CIFAR Forum on Radical Interdisciplinarity: Boundless

March 25 - 28, 2025, Geneva, Switzerland

In partnership with:

 

 

In partnership with the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), CIFAR is holding a symposium on Radical Interdisciplinarity: Boundless from March 25-28, 2025.  Radical Interdisciplinarity encourages participants to think about the limits and limitlessness of life not bounded by disciplines, borders, and species, from the smallest cells in living systems to exploring life outside our planet.  Researchers examining the origins of life, the state of being alive, the places where life can exist, and the social, cultural, and legal frameworks surrounding these ecosystems are encouraged to apply.  While life may have certain limits, there are also opportunities to transcend or challenge many of these boundaries, expanding horizons and shifting perceptions.

By integrating perspectives from life sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, the symposium will foster interdisciplinary conversations about the nature, preservation, and future of life.  In today’s rapidly changing ecosystems, asking questions about “life” has become only more complex and life itself more precarious.  Examining the limits or limitlessness of life is an opportunity to explore representations and understanding of life, across cultures, time, space, and disciplines. 

Potential areas of research may include:

Protecting life on Earth: With climate change and biodiversity loss, how can we ensure the future of life on Earth?  How do we sustain life in changing environments?

Life beyond Earth: What does it mean to search for life on other planets and for life to exist outside of Earth?  What conditions are required to support life beyond Earth? Can we “colonize” space?

Artificial Life: What role does artificial intelligence and robotics play in life?  How are machines and AI incorporated into traditional definitions of life and intelligence?

Life sciences & biotechnology: How might new biotechnologies challenge what life looks like? What can we learn from aging lives and how genetics shape life?  With the rise of synthetic biology, what constitutes life?

Artistic representation: What can we learn through narratives and artistic representations of life, the portrayal of life across art forms in reflecting both beauty and the fragility of existence?


Existential & ethical considerations: Can we visualize what life - the soul or consciousness - look like?

Social & cultural norms: How can we embrace a plurality of value systems without imposing limitations? 

Legislative limits: What is the role of law and international governments in governing life outside Earth?

Radical Interdisciplinarity aims to engage exceptional junior faculty and postdoctoral scholars, within 10 years of receiving their PhD, from across jurisdictions to identify frontier topics in interdisciplinary research and provide opportunities for early career researchers to take risks in working across the academy. The goal is to seed ideas and foster collaboration amongst early career, interdisciplinary researchers. The sessions are designed to provoke discussion, bring out-of-the-box ideas to the table, and support collaborative thinking across disciplines.  Sessions should be interdisciplinary and grouped by subthemes (if needed), rather than separated by discipline.

For this symposium, interested applicants must be within 10 years of receiving their PhD and hold a postdoctoral or faculty position based in Canada or Switzerland. Participants outside these jurisdictions who meet the career-stage criteria and who have participated in a CIFAR program may also apply.