The goal of this workshop is to bring together mathematicians and scientists from various backgrounds as well as any and all who are interested in the question “what can we do about climate change“. By creating strong networks of scientists, we hope to create a synergy that will benefit both scientific advances and their applications and implications in the world.

 

Our goals are to:

· - Engage the mathematics/scientific community in sustainability challenges,

· - Promote local collaboration in Switzerland/EU,

· - Form a strong network of colleagues and future collaborators, and

· - Promote inclusivity and non-hierarchical collaboration.

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Program

 

The program can be found here. 

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Conduct of the workshop

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There will be five topics throughout the week: sustainable economics, technologies, ecology, climate studies and education. Speakers (one or two per topic) will each give a 60 minutes lecture that should be accessible to all participants. 

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The list of confirmed speakers is: Valérie Chavez-Demoulin (HEC Lausanne), Florence Hugard (E4S), Philippe Jacquod (HES-Wallis), Christian Mazza (UNIFR), Martine Rebetez (WSL Swiss federal research institute, UNINE), Julia Steinberger (UNIL,CLIMACT). 

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Activities will include a climate fresk and a tangible workshop. There will be also a presentation of the institute for planet earth, the association DeGrowth Switzerland and of the 10 minutes museum on the climate crisis and mathematics. 

For the rest of the day, the participants will work in groups, helped by moderators, on questions and open problems related to the topic. Moderators are scientists and non-scientists who already work on questions related to sustainability and climate change. Their role is to keep the discussion going by bringing their input and knowledge in the groups. Some moderators come from associations such as CLIMACT, DeGrowth Switzerland and Reatch.

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Outcomes of the workshop

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The workshop is collaborative and promotes non-hierachical collaboration and organisation. Therefore, there will be no fixed schedule and exercises after the presentations and round tables. Our goal is that the participants create their own projects and develop their ideas during the workshop. The workshop will provide a stimulating environment for creativity and development of projects!  

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• The participants will develop strong knowledge of the different topics related to mathematics (and science in general) and climate change.

• After the workshop, the participants will have created strong networks of research and activities relating mathematics and climate change. 

• In addition to  potential scientific publications and/or research projects, we aim at creating a gathering of exercises for mathematicians and engineers that relate to sustainability questions. It will be shared within the relevant institutions after the workshop to implement more sustainability topics in the math and science education programs.