Crossing Boundaries 2024: The Anthropocene - Addressing its challenges for humanity - crossing the boundaries of science

The rapid and intense fashion in which humanity is changing the very foundations on which our existence and well-being on this planet rest is starting to attain a magnitude that - according to the opinion of many - threatens to put the future of humanity on Earth in peril.

In order to secure a livable habitat for us on our planet we have to rethink how humans gain understanding about these global changes, make decisions and act on them. These questions have to be dealt with adequately and rapidly in order to successfully meet the challenge of securing our sustainable future on Earth.

This is a multifaceted challenge, involving scientific, political, social, economic, psychological and ethical aspects. We will address this comprehensive challenge with the present meeting in the „Crossing Boundaries in Science“ series. This series of meetings is organized by Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences.

This conference will be hosted by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI GEA) in Jena and will mark the new direction of the institute in addressing issues of the Anthropocene. It will feature three days of lectures and panels with leading researchers from a range scientific disciplines.

Confirmed speakers include:

Ana Bastos, Antje Boetius ML, Katrin Böhning-Gaese ML, Francine McCarthy, Dipesh Chakrabarty (virtual), Gerald Haug ML, Manfred Laubichler, Jochem Marotzke ML, Dirk Messner, Manjana Milkoreit, Ilona Otto, Ursula Rao, Johan Rockström ML, Robert Schlögl ML, Ana Sequeira, Leonie Wenz, Geoffrey West, Mark Williams, Ricarda Winkelmann and Damaris Zurell.

Leading up to the conference, from June 20-21, the Young Scientists of MPI GEA will host a workshop titled "Voices of the Global South on the Anthropocene: Archaeological, Historical and Ancestral Perspectives." The workshop will bring together young scholars and a panel of specialists from diverse backgrounds with the goal of creating a collaborative Assessment Report for the COP 30 meeting in Brazil in 2025.

Through engaging the international community of scholars with these events, we anticipate fruitful exchanges of ideas and the emergence of new insights. Stay tuned for further updates regarding the Crossing Boundaries 2024 conference, including how to live-stream the events and access publications.

The Leopoldina event format „Crossing Boundaries in Science“ is meant to stimulate discussions, without any preconceived views as to their outcome, on trendsetting scientific fields which are particularly dependent on new forms of interdisciplinary cooperation and/or interdisciplinary method transfer. Expected or already emerging social transformations correlated to scientific developments are also meant to be taken into consideration as well as their ethical implications.

ML = Member of the Leopoldina