All the months of preparations have been building up to this moment. On Saturday, we will finally board the plane to Ecuador. We may all work in different fields and come from different research institutions in different cities, but we all have at least two things in common: We all share an interest in the period in the geological epoch starting when human activity began to impact the Earth – the Anthropocene Epoch – and we are all members of Die Junge Akademie. As young scientists, we are convinced that interdisciplinary cooperation is the only way of properly researching complex shifts such as climate change given that there are so many factors and aspects to consider. This level of interdisciplinary collaboration obviously doesn’t just happen on its own. Our different fields and backgrounds come together require us to work hard to cooperate productively, sometimes through trial and error.
How can scientists working in climatology, biology, chemistry, music, computer science and medicine work together and communicate in a world which places increasing emphasis on specialisation? Is there a way to find a common language, approach and methodology? Is it possible to pinpoint crossovers that will pave the way for successful interdisciplinary collaboration?
As members of Die Junge Akademie, we the opportunity to attempt to achieve this – to blur disciplinary boundaries as we combine our findings as a team and analyse them from new perspectives. We are very excited to share our expedition to Ecuador with you through this blog (and don’t worry, we offset the carbon emissions from our flights).
