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Perfectly distributed over 9 European coasts, EU-CONEXUS intra-university provides students, teachers, researchers, and staff to study, teach, conduct research activities, innovate and work on a European scale. 

With its 6 800 research staff providing high-quality research and expertise on Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability (SmUCS) topics, EU-CONEXUS concentrates a scientific potential on SmUCS which is unprecedented at the international level and allows the Alliance to become a world-class player.

In this regard, interdisciplinary research is a key topic for the Alliance: promoting interdisciplinarity can lead to more effective collaboration, innovative research, and addressing a wider range of societal challenges. Nevertheless, interdisciplinary collaboration is not always easy to put into practice within traditional research structures that remain highly disciplinary.

The EU-CONEXUS Think-tank on Interdisciplinarity in Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability research topics will aim to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, especially between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and SSH (Social Sciences and Humanities), develop methodological approches to engage in interdisciplinary research, and promote interdisciplinary projects within and outside of EU-CONEXUS Alliance.

Objectives

• Explore characteristics and pre-conditions of interdisciplinarity and share best practices for enabling & strengthening interdisciplinary research teams at institutional and cross-campus level

• Review the structure and management of our research groups traditionally organized along scientific disciplines, and develop methodological approaches for successfully engaging in interdisciplinary research on SmUCs themes

• Develop tools such as guidelines, seminars and trainings for facilitating interdisciplinary research collaboration and publications, especially between STEM and SSH, and promote interdisciplinary projects within and outside of EU-CONEXUS Alliance

• Contribute to the drafting of a roadmap on “How to engage in interdisciplinary research”, a Deliverable of the EU-CONEXUS-RFS project due at the end of 2023. The document will be written by the members of the EU-CONEXUS-RFS project working group, including ideas and recommendations from the Think-tank.

• Work closely with government officials and stakeholders in order to shape policy making related to the Think-tank work.

Participation

The Think-tank is looking for participants who will work together to sharpen our understanding of the topic and develop activities in order to reach the goals listed above.

We are looking for a wide range of participant from academia, research organisations and networks, to local government, industry stakeholders, national and European policy makers and interested citizens. Researchers from different levels of experience and disciplines are welcome.

The Think-tank will be a space of open dialogue where we learn from each other, gather ideas, and identify gaps where research is needed to address societal needs – a forum for intense exchanges on how interdisciplinary research can positively impact EU-CONEXUS universities in becoming a hub of excellence on Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability.

If you are interested to join the Think-tank, please contact Marino Perović at mperovic@unizd.hr.

Format

The Think-tank activities and work will mainly be developed during online meetings, given EU-CONEXUS’ European scope.

These meetings will include the Think-tank participants as well as the working group members of the EU-CONEXUS-Research For Society project working on the task “Interdisciplinarity in research”.

Are you looking to share your experience of interdisciplinary research with other research teams, to exchange good practices with experts in academia, policy and industry, and to participate to the strengthening of a collaborative, interdisciplinary research on Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability within EU-CONEXUS?

Join us in this exciting adventure!