Fellow, felt like a homecoming - but ...

After a decade of researching blood transfusion products in preterm infants, I realized I had more questions than answers. When I discovered an IAS seminar series on health complexity, I was eager to join. I still ...

It’s taken me a long time to write this blog post. Nearly a year has passed since I finished my Fellowship at IAS (Sept-Oct 2023 and Jan-Feb 2024) and this reflection is long overdue. But a good story needs time to ...

The IAS provided the perfect home for our group project on rethinking the interface of modern logic and modern AI. The IAS is a truly interdisciplinary and inspiring environment that is ideal for a topic that, like ...

Spending time as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Amsterdam was like stepping into an intellectual greenhouse - ideas growing wild, cross-pollinating, and sometimes tangling together in ...

My fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies took place between April and July 2024. It has been an experience that exceeded expectations. The expectation of my fellowship was to work with Markus Stauff, a ...

“…and where do you apply your research?” was a question I received at the outset of (almost) every introduction during my 5 month visit to the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) from, February through to July of 2024. ...

I had the joy of having a lengthy IAS research fellowship from October 2023 to June 2024. It was a luxury to step into the beautiful IAS building overlooking the canals, knowing I had a full day to work on my project ...

In the summer of 2017, at the start of my first research fellowship, I stumbled upon a short yet profound book titled “Usefulness of Useful Knowledge” by Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the very first ...

If I had to describe my IAS fellowship in three words, they would be: peace, space, and trust. As soon as you walk into the IAS building, you get the impression that you can slow down, take time to reflect, find ...

“During our time at IAS, we aim to set up a more comprehensive framework for designing triangulation studies in health research, especially with respect to the integration of methods employing genetic data, such as ...

A plain Tuesday in April, with that typically changeable Dutch weather when you can experience all seasons in one day. But a fantastic day in many other respects, a day that illustrates the fruits of having a ...

We look back at our sojourn at IAS very fondly, and not just because of the thriving and convivial atmosphere within which we worked, talked, and ate with colleagues across UvA and beyond. It was an experience that ...

In today's complex legal, economic and political landscape, the collaboration between civil society and academia plays a pivotal role to develop more informed policies. Reflecting on my policy fellowship experience ...

Two years within Australia's closed borders proved to be a challenging period filled with administrative responsibilities. As 2022 was my sabbatical year, I was determined to re-immerse myself in active academic ...

The phrase that caught my eye when looking for fellowship opportunities was slow science. I had an upcoming sabbatical that I wanted to use to kickstart my brand-new ERC project on social tipping dynamics. As is ...

In June 2022, I was selected as the first joint fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) and the Data Science Centre (DSC) of the University of Amsterdam. The topic of my fellowship was the connection ...

During my fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), I experienced a transformative period in my professional and personal life. The interdisciplinary environment allowed me to broaden my horizons, foster ...

Still under Peter Sloot’s lead, and during the pandemic, my Building as Being project was selected for the ‘UvA-IAS ArtScience fellowship’.

February 2021. The world is in lockdown, again. Brilliant sunshine is streaming in through the windows. I am frantically darting around my living room, carefully balancing my laptop, trying to find a spot where I can ...

Alumni Fellows Naja and Morten Hulvej Rod write in this blog about their time at IAS

Alumni fellows Lasse Gerrits and Brian Castellani mapped the history of the study of social complexity

Fellow Fernando Nóbrega Santos used online events to bring together 15 international experts and attracted over a hundred attendees all together

UvA researchers about their fellowship period at the IAS