Introduction
For anyone willing and daring to see, it is clear that the world is confronted with tremendously complex challenges, such as environmental pollution and decreasing planetary health, the loss of ecological diversity, a worldwide mental health crisis, a lack of sustainability in our food systems, and global pandemics. The present-day turbulence, fear and doubt in the (geo)political and academic systems exacerbates the handling of these crises, with growing concerns for the closing of academia with regard to the accessibility of data, unbiased review procedures, fair funding possibilities, openness in assessment, liberty in selecting publication opportunities, freedom of education, and trust of the public in science and scholarship, among others (e.g. Anonymous 2025; Abassi Reference Abbasi2025; Choo Reference Choo2025). To address these matters, academic institutions need to transition, and truly connect with society and find self-confident identities unified around the integrity of science. In this article, we discuss how an expansion of the central tenet of the Institutes for Advanced Study (IAS) – curiosity-based research – might be brought together with new directions in Open Science – connecting research and education, and science and society – in order to address the world’s complex trials in unison.
The unique and fascinating story of the establishment of the very first Institute for Advanced Study in 1930 – the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton with its illustrious faculty and fellows – has been told many times (e.g. Dijkgraaf Reference Dijkgraaf and Flexner2017).Footnote a The acclaimed institute is described as a paradise for scholars (e.g. Gunderman et al. Reference Gunderman, Gascoine, Hafferty and Kanter2010), an academic utopia (e.g. Rassias and Witkowski Reference Rassias and Witkowski2019), a special heaven for men and women of scholarship and science (Klaniczay Reference Klaniczay2016), and as the university to universities (Trenner Reference Trenner1999). At present, its example has been followed by an estimated 150 institutes worldwide (Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi Reference Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi2022). While there is a very broad diversity in organizational structures, and areas of scholarly and scientific attention in the IAS, the central tenet of these institutes has always been curiosity-based research as the core focus. The IAS are oftentimes part of larger networks, such as Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) (Wittrock Reference Wittrock2002a), the Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study (NETIAS 2004), the University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS) (Frick et al. Reference Frick, Dose and Ertel2011), the Nordic Institutes for Advanced Study (NordIAS 2023), and the Matariki Institutes of Advanced Study (Matariki Network of Universities 2024). Along similar metaphoric lines as the original institute, but perhaps at times with a slightly different connotation, the IAS have often been characterized as the ultimate ivory towers (e.g. Denda Reference Denda2001; Klaniczay Reference Klaniczay2016). After all, the defining feature of the IAS has always been to provide a truly autonomous place where (visiting) fellows can focus purely on (basic) research of their own choosing over an extended period, free from such demands as education, and other institutional and societal responsibilities (Connor Reference Connor2002). By virtue of this defining feature, the IAS have often been characterized as the ultimate protectors of academic freedom. While the IAS clearly fulfil such a laudable role, still the question might be raised whether this is not a rather ‘negative’ view of academic freedom – i.e. foremost a ‘liberty from’ obstruction and restrictions (Hilders and Hazeleger Reference Hilders, Hazeleger, Van Geelen, Milota, Gaillard and Van Royen-Kerkhof2026). Should the IAS not also endeavour towards a more ‘positively’ self-defined formulation of academic freedom in which they take up a key role as innovative institutes striving for systematic transformation in the scholarly and scientific landscape of our time, and the establishment of new academic identities?Footnote b
In line with such thoughts, recently there has also been a substantive call to re-examine the traditional ways in which we think of research in its intrinsic relation to other elements of academia, such as education, public engagement, and public–private and not-for-profit partnerships (Kummeling et al. Reference Kummeling, Kluijtmans and Miedema2024). The League of European Research Universities (LERU) formulates this Open Science movement as follows:
Open Science [represents a] change in the way stakeholders in the research, education and knowledge exchange communities create, store, share and deliver the outputs of their activity. For universities and other stakeholders to embrace Open Science principles, policies and practices, there needs to be a culture change in these organizations. (Ayris et al. Reference Ayris, López de San Román, Maes and Labastida2018).
Many parties have now embraced Open Science. On a global level, to address the highly urgent and complex issues the world currently faces and to help attain the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (Ross Reference Ross2023), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization now makes a strong recommendation on Open Science (UNESCO 2021). This endorsement was subsequently supported by the International Science Council (Boulton Reference Boulton2021). At the European level, the European Commission (EC) in its vision for Europe has also adopted Open Science as a binding norm, both in its science policies (European Commission 2016, 2021a), as well as through its Horizon Europe funding schemes (European Commission 2021b). Alongside the EC, several national research councils (e.g. Dutch Research Council 2021; Swedish Research Council 2022) and broad university-networks, such as LERU and the Coimbra Group (Ayris et al. Reference Ayris, López de San Román, Maes and Labastida2018; Coimbra Group Universities 2024) also call for Open Science.
There can be no doubt that the steep exponential increase in IAS and their impact on international scientific communities on the one hand, and the surging attention for Open Science and its effects on university landscapes on the other, represent major influences on the direction of academic institutions in the present and future. However, at first glance, their aims and goals might seem to be incommensurable. At the end of the day, institutes that from their very beginning have tried to allow ‘its academic stars to fully concentrate on deep thoughts, as far removed as possible from everyday matters and practical applications’ (Dijkgraaf Reference Dijkgraaf and Flexner2017: 5) would seem to have very little in common with a movement, which insists on ‘biting the bullet [and] discuss “therapeutic” interventions required to opening up research and academia for transition to a more open science that works better for the world’ (Miedema Reference Miedema2022: viii). Nonetheless, this apparent contradiction to a large extent is only that – existing in appearance, though not usually in reality.
This article will first focus on some of the founding principles of the IAS and the current expressions of the ideas lying therein. In no way though will this be a detailed history of these highly diverse institutes. Many, much better informed and more authoritative, scholars have already done so (e.g. Connor Reference Connor2002, Reference Connor2003; Converse Reference Converse2001; Goddard Reference Goddard2009; Klaniczay Reference Klaniczay2016; Padberg Reference Padberg2020; Wesseling Reference Wesseling2003; Wittrock Reference Wittrock2002b). Instead, special attention will go out to how the central focus of the IAS on curiosity-based research relates to the notion of ‘relevance’ and how they perceive education, with the aim of exploring existing intersections with Open Science. The discussion of societal relevance and applicability in the IAS, however, is not new. In order to broaden their impact, the IAS should structurally also open up to, and address, new target-groups. Consequently, the article concentrates somewhat more on possible connections between research and education as a largely untapped focus-area. Second, the article will look into Open Science as a transformative movement in academic settings. Here as well, an exhaustive demonstration of its guiding principles regarding publishing, data-use, and the measurement of impact and excellence will not be undertaken, as others who are considerably more qualified have previously made this venture (e.g. Boulton Reference Boulton2021; European Commission 2021a; UNESCO 2021; Miedema Reference Miedema2022). In its place, the article will try to delve into some new advances in Open Science, regarding the – perhaps indissoluble – tie between research, education and societal engagement. This in the confident expectation that meaningful kinships to novel developments in the IAS thus might be uncovered. Finally, the article will briefly and conceptually explore how the IAS and Open Science might enter into an impactful alliance. In this way, the article wishes to make a contribution to an open and mutually beneficial dialogue, through which the IAS and Open Science, as drivers of academic progress, can work in synergy towards the betterment of the worrisome state of the planet.
The Institutes for Advanced Study
The leading scientists of tomorrow should be trained in a new form of academic thinking that is no longer limited by national, cultural or disciplinary boundaries. […] IAS have the flexibility and openness to experiment with new formats of knowledge production and to contribute to a reciprocal and respectful exchange across and beyond cultural, national, and disciplinary boundaries. (Padberg Reference Padberg2020: 158–159)
While it seems hard to oppose the above quote, it does on the one hand raise the question who the leading scientists of tomorrow are meant to be, and on the other hand what new forms of knowledge production should be expected from the IAS. Before getting into these questions, a small step back to some of the ground-laying ideas of the IAS needs to be made. The rise of the IAS can be coupled to broader developments in the history of the university. This in particular with regard to a certain phase in the organization of higher learning, where the institutes could be considered as a reaction to mounting institutional, funding and policy incentives to mainly support research with concrete results in the short-term (Wittrock Reference Wittrock2002a). Robert Connor, the former director of the National Humanities Center, describes this development succinctly (Connor Reference Connor2003). In the first phase, starting in the twelfth century, the newly established universities focus on undergraduate teaching in the liberal arts, and on the transmission of existing knowledge towards the training of the professions (i.e. especially in medicine, law and theology). In the second phase, starting in the nineteenth century, more specialized universities are developed, which commenced to focus on the creation of new disciplinary knowledge, and the Humboldtian ideal of the interrelatedness of research and (graduate) teaching (Wesseling Reference Wesseling2003). The third phase is characterized by an increasing recognition that true innovation in understanding and explaining complex scholarly and scientific issues requires interdisciplinary and international collaboration – and this is where the IAS take up their unique role (Converse Reference Converse2001).
The idea that the long-term support and encouragement of an undifferentiated approach to science, not limited to steadily ingrained disciplinary boundaries, should be at the core of the IAS is one of their founding principles (Goddard Reference Goddard2009). This interdisciplinary direction was further developed and promoted by the European institutes that were established in the second half of the twentieth century (Wesseling Reference Wesseling2003). However, this interdisciplinarity does not entail that academics should work from within a new conceptualization of the unity of science (Padberg Reference Padberg, Weingart and Padberg2014), but rather that science and scholarship at the IAS are seen as fundamentally collaborative efforts (Koban Reference Koban2004). This also led to many institutes no longer only inviting individual scholars and scientists, but also starting to accommodate research-groups working on more broadly defined themes (Wittrock Reference Wittrock2002b). While the endeavour towards interdisciplinarity and open interaction has not always been without its ups and downs (Horowitz Reference Horowitz1973; Shapley Reference Shapley1973), at present IAS-fellows working from different disciplinary backgrounds in global networks is rapidly becoming a prevailing norm (Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi Reference Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi2022). Interestingly though, the latter authors define this networking in the context of developing new transdisciplinary ideas (Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi Reference Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi2022: 31), and Connor (Reference Connor2003: 295) states that ‘[c]enters for advanced study will become a primary locus for addressing new, especially transdisciplinary questions and for the development of new paradigms.’
Transdisciplinary research is commonly defined as science and scholarship that integrates understanding across academic disciplines and with non-academic stakeholders to produce new knowledge to address societal challenges (Kaiser and Gluckman Reference Kaiser and Gluckman2023; Rigolot Reference Rigolot2020). This brings up the – now almost a century old – topic of how the IAS relate to notions of societal relevance and social engagement. The most famous anecdote concerning this issue is still the clash of ideas – on withdrawal from the world of people and events versus social engagement – between Albert Einstein and Abraham Flexner, the innovative founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study (Trenner Reference Trenner1999). After Einstein had arrived at the institute in 1933, he and his wife soon received an invitation from President Roosevelt to the White House. Flexner intercepted the message and responded in Einstein’s behalf that he would not be able to attend, because he was to focus strictly on his scientific work in absolute seclusion. Learning of this, Einstein was not particularly amused and quickly arranged a dinner meeting with the president and his spouse anyway. While this can perhaps best be seen as a dispute on a personal level, it bears the seeds of a yet more basic issue. On a scientific level, Freeman Dyson, professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, eloquently addressed such fundamental conflicts. ‘In physics there are some problems that are really beautiful and elegant and a joy to work on. But there are others which are horribly messy but which the world imposes on you and they are terribly much more important’ (Shapley Reference Shapley1973: 1210). Especially with the advance of IAS in Eastern Europe, Asia and South America – in their respective economic, cultural, and political contexts – expressing open society values, contributing to public and science policies, stimulating academic reflection on socially relevant problems, counteracting institutional and (inter)national research competitiveness, and finding new ways to defend academic freedom are now high on the agendas (Ades Reference Ades2011; Hügli Reference Hügli2022; Klaniczay Reference Klaniczay2016; Padberg Reference Padberg2020).Footnote c
Tremendous global problems, like those mentioned in the introduction, have urged the IAS to reconsider their role in society and urge them to rethink their notion of science. For indeed – going back to the opening quote of this section – the wicked and complex challenges of today do not only ask for transdisciplinary forms of knowledge, but also compel the IAS to consider which ‘scientists of tomorrow’ should be privy to this knowledge – and, in fact, may help produce it. Here, once again, it might be worth taking a step back. In setting up the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the financial backers of this new concept wrote:
So far as we are aware, there is no institution in the United States where scientists and scholars devote themselves at the same time to serious research and to the training of competent post-graduate students entirely. [I]n the admission of workers and students, no account shall be taken directly or indirectly, of religion, race or sex. (Bamberger and Bamberger Fuld Reference Bamberger and Bamberger Fuld1930: 5–6)
Flexner, an important and still highly regarded (medical) education innovator, thought that university teaching should not just transmit knowledge, but was mainly important in as far as it advanced knowledge and actively engaged students in the pursuit of understanding (Gunderman et al. Reference Gunderman, Gascoine, Hafferty and Kanter2010). Initially, he therefore had a vision for a graduate university (Flexner Reference Flexner1930) to be named an ‘Institute of Higher Learning or Advanced Study’ (Converse Reference Converse2001; Wesseling Reference Wesseling2003). While it would not admit undergraduates, the idea was that excellent graduate students would form partnerships with senior faculty and could also work towards their PhD-degree (Pasachoff Reference Pasachoff2008). Upon further reflection, Flexner soon decided that supervising students would burden the staff too much with theses and examinations (Regis Reference Regis1987),Footnote d and the institute became dedicated near exclusively to research, with little attention for training or education. This model was subsequently adopted for a long time by most following institutes.Footnote e
At present however, masterclasses, summer schools, symposia, public talks, and workshops – increasingly also open for (under)graduate and PhD students – are often an integral part of the IAS. Still other innovative forms of education – such as programmes for teaching professionals, mentor training for fellows, training-networks for early career scholars, and educational research projects – are becoming new foci for the IAS. To give just a few examples, The National Humanities Center offers an educational programme for teachers at the collegiate and pre-collegiate levels, helping them to build bridges between the academic world and the classroom (National Humanities Center 2025). The Tampere Institute for Advanced Study provides training workshops to all fellows who plan to be active mentors, which are also open to all senior staff across Tampere University (Boden and Teperi Reference Boden and Teperi2024). Within NETIAS, an initiative has now been formed that aims to foster transnational networks of early career researchers, including PhD-students (NETIAS 2019). The aim of this Constructive Advanced Thinking programme is to stimulate young scientists and scholars to devise new ideas to understand and to tackle current or emerging societal challenges, also in collaboration with stakeholders outside academia (industry, policymakers, NGOs). At the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, educational research is now underway to test the effectiveness of artificial intelligence models as educational tools, for which the evaluations, models and data have been made available open source (Chevalier et al. Reference Chevalier, Geng, Wettig, Chen, Mizera and Annala2024; Chevalier et al. Reference Chevalier, Mizera and Annala2025). Finally, the Pro Futura Scientia Fellowship Program of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study provides a cutting-edge programme for promising early-career scholars in the humanities and social science (Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study 2025). As the above examples demonstrate, research and teaching at the IAS are now no longer as separated as they once were, and as Peter Goddard (Reference Goddard2009: 9), former director of the Institute for Advanced Study, points out: ‘Flexner’s arguments tended to point towards a separation of undergraduate teaching from research, at least in the context of his time and place, that few of us would agree with as a general proposition.’ There seems to be increasing agreement at the IAS that the scientists of the future are not necessarily or exclusively the eminent academics of today.
Open Science
Open access to the record of science is not only a priority for scientific researchers but is also essential for education, particularly at secondary and tertiary levels, for citizen scientists and for lifelong learning. (Boulton Reference Boulton2021: 9)
Promoting a common understanding of Open Science and its associated benefits and challenges, is an important process in pursuing the diverse paths towards open science (UNESCO 2021). The EU summarizes the basic elements of Open Science practices as follows: (1) open access to research outputs such as publications, data, software, models, algorithms, and workflows; (2) early and open sharing of research, for example through preregistration, registered reports, pre-prints, and crowd-sourcing of solutions to a specific problem; (3) use of open research infrastructures for knowledge and data sharing; (4) participation in open peer-review; (5) measures to ensure reproducibility of results; and (6) open collaboration within science and with other knowledge actors, including involving citizens, civil society and end-users, such as in citizen science (European Commission 2021b). In line with the opening quote, and the fact that the first five points are already widely being discussed by others, this section will mainly focus on the latter point, as it relates to the training of the scientists and scholars of the future.
In contemporary academia, education is often seen as less valuable than research (Horton Reference Horton2022). Yet the idea that research and teaching are intrinsically intertwined is in no way a new concept (Mittelstrass Reference Mittelstrass2018), nor is Open Science to be regarded as solely a research movement (Boon et al. Reference Boon, De Haan, Duisterwinkel, Gould, Janssen and Jongsma2022; Knecht et al. Reference Knecht de, Meer van der, Brinkman, Kluijtmans and Miedema2021). Furthermore, it is also increasingly recognized that research-based education can be a two-way street, potentially benefiting not only students but also researchers by developing student–staff communities in higher education (Healey and Jenkins Reference Healey and Jenkins2018; Marquis et al. Reference Marquis, Guitman, Black, Healey, Matthews and Dvorakova2019; Willcoxson et al. Reference Willcoxson, Manning, Johnston and Gething2011). An Open Science area where research-based teaching and learning is making special progress is in the realm of translational medicine (Kummeling et al. Reference Kummeling, Kluijtmans and Miedema2024; Hilders and Hazeleger Reference Hilders, Hazeleger, Van Geelen, Milota, Gaillard and Van Royen-Kerkhof2026). Translational medicine attempts to connect and establish continuity from basic (bio)medical research to clinical practice – colloquially known as ‘the valley of death’ (Butler Reference Butler2008) – to the development of novel medical treatments and pharmaceutical products (Albani and Prakken Reference Albani and Prakken2009; Zender Reference Zender2019). This paradigm, however, can also be reversed (Nussenblatt et al. Reference Nussenblatt, Marincola and Schechter2010), and start from patients’ unmet health needs and societal problems, making it especially interesting for transdisciplinary educational purposes.
In some innovative research-based educational innovations, large interdisciplinary groups of (undergraduate) students are now encouraged to study genuine problems introduced by patients or patient-groups with unmet health needs (Drost et al. Reference Drost, Dictus, Prakken and Bovenschen2019; Schakelaar et al. Reference Schakelaar, Maas, Van Ommen, Spiering, De Jonge and Wijchers2024; Schot et al. Reference Schot, Hegeman, Ten Broeke, Valentijn, Meijerman and Prins2021). By performing in research-hubs related to the fields of biomedical science, medicine, and the humanities, amongst others (Van Spaandonk et al. Reference Van Spaandonk, Hoogerwerf, Ten Broeke, Crnko, Koorman, Bovenschen, Van Royen-Kerkhof and Van Geelen2025) and regularly meeting across disciplines throughout classes, students can do their own scientific and scholarly work and combine this to attain transdisciplinary clinical goals. Such research-hubs in education can also be employed as a catalyst for public–private partnerships (Ten Broeke et al. Reference Ten Broeke, Koorman, Crnko, Voets, De Goeje and Schakelaar2025), and now extend to European networks (Schakelaar et al. Reference Schakelaar, Bassat, Comiskey, Felvinczi, Haarhuis and Bovenschen2022), involving inter-institutional hybrid learning (Griffin et al. Reference Griffin, Gallagher, Vigano, Mousa, Van Vugt and Lodder2022). By addressing actual health issues presented by patients, students not only learn new skills (Valentijn et al. Reference Valentijn, Schakelaar, Hegeman, Schot, Dictus and Crnko2024), but can also help to produce new knowledge and research lines – thereby assisting staff, and advancing science and scholarship (Schakelaar et al. Reference Schakelaar, Maas, Van Ommen, Spiering, De Jonge and Wijchers2024). As a result of starting such work from opening sessions with expert panels of patients, researchers, clinicians, patient advocacy groups and other societal stakeholders – and presenting the outcomes to them afterwards – this form of research-based education can be seen as an exemplary model for other academic disciplines and new approaches to Open Science – beyond its traditional dimensions of scholarly publication, interoperable data, research integrity, scientific recognition and rewards, alternative metrics, open educational resources, open code and citizen science.
Still, while the institutional and policy work on these fundamental principles of Open Science is far from done, transitioning to new academic identities in which research, education and reciprocal interaction with society and non-academic stakeholders can truly be united requires even further steps. Moreover, various philosophical considerations regarding Open Science remain (Düwell Reference Düwell2019), and – especially on questions such as the necessity for (immediate) societal relevance and transdisciplinarity in all disciplines, and on the conceptualization of (positively or negatively defined) academic freedom when societal partners may be involved in formulating research and educational agendas – these relate directly to issues concerning the IAS and are in need of critical dialogue.
Some Closing Thoughts
Institutes for Advanced Study should, as far as possible, remain as they are. In an academic world that is increasingly dominated by policies imposed from above and notions of productivity, ‘output’ and impact, it is essential to nurture at least a few safe havens for the mind. (Wesseling Reference Wesseling2003: 17)
It is safe to say that the IAS have not remained as they were. The first IAS focused mainly on excellent setups for excellent scientists. However, in line with recent developments, IAS now often serve more as facilitators of excellence for the (inter)national academic infrastructures, the universities to which they might be connected, or the regions in which they operate (Padberg Reference Padberg2020). Consequently, in the present day, the IAS take on many forms. The Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS 2022) in Germany, for example, is an independent organization of nine local institutions of higher education (including two applied universities of the arts), supported by the city of Hamburg. Through their distinctive format, non-academic partners can provide (international) fellows access to the region, and by giving them the chance to also invite doctoral students or postdocs their community is extended even further (Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi Reference Rüland and Gräber-Magocsi2022). The Collegium Helveticum in Switzerland is another unique institute for advanced study, supported by the ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, and the Zurich University of the Arts (Lehman and Gisel Reference Lehman and Gisel2024). Its senior fellows are established artists or academics, and the Collegium also offers a joint doctoral programme, fellowships to scholars and scientists facing the threat of political persecution, and accepts applications of art school graduates (Collegium Helveticum 1997). As a final innovative example, the Virtual Ukraine Institute for Advanced Study (VUIAS), an initiative supported by leading IAS worldwide and academic organizations in Ukraine, should not go unmentioned (Virtual Ukraine Institute for Advanced Study 2023). VUIAS aims to mobilize support for scholarship under conditions of war and tries to integrate Ukrainian scientists further into the international academic landscape (Schiller Reference Schiller2024).
The enormous diversity in IAS calls for a vision of science that can both encompass its variety,Footnote f as well as help maintain – and further develop – its values of academic freedom and integrity, critical thinking, creativity and responsibility in the establishment of novel forms of communitas. In order to broaden their impact, the IAS should structurally open up to new target-groups, which should extend to students, artists, policymakers, professional practitioners, private partners, and other societal stakeholders. In line with the second part of Wesseling’s quote above, many prominent members of the IAS have already voiced their concerns with the scrambling for funding, non-inclusive assessment criteria, and the ever-growing pressure of policies geared towards productivity, output, and impact in science (e.g. Connor Reference Connor2002; Goddard Reference Goddard2009). As director of the Institute for Advanced Study, Robbert Dijkgraaf – now president-elect of the International Science Council – was clear that knowledge developed through science and scholarship should, as much as possible, be made openly accessible to the broadly defined global scientific community and also become available to society through public engagement (Dijkgraaf Reference Dijkgraaf and Flexner2017). Moreover, several IAS, for example special working groups within NETIAS, are now re-evaluating their criteria for admission and review. As such, many of the ideas of Open Science are already gaining ground in the IAS. Requiring, or recommending, that fellows of the IAS publish the journal articles written during their stays open-access, and providing the funds or covenants to do so, would seem to be worth considering. Taking extra steps to really strengthen a reciprocal relation between research and (student) teaching in the IAS could also be more attainable than one might imagine. Explicitly making educational research and educational innovation projects potential topics for fellowships could be fruitfully explored. Furthermore, during their stays, most fellows in the IAS present their studies and their research questions during seminars. These seminars could be opened up to (interdisciplinary) student-groups and be developed further into forming the expert panels, discussed in the previous section, which can introduce research problems to students. By doing this in an online or hybrid form (which does not put much strain on space capacity), and by employing the (global) academic networks of IAS partners – regarding laboratories and other facilities on the one hand, and existing educational infrastructures of supervision and examination on the other – the fellows can tap into an extended research potential, while at the same time contributing unique (international and transdisciplinary) knowledge to teaching, with little loss of their time or academic freedom. Of course, this might at times require new complex logistical operations and agreements, but there are prior encouraging experiences in Open Science to build on.
The IAS and Open Science, both in their own way, are at the forefront of scientific and scholarly progress. Might now not be the time for the IAS and the Open Science movement to push the transdisciplinary and international frontiers still further, redefine our notions of academic freedom, and in unison take a leading role – as a new phase in academic development – to establish societally engaged and self-confident academic identities, and to advance the global scientific infrastructures necessary to address the challenges of a world that has already crossed its planetary boundaries?
For the present, I ask no final action on this report. I hope only that it may be freely discussed. (Flexner Reference Flexner1931: 43)
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Manon Kluijtmans, Frank Miedema and Berent Prakken for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Stefan van Geelen is associate professor Philosophy in Medicine, programme-manager of the educational strategy ‘The New Utrecht School’ of the University Medical Center Utrecht, and coordinator of the MSc-programme Medical Humanities of Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
Christina Garsten is the principal of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, professor of Social Anthropology at Uppsala University, and professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University, Sweden.
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