Goodbye 2024 and bon voyage into 2025!
We are nearing the end of 2024, and as many, we take this moment to reflect on the year we’ve had and of course imagine with anticipation and new expectations, what 2025 will bring.
During 2024, we achieved important milestones in our research and teaching initiatives. Our specific lines of research based on a cultural approach to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, together with the design and implementation of co-productive processes has been expanded and further consolidated. With this, the team reflected on what their highlights for 2024 were.
Sophie's highlight was the possibility of presenting her progress in the INTERSECTIONS project in two conferences this year. Reaching the end of her main data collection phase, she shared some initial findings at EASST in Amsterdam and ITD in Utrecht. EASST was all about new ideas, new people, diving into this academic conference world, while the ITD was an amazing opportunity to strengthen existing connections, exchange with likeminded people and feeling the comfort of a community.
Konstanty successfully submitted the first deliverable on integration of social sciences and humanities into energy research and modelling for the CoSi project, and is working to develop a research paper based on his findings.
Stephanie’s highlights were submitting the first DIAMOND deliverable earlier in the year, and beginning the next stage of collaboration on co-creating research questions to drive scenario development. Another highlight was a wonderful Zine workshop she hosted in Singapore at the DesCartes Responsible AI symposium!
In mid 2024, Helena completed her doctoral research plan, which is situated in the INTERECTIONS project, and successfully defended it in the aptitude colloquium. She particularly enjoyed the ITD24 conference, hosted in Utrecht in a colourful autumn, where she got to meet the community engaged in inter- and transdisciplinary research.
The CSTS team has also built new and solid collaborations with researchers, funders and practitioners around the world, as shown in the many presentations we did at the ITD Conference 2024, EASST Conference 2024 and EUSPRI 2024, among others.
This year, the CSTS Group has supported two masters theses. external page Valeria Merlo completed her thesis on the role of emotions and affection in interdisciplinary research, which was embedded in the INTERSECTIONS project. Victoria Herbig also completed her thesis titled “From Stakeholder Engagement to Inclusivity: Advancing Participatory Modelling for Net-Zero Sustainable Development”, and her results are being utilized in the DIAMOND project to ensure inclusive stakeholder engagement. We also welcomed four new students on board who will complete their research in 2025. Paula Winkler, who is doing her masters thesis on best practices and challenges for fostering stakeholder engagement in the development of alpine photovoltaic projects in Switzerland, and Xenia Stocker who is doing her bachelors thesis on the role of transdisciplinary approaches in energy communities.
So what does 2025 have to offer? Well, we are delighted to welcome Nathalie Dupin on board as a postdoctoral researcher in January, who will be working on a new project Practice-based Research, investigating research practices, outputs and impacts in Belgium-Flanders, Poland and Switzerland. We also look forward to hosting the SSH Energy 2025 workshop on 16 and 17 June 2025, and are already hard at work to make sure we offer a workshop that inspires critical thinking on “Futuring inter- and transdisciplinary energy research, for whom, by whom?”.
The CSTS team will be involved in a new course “Foundations of Science, Technology and Society”, co-organised with the D-GESS. This introduction to the field of STS is open to all Master and PhD students at ETH, and aims to offer students a space to learn conceptual, theoretical and methodological approaches from the field of Science, Technology and Society (STS) and how to apply these to issues of their area of study, research, and practice. Later in summer, the team will offer a summer school within the ENHANCE Alliance titled “Inter- and Transdisciplinary Integration in Research, Policy and Practice”.
We have had a lovely 2024, and are so delighted that our team is growing in size and range of research topics. We specially thank our collaborators, research partners and funders (SNSF, SFOE, European Commission and ETH Zurich) for showing an interest in our work and wish you a splendid festive season and a warm welcome into the new year!