Finding practical solutions to major social challenges. This is the aim of three newly founded Leibniz Labs. The Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) is contributing its expertise to the Leibniz Lab "Disruptions and Transformations". A total of 28 different Leibniz institutions have joined forces in this lab.

How can we better prepare for pandemics? How can we effectively protect biodiversity and the climate? And: How can historical crisis experiences help to make our society more resilient? To answer these questions, the Leibniz Association has launched a new format for interdisciplinary collaboration: the Leibniz Labs. They pool the knowledge of the various Leibniz institutions and make it available to everyone.

The Leibniz Senate has approved three out of five applications. From April 2024, the following Leibniz Labs will be funded for three years with three million euros each:

• Pandemic Preparedness - Preparing for future pandemics by networking inter- and transdisciplinary research: One Health, One Future
• Systemic sustainability - biodiversity, climate, agriculture and nutrition within planetary boundaries
• Disruptions and transformations

"We are delighted to be part of the Leibniz Lab 'Upheavals and Transformations' and to be able to network even more intensively and interdisciplinarily within the Leibniz Association," emphasizes Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt, Director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories. In the Leibniz Lab "Upheavals and Transformations", 28 Leibniz institutions are jointly investigating how politics and society have reacted to crises in the past. They want to find out how future challenges can be better managed and how resilience can be promoted in dealing with them. In concrete terms, this involves, for example, the upheavals following the end of the Cold War in 1989/90, the challenges posed by globalization and, most recently, climate change. The lab aims to provide new perspectives on de- and re-industrialization, democracy and right-wing populism or the social consequences of new technologies.

At LIfBi, the Leibniz Lab is located in Department 1 - Competencies, Personality, Learning Environments. "Above all, we will contribute to the discourse in the Leibniz Lab with our various research focuses, for example on the influence of social upheavals on individual educational biographies. Or how differently people deal with challenges and crises," says Prof. Dr. Ilka Wolter, Head of the "Competencies, Personality, Learning Environments" department. 

The aim of the Leibniz Labs is also to bring the knowledge generated into society and stimulate a dialog. For this reason, innovative science communication formats are to be developed that actively involve the various target groups. These include exhibitions, social media, policy briefs and citizen science projects.

Further information at www.leibniz-gemeinschaft.de/forschung/leibniz-labs