Does light have an impact on human health?
From 14 to 18 November 2022, we welcomed the Constructive Advanced Thinking group of Manuel Spitschan, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and Technical University of Munich, Germany; Laura Kervezee, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands; Renske Lok, Stanford University, United States; Elise McGlashan, Monash University, Australia; and Raymond Najjar, National University of Singapore, to the Zukunftskolleg. They participated and were successful in the CAT call in 2020.
During their stay in Konstanz, they collaborated on their project “The impact of light on human health: What do we know?”
“This was our second research stay within the framework of the Constructive Advanced Thinking programme and an opportunity for four of our team members to meet in person. Due to health reasons, Manuel Spitschan was unfortunately unable to attend.
We primarily used our stay to work on our project that had previously started via Zoom and continued during our first NetIAS CAT stay at Aarhus University, Denmark. The ENLIGHT project aims to unify the reporting on light measures used in circadian and sleep sciences. For this purpose, we aimed to reach a consensus among experts in the field. We used a four-step Delphi process comprising four rounds. The first two entailed questionnaires regarding the importance of various light metrics while the third round entailed a synchronous discussion. We were able to set up and conduct the first three rounds before attending ZuKo. Results of our work stay at ZuKo include a nearly finished checklist on reporting light measures, newly written guidelines to accompany this checklist, excellent progress on the accompanying manuscript and the launch of our final round of feedback (Round 4).
We started the week with a tour of the ZuKo campus, after which we reviewed comments from our synchronous discussion sessions with experts and made changes to the checklist. On the Tuesday, we started writing the guidelines that will accompany the checklist. After a social lunch at the ZuKo, we presented our personal work and the goals we have for our NetIAS CAT project. The questions posed by attendees provoked exciting discussions on the effects of light on eye health, mental health and sleep, as well as the effect of daylight saving time on mental and physical health. On the Wednesday, we finalized the guidelines before having lunch with Daniela Rößler. Daniela then gave us a tour of her lab where she studies sleep in spiders, which was very interesting and admittingly a bit scary for some of us. On the Thursday, we finalized the checklist amendments and guidelines, after which the final questionnaire was designed and tested. At the end of that day, all participants received an email invitation to complete the last step (Round 4) of the Delphi process. Afterwards, we had a lovely dinner at Holly’s with team members from ZuKo and the broader university. The Friday was dedicated primarily to writing the accompanying manuscript, and we also attended the talk by Yuko Ulrich via Zoom.
We are grateful to the team for welcoming us and for the opportunities that working at the Zukunftskolleg in Konstanz provided us. We enjoyed the various interaction opportunities during lunch, cake or dinner with people from the institute and the exciting and provoking discussions this led to. We are also grateful for the protected work time the CAT programme has provided us, as this has been very productive.
We would like to thank in particular Giovanni Galizia and Daniela Kromrey for receiving and welcoming us to the ZuKo, Michael Krausse for his technical support and all the fellows for being so friendly and engaging in such interesting conversations. Our stay here has resulted in tremendous progress in our NetIAS CAT network project and an excellent networking opportunity.”
Innovative CATs
In the latest Constructive Advanced Thinking (CAT) call (the deadline for applications was 15 October 2022), 12 applications were submitted, from which the following four innovative ideas were selected:
Alba Group on“Controversial tools: researching modelling practices in water governance”
Hosting IAS: Mak’it, SCAS, Paris, NIAS
Abstract
The development and use of quantitative models in water research and practice is both dominant and growing, importantly driven by recent technological developments. Although often presented as objective and neutral, models are controversial tools. They provide insights with which to predict future conditions of water systems and opportunities to foster an integrated approach to tackle water-related challenges while addressing complexities related to managing fugitive resources such as water. Yet, models and modelling are specific ways of knowing water on the basis of measurements and quantification. Foremost, models are profoundly shaped by the numerous, sometimes arbitrary, choices of the actors involved in the modelling process and by the context in which they are developed.
With this project, we seek to jointly research modelling as it is used to manage and govern water. The project strengthens the collaboration between an interdisciplinary and international group of early career researchers studying water modelling in various contexts and from different perspectives, methodologies and approaches. We are developing a reflexive approach to modelling that is helpful for making the ethical implications involved in modelling practices explicit and invites modellers, funders and users to act upon these. With this project, we seek to explore the challenges and opportunities to implement this novel approach through regular workshops, peer-to-peer learning and engagement with experts. Our efforts will culminate in a special issue published in a peer-reviewed journal, a series of blogs and a final public event.
Allassonnière-Tang Group on “Unravelling the interactions between culture and language: Does grammatical gender foster gender inequality and vice versa?”
Hosting IAS: Paris, IIAS, MIAS, HIAS, Zukunftskolleg, NIAS
Abstract
The human cognitive system interacts with the cultural environment. Within this interaction, the interplay between grammatical gender and sociocultural gender represents a societal challenge. The presence of grammatical gender (such as masculine and feminine) in language has an effect on how men and women are perceived by humans. Most studies have compared languages with sex-based gender (such as masculine/feminine in Spanish) with languages that do not have a grammatical gender system (e.g. in English and Mandarin). However, other nominal classification systems such as noun classes (e.g. in Swahili) or classifiers (e.g. in Japanese) also categorize nouns of the lexicon into categories based on features such as animacy or shape. Furthermore, most languages considered in existing studies are Indo-European. Nevertheless, sex-based grammatical gender systems are not restricted to this language family. For example, grammatical gender systems are also found in languages such as Mian (Ok family, Papua New Guinea).
We expand the data pool for testing the effect of nominal classification systems on gender parity. Information on grammatical gender is extracted from the data already gathered during the respective research by the project members. The sociocultural gender data will be extracted from D-PLACE. The preliminary database will then be developed through consultation at the targeted institutions. In terms of method, two main types of analyses are considered. At the synchronic level, we use generalized linear mixed effect models that search for phylogenetic and geographic non-independence of societies and conditional inference trees to capture the multilevel interaction between the variables. At the diachronic level, Bayesian phylogenetic methods and confirmatory path analysis are used to establish the robustness of correlated evolution and the underlying causal relationships between the variables. Additional methods for testing the interaction between grammatical gender and sociocultural gender will be developed by consulting experts at the visited institutions.
Lemoine-Schonne Group on “Metamorphoses of Law(s)? A critical exploration of planetary boundaries and their meaning for the law relating to the environment”
Hosting IAS: Paris, IIAS, Mak’it, Turin, NIAS, CEU
Abstract
Climate change is spiralling out of control, it is cascading ecological collapse and poses a serious threat to today’s societies. The consequences of climate change necessitate a transition to sustainability. One influential way of thinking about what sustainability means in more practical terms is the planetary boundaries framework. In the age of the Anthropocene, Earth system scientists identified a number of “planetary boundaries” in 2009. The concept refers to nine interacting biophysical thresholds, considered true boundaries that must not be crossed in order to avoid abrupt, non-linear, potentially catastrophic and largely unpredictable changes in the environment and on the planet. However, seven planetary boundaries have already been transgressed. The scientists proposed a shift away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities towards the estimation of a “safe operating space” for human development. But how can this concept of planetary boundaries be operationalized in social sciences and law?
To explore the potential of the concept in social sciences and law, the team aims to highlight three key areas: Biodiversity & Climate Interactions, Health & the Environment, and Technologies & Science. For each issue, three critical reading grids of the law(s) relating to the environment, meaning different fields of international and national law that protect the environment, human rights law, economic law, etc., are applied, articulating the items: identification of actors, participation process and emergence of solutions.
The proposed interdisciplinary project (law and social sciences) is motivated by a sense of urgency to react across all disciplines.
The call allows the team to connect to researchers from various disciplines at the institutes, their research communities, and other stakeholders on site (NGOs, governments, public authorities and corporations).
A science comic complements academic publications and blog posts at the end of the project to reach a broader audience.
Roberts Group on “A Transformation Framework for Artist Residencies, based on Internal Critiques, Alternative Histories and Emerging Practices”
Hosting IAS: MIAS (twice), Mak’it, HIAS
Abstract
Artist residencies are an increasingly essential infrastructure for creative production across the globe, supporting time and space for experimental or exploratory work, facilitating development of international networks and intercultural exchange and, given the financial precarity most artists experience, serving as temporary sources of income, or at least accommodation. While the field has been researched intensively by practitioners in arts and policy circles, especially in Europe (where funding for culture is most robust), it has garnered little attention from disciplines such as history, sociology or cultural studies. Our project begins to fill this gap by bringing together experts in the history and political economy of cultural institutions with stakeholders and early career scholars undertaking practice-based doctoral research on artist residencies. Methodologically, the project enacts a dialogue between more traditional forms of scholarly inquiry – emphasizing systemic and comparative analysis – and the experimental methods that have developed among scholar-practitioners.
The project asks how artist residencies can respond to today’s challenges around labour, ecology, and social and global justice while maintaining their central mission of supporting art and artists. The project has three parts. Through a meta-analysis of the robust internal critiques of residencies produced by individuals and groups in the past decade, followed by interviews with relevant authors and practitioners, we assess how residencies conceive contemporary challenges and how they have responded. In phase two, we explore the historical development of artist residencies, using data from our partner organization TransArtists. Acknowledging problems of definition (What is an artist residency?), this phase also explores counterhistories of travel and retreat that might help shape the residencies of the future. Phase three concretizes this future through an analysis of alternative and emergent residency practices, based on auto-ethnographies and artistic research.
During their project (up to three years), the groups will be hosted for a short research stay (up to two weeks) by five to six different European IAS.
We are looking forward to exciting discussions and collaboration with the group led by Marc Allassonnière-Tang that will join the Zukunftskolleg for a research stay.
More information about the selected groups, the programme and participating IAS can be found here.
The Constructive Advanced Thinking (CAT) initiative was founded in 2019 within NetIAS (Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study). It aims to foster networks of excellent early career researchers committed to developing new ideas in order to understand and tackle current or emerging societal challenges.
The CAT programme is designed for groups of three to five early career researchers of any discipline with less than ten years’ experience after earning a doctoral degree, including doctoral researchers. The principal investigator (team leader) must have a stable position for the duration of the project. The groups can include a representative of a stakeholder organization related to the theme of the project. In order to engage in fruitful discussions and mature their ideas, the groups are given the opportunity to meet for short stays (i.e. a maximum of two weeks) in different participating institutes and to engage with their fellows and local research communities. Projects can last up to three years (subject to positive mid-term evaluation).
