Call for essays: The world after corona crisis

On behalf of the UBIAS (University-based Institutes for Advanced Study Network

Dear colleagues,

Heavily shaken by the corona pandemics many of us are currently thinking about how we could contribute to overcome this unprecedented situation. We thought that UBIAS could open a unique platform to discuss these questions in an interdisciplinary and international perspective. Therefore we would like to launch a call for papers about:

How will/should the world change? The corona crisis as an interdisciplinary challenge

The corona crisis not only challenges disease control and crisis management, but may also have long-term and far-reaching impacts on states, societies and international cooperation. There are increasing indications that the world will look different after the crisis and that globalization will be questioned in many areas. According to these observations, the corona crisis would 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 therefore now better cope with other tantamount global challenges such as the climate change.

Since this challenge is genuinely interdisciplinary, UBIAS could make a contribution with its contacts to interdisciplinary and international scientific communities.
The idea is to present scientific essays (max. 10,000 characters incl. spaces) from different disciplines in the blog Interdisciplinarity, which is run by ZiF, over the next few weeks. These essays will sharpen our view of the current situation and contribute to the debate about necessary structural changes. For this purpose, scholars (UBIAS Fellows and others) from different disciplines and countries will be addressed. Contributions can be submitted in English. If the quality of the contributions suggests it, a subsequent UBIAS publication could also be considered.

Please submit your paper until the end of May latest to zif@uni-bielefeld.de or ubiasnetwork@gmail.com.

We would be happy if you could consider a contribution yourself and/or looking out for scholars and scientists who might find this project appealing. Since some distinguished scholars enthusiastically agreed to submit a paper already (among them Lorraine Daston (History of Science), Christoph Horn (Philosophy), Frank Riedel (Economy) and Oliver Razum (Public Health)) we are very optimistic that this blog will not only deliver valuable contributions for public debates but will also demonstrate the huge intellectual capacity of the global UBIAS network.
We are looking forward to receiving papers from all around the world and thank you for your support!

Best wishes,

Véronique Zanetti and Britta Padberg G. Ary Plonski, Clarissa Ball and Raouf Boucekkine