USIAS Festival - Looking back, moving forward
Academic research has always been driven by curiosity, imagination, and the courage to ask questions that go beyond the obvious.
The University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS) allows Strasbourg researchers to open up new directions of research, to pursue exciting new ideas and approaches that require both time for reflection and a substantial investment in connecting to other fields and methods.
USIAS also attracts researchers from outside of Strasbourg, who bring their expertise, experience and networks to our university, and who develop new connections and collaborations with local researchers.
The USIAS Festival is an occasion to share with the whole community of researchers and students of the University of Strasbourg as well as representatives of its former and current Presidency, USIAS Fellows and Chairs, the philosophy and impact of USIAS, in the context of the challenges of doing research today, and to reflect on the place of USIAS in the overall research ecosystem of Strasbourg. The festival will also provide a forum for exchanges with the audience.
The event will be followed by a reception to celebrate 14 years of USIAS.
Programme
| 14:00 | Words of welcome - Monica Manolescu (Director of USIAS) |
| 14:05 | Opening remarks - Rémi Barillon (Vice-President of Research, Doctoral Training and Open Science, University of Strasbourg) |
| 14:15 | At the origins of USIAS - Alain Beretz (former President of the University of Strasbourg) |
| 14:25 | The ecosystem of research - Wiebke Drenckhan (USIAS Marguerite Perey Chair) |
| 14:40 | New directions, new strengths – Chirality and thermodynamics - Cyriaque Genet (2018 USIAS Fellow) |
| 14:55 | New connections – The humanities and what it means to be human - Rachel Mundy et Marion Thomas (2025 USIAS Fellows) |
| 15:10 | New competences - The catalytic power of a vast Chinese corpus: a chance to rethink epistemic frameworks and redesign research methods - Marie Bizais-Lillig (2021 USIAS Fellow) |
| 15:25 | Coffee break |
| 15:50 | New methods – The computational revolution in neuroscience - Demian Battaglia (2020 USIAS Fellow) |
| 16:05 | New partnerships - Glacial truths - Olaf Eisen (2021 USIAS Fellow) |
| 16:20 | Forum discussion with the speakers and the audience |
| 17:00 | Closing remarks by former USIAS director Thomas Ebbesen, current USIAS director Monica Manolescu and USIAS co-director Thomas Baumert, with USIAS permanent Chair holders Nalini Anantharaman, Frédéric Colin, Jules Hoffmann, Jean-Marie Lehn, Jacques Marescaux, Sylviane Muller, Roland Recht and Jean-Pierre Sauvage |
| 17:15 | Reception |
