Since my time at the Humanistic Gymnasium in Ba-sel I am interested in the tension between archaic precondition of human beings and the fast progress of science and technology (especially the digitisa-tion). My final paper for my A-levels was about the „Origin of greek pessimism“ (Matheton Agon Prize of University of Basel), where I tried to read pessi-mistic texts by Hesiod, Sophokles, Lurkez and others as a reaction of the estrangement of human beings and nature.

2012 I attended as composer the summer course for New Music in Darmstadt, where I met compos-ers and artists from all over the world. There I got in touch with some radical ideas about conemporary art and music.

2014 I was invited as a young writer in residence at the „Eventi Letterari di Monté Verita“, where I had the chance to meet Herta Müller and the poet Durs Grünbein.

2015 I was involved in the design of the Swiss Pa-villion for the 2016 Architecture Biennale by Chris-tian Kerez.

2016 I am involved in the writer-programm „Dra-menprozessor“ – I will write a play about dionysian violence and digitisation for the Theater Winkelwi-ese in Zürich.

Since 2011 I write for the Feuilleton of the NZZ.

I would like to attend Cortona Week 2016 to get some more input on “Uncertainty and Serendipity” before starting my master thesis. In general I think almost everything is uncertain and it is important to have serendipity to deal with it.

During my previous studies I left my hometown Leipzig and absolved a transbordering Bachelor course between France and Germany before mov-ing to my study place Zurich. My hometown is still very important to me, as it is one of the very fast developing cities in Germany. Whenever I go there now, there is a new building, a new shop. It is always uncertain to me, how the place I call home will look like, next time I go there.

For my Bachelor degree I studied with a course composed of half german students and half French students. This experience showed me how valuable it is to have an exchange with people from different cultural backgrounds.

Then I went to Zurich to study my current Master degree “Biogeochemistry and Pollutant dynamics”. Here I met a lot of people with different study back-grounds, such as biology, geography and envrion-mental sciences. It showed my how valuable it is to have discussions between people with different point of views.

So, to sum up so far, in my experience it is always very interesting when people with different back-grounds meet and discuss. I’m excited to meet with people, experience art, life and discussions togeth-er. I hope to get some new ideas about how I want to start into my research activities, starting with my Master thesis and then probably with my Ph.d.. I hope to get some more experiences of how to han-dle uncertainties and to further develop my seren-dipity.

Born in Belgium but having lived in France, Switzer-land, Brazil and Laos, I developed – especially during these last two consecutive experiences – the desire to work on my creativity and improve my practical skills. During my experiences abroad, I observed cul-tures which lived close to nature, and are very dex-terous when it comes to manual work: everyone knows how to repair a motorbike, how to install a waterpump and the corresponding pipeline, how to repair any issue in the house. And not by reading books; by doing. These observations lead me to the understanding that in the occidental culture we generally under-estimate the importance of the sen-timental and instinctive intelligences of the human species, and excessively value the intelligence of thought. For this reason, I have been changing my lifestyle lately, giving more importance to the crea-tive and intuitive part which is is every human being. Now, I feel the need to share my experience and learn from others, especially people working on the expression of their creative self within our occiden-tal environment, emphasized by the academic en-vironment. The idea is to make these two worlds compatible, and Cortona Week seems like a perfect example validating the possibility of coexistence between a profound lifestyle and the fast-moving, efficiency-oriented environment in which we live.

I knew Cortona Week from an email of summer schools. The topic drew my attention immediately. As a PhD student, I fully understand the uncertainty in re-searches, by just thinking of how many PhD theses match their original research plan. For me, doing research is exploring and expanding the boundary of human knowledge and cognitive. At some point it is like dancing in the dark. We need some external guide to follow the steps. Art is just such a tool to help me think out of the box, by providing a differ-ent perspective of addressing problems. The Corto-na week is a good opportunity for me to approach the intersection of science and art.

Along the road of research, there are full of sur-prises. How to deal with the uncertainty and how to approach the successes that are brought by the serendipity are the two key questions I would like to know. I want to attend the seminars and discuss with the professionals about the topic. Moreover, the interesting workshops are also a reason for me to apply for the conference.

Furthermore, I like to meet people and experi-ence cultures from other countries. I have an inter-national background. I was born in China. At the age of 22, I moved to the Netherlands and lived there for 2.5 years as a student of Wageningen University. Before started my PhD at ETH, I did an internship in Lausanne, Switzerland, for 9 months. During the Cortona Week, I would like to build my network with professionals and other students with the same in-terest.

I think the Cortona Week will be an eye-opening experience for me. I hope to expand my horizon by attending this great event. It will certainly help me with my future study and research.

My studies of Architecture at the Calvinistic ETH gives me the possibility to combine all my interests. I pre-fer to be close to a Department of Science. I avoid the Deparment of Art. So I wish to attend the Cor-tona Week 2016 to develop my „Renaissance Man-Pro-ject“ and meet interesting people of Science. What I can give are thoughts about Poetry, Art, Cosmolo-gy, Architecture, History.

At the moment I am very interested in quantum physics and the work of David Deutsch.

During my research in the past years I have often found that science does not to proceed according to the textbook model. Unexpected patterns and luck have greatly influenced both the focus and re-sults of my research. As researchers, we set out to answer specific questions but frequently end up following unanticipated avenues. Unfortunately, when the time comes to report our findings to the scientific world we are compelled to follow a very stiff and impersonal tone which conceals the impor-tant role of luck and the unexpected, and it makes it look like we knew right questions to ask since the beginning. I believe the role of serendipity in science is greatly underappreciated. Many scientific discov-eries have indeed grown out of fortuitous circum-stances so I think there is a strong case to be made for attempting to create research environments with less formalized research protocols and larger freedom for the pursuit of the unforeseen. In fact, we already know that works. One only needs to think about the great number of scientific and techno-logical advances that were produced at Bell Labs, where such an atmosphere was cultivated (e.g. the discovery of the cosmic microwave background).

2010–2014 University of Basel2014–2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2016 ETHZAs a scientist, I consider myself rational and meas-

ured. During my Master thesis at MIT, I learned how to be goal oriented and selective. These qualities however, seem to conflict with creativity and inno-vativeness which are and always have been funda-mental for game changing advances throughout history. In Cortona 2016, I expect to get to know a very heterogeneous crowd of people, appreciate differences and pick up on other live styles.

I have been twice to Cortona, in 2013 and 2014, and it was life changing in all possible meanings: social life, academic/theoretic principles, public appear-ance, and many more things, private and „beruflich“. I think, Cortona has a special sort of „spirit“, which allows one to see the interconnection between one’s academic/artistic work, societal processes, and the development of what Michel Foucault called „selftech-niques“.

After the „shock“ of 2013, I especially learned in 2014 how to speak up, how to mark my own thoughts in discussions without aggressing other’s work, but finding solutions in listening to the problem solving possibilities others propose. Last year i could not participate due to a PTSD caused by a heavy car crash. So, my motivation is pretty simple: I expect nothing less then another categorical shift in my way of per-ceiving science, art and life , as I don’t know anything else of Cortona.

A full education in natural science has not only fo-cused my daily work very much on a technical level, also the circle of friends I interact with has mostly shifted to this area. As a result, interaction with the field of arts kind of falls short.

The Cortona week could on facilitate the contact to some different topics in the Workshops, for once away from the regular focus of my research. I’m very interested to hear the different opinions, especially from the non- “natural scientists” on the topics com-ing up in the evening sessions.

Not last of course, I’m very interested in meeting the different people that will attend this workshop and look forward to get to know some of them. And I would enjoy seeing Italy’s countryside and the town of Cortona, both of which I’ve never been before.

Time for multidisciplinary thinking seems to be a luxury our educational system rarely can afford. Therefore, the Cortona program, which does not teach, but actually allows us to experience and prac-tice interdisciplinarity, caught my attention. Some elements and topics of the detailed program even reinforced my motivation:

The general topic “Uncertainty and serendipity” echoes to one of my main academic interests, name-ly mathematical chaos theory. As a theoretical com-puter scientist, I am fascinated by how very simple systems, automatons or equations can lead to un-believably complex and unpredictable outcomes. That is for uncertainty. Even more troubling are the connections of those seemingly random patterns and behaviors to self-organized systems, as observed in biology. And there goes serendipity.

Having worked for an insurance company in the past and not excluding doing so again in the future, Reto Schneider’s considerations on the ethics of loss prevention have a particular meaning to me. I am eager to debate about this topic and hope I will pro-gress in my inner struggle opposing my belief of mutualisation of costs against my antipaternalistic views.

Furthermore, I am especially interested in attend-ing the talk Philanthropy and Academic Freedom and the workshop Clerical Accessories in Fashion, after reading their description. Both, I am convinced, will provide me with new insights and arguments on areas in which I’ve long been enquiring.

Previously, I studied Mechanical Engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) for one year, before re-orienting towards a BSc. in Communication Systems. I spent one year of my Bachelor’s as an exchange student at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), in Spain.

I am currently studying at the Institut of Neuroin-formatics in Zürich. The question studied at my in-stitute is: How does the brain perform computation and how can the answers to this question be applied to solve real world problems? These questions lead almost directly to the currently more and more pop-ular issue of strong AI and it‘s dangers. However, artificial intelligence is at this point not comparable in structure to human intelligence. One of the main differences is the very topic of this year‘s cortona week and can be partially simplified into this inter-esting word – „serendipity“. We do up to this day not really understand how innovation truly works, even in humans. Nevertheless, it surely is a basic quality of human existence that we are able to per-form actions and shape the world in novel partially unprecedented ways. It is sometimes said that we are only constrained by our imagination, but time and time again humans are able to „escape“ these constraints and I am particularly interested in how that is possible and how imagination develops.

I think the cortona week could help me further my understanding of this question. Furthermore I want to work in research in the future and am thus naturally interested in the general topic of the week. I believe that open door policies and strong collab-oration between people from vastly different cul-tural and professional backgrounds are one pillar of future innovative research. In the past I have stud-ied in Spain and had different internships e.g. at the TU Darmstadt, but also abroad. I always enjoyed the opportunities to meet interesting new people and would very much like to add to these experiences in the cortona week.

I see the Cortona week as a chance to exchange and learn from students of a different mindset and back-ground to the one I am exposed to in my day to day work. Having spent two research stays at University of Cambridge (UK), I have experienced the positive input of changing the environment and having to deal with the arising new challenges, followed by a personal growth.

As part of my Ph.D. thesis, I am looking into cer-tain phenomena in internal combustion engines (ICE). Although the ICE is a machine with a history of more than a century, not all relevant phenomena have been fully understood yet. Lots of research has been devoted to the steady improvement and adap-tion to the more stringent requirements in the past decade. In this context it may seem as if every pos-sibility has been investigated already, and the vast amount of available knowledge makes it look almost impossible to make one owns contribution. Howev-er, overcoming these hurdles in the beginning and starting to build up a deeper understanding, one sees how little we know about many phenomena and how relevant findings have been based upon pure chance.

Enabling for a clean and efficient ICE for today’s demand in the ever so moving energy turnaround asks for more than the classical steady improve-ments. Being open towards serendipity in todays uncertainty on solutions for the future energy mar-ket is something I’d personally like to take as a chance. I am looking forward to partake in this year’s Corto-na week and enrich it with my personal thoughts as well as benefit from discussions and inputs from others.

Studying theatre but coming from a theoretical background, transdisciplinarity is a daily element in my theoretical and practical work at the ZHdK. Through my dialectical and dialogical approach to nearly any intellectual and practical quest, I would like to gain a deeper understanding of the benefits and limits of creativity (artistic or scientific) that is sometimes somehow influenced by uncertainty and serendip-ity. I would like to understand how a common lan-guage between the disciplines can be established and how understanding and misunderstanding can evoke creativity between people and disciplines.

The importance of chance in the creative process must not be ignored, underestimated or intention-ally disregarded in a condescending way. Notions of chance, randomness, or unpredictability are impor-tant, especially when it comes to artistic creation. In addition serendipity can be seen as the expected contributions for making expedient discoveries in coincidence, by chance. To put serendipity into work, there is need to accumulate a list of questions that need solving, acquaintance with already existing an-swers, and their use in daily life. Only when this knowl-edge is present, ‚chance‘ can take its part in estab-lishing a suiting milieu for the ‚problem‘ and the ‚solution‘ to find each other. If there is already a great deal of knowledge accrued in our minds about the problem and the requisites for the solution, chance adds the final piece to the puzzle. It is when we can start to talk about traditional prescriptive, authori-tarian and rather conventional aesthetics vs. a new generative, irregular, unprescribed aesthetics.

How can we possibly plan the ephemeral, the spontaneous, the coincidental? What kind of strat-egies need to be developed and what kind of strat-egies need to be abandoned to allow for serendip-ity to occur? These are just some hypothesis, statements and questions I would like to discuss with students and professionals from different back-grounds trying to find a common language that al-lows critical discussions. Though- As part of my first BA degree- I had the change to participate in an in-ternational transcultural exchange program in Ven-ice (Italy). The aim of this international campus is to connect people from different disciplines to discuss and exchange about globalization and cultural her-itage. As I have experienced this transcultural ex-change the discussion about the same topic, coming from different disciple, I am looking forward to en-joy an interesting and fruitful dialog at the Cortona week 2016.

In my opinion, it is a great opportunity for every-body to open his mind, share ideas and thoughts a bout the future, discuss and think critically. But this time not with colleagues from your research area, but surrounded by people having a different back-ground, other viewpoints and a maybe different ap-proaches than I am used to.

The work of my bachelor, master and Ph. D. the-ses was and still is related to mobility, somehow. During my bachelor I had the chance to present our work on a novel drivetrain in two IIT’s in India, fac-ing the cultural, social and financial differences of research. Currently, I am dealing with the integra-tion of renewable fuels in transportation by using “green” hydrogen in internal combustion engines. Although the internal combustion engine has been invented much more than a century ago, we are still working on the very same concept, looking for tiny improvements in every corner to be more efficient, more cost-effective and to reduce the environmen-tal pollution.

For how much longer are we going forward in such small steps in mobility? Do we need a fortunate happenstance towards clean transportation? Can we force serendipity by a multi-disciplinary team working together? Probably not, but I would like to take the opportunity to be part in this year’s Corto-na week to sharpen my senses and listen to others thoughts with wide-open.

I always thought that the most interesting things I’ve done in life were completely irrational, although I am a rational person. I tend to plan things ahead in my life, just like I planed to study architecture at ETH, move to Switzerland or start an internship in Los Angeles, yet I still think that spontaneously go-ing on a road trip all the way to Amsterdam from Zurich and driving back the same day only to see my friends on Kings Day was one of the best decisions I made in my life. I would say I am drawn to letting some things happen, just because I want to explore the outcome.

I believe in the power of irrational moments and a lot of the times I think dedicating yourself to sci-ence completely shuts down this whole way of ex-periencing life. At the same time I think scientific research is constantly pushing the barriers and ad-vancing towards new discoveries that change and shape our lives.

I guess I expect this to be a very exciting week where we can talk about what makes life so inter-esting and what is left out there for each of us to discover.

I am intrigued by the combination of methods and the topic of this year’s Cortona Week.

I have practiced Tai Chi, Yoga and alternative Methods such as Kinesiology for years, to achieve a calmness and clarity as a strong basis for many as-pect, such as my studies for example. Often these worlds are contrasted and rarely joined. This week is a very special opportunity for me to meet and dis-cuss with other people, who also seek to beneficial-ly unite these different approaches.

Being in the middle of my Masters, entering the working world is coming close and the uncertainty this brings is a challenge. This uncertainty is but a part of the overall uncertainties lingering, such as the unstable political, economic, ecological and so-cial situations we are facing more and more. As an environmental scientist, I’ve been mostly exposed to the ecological aspects, but am realizing how strongly all uncertainties and problems are entwined.

My wish to join the Cortona week would be to learn from people coming from very different fields, how to work with uncertainties on various levels.

I hope to contribute to interesting discussions and a diverse Cortona experience, due to some of my unusual travel and work experience, including lecturing in Mongolia for a semester, a study ex-change in Beijing and Iceland, and sailing tradition-al Tall Ships for several years combined with nature guiding in Antarctica, South Georgia and other unique-ly remote islands.

Being an outdoor enthusiast, I realize that our surroundings have an important effect. I think it’s a great idea to leave the university auditoriums for some movement, calmness, art and discussions em-bedded in the Tuscan landscape and would be very eager to join this inspiring, challenging and fun week.

I am highly motivated to participate in the transdis-ciplinary Cortona Week 2016 because I have a keen interest in the topic and concepts of uncertainty and serendipity, both on a scholarly and personal level.

During my studies in History, Social Anthropolo-gy and Philosophy at the University of Stockholm, the University of Zurich, Jawaharlal Nehru Universi-ty in New Delhi and ETH Zurich, I have engaged with different academic contexts and learned first hand about the opportunities and challenges of interdis-ciplinary research. Through these studies, I have de-veloped a strong interest in questions of scientific innovation and of the interdependence between science and social and political contexts.

These concerns also guide my master thesis on the history of social sciences in India, which analy-ses the emergence of a new paradigm in sociologi-cal research on rural areas in the early Cold War. In this context, Merton’s notion of serendipity is an interesting concept to think about the often sur-prising and unpredictable development of new sci-entific insights.

I would like to be part of the Cortona Week 2016, be-cause I am especially interested in the intersections of art and science. In my master studies I have to learn not just about historical cases of influences between science and art, but also about the princi-ples that can bind these fields together in general. Especially the subject of this years Cortona week sounds interesting as I had the possibility to attend a seminar on uncertainty in science and so I got the chance to get familiar with the subject. Last but not least I would be glad to attend the Cortona Week to get in touch with students of scientific fields and also to learn about the contribution of the members of the ZHdK. I am looking forward to hear from you.

Since the first time I heard about the “Cortona Week” I got curious and interested in the event.

I am studying at the ETH of Zurich because I am fascinated by the scientific approach and method-ology to solve and understand problems, but I also have a strong humanistic and artistic background which I developed during high school. I am convinced that combine different perspectives (scientific and artistic), make them integrated into each other, is a wonderful way to approach problems and situations in life. I think this week could be a possibility to take a break from the scientific approach and dedicate myself to train other skills and interests. I have trav-eled a lot, especially in the last years for short and long periods. I have been in South America for a cou-ple of months, in Brazil, and I went in South East Asia for a year for working and travelling. I am an open minded person and I like sharing experiences, espe-cially those in which is important to use and manage our creativity.

“Uncertainty and serendipity” is a theme which affects more and more our society and I am really motivated to work and discuss about it with other competent people which can give new perspectives, maybe also with a personal touch. Finally I am Italian and I love Tuscany’s countryside!

I would like to attend the Cortona Week, because I see it as a perfect opportunity to share my person-al experience concerning uncertainties both as an engineer and a creative person with others, as a lot of my projects I had during my studies in Vienna, during my interim work period at a landfill sanita-tion project in Austria , while working as a photogra-pher and now during my PhD have or had uncertain-ties (and a positive outcome) as one of the main components.(83) Uncertainty came in many different facets, such as the question, of how large a chemi-cal sample should be at a landfill to reduce the un-certainty in its chemical content (my Master thesis), the practical view of that question during the land-fill sanitation project, the uncertainty as a photogra-pher if the creative work you are producing is also liked (and thus bought by customers), and the part of my PhD thesis that deals with prediction of infra-structure behavior in the future.

I believe that through exchanging experience with other people from different backgrounds and working creatively together, we as a group in Cor-tona can together spark new ideas in each other that will advance both our science and our person-al life. Working in a research group that combines different people from different fields has already led to highly fruitful new discoveries, which is a thing that I would really like to deepen and extend. There-fore, the Cortona week is to me the perfect place to do this and as such I want to be part of it and contribute to its success.

Because of my participation at the Cortona Week 2015 (Reproducibility) I gained a lot of inspiring ide-as, methods and networks. As a historian it was not always easy to take part in the debate dominated by natural scientists. But I learned a lot and my goal for this year is to even involve more in the discus-sions, improve in speaking out and loosing the anx-iety of speaking in public. For me it‘s important that students of humanities and natural science enter together in a critical and inspiring debate, because I think it‘s the base of a conscious society of the fu-ture. At the Cortona Week 2015 I met so many per-sons that agreed on that and the discussions we had were so inspiring, that I would like to be part of this year Cortona Week as well.

Trough my participation at this year Cortona Week I hope to gain more experience in debating in eng-lish and learn more about the methods and motiva-tions of natural Scientists and Engineers. This years topic seems ideal to discuss about problems of meth-ods, goals and founding. That‘s a topic I know really well from my own field and I‘m interested how oth-ers deal with it. I‘m also very interested in intercul-tural exchange of ideas. That‘s why I did a volunteer service in Mexico (2008) and Argentina (2010), studied a Semester in Spain (UCLM, Toledo, 2014) and will study a Semester in the US (Vanderbilt, Nashville, 2017).

But last year I did not only grow as a critical sci-entist. Trough the nightly Jam Sessions, the Drum-ming-Workshop and the Morning-Singing-Sessions at Cortona Week 2015 I got to know a lot of musi-cians from all over Europe (I play the Cello myself). After Cortona we would not stop to make music to-gether so we played a lot at open mics. I think it‘s really fantastic what can grow of only one week spending time together, I learned a lot about im-provisation and transboundary-communication through music.

It really impressed me, that the Cortona Week pursued a holistic account; it was not only about science, but also about society, responsibility of sci-entists and human beeings, perceptions of live and consciousness. That‘s what fascinated me besides the academic-learning.

So I would be very happy, if you invited me to be a part of the Corona Week 2016, thank you!

I would like to attend Cortona Week because I heard many positive feedbacks concerning this event from my colleagues who attended the previous years. They all mentioned how personally enriched they felt from this experience that allowed them to dis-cuss and exchange ideas on subjects and with peo-ple they were not used to meet, which broadened their horizon. I find this aspect particularly impor-tant for one´s future life because the more transdis-ciplinary someone is the more “complete”, philan-thropist and considerate that person becomes by being able to dig in a larger pool of assets to tackle a problem in a way that would satisfy the most. By meeting only work-related people, I miss such en-riching social mixture.

On a more personal level, I am also very interest-ed to Cortona week because I am facing difficulties in my PhD for which I feel a lot of stress. By talking with friends, they highly recommend Yoga and Tai Chi for me to put things into perspective and regain my energy. During my former studies in highschool, I also loved arts and philosophy which I miss in my current studies although I still try to draw during my pastime to release stress.

Finally, the topic of this year (serendipity) would definitely fit to my current situation as I feel myself at a dead-end in my PhD, and being able to notice opportunities and realize that not everything is black or white might change the disappointing and stress-ful feeling I currently live. Additionally, my lab having its group retreat often at the same time as Cortona week, this year might be the unique opportunity for me to finally be able to attend the event as I have been willing to do since the last two years.

As you rightly point out, breakthroughs are rarely the result of hamster-wheel science but more often of serendipity. Yet, the competitiveness in science demands finding and exploiting a niche. This nich-ing hinders exploration because success outside the niche is more uncertain than inside. It also hinders collaboration across communities because learning each other’s language and agreeing on goals is cost-ly and, again, success is uncertain. Surely, today’s big challenges, e.g. understanding the brain or com-peting climate change, cannot be solved by playing it in one’s niche. But what follows from this in prac-tice? How would the best practice for Serendipity look like?

Before starting my PhD at the Institute of Neu-roinformatics (ETHZ/UZH), I did environmental phys-ics in Heidelberg, Astrophysics during an exchange in Chile and earth system modelling at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; also I was local spokesman for the Studienstiftung in Heidelberg and worked as an Consultant during an internship. Each of the aforementioned research and work settings allowed for very different levels of openness to out-siders, flexibility in terms of goals, ease of exchange of ideas and, ultimately, room for serendipity. How-ever, since people mostly remained in their commu-nity, they were not aware of these differences.

Therefore, I think, clarifying the best practises for Serendipity must start by (i) cross talk between different communities and (ii) by explicitly asking how and when they generate great ideas. Cortona Week set out to do this: Medical perspectives on Serendipity (Scheidegger and Böhm) meet the sus-tainability view (e.g. Sutter) and historical analysis (e.g. Müller). By this, Cortona will generate analytic insight about Serendipity and it’s counterpart: un-certainty. However, Cortona will do more; the col-ourful bouquet of artistic and creative activities (e.g. painting, storytelling) will bring the participants fa-miliar and comfortable with each other and make the exchange of ideas easier; both of which cataly-ses Serendipity itself.

Summing up, I’d love to be part of Cortona Week because I hope to learn more about Serendipity on an analytical level as much as I hope to experience it there.

‘The Cortona week is a week to remember’ – this sentence I have heard many times. So, I had a look at the description of this year’s topic and at the schedule of the Cortona week 15, and I did not hes-itate for a moment to register for this year’s con-ference.

I like the idea that people from different insti-tutes and countries are brought together at a place far off from their home universities. I think that there is plenty of room for exchanging knowledge and discussing ideas without the pressure to achieve a solution. Especially the topic of this year’s confer-ence ‘Uncertainty & Serendipity’ is of special interest to me because it addresses the issue of pressure in scientific research. Nowadays, where the number of published papers and the impact factors are the things that matter most, no one has the resources and funds to take risks that probably could lead to failure. But the history has shown us that uncertain-ty and serendipity may lead to new insights and dis-coveries.

Moreover, I like the way how each day of the Cor-tona week is organized – to start the day with a morning activity that awakens body and mind, pre-pares the participants to follow the daily talks and to contribute to discussions. The afternoon with its workshops allows the participants to discover and gain experience in artistic, spiritual and humanistic attributes. Due to my opinion, every scientific per-son should not only be an expert on her/his research topic, but should have a broader understanding of other domains. I would like to be part of this year’s Cortona week because I want to expand my horizon, learn new skills, and interact with people from oth-er disciplines and cultural background. In the past, I did not take part at any conference, which is only approximately comparable with the conference in Cortona – so I would be very excited if I can experi-ence the Cortona week 16!

At times, the complexity and uncertainty of our global world leads to paralyzing resignation and a pessimistic outlook for the future. Many of the is-sues we have to face today such as international terrorism, climate change or the so called European Migrant crisis seem to be too complex and challeng-ing in order to find sustainable and sound solutions. I hope that by attending Cortona week I will get a broader understanding of the concept of “Seren-dipity” and thereby get to know a new approach to deal with the wicked problems of our and future generations. Transdisciplinarity, creativity and crit-ical thinking are essential skills, most of all in envi-ronmental science, the field I am studying. However, they are often neglected during university educa-tion and the Cortona week would be an opportuni-ty to focus on those skills. From experiences I had in other countries I learned how important intellec-tual exchange with people with different backgrounds is. I was part of the Rotary youth exchange program when I was 16 and spent 1 year in Canada. This year was a lasting and profound experience for me as it was the first time that I had to push beyond my per-sonal limits. I also worked for 1 year as an Au Pair in Rome where I learned to speak Italian. In the last autumn semester I did an internship at a coffee co-operative in a small and remote village of the Peru-vian Amazonas region. During this time I learned a lot about the Peruvian culture and got to know a very different way of life.

I would be very pleased to be able to join the Cortona week and get to know the other partici-pates and their different and maybe unexpected perspectives to the addressed topics of the week.

I grew up in Northern Ireland to English and German parents. Having immigrated to New Zealand at 16, I completed university and worked for 2 years in a technology company.

Over the course of my master’s, serendipity has played a key role my research process. The major innovation in my master’s happened through a chance interaction. This interaction sent me into a field I had no experience of, biotechnology. Thereby, I could bring together completely different disciplines, to realize something really new. However, only when reading the details about Cortona Week did it all fall into place – science interacts with art (and vice ver-sa) in a serendipitous way to create innovation? Re-ally? Fascinating idea!

After the theme for Cortona Week 2016 had caught my imagination, the timing struck me as opportune. I am now coming to the end of my master’s, and considering how to go forward with my project, how I want to work, and how I can continue researching and innovating. This is the perfect opportunity to reflect on the process of doing my master’s and build an understanding of what makes innovation tick. What were the moments led to innovation in my master’s? What situation and interactions allow the best ideas to come? How do chance interactions translated into a fruitful research direction?

By interacting with the speakers and participants at Cortona Week, I would like to explore, experiment, and create in order to test my answers to these questions. I would like to talk with biologists, paint-ers, physicist, psychologist, architects, film makers, dancers, sociologists, and many more people to form my ideas. Then, let creativity, wonder, exploration, and play lead to an understanding, a visceral feeling for what ignites new possibilities in my work. What transforms plodding goal-based, time-restricted re-search into a seething cauldron of innovation!?!

As a PhD student in physics, I believe that partici-pating in this interdisciplinary summer school would be very beneficial for my personal and scientific de-velopment.

For my PhD I have the great opportunity to par-ticipate in research which aims to improve radiation therapy to treat cancer, especially for children. To do that, I spend most of my time setting up and ana-lyzing simulations on my computer. However, for me to achieve good research, creativity and out of the box thinking are crucial. I hope to get the op-portunity to improve these qualities by participating in the Cortona Week 2016.

I also did my master’s degree at the ETH, con-ducting my master thesis at the University of Basel. During my PhD studies so far, I was able participate in a course at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology (Boston, USA), in a one week research stay at the Massachusetts General Hospital (Cambridge, USA) and in a one week stay at The Christie (Man-chester, UK).

The profit from getting to know other research groups, to work in a different environment and to obtain new input was enormous.

However, the courses and stays I have done so far concentrated mainly on physics related topics. I would love to take part in the Cortona Week to get an in-sight into other domains, points of view and ap-proaches. Additionally, this year’s program of the Cortona Week is of great interest for me. Without flashes of inspiration and new ideas, it is impossible to succeed in research. Therefore, I am very interest-ed to learn more about “Uncertainty and Serendipi-ty”. In summary, I would be very grateful to get the opportunity to participate in the Cortona Week 2016.

I have started my master program at ETH one year ago. During this time, I have neglected my creative side which I would like to change. I find my studies very interesting and relevant but there seems to be something missing. I am not exactly sure what, how-ever I reduce it to the fact that other intelligences are not promoted. Especially in my field (environ-mental sciences), I find this is totally underrated and there is more to learn than just the science behind global change. Especially this motivates me to apply here. In addition, I am very curious to the program as this involves a collaboration between the ZHDK and ETH, which I do sometimes see as contrasts but promises to show a link between art and science. I would love to participate and enjoy a summer school collaborated by both universities.

The description of the Cortona Week and the ac-tivities promise something new and exciting. I am always keen to learn and look at issues with a differ-ent mindset and be open to new experiences. This includes expanding my horizon by meeting new people and being open to new situations.

Previous experiences in other countries primar-ily include travelling which I would describe as my favorite hobby. Whenever I have time off, I love to go traveling, especially to New Zealand as I have dual citizenship. In my bachelor, I went to Germany for exchange. I decided on Munich not because I thought it was the best pick for professional reasons but be-cause Munich was described as having the most in-ternational students in Germany and I wanted to use this chance to make new connections.

I wish to attend the Cortona Week 2016 since it of-fers a unique opportunity to get in touch with a lot of interesting people and to learn from them by having lively debates about topics which do matter for our future. In my opinion, it’s crucial to interact and communicate between different disciplines to face today’s problems and their complexity. There-fore I highly appreciate the initiative the Cortona Week takes to enable such interactions and would be very happy to get the chance to profit from this opportunity.

At the moment I’m participating in the transdis-ciplinary case study from the TdLab of D-USYS.

Therefore I already do have some experience working in transdisciplinary teams and I highly ap-preciate it. I’m also planning to do my master thesis in a transdisciplinary approach by forming collabo-ration through supervisor selection between the TdLab, the agricultural department of ETH and a governmental institute of Nicaragua. Personally, I’m very curious and love to explore new fields. That in-cludes exploring new subject areas where I do not yet have broad knowledge, and also physically ex-ploring new countries, cities, forests, mountains and so on. Discovering Cortona, it’s surrounding and the Cortona Week would mean a lot to me.

I moved from Luxembourg to Zurich to study envi-ronmental sciences at ETH. What I appreciate most about the program is the fact that we are encouraged to not only gather knowledge in natural, but also so-cial sciences. My curriculum includes mathematics, chemistry and biology, but also economics, psychol-ogy and sociology. I’d like to believe this has helped me to approach problems with a more open mind.

Aside from my studies, I am interested in politics. I was a candidate for the Green Party in Luxembourg three years ago, which was a really interesting expe-rience. It allowed me to not only work in a team of people fighting for the same issues I care about, but also to learn how to engage in discussions with oth-ers that do not necessarily share these convictions.

Other experiences that influenced me a great deal were participating in the Model European Par-liament, spending time abroad in Canada as an ex-change student and working in NGO projects in Ne-pal. Even though these events are profoundly different from each other, I think what made them so special was the interaction with people from dif-ferent backgrounds and exchanging new ideas and ways of thinking.

I am an honest person, so I will admit I’m not very artistic when it comes to painting, but I do love to sing. Back home I sing with my family, as leisure or at weddings. In Zurich, I’ve recently joined a band and performed at small scale concerts, which I en-joy a lot.

Basically I would like to participate in the Corto-na Week because however trite it might sound, I think it is an amazing opportunity to meet people, exchange ideas, learn something outside my field of study and experience new activities, and I would be very happy and honored to be considered.

I like to think of myself as a person that enjoys hav-ing a broad experience base and an openminded-ness to many ways of thinking and living. As I already have participated in the Cortona Week (in 2014) and really appreciated all the new ideas and aspects of the world that I was getting to know there, I am very eager to see more this year.

Also this year‘s topic, specifically serendipity, highly resonates with me. I feel my life, my experi-ments and experiences highly governed by random events. Things that I did and could not have looked for, have brought me to the places where I am, and I have not yet discovered the underlying structure of this principles and I very much look forward to seeing and hearing how other people view this.

Despite this I also look forward to meeting a lot of new, interesting and passionate people from all different backgrounds. I am currently doing my ex-change semester in Czech Republic and on a univer-sity(VŠCHT) with a very different focus and culture than ETH, and during high school I was also studying abroad in the US. Both times I have found it very in-teresting to learn from other people, and under-stand what they find a normal way of living. Thus questioning what is „normal“ for me and if it is re-ally the „only“, the „real“ and the „best“ way of liv-ing. People from different cultures, both societal and occupational, have helped my reflect my ways and my sense of what I am doing. So I really hope and look forward to meeting many different people in Cortona and getting a chance to see still a broad-er picture of what it is that makes a life satisfied.

My high school‘s philosophy was to give us a human-ist education. For that reason, I used to have a lot of possibilities aside from my lessons to develop myself. This included singing in the choir, going to theater or concerts, attending lectures or being part of the climbing group. I spent four days in France with my choir in order to sing with other choirs. I also had the possibility to participate in the “Ren-contres CNRS Jeunes Sciences et Citoyens“ in France. Almost each year we had a retreat of few days dur-ing which time was splitted between conferences, time for thought and sports.

Starting my Bachelor at the ETH was a big change for me, because I have a Latin baccalaureate and I first wanted to study literature or History. In this perspective, I really appreciate the offer of the GESS Compulsory Elective courses, particularly the both I attended from visiting professorship of French Lit-erature and Culture.

Tanks to my student association and through the International Forestry Students’ Association, I par-ticipated in meetings in France, Germany, Slovenia and the Philippines. It’s always exciting to meet oth-er students but also researchers or professionals, to learn from the experience of others and to exchange ideas. It’s also the possibility to discover other cul-tures and through them ways to see the reality.

Attending the Cortona Week is the possibility to exchange with new people, to hear about things I don’t know or a few about, to be confronted with other opinions, to discover new ways of thinking. I remember words said during my baccalaureate grad-uation: ‚Go away, learn as much as you can, open your mind and then come back all grown up‘. It’s what I try to do and that for, it would be a great op-portunity to go to Cortona.

I participated in the last years’ Cortona Week and am still fascinated by the very sustainable encounters, both spiritual and intellectual, that happened dur-ing this week. I wouldn’t denominate a single event that influenced me the most, it was rather the mode of thinking and feeling the whole week sets you in. For me Cortona Week itself has a very specific at-mosphere and is in an aesthetic dimension itself or, by phrasing philosopher Martin Seel, an aesthetic event [Ereignis]. It lets the world pop up to our sense in a new, unforeseebably way. This is mainly due to it boundarly-less approach, not only in the sense of the delimination to other scientific disciplines but also to spiritual and social issues. So I think Cortona drills a whole into my very mode of existence and readjusts the relations that I have to the outside world. Explaining artrelated-topics/perspectives to an mathematican is not only enriching but also to some extend insecuring – but this insecurity is very productive as you obviously have to rethink the terms and all the deformations professionell that one aquired in his intellectual biography. This is the moment where Cortona becomes and aesthetic event. As, similar to standing in an art-installation, you are confronted with issues not easily tangible but you smell the taste of the trees and feel the sun of Tuscany on your skin. This sets you in the open-ness to grow and access new ways of feeling and thinking. So I would deeply appreciate to investigate more into the Cortona Experience.

Als freischaffende Künstlerin, die dem Kunstmarkt entsprechend immer auf ein sichtbares Ergebnis hingearbeitet hat, das dann meist in einer Ausstel-lung mit der Präsentation von Arbeiten gipfelte, habe ich mich vor einem Jahr entschieden, einen Master in Transdisziplinarität an der ZHdK Zürich zu machen, um einerseits tiefer in die Prozesse des Schaffens einzusteigen andererseits aber auch mei-nen Horizont zu erweitern und wissenschaftliches Arbeiten kennenzulernen um es in meine Arbeit zu integrieren.

Mein Interesse liegt am Aufnehmen von wissen-schaftlichen Ansätzen, Prozesse oder auch Ergeb-nissen verschiedener Forschungen und einem the-matischen Austausch mit meinen künstlerischen Möglichkeiten.

Die Herausforderung besteht unter anderem da-rin, das Prinzip eines wissenschaftlichen Forschens ohne Ergebnisorientierung auf mein künstlerisches Arbeiten zu übertragen.

Auf der Cortona Week erhoffe ich mir eine An-näherung an das Prinzip der „serenidipity“ und ab-seits des „Universitätsalltags“ ein intensives Arbe-itsfeld mit Impulsen für gemeinsames transdisziplinäres Forschen und fruchtbaren Austausch mit Vortragen-den und Teilnehmern.

I have been highly recommended by my professors and other artists who already attend previous years in cortona program to experience this event.

The topic of this year is very interesting for me and as far as I checked the programs, there are sev-eral lectures and workshops that I really like to at-tend and I can imagine it would be very helpful for my practice and my research.

At the moment I am busy with a publication/il-lustration project and writing, and I found some of the lectures relevant to what I am working on at the moment.

One of my ongoing projects is to rereading the cultural narratives by making visual works based on different cultural backgrounds.

Beside interesting atmosphere of Cortona resi-dency and the fact that other fellow residences are not necessarily artists makes the whole program more interesting. various people with different ac-ademic backgrounds could be more useful in terms of exchange sometimes, to be honest.

And my major motivation is to pursuit the fasci-nating idea of How can algorithms cope with uncer-tainty and develop serendipity? Would it be enough discussion to decode this subject or it will stays as an abstract? it Is a very fascinating subject for me personally and perhaps in relation to my research.

About your other question regarding to my pre-vious experiences in other countries and universi-ties, I have to mention I`ve been graduated BA(tex-tile and costume design) in Iran 2007, and worked as freelance painter/visual artist for 8 yearsn in tehran and published several works, after that I moved to switzerland and studied MFA in Zurich art universi-ty. And at the moment I am working on my research as one oft he PhD candidates in ZHdK.

Over past 8 years i worked with different insti-tutions and residencies mainly in europe and Iran. But since 2013 I started to work on my own project (as a moving ateleir ) to examine the boundries of space, soin this regard I am using uncertain and mis-fit spaces and turned it ino exhibition place or dis-cussion ground to find a conversation between the institution and and an overlaping image.

From all that I have heard about Cortona it sounds like a week of interesting conversation with others and “yourself”, time to reflect on life and your place in it.

I have been interested in this kind of event for quite a while but somehow always postponed it un-til this year. So this last month I attended the Swit-zerland Philosophy Salon about Frontiers in Nature and Technology, an amazing weekend spend dis-cussing ideas and philosophies during salons and especially in between during breaks and dinner, and a one-week seminar in Germany about self-develop-ment (NaLDS, organized by AIESEC).

The topic of this year’s Cortona Week fits my sit-uation, and probably of most people, very well: I feel like I’m at a cross-point in my life. The end of my Master studies is nearing, decisions about life have to be made, my future is uncertain. At the same time so many things happened in the last couple of years that influenced my life heavily, mostly to the posi-tive, that I never could have planned: serendipity. In spring 2011 I was early for my GESS course, leaned next to a poster from the Kulturstelle, went to one event with them and soon after became a member and vice president for three years. Just when I de-cided that I’ll take a break from the ETH before my Master, that I’ll travel the world and should resign, I stumbled upon the RhetorikForum of the UZH, went to a course and have been a coach and member of them ever since and, starting this month, responsi-ble for the marketing. Both organizations have giv-en me so much and both encounters were seren-dipitous. And I need this break from my otherwise scientific studies because I feel that one needs more in life than only one thing. Balance is important. In short: I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to attend Cortona and I hope that my personality and personal back story would be an interesting addi-tion to the mix of students attending and I am real-ly looking forward to it!

I would love to attend the Cortona week between the 3–10 of September. I found out about the inter-disciplinary summer school from previous visitors that spoke highly about it.

I’m interested in this kind of summer school be-cause of this year’s motto of uncertainty and seren-dipity. Indeed, the scientific method, and the scien-tists themselves, can be prepared in many other ways to have ideas and make discoveries. I have ob-tained a solid traditional scientific thinking during my studies at ETH. But knowing how to handle un-certainty and serendipity is still missing from my plate. I truly believe that a setting as Cortona gives the opportunity to come to such outcomes. It sounds like a place where communication is key, knowledge is shared and ideas are exchanged.

For me personally, the most interesting part would be the interaction between the different par-ticipators as I heard it is a good mix of great people. I would love to be a part of it and bring my point of view to the discussion which would be the one of a natural scientist. I do believe the Natural Sciences can profit from collaborating with the Humanities and the Arts, and vice versa. Take climate change for example. Enough data exist and we know what is happening. But there is a need to connect with the people, which is not possible without the Humani-ties and the Arts.

I should be a part of Cortona week because I’m highly motivated and interested in multidisciplinarity. Unfortunately, I did not have time to gain experience at another University yet. However, the time I spent as an intern with the water research facility eawag, gave me the opportunity to help at a project in Tan-zania. There, but also in many travels, I gained a wide range of experiences and my open mindedness.

I thank you for your attention and I hope I’ll get to know you soon.

Working at the intersection of knowledge, agricul-ture, and development cooperation, transdiciplinar-ity is a daily element of my scientific research. The ETH M.A. program in History and Philosophy of Knowl-egde taught me new ways of thinking that I had not been aware of during my agricultural studies: reflect-ing the Gemachtheit of science itself, cherishing its epistemic advantages, but also perceiving its limits.

In my master thesis, I attempt to bring together two complementary ways of thinking: I investigate scientists‘ and Kenyan farmers‘ perspectives on “good nutrition”, contrasting two different knowl-edge cultures, assessing their congruencies and points of friction, and finally pointing out conditions that foster mutual understanding and exchange.

Mutual understanding deems crucial to me re-garding many areas of life – my 2 to 3 month long stays in Ethiopia, Pakistan and the U.S. made me more sensitive towards different ways of perceiving the world. I learned to appreciate the particularities of these perceptions, their internal logic, consist-ence and their raison d‘être – dispite their striking differeces. In my view, transdiciplinarity in science and intercultural understanding stem from the same root: an intellectual and cultural open-heartedness that enables discussions on eye-level among epis-temic equals. Solutions to world-wide problems can only be sustainable when attitudes and knowledges of different stakeholders are taken seriously – espe-cially when these attitudes are not easily compre-hensible in the first place. In such cases, open-heart-edness is crucial, and as I experienced Cortona in 2014, it is exactly this open-heartedness that is cul-tivated during the Cortona week. I would like to par-ticipate in the Cortona Week 2016 to keep practicing my own openness towards scientific cultures that are different from my own. Thank you in advance for considering my application.

Starting to study Biosciences, I soon felt that many fundamental questions cannot be solved by science alone. Matters of life and death. Like: what happens to the soul? In my subsequent educational path, I always tried to reach out with my sensors to grasp as many influences from outside of my field of study as possible.

I chose a BSc in Liberal Arts and Sciences (Univer-sity College Maastricht), to enrich my life science focus, and during a semester abroad in Chile (PUC), I also took courses in gymnastics, photography and pottery.

I embarked aboard The Scholarship1 an ocean-going campus, where I lived and studied with an in-tercultural community for one semester. In count-less moments, diverse deep discussions arose with these peers from various backgrounds, and during academic field programs we explored critical cur-rent issues on the ground.

Cherishing scientific research and academic writ-ing, I nonetheless also feel the urge to express my ideas and emotions visually. Hence, I make documen-tary films, e.g. “Tasik Chini- Ecosystem On A Brink”2 for Transparency International in Malaysia, or “Fight-ing the Flood” in Panama, both dealing with illegal land degradation and uncertain futures of indige-nous communities.

Moreover, I express myself through my body by practicing Kung Fu and extreme sports like kitesurf-ing or rock climbing. Every activity touches on dif-ferent spheres that life and the world seem to be made of. The Cortona Week represents an amazing opportunity to exchange inspiring ideas, to engage in extraordinary activities and to undergo a fruitful process of critical reflection.

Self-reflection, as well as a reflection of the world-ly context, in which (my) scientific research is em-bedded. I deal with climate change adaptation, thus with a lot of uncertainty -and I hope to find some serendipity in Cortona!

The only thing we can be sure of is change. The cer-tainty that anything eventually changes and/or is already in constant flux even when the changes aren’t apparent confronts us with the fact of uncer-tainty. It confronts us with the insight that we now don’t know what we are still bound to learn. It hum-bles us and our discoveries time after time for we will keep searching for the not yet known, the not yet seen, the not yet heard, the not yet imagined. We will keep searching and we will keep finding even when we aren’t aware of our search. But how shall we possibly look for something when lacking any idea of what it is we are looking for? How can we possibly plan the ephemeral, the spontaneous, the coincidental? What kind of strategies need to be developed and what kind of strategies need to be abandoned to allow for serendipity to occur? Those are only a handful of the many questions that I would happily raise and discuss in the multidisciplinary en-vironment of the Cortona Week. As a strong advo-cator of a transdisciplinary, dialectical and dialogical approach to nearly any intellectual and ultimately practical quest I would like to gain a deeper under-standing of the benefits and limits of interdiscipli-narity. I would like to understand how a common language between the disciplines can evolve in a short period of time and I would like to expand my perception of, well… life itself by genuinely engag-ing with modes of thinking that differ from mine.

I am doing my PhD in the soil protection group at ETH studying soil-plant interactions and nutrient uptake by crops with a focus on sustainable agricul-ture in developing countries. In my study and re-search field I have to deal with complex problems which often require transdisciplinary approaches. With attending Cortona Week 2016 I would like to get out of my daily routine, to open my eyes for other disciplines and thereby stimulate my creativ-ity and come up with new ideas. I believe this course offers the opportunity to get in touch with subjects I am not so familiar with and to exchange with peo-ple from other fields and countries. During my ed-ucation in natural sciences I realized that I am not only interested in this particular field but that I am also very enthusiastic about subjects such as music, psychology or dancing. This is also where I get in-spiration from during my free time, by playing the saxophone, dancing lindy hop, gardening or learn-ing languages.

As part of my PhD project I had the opportunity to work on an agricultural field trial in central India. This was combined with attending the ETH World Food System Centre summer school about sustain-able and organic agriculture. I also visited two inter-national scientific conferences about biogeochem-istry and micronutrients in Turkey (2014) and Japan (2015). During my master studies I did an internship in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, about sanita-tion and hygiene in poor urban settlements.

A previous participant recommended me the Cortona Week and I would love to take part this year. I think it is very beneficial that this course is held in Cortona where we can collaborate much more in-tensely. Lastly, I believe the topic “uncertainty and serendipity” fits very well to the 100 years anniver-sary of the Dada movement.

I study as a PhD student in electrical engineering and information technology. During my PhD studies I am mainly focused on my particular research top-ic which means to understand and find new techni-cal solutions to improve the future technology. Un-fortunately this leaves only little time to put my own project into a bigger context and to understand its purpose for our society. I recognized that the more intense my studies get, from high school to PhD studies, the more specialized I get and the less time I use to look left and right to discover other aspects of life than my specialization. This is contradictory to the fact that with advancing age I should be more and more able to make inter-disciplinary connec-tions instead of getting lost in details of my own specialization. This is one reason why I would like to attend the Cortona Week and take the opportunity to get involved in other aspects of life than my spe-cialization.

Another point which motivates me to attend the Cortona Week are the people. In everyday work life I am most of the time only in contact with other re-searchers who work usually on almost the same top-ic than me. You can have great discussions with them about technical problems, but only rarely the dis-cussion goes beyond technical considerations to put our work in a bigger context. Unfortunately, only in the rarest cases discussions even about other as-pects of life, like arts, literature or philosophy, hap-pen. Therefore I hope to meet interesting people during the Cortona Week who help me getting an insight into topics different from natural science and engineering.

Besides, I hope to get more open-minded about new approaches how to think about problems dur-ing the interaction with other topics. This new ex-periences, which I hopefully gain during the Corto-na Week, might also help to develop new idea and creativeness in my own field of specialization even though they are not connected to my own special-ization.

I did my Bachelor and Master studies in Karlsru-he, Germany which is my home country. During my studies I worked half a year in a research center in Ireland. This half year gave me a great in-sight into research and inspired me to extend my studies with a PhD position after my Masters. Besides, I got the opportunity to get in interaction with a lot of inter-esting people from all over the world. For my PhD I took the chance to go abroad to Switzerland. Even though the cultural differences might not be that big this offers the space to discover another coun-try and culture.

As I was applying for Cortona Week 2015, I had sev-eral expectations. However I learned more than I thought of. Being a part of Cortona Week helped me to understand thinking process better (especially mine), which I believe is a result of many interesting discussions with many smart and well educated peo-ple. In addition, I very much enjoyed discussing with people in different fields, to find out their perspec-tive on issues that as an engineer, I have stopped thinking about. It was an eye opener to challenge thoughts that I took for granted.

My mindset needs a balance of the arts and science, that`s why I decided to study architecture.

Among other things, I appreciate the creative problem solving approach, which I learn during the studies. I do not think that serendipity can be forced, however, I am certain that you can train yourself to recognize chances and work with them trough a creative mind. In my free time I enjoy yoga and got the chance to take affordable dancing and singing lessons during my obligatory internship in Berlin. Things like that foster creative problem solving strongly, which I can use in architecture, but also in many others of my engagements. This years Corto-na Week would give me the opportunity to advance this topic in a direct way and think from an „outside level“ about serendipity & uncertainty.

I also appreciated the studies at D-Arch because it offers you opportunities to travel and discover things. Before ETH I was a Nanny in the US for 1.5 years. With ETH I studied 1 semester in Delft (NL) through the Erasmus program and I got an intern-job (6mt) at the artiststudio of Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, where I was introduced to the topic of uncertainty. At ETH I was accepted for the summer school in Ethi-opia (2010) and the ETH Week on Food (2015).

There I cherished to make new friends, learn about new ideas and perspectives and discuss cru-cial things of today. Because of my studies and my experience in the artistic and scientific field I am certain to be an asset to the group at Corona Week as well as the benefits from Cortona Week to be of positive influence for my future studies and field of actions. That is why I would be very happy to join this years Cortona Week.

In my daily life, I experience people surrounding me as much occupied with their own work, schedules, and duties. Also for me personally it is often difficult to maintain awareness and attention for other are-as of life (such as exploring my immediate environ-ment) and distance myself from the dominating as-pects and duties of my studies. Regardless whom I meet, conversations often circle around these top-ics and even if a conversation goes beyond, then time often runs out too fast.

The Cortona week is a great opportunity to con-sciously experience interactions with people in an environment lacking such distractions of everyday life. I always keep my eyes open for such opportu-nities and new things in general. Right after second-ary school for example, I went to Rajhastan, India for volunteer work. In India, many people face simple lives and they are used to take one day after anoth-er giving enough room for spiritual experiences and personal interactions. During my stay, we taught basic English in a public school during the morning hours while in the afternoons we went to villages to play, sing, and draw with the local children. It was a fulfilling and mind-opening experience to interact with people having such different understandings and perspectives of life. Between my Bachelor grad-uation and civil service I went to Pitigliano, Tuscany for the olive harvest on an organic farm. Once more I realized how deep my personal connection to na-ture is and that for an organic farmer hard work goes hand in hand with pure joy. Back then I felt the same.

I am highly motivated to attend the Cortona week to acquire and help to develop new understandings on the very intriguing and actual issue „uncertainty & serendipity“ in which everyone should be involved. I would very much appreciate if I could get the chance to contribute my part by sharing my personal expe-riences and expertise and be a part of an exchange of thoughts.

As a chemical biologist working in the field of direct-ed evolution for my msc thesis I am greatly depend-ing on serendipity and have to control the experi-ments such that the uncertainty is minimized. Using the very powerful algorithm of Darwinian evolution, which is in its essence based on chance, we try to direct the mutations to spots, where we believe to gain novel function or a better understanding of the function of our molecule of interest. Hence the sub-ject of this week is omnipresent in my work. I am well aware and grateful for serendipitous events, since my life – with which I am very happy – has greatly been shaped by such events.

In my bachelor thesis I went for 4 months to Im-perial College London to work with Prof. A. Spivey. During the four months of my Bsc. thesis I was work-ing with a reaction, which barely worked. Before-hand I already had been working on a similar project with Prof. Bode at ETH. As I then joined Prof. Pen-telute at MIT for 7 months, he pitched an idea to me, which I then could bring to work only thanks to the knowledge acquired during my unsuccessful re-search projects. This lead to one of my best experi-ences so far, as the development of a novel reaction that one invented is probably as interesting as chem-istry can get. Besides the academic life, that I enjoy a lot, I’ve always been keen to see new places and get new experiences. During my high school I worked in McDonalds and am still grateful for this insight, which I (hopefully) will never have again. Before I started to study I went on to work for a year for Canon in Corporate Communications, where I picked up my love for photography. I then worked in a home for youngsters with learning problems, and enjoyed three months in the Philippines as a dive master.

So far I see my life as a chain of serendipitous events, which lead me to the point I am today. I nev-er backed down from uncertainty, if I saw a benefit in taking risks. Therefore I think I would be perfect-ly well suited to take part in this interesting week. Furthermore I would be willing to prepare a short talk or workshop, in which I would try to explain the wonder.

Since my time at the Humanistic Gymnasium in Ba-sel I am interested in the tension between archaic precondition of human beings and the fast progress of science and technology (especially the digitisa-tion). My final paper for my A-levels was about the „Origin of greek pessimism“ (Matheton Agon Prize of University of Basel), where I tried to read pessi-mistic texts by Hesiod, Sophokles, Lurkez and others as a reaction of the estrangement of human beings and nature.

2012 I attended as composer the summer course for New Music in Darmstadt, where I met compos-ers and artists from all over the world. There I got in touch with some radical ideas about conemporary art and music.

2014 I was invited as a young writer in residence at the „Eventi Letterari di Monté Verita“, where I had the chance to meet Herta Müller and the poet Durs Grünbein.

2015 I was involved in the design of the Swiss Pa-villion for the 2016 Architecture Biennale by Chris-tian Kerez.

2016 I am involved in the writer-programm „Dra-menprozessor“ – I will write a play about dionysian violence and digitisation for the Theater Winkelwi-ese in Zürich.

Since 2011 I write for the Feuilleton of the NZZ.

I would like to attend Cortona Week 2016 to get some more input on “Uncertainty and Serendipity” before starting my master thesis. In general I think almost everything is uncertain and it is important to have serendipity to deal with it.

During my previous studies I left my hometown Leipzig and absolved a transbordering Bachelor course between France and Germany before mov-ing to my study place Zurich. My hometown is still very important to me, as it is one of the very fast developing cities in Germany. Whenever I go there now, there is a new building, a new shop. It is always uncertain to me, how the place I call home will look like, next time I go there.

For my Bachelor degree I studied with a course composed of half german students and half French students. This experience showed me how valuable it is to have an exchange with people from different cultural backgrounds.

Then I went to Zurich to study my current Master degree “Biogeochemistry and Pollutant dynamics”. Here I met a lot of people with different study back-grounds, such as biology, geography and envrion-mental sciences. It showed my how valuable it is to have discussions between people with different point of views.

So, to sum up so far, in my experience it is always very interesting when people with different back-grounds meet and discuss. I’m excited to meet with people, experience art, life and discussions togeth-er. I hope to get some new ideas about how I want to start into my research activities, starting with my Master thesis and then probably with my Ph.d.. I hope to get some more experiences of how to han-dle uncertainties and to further develop my seren-dipity.

Born in Belgium but having lived in France, Switzer-land, Brazil and Laos, I developed – especially during these last two consecutive experiences – the desire to work on my creativity and improve my practical skills. During my experiences abroad, I observed cul-tures which lived close to nature, and are very dex-terous when it comes to manual work: everyone knows how to repair a motorbike, how to install a waterpump and the corresponding pipeline, how to repair any issue in the house. And not by reading books; by doing. These observations lead me to the understanding that in the occidental culture we generally under-estimate the importance of the sen-timental and instinctive intelligences of the human species, and excessively value the intelligence of thought. For this reason, I have been changing my lifestyle lately, giving more importance to the crea-tive and intuitive part which is is every human being. Now, I feel the need to share my experience and learn from others, especially people working on the expression of their creative self within our occiden-tal environment, emphasized by the academic en-vironment. The idea is to make these two worlds compatible, and Cortona Week seems like a perfect example validating the possibility of coexistence between a profound lifestyle and the fast-moving, efficiency-oriented environment in which we live.

I knew Cortona Week from an email of summer schools. The topic drew my attention immediately. As a PhD student, I fully understand the uncertainty in re-searches, by just thinking of how many PhD theses match their original research plan. For me, doing research is exploring and expanding the boundary of human knowledge and cognitive. At some point it is like dancing in the dark. We need some external guide to follow the steps. Art is just such a tool to help me think out of the box, by providing a differ-ent perspective of addressing problems. The Corto-na week is a good opportunity for me to approach the intersection of science and art.

Along the road of research, there are full of sur-prises. How to deal with the uncertainty and how to approach the successes that are brought by the serendipity are the two key questions I would like to know. I want to attend the seminars and discuss with the professionals about the topic. Moreover, the interesting workshops are also a reason for me to apply for the conference.

Furthermore, I like to meet people and experi-ence cultures from other countries. I have an inter-national background. I was born in China. At the age of 22, I moved to the Netherlands and lived there for 2.5 years as a student of Wageningen University. Before started my PhD at ETH, I did an internship in Lausanne, Switzerland, for 9 months. During the Cortona Week, I would like to build my network with professionals and other students with the same in-terest.

I think the Cortona Week will be an eye-opening experience for me. I hope to expand my horizon by attending this great event. It will certainly help me with my future study and research.

My studies of Architecture at the Calvinistic ETH gives me the possibility to combine all my interests. I pre-fer to be close to a Department of Science. I avoid the Deparment of Art. So I wish to attend the Cor-tona Week 2016 to develop my „Renaissance Man-Pro-ject“ and meet interesting people of Science. What I can give are thoughts about Poetry, Art, Cosmolo-gy, Architecture, History.

At the moment I am very interested in quantum physics and the work of David Deutsch.

During my research in the past years I have often found that science does not to proceed according to the textbook model. Unexpected patterns and luck have greatly influenced both the focus and re-sults of my research. As researchers, we set out to answer specific questions but frequently end up following unanticipated avenues. Unfortunately, when the time comes to report our findings to the scientific world we are compelled to follow a very stiff and impersonal tone which conceals the impor-tant role of luck and the unexpected, and it makes it look like we knew right questions to ask since the beginning. I believe the role of serendipity in science is greatly underappreciated. Many scientific discov-eries have indeed grown out of fortuitous circum-stances so I think there is a strong case to be made for attempting to create research environments with less formalized research protocols and larger freedom for the pursuit of the unforeseen. In fact, we already know that works. One only needs to think about the great number of scientific and techno-logical advances that were produced at Bell Labs, where such an atmosphere was cultivated (e.g. the discovery of the cosmic microwave background).

2010–2014 University of Basel2014–2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2016 ETHZAs a scientist, I consider myself rational and meas-

ured. During my Master thesis at MIT, I learned how to be goal oriented and selective. These qualities however, seem to conflict with creativity and inno-vativeness which are and always have been funda-mental for game changing advances throughout history. In Cortona 2016, I expect to get to know a very heterogeneous crowd of people, appreciate differences and pick up on other live styles.

I have been twice to Cortona, in 2013 and 2014, and it was life changing in all possible meanings: social life, academic/theoretic principles, public appear-ance, and many more things, private and „beruflich“. I think, Cortona has a special sort of „spirit“, which allows one to see the interconnection between one’s academic/artistic work, societal processes, and the development of what Michel Foucault called „selftech-niques“.

After the „shock“ of 2013, I especially learned in 2014 how to speak up, how to mark my own thoughts in discussions without aggressing other’s work, but finding solutions in listening to the problem solving possibilities others propose. Last year i could not participate due to a PTSD caused by a heavy car crash. So, my motivation is pretty simple: I expect nothing less then another categorical shift in my way of per-ceiving science, art and life , as I don’t know anything else of Cortona.

A full education in natural science has not only fo-cused my daily work very much on a technical level, also the circle of friends I interact with has mostly shifted to this area. As a result, interaction with the field of arts kind of falls short.

The Cortona week could on facilitate the contact to some different topics in the Workshops, for once away from the regular focus of my research. I’m very interested to hear the different opinions, especially from the non- “natural scientists” on the topics com-ing up in the evening sessions.

Not last of course, I’m very interested in meeting the different people that will attend this workshop and look forward to get to know some of them. And I would enjoy seeing Italy’s countryside and the town of Cortona, both of which I’ve never been before.

Time for multidisciplinary thinking seems to be a luxury our educational system rarely can afford. Therefore, the Cortona program, which does not teach, but actually allows us to experience and prac-tice interdisciplinarity, caught my attention. Some elements and topics of the detailed program even reinforced my motivation:

The general topic “Uncertainty and serendipity” echoes to one of my main academic interests, name-ly mathematical chaos theory. As a theoretical com-puter scientist, I am fascinated by how very simple systems, automatons or equations can lead to un-believably complex and unpredictable outcomes. That is for uncertainty. Even more troubling are the connections of those seemingly random patterns and behaviors to self-organized systems, as observed in biology. And there goes serendipity.

Having worked for an insurance company in the past and not excluding doing so again in the future, Reto Schneider’s considerations on the ethics of loss prevention have a particular meaning to me. I am eager to debate about this topic and hope I will pro-gress in my inner struggle opposing my belief of mutualisation of costs against my antipaternalistic views.

Furthermore, I am especially interested in attend-ing the talk Philanthropy and Academic Freedom and the workshop Clerical Accessories in Fashion, after reading their description. Both, I am convinced, will provide me with new insights and arguments on areas in which I’ve long been enquiring.

Previously, I studied Mechanical Engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) for one year, before re-orienting towards a BSc. in Communication Systems. I spent one year of my Bachelor’s as an exchange student at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), in Spain.

I am currently studying at the Institut of Neuroin-formatics in Zürich. The question studied at my in-stitute is: How does the brain perform computation and how can the answers to this question be applied to solve real world problems? These questions lead almost directly to the currently more and more pop-ular issue of strong AI and it‘s dangers. However, artificial intelligence is at this point not comparable in structure to human intelligence. One of the main differences is the very topic of this year‘s cortona week and can be partially simplified into this inter-esting word – „serendipity“. We do up to this day not really understand how innovation truly works, even in humans. Nevertheless, it surely is a basic quality of human existence that we are able to per-form actions and shape the world in novel partially unprecedented ways. It is sometimes said that we are only constrained by our imagination, but time and time again humans are able to „escape“ these constraints and I am particularly interested in how that is possible and how imagination develops.

I think the cortona week could help me further my understanding of this question. Furthermore I want to work in research in the future and am thus naturally interested in the general topic of the week. I believe that open door policies and strong collab-oration between people from vastly different cul-tural and professional backgrounds are one pillar of future innovative research. In the past I have stud-ied in Spain and had different internships e.g. at the TU Darmstadt, but also abroad. I always enjoyed the opportunities to meet interesting new people and would very much like to add to these experiences in the cortona week.

I see the Cortona week as a chance to exchange and learn from students of a different mindset and back-ground to the one I am exposed to in my day to day work. Having spent two research stays at University of Cambridge (UK), I have experienced the positive input of changing the environment and having to deal with the arising new challenges, followed by a personal growth.

As part of my Ph.D. thesis, I am looking into cer-tain phenomena in internal combustion engines (ICE). Although the ICE is a machine with a history of more than a century, not all relevant phenomena have been fully understood yet. Lots of research has been devoted to the steady improvement and adap-tion to the more stringent requirements in the past decade. In this context it may seem as if every pos-sibility has been investigated already, and the vast amount of available knowledge makes it look almost impossible to make one owns contribution. Howev-er, overcoming these hurdles in the beginning and starting to build up a deeper understanding, one sees how little we know about many phenomena and how relevant findings have been based upon pure chance.

Enabling for a clean and efficient ICE for today’s demand in the ever so moving energy turnaround asks for more than the classical steady improve-ments. Being open towards serendipity in todays uncertainty on solutions for the future energy mar-ket is something I’d personally like to take as a chance. I am looking forward to partake in this year’s Corto-na week and enrich it with my personal thoughts as well as benefit from discussions and inputs from others.

Studying theatre but coming from a theoretical background, transdisciplinarity is a daily element in my theoretical and practical work at the ZHdK. Through my dialectical and dialogical approach to nearly any intellectual and practical quest, I would like to gain a deeper understanding of the benefits and limits of creativity (artistic or scientific) that is sometimes somehow influenced by uncertainty and serendip-ity. I would like to understand how a common lan-guage between the disciplines can be established and how understanding and misunderstanding can evoke creativity between people and disciplines.

The importance of chance in the creative process must not be ignored, underestimated or intention-ally disregarded in a condescending way. Notions of chance, randomness, or unpredictability are impor-tant, especially when it comes to artistic creation. In addition serendipity can be seen as the expected contributions for making expedient discoveries in coincidence, by chance. To put serendipity into work, there is need to accumulate a list of questions that need solving, acquaintance with already existing an-swers, and their use in daily life. Only when this knowl-edge is present, ‚chance‘ can take its part in estab-lishing a suiting milieu for the ‚problem‘ and the ‚solution‘ to find each other. If there is already a great deal of knowledge accrued in our minds about the problem and the requisites for the solution, chance adds the final piece to the puzzle. It is when we can start to talk about traditional prescriptive, authori-tarian and rather conventional aesthetics vs. a new generative, irregular, unprescribed aesthetics.

How can we possibly plan the ephemeral, the spontaneous, the coincidental? What kind of strat-egies need to be developed and what kind of strat-egies need to be abandoned to allow for serendip-ity to occur? These are just some hypothesis, statements and questions I would like to discuss with students and professionals from different back-grounds trying to find a common language that al-lows critical discussions. Though- As part of my first BA degree- I had the change to participate in an in-ternational transcultural exchange program in Ven-ice (Italy). The aim of this international campus is to connect people from different disciplines to discuss and exchange about globalization and cultural her-itage. As I have experienced this transcultural ex-change the discussion about the same topic, coming from different disciple, I am looking forward to en-joy an interesting and fruitful dialog at the Cortona week 2016.

In my opinion, it is a great opportunity for every-body to open his mind, share ideas and thoughts a bout the future, discuss and think critically. But this time not with colleagues from your research area, but surrounded by people having a different back-ground, other viewpoints and a maybe different ap-proaches than I am used to.

The work of my bachelor, master and Ph. D. the-ses was and still is related to mobility, somehow. During my bachelor I had the chance to present our work on a novel drivetrain in two IIT’s in India, fac-ing the cultural, social and financial differences of research. Currently, I am dealing with the integra-tion of renewable fuels in transportation by using “green” hydrogen in internal combustion engines. Although the internal combustion engine has been invented much more than a century ago, we are still working on the very same concept, looking for tiny improvements in every corner to be more efficient, more cost-effective and to reduce the environmen-tal pollution.

For how much longer are we going forward in such small steps in mobility? Do we need a fortunate happenstance towards clean transportation? Can we force serendipity by a multi-disciplinary team working together? Probably not, but I would like to take the opportunity to be part in this year’s Corto-na week to sharpen my senses and listen to others thoughts with wide-open.

I always thought that the most interesting things I’ve done in life were completely irrational, although I am a rational person. I tend to plan things ahead in my life, just like I planed to study architecture at ETH, move to Switzerland or start an internship in Los Angeles, yet I still think that spontaneously go-ing on a road trip all the way to Amsterdam from Zurich and driving back the same day only to see my friends on Kings Day was one of the best decisions I made in my life. I would say I am drawn to letting some things happen, just because I want to explore the outcome.

I believe in the power of irrational moments and a lot of the times I think dedicating yourself to sci-ence completely shuts down this whole way of ex-periencing life. At the same time I think scientific research is constantly pushing the barriers and ad-vancing towards new discoveries that change and shape our lives.

I guess I expect this to be a very exciting week where we can talk about what makes life so inter-esting and what is left out there for each of us to discover.

I am intrigued by the combination of methods and the topic of this year’s Cortona Week.

I have practiced Tai Chi, Yoga and alternative Methods such as Kinesiology for years, to achieve a calmness and clarity as a strong basis for many as-pect, such as my studies for example. Often these worlds are contrasted and rarely joined. This week is a very special opportunity for me to meet and dis-cuss with other people, who also seek to beneficial-ly unite these different approaches.

Being in the middle of my Masters, entering the working world is coming close and the uncertainty this brings is a challenge. This uncertainty is but a part of the overall uncertainties lingering, such as the unstable political, economic, ecological and so-cial situations we are facing more and more. As an environmental scientist, I’ve been mostly exposed to the ecological aspects, but am realizing how strongly all uncertainties and problems are entwined.

My wish to join the Cortona week would be to learn from people coming from very different fields, how to work with uncertainties on various levels.

I hope to contribute to interesting discussions and a diverse Cortona experience, due to some of my unusual travel and work experience, including lecturing in Mongolia for a semester, a study ex-change in Beijing and Iceland, and sailing tradition-al Tall Ships for several years combined with nature guiding in Antarctica, South Georgia and other unique-ly remote islands.

Being an outdoor enthusiast, I realize that our surroundings have an important effect. I think it’s a great idea to leave the university auditoriums for some movement, calmness, art and discussions em-bedded in the Tuscan landscape and would be very eager to join this inspiring, challenging and fun week.

I am highly motivated to participate in the transdis-ciplinary Cortona Week 2016 because I have a keen interest in the topic and concepts of uncertainty and serendipity, both on a scholarly and personal level.

During my studies in History, Social Anthropolo-gy and Philosophy at the University of Stockholm, the University of Zurich, Jawaharlal Nehru Universi-ty in New Delhi and ETH Zurich, I have engaged with different academic contexts and learned first hand about the opportunities and challenges of interdis-ciplinary research. Through these studies, I have de-veloped a strong interest in questions of scientific innovation and of the interdependence between science and social and political contexts.

These concerns also guide my master thesis on the history of social sciences in India, which analy-ses the emergence of a new paradigm in sociologi-cal research on rural areas in the early Cold War. In this context, Merton’s notion of serendipity is an interesting concept to think about the often sur-prising and unpredictable development of new sci-entific insights.

I would like to be part of the Cortona Week 2016, be-cause I am especially interested in the intersections of art and science. In my master studies I have to learn not just about historical cases of influences between science and art, but also about the princi-ples that can bind these fields together in general. Especially the subject of this years Cortona week sounds interesting as I had the possibility to attend a seminar on uncertainty in science and so I got the chance to get familiar with the subject. Last but not least I would be glad to attend the Cortona Week to get in touch with students of scientific fields and also to learn about the contribution of the members of the ZHdK. I am looking forward to hear from you.

Since the first time I heard about the “Cortona Week” I got curious and interested in the event.

I am studying at the ETH of Zurich because I am fascinated by the scientific approach and method-ology to solve and understand problems, but I also have a strong humanistic and artistic background which I developed during high school. I am convinced that combine different perspectives (scientific and artistic), make them integrated into each other, is a wonderful way to approach problems and situations in life. I think this week could be a possibility to take a break from the scientific approach and dedicate myself to train other skills and interests. I have trav-eled a lot, especially in the last years for short and long periods. I have been in South America for a cou-ple of months, in Brazil, and I went in South East Asia for a year for working and travelling. I am an open minded person and I like sharing experiences, espe-cially those in which is important to use and manage our creativity.

“Uncertainty and serendipity” is a theme which affects more and more our society and I am really motivated to work and discuss about it with other competent people which can give new perspectives, maybe also with a personal touch. Finally I am Italian and I love Tuscany’s countryside!

I would like to attend the Cortona Week, because I see it as a perfect opportunity to share my person-al experience concerning uncertainties both as an engineer and a creative person with others, as a lot of my projects I had during my studies in Vienna, during my interim work period at a landfill sanita-tion project in Austria , while working as a photogra-pher and now during my PhD have or had uncertain-ties (and a positive outcome) as one of the main components.(83) Uncertainty came in many different facets, such as the question, of how large a chemi-cal sample should be at a landfill to reduce the un-certainty in its chemical content (my Master thesis), the practical view of that question during the land-fill sanitation project, the uncertainty as a photogra-pher if the creative work you are producing is also liked (and thus bought by customers), and the part of my PhD thesis that deals with prediction of infra-structure behavior in the future.

I believe that through exchanging experience with other people from different backgrounds and working creatively together, we as a group in Cor-tona can together spark new ideas in each other that will advance both our science and our person-al life. Working in a research group that combines different people from different fields has already led to highly fruitful new discoveries, which is a thing that I would really like to deepen and extend. There-fore, the Cortona week is to me the perfect place to do this and as such I want to be part of it and contribute to its success.

Because of my participation at the Cortona Week 2015 (Reproducibility) I gained a lot of inspiring ide-as, methods and networks. As a historian it was not always easy to take part in the debate dominated by natural scientists. But I learned a lot and my goal for this year is to even involve more in the discus-sions, improve in speaking out and loosing the anx-iety of speaking in public. For me it‘s important that students of humanities and natural science enter together in a critical and inspiring debate, because I think it‘s the base of a conscious society of the fu-ture. At the Cortona Week 2015 I met so many per-sons that agreed on that and the discussions we had were so inspiring, that I would like to be part of this year Cortona Week as well.

Trough my participation at this year Cortona Week I hope to gain more experience in debating in eng-lish and learn more about the methods and motiva-tions of natural Scientists and Engineers. This years topic seems ideal to discuss about problems of meth-ods, goals and founding. That‘s a topic I know really well from my own field and I‘m interested how oth-ers deal with it. I‘m also very interested in intercul-tural exchange of ideas. That‘s why I did a volunteer service in Mexico (2008) and Argentina (2010), studied a Semester in Spain (UCLM, Toledo, 2014) and will study a Semester in the US (Vanderbilt, Nashville, 2017).

But last year I did not only grow as a critical sci-entist. Trough the nightly Jam Sessions, the Drum-ming-Workshop and the Morning-Singing-Sessions at Cortona Week 2015 I got to know a lot of musi-cians from all over Europe (I play the Cello myself). After Cortona we would not stop to make music to-gether so we played a lot at open mics. I think it‘s really fantastic what can grow of only one week spending time together, I learned a lot about im-provisation and transboundary-communication through music.

It really impressed me, that the Cortona Week pursued a holistic account; it was not only about science, but also about society, responsibility of sci-entists and human beeings, perceptions of live and consciousness. That‘s what fascinated me besides the academic-learning.

So I would be very happy, if you invited me to be a part of the Corona Week 2016, thank you!

I would like to attend Cortona Week because I heard many positive feedbacks concerning this event from my colleagues who attended the previous years. They all mentioned how personally enriched they felt from this experience that allowed them to dis-cuss and exchange ideas on subjects and with peo-ple they were not used to meet, which broadened their horizon. I find this aspect particularly impor-tant for one´s future life because the more transdis-ciplinary someone is the more “complete”, philan-thropist and considerate that person becomes by being able to dig in a larger pool of assets to tackle a problem in a way that would satisfy the most. By meeting only work-related people, I miss such en-riching social mixture.

On a more personal level, I am also very interest-ed to Cortona week because I am facing difficulties in my PhD for which I feel a lot of stress. By talking with friends, they highly recommend Yoga and Tai Chi for me to put things into perspective and regain my energy. During my former studies in highschool, I also loved arts and philosophy which I miss in my current studies although I still try to draw during my pastime to release stress.

Finally, the topic of this year (serendipity) would definitely fit to my current situation as I feel myself at a dead-end in my PhD, and being able to notice opportunities and realize that not everything is black or white might change the disappointing and stress-ful feeling I currently live. Additionally, my lab having its group retreat often at the same time as Cortona week, this year might be the unique opportunity for me to finally be able to attend the event as I have been willing to do since the last two years.

As you rightly point out, breakthroughs are rarely the result of hamster-wheel science but more often of serendipity. Yet, the competitiveness in science demands finding and exploiting a niche. This nich-ing hinders exploration because success outside the niche is more uncertain than inside. It also hinders collaboration across communities because learning each other’s language and agreeing on goals is cost-ly and, again, success is uncertain. Surely, today’s big challenges, e.g. understanding the brain or com-peting climate change, cannot be solved by playing it in one’s niche. But what follows from this in prac-tice? How would the best practice for Serendipity look like?

Before starting my PhD at the Institute of Neu-roinformatics (ETHZ/UZH), I did environmental phys-ics in Heidelberg, Astrophysics during an exchange in Chile and earth system modelling at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; also I was local spokesman for the Studienstiftung in Heidelberg and worked as an Consultant during an internship. Each of the aforementioned research and work settings allowed for very different levels of openness to out-siders, flexibility in terms of goals, ease of exchange of ideas and, ultimately, room for serendipity. How-ever, since people mostly remained in their commu-nity, they were not aware of these differences.

Therefore, I think, clarifying the best practises for Serendipity must start by (i) cross talk between different communities and (ii) by explicitly asking how and when they generate great ideas. Cortona Week set out to do this: Medical perspectives on Serendipity (Scheidegger and Böhm) meet the sus-tainability view (e.g. Sutter) and historical analysis (e.g. Müller). By this, Cortona will generate analytic insight about Serendipity and it’s counterpart: un-certainty. However, Cortona will do more; the col-ourful bouquet of artistic and creative activities (e.g. painting, storytelling) will bring the participants fa-miliar and comfortable with each other and make the exchange of ideas easier; both of which cataly-ses Serendipity itself.

Summing up, I’d love to be part of Cortona Week because I hope to learn more about Serendipity on an analytical level as much as I hope to experience it there.

‘The Cortona week is a week to remember’ – this sentence I have heard many times. So, I had a look at the description of this year’s topic and at the schedule of the Cortona week 15, and I did not hes-itate for a moment to register for this year’s con-ference.

I like the idea that people from different insti-tutes and countries are brought together at a place far off from their home universities. I think that there is plenty of room for exchanging knowledge and discussing ideas without the pressure to achieve a solution. Especially the topic of this year’s confer-ence ‘Uncertainty & Serendipity’ is of special interest to me because it addresses the issue of pressure in scientific research. Nowadays, where the number of published papers and the impact factors are the things that matter most, no one has the resources and funds to take risks that probably could lead to failure. But the history has shown us that uncertain-ty and serendipity may lead to new insights and dis-coveries.

Moreover, I like the way how each day of the Cor-tona week is organized – to start the day with a morning activity that awakens body and mind, pre-pares the participants to follow the daily talks and to contribute to discussions. The afternoon with its workshops allows the participants to discover and gain experience in artistic, spiritual and humanistic attributes. Due to my opinion, every scientific per-son should not only be an expert on her/his research topic, but should have a broader understanding of other domains. I would like to be part of this year’s Cortona week because I want to expand my horizon, learn new skills, and interact with people from oth-er disciplines and cultural background. In the past, I did not take part at any conference, which is only approximately comparable with the conference in Cortona – so I would be very excited if I can experi-ence the Cortona week 16!

At times, the complexity and uncertainty of our global world leads to paralyzing resignation and a pessimistic outlook for the future. Many of the is-sues we have to face today such as international terrorism, climate change or the so called European Migrant crisis seem to be too complex and challeng-ing in order to find sustainable and sound solutions. I hope that by attending Cortona week I will get a broader understanding of the concept of “Seren-dipity” and thereby get to know a new approach to deal with the wicked problems of our and future generations. Transdisciplinarity, creativity and crit-ical thinking are essential skills, most of all in envi-ronmental science, the field I am studying. However, they are often neglected during university educa-tion and the Cortona week would be an opportuni-ty to focus on those skills. From experiences I had in other countries I learned how important intellec-tual exchange with people with different backgrounds is. I was part of the Rotary youth exchange program when I was 16 and spent 1 year in Canada. This year was a lasting and profound experience for me as it was the first time that I had to push beyond my per-sonal limits. I also worked for 1 year as an Au Pair in Rome where I learned to speak Italian. In the last autumn semester I did an internship at a coffee co-operative in a small and remote village of the Peru-vian Amazonas region. During this time I learned a lot about the Peruvian culture and got to know a very different way of life.

I would be very pleased to be able to join the Cortona week and get to know the other partici-pates and their different and maybe unexpected perspectives to the addressed topics of the week.

I grew up in Northern Ireland to English and German parents. Having immigrated to New Zealand at 16, I completed university and worked for 2 years in a technology company.

Over the course of my master’s, serendipity has played a key role my research process. The major innovation in my master’s happened through a chance interaction. This interaction sent me into a field I had no experience of, biotechnology. Thereby, I could bring together completely different disciplines, to realize something really new. However, only when reading the details about Cortona Week did it all fall into place – science interacts with art (and vice ver-sa) in a serendipitous way to create innovation? Re-ally? Fascinating idea!

After the theme for Cortona Week 2016 had caught my imagination, the timing struck me as opportune. I am now coming to the end of my master’s, and considering how to go forward with my project, how I want to work, and how I can continue researching and innovating. This is the perfect opportunity to reflect on the process of doing my master’s and build an understanding of what makes innovation tick. What were the moments led to innovation in my master’s? What situation and interactions allow the best ideas to come? How do chance interactions translated into a fruitful research direction?

By interacting with the speakers and participants at Cortona Week, I would like to explore, experiment, and create in order to test my answers to these questions. I would like to talk with biologists, paint-ers, physicist, psychologist, architects, film makers, dancers, sociologists, and many more people to form my ideas. Then, let creativity, wonder, exploration, and play lead to an understanding, a visceral feeling for what ignites new possibilities in my work. What transforms plodding goal-based, time-restricted re-search into a seething cauldron of innovation!?!

As a PhD student in physics, I believe that partici-pating in this interdisciplinary summer school would be very beneficial for my personal and scientific de-velopment.

For my PhD I have the great opportunity to par-ticipate in research which aims to improve radiation therapy to treat cancer, especially for children. To do that, I spend most of my time setting up and ana-lyzing simulations on my computer. However, for me to achieve good research, creativity and out of the box thinking are crucial. I hope to get the op-portunity to improve these qualities by participating in the Cortona Week 2016.

I also did my master’s degree at the ETH, con-ducting my master thesis at the University of Basel. During my PhD studies so far, I was able participate in a course at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology (Boston, USA), in a one week research stay at the Massachusetts General Hospital (Cambridge, USA) and in a one week stay at The Christie (Man-chester, UK).

The profit from getting to know other research groups, to work in a different environment and to obtain new input was enormous.

However, the courses and stays I have done so far concentrated mainly on physics related topics. I would love to take part in the Cortona Week to get an in-sight into other domains, points of view and ap-proaches. Additionally, this year’s program of the Cortona Week is of great interest for me. Without flashes of inspiration and new ideas, it is impossible to succeed in research. Therefore, I am very interest-ed to learn more about “Uncertainty and Serendipi-ty”. In summary, I would be very grateful to get the opportunity to participate in the Cortona Week 2016.

I have started my master program at ETH one year ago. During this time, I have neglected my creative side which I would like to change. I find my studies very interesting and relevant but there seems to be something missing. I am not exactly sure what, how-ever I reduce it to the fact that other intelligences are not promoted. Especially in my field (environ-mental sciences), I find this is totally underrated and there is more to learn than just the science behind global change. Especially this motivates me to apply here. In addition, I am very curious to the program as this involves a collaboration between the ZHDK and ETH, which I do sometimes see as contrasts but promises to show a link between art and science. I would love to participate and enjoy a summer school collaborated by both universities.

The description of the Cortona Week and the ac-tivities promise something new and exciting. I am always keen to learn and look at issues with a differ-ent mindset and be open to new experiences. This includes expanding my horizon by meeting new people and being open to new situations.

Previous experiences in other countries primar-ily include travelling which I would describe as my favorite hobby. Whenever I have time off, I love to go traveling, especially to New Zealand as I have dual citizenship. In my bachelor, I went to Germany for exchange. I decided on Munich not because I thought it was the best pick for professional reasons but be-cause Munich was described as having the most in-ternational students in Germany and I wanted to use this chance to make new connections.

I wish to attend the Cortona Week 2016 since it of-fers a unique opportunity to get in touch with a lot of interesting people and to learn from them by having lively debates about topics which do matter for our future. In my opinion, it’s crucial to interact and communicate between different disciplines to face today’s problems and their complexity. There-fore I highly appreciate the initiative the Cortona Week takes to enable such interactions and would be very happy to get the chance to profit from this opportunity.

At the moment I’m participating in the transdis-ciplinary case study from the TdLab of D-USYS.

Therefore I already do have some experience working in transdisciplinary teams and I highly ap-preciate it. I’m also planning to do my master thesis in a transdisciplinary approach by forming collabo-ration through supervisor selection between the TdLab, the agricultural department of ETH and a governmental institute of Nicaragua. Personally, I’m very curious and love to explore new fields. That in-cludes exploring new subject areas where I do not yet have broad knowledge, and also physically ex-ploring new countries, cities, forests, mountains and so on. Discovering Cortona, it’s surrounding and the Cortona Week would mean a lot to me.

I moved from Luxembourg to Zurich to study envi-ronmental sciences at ETH. What I appreciate most about the program is the fact that we are encouraged to not only gather knowledge in natural, but also so-cial sciences. My curriculum includes mathematics, chemistry and biology, but also economics, psychol-ogy and sociology. I’d like to believe this has helped me to approach problems with a more open mind.

Aside from my studies, I am interested in politics. I was a candidate for the Green Party in Luxembourg three years ago, which was a really interesting expe-rience. It allowed me to not only work in a team of people fighting for the same issues I care about, but also to learn how to engage in discussions with oth-ers that do not necessarily share these convictions.

Other experiences that influenced me a great deal were participating in the Model European Par-liament, spending time abroad in Canada as an ex-change student and working in NGO projects in Ne-pal. Even though these events are profoundly different from each other, I think what made them so special was the interaction with people from dif-ferent backgrounds and exchanging new ideas and ways of thinking.

I am an honest person, so I will admit I’m not very artistic when it comes to painting, but I do love to sing. Back home I sing with my family, as leisure or at weddings. In Zurich, I’ve recently joined a band and performed at small scale concerts, which I en-joy a lot.

Basically I would like to participate in the Corto-na Week because however trite it might sound, I think it is an amazing opportunity to meet people, exchange ideas, learn something outside my field of study and experience new activities, and I would be very happy and honored to be considered.

I like to think of myself as a person that enjoys hav-ing a broad experience base and an openminded-ness to many ways of thinking and living. As I already have participated in the Cortona Week (in 2014) and really appreciated all the new ideas and aspects of the world that I was getting to know there, I am very eager to see more this year.

Also this year‘s topic, specifically serendipity, highly resonates with me. I feel my life, my experi-ments and experiences highly governed by random events. Things that I did and could not have looked for, have brought me to the places where I am, and I have not yet discovered the underlying structure of this principles and I very much look forward to seeing and hearing how other people view this.

Despite this I also look forward to meeting a lot of new, interesting and passionate people from all different backgrounds. I am currently doing my ex-change semester in Czech Republic and on a univer-sity(VŠCHT) with a very different focus and culture than ETH, and during high school I was also studying abroad in the US. Both times I have found it very in-teresting to learn from other people, and under-stand what they find a normal way of living. Thus questioning what is „normal“ for me and if it is re-ally the „only“, the „real“ and the „best“ way of liv-ing. People from different cultures, both societal and occupational, have helped my reflect my ways and my sense of what I am doing. So I really hope and look forward to meeting many different people in Cortona and getting a chance to see still a broad-er picture of what it is that makes a life satisfied.

My high school‘s philosophy was to give us a human-ist education. For that reason, I used to have a lot of possibilities aside from my lessons to develop myself. This included singing in the choir, going to theater or concerts, attending lectures or being part of the climbing group. I spent four days in France with my choir in order to sing with other choirs. I also had the possibility to participate in the “Ren-contres CNRS Jeunes Sciences et Citoyens“ in France. Almost each year we had a retreat of few days dur-ing which time was splitted between conferences, time for thought and sports.

Starting my Bachelor at the ETH was a big change for me, because I have a Latin baccalaureate and I first wanted to study literature or History. In this perspective, I really appreciate the offer of the GESS Compulsory Elective courses, particularly the both I attended from visiting professorship of French Lit-erature and Culture.

Tanks to my student association and through the International Forestry Students’ Association, I par-ticipated in meetings in France, Germany, Slovenia and the Philippines. It’s always exciting to meet oth-er students but also researchers or professionals, to learn from the experience of others and to exchange ideas. It’s also the possibility to discover other cul-tures and through them ways to see the reality.

Attending the Cortona Week is the possibility to exchange with new people, to hear about things I don’t know or a few about, to be confronted with other opinions, to discover new ways of thinking. I remember words said during my baccalaureate grad-uation: ‚Go away, learn as much as you can, open your mind and then come back all grown up‘. It’s what I try to do and that for, it would be a great op-portunity to go to Cortona.

I participated in the last years’ Cortona Week and am still fascinated by the very sustainable encounters, both spiritual and intellectual, that happened dur-ing this week. I wouldn’t denominate a single event that influenced me the most, it was rather the mode of thinking and feeling the whole week sets you in. For me Cortona Week itself has a very specific at-mosphere and is in an aesthetic dimension itself or, by phrasing philosopher Martin Seel, an aesthetic event [Ereignis]. It lets the world pop up to our sense in a new, unforeseebably way. This is mainly due to it boundarly-less approach, not only in the sense of the delimination to other scientific disciplines but also to spiritual and social issues. So I think Cortona drills a whole into my very mode of existence and readjusts the relations that I have to the outside world. Explaining artrelated-topics/perspectives to an mathematican is not only enriching but also to some extend insecuring – but this insecurity is very productive as you obviously have to rethink the terms and all the deformations professionell that one aquired in his intellectual biography. This is the moment where Cortona becomes and aesthetic event. As, similar to standing in an art-installation, you are confronted with issues not easily tangible but you smell the taste of the trees and feel the sun of Tuscany on your skin. This sets you in the open-ness to grow and access new ways of feeling and thinking. So I would deeply appreciate to investigate more into the Cortona Experience.

Als freischaffende Künstlerin, die dem Kunstmarkt entsprechend immer auf ein sichtbares Ergebnis hingearbeitet hat, das dann meist in einer Ausstel-lung mit der Präsentation von Arbeiten gipfelte, habe ich mich vor einem Jahr entschieden, einen Master in Transdisziplinarität an der ZHdK Zürich zu machen, um einerseits tiefer in die Prozesse des Schaffens einzusteigen andererseits aber auch mei-nen Horizont zu erweitern und wissenschaftliches Arbeiten kennenzulernen um es in meine Arbeit zu integrieren.

Mein Interesse liegt am Aufnehmen von wissen-schaftlichen Ansätzen, Prozesse oder auch Ergeb-nissen verschiedener Forschungen und einem the-matischen Austausch mit meinen künstlerischen Möglichkeiten.

Die Herausforderung besteht unter anderem da-rin, das Prinzip eines wissenschaftlichen Forschens ohne Ergebnisorientierung auf mein künstlerisches Arbeiten zu übertragen.

Auf der Cortona Week erhoffe ich mir eine An-näherung an das Prinzip der „serenidipity“ und ab-seits des „Universitätsalltags“ ein intensives Arbe-itsfeld mit Impulsen für gemeinsames transdisziplinäres Forschen und fruchtbaren Austausch mit Vortragen-den und Teilnehmern.

I have been highly recommended by my professors and other artists who already attend previous years in cortona program to experience this event.

The topic of this year is very interesting for me and as far as I checked the programs, there are sev-eral lectures and workshops that I really like to at-tend and I can imagine it would be very helpful for my practice and my research.

At the moment I am busy with a publication/il-lustration project and writing, and I found some of the lectures relevant to what I am working on at the moment.

One of my ongoing projects is to rereading the cultural narratives by making visual works based on different cultural backgrounds.

Beside interesting atmosphere of Cortona resi-dency and the fact that other fellow residences are not necessarily artists makes the whole program more interesting. various people with different ac-ademic backgrounds could be more useful in terms of exchange sometimes, to be honest.

And my major motivation is to pursuit the fasci-nating idea of How can algorithms cope with uncer-tainty and develop serendipity? Would it be enough discussion to decode this subject or it will stays as an abstract? it Is a very fascinating subject for me personally and perhaps in relation to my research.

About your other question regarding to my pre-vious experiences in other countries and universi-ties, I have to mention I`ve been graduated BA(tex-tile and costume design) in Iran 2007, and worked as freelance painter/visual artist for 8 yearsn in tehran and published several works, after that I moved to switzerland and studied MFA in Zurich art universi-ty. And at the moment I am working on my research as one oft he PhD candidates in ZHdK.

Over past 8 years i worked with different insti-tutions and residencies mainly in europe and Iran. But since 2013 I started to work on my own project (as a moving ateleir ) to examine the boundries of space, soin this regard I am using uncertain and mis-fit spaces and turned it ino exhibition place or dis-cussion ground to find a conversation between the institution and and an overlaping image.

From all that I have heard about Cortona it sounds like a week of interesting conversation with others and “yourself”, time to reflect on life and your place in it.

I have been interested in this kind of event for quite a while but somehow always postponed it un-til this year. So this last month I attended the Swit-zerland Philosophy Salon about Frontiers in Nature and Technology, an amazing weekend spend dis-cussing ideas and philosophies during salons and especially in between during breaks and dinner, and a one-week seminar in Germany about self-develop-ment (NaLDS, organized by AIESEC).

The topic of this year’s Cortona Week fits my sit-uation, and probably of most people, very well: I feel like I’m at a cross-point in my life. The end of my Master studies is nearing, decisions about life have to be made, my future is uncertain. At the same time so many things happened in the last couple of years that influenced my life heavily, mostly to the posi-tive, that I never could have planned: serendipity. In spring 2011 I was early for my GESS course, leaned next to a poster from the Kulturstelle, went to one event with them and soon after became a member and vice president for three years. Just when I de-cided that I’ll take a break from the ETH before my Master, that I’ll travel the world and should resign, I stumbled upon the RhetorikForum of the UZH, went to a course and have been a coach and member of them ever since and, starting this month, responsi-ble for the marketing. Both organizations have giv-en me so much and both encounters were seren-dipitous. And I need this break from my otherwise scientific studies because I feel that one needs more in life than only one thing. Balance is important. In short: I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to attend Cortona and I hope that my personality and personal back story would be an interesting addi-tion to the mix of students attending and I am real-ly looking forward to it!

I would love to attend the Cortona week between the 3–10 of September. I found out about the inter-disciplinary summer school from previous visitors that spoke highly about it.

I’m interested in this kind of summer school be-cause of this year’s motto of uncertainty and seren-dipity. Indeed, the scientific method, and the scien-tists themselves, can be prepared in many other ways to have ideas and make discoveries. I have ob-tained a solid traditional scientific thinking during my studies at ETH. But knowing how to handle un-certainty and serendipity is still missing from my plate. I truly believe that a setting as Cortona gives the opportunity to come to such outcomes. It sounds like a place where communication is key, knowledge is shared and ideas are exchanged.

For me personally, the most interesting part would be the interaction between the different par-ticipators as I heard it is a good mix of great people. I would love to be a part of it and bring my point of view to the discussion which would be the one of a natural scientist. I do believe the Natural Sciences can profit from collaborating with the Humanities and the Arts, and vice versa. Take climate change for example. Enough data exist and we know what is happening. But there is a need to connect with the people, which is not possible without the Humani-ties and the Arts.

I should be a part of Cortona week because I’m highly motivated and interested in multidisciplinarity. Unfortunately, I did not have time to gain experience at another University yet. However, the time I spent as an intern with the water research facility eawag, gave me the opportunity to help at a project in Tan-zania. There, but also in many travels, I gained a wide range of experiences and my open mindedness.

I thank you for your attention and I hope I’ll get to know you soon.

Working at the intersection of knowledge, agricul-ture, and development cooperation, transdiciplinar-ity is a daily element of my scientific research. The ETH M.A. program in History and Philosophy of Knowl-egde taught me new ways of thinking that I had not been aware of during my agricultural studies: reflect-ing the Gemachtheit of science itself, cherishing its epistemic advantages, but also perceiving its limits.

In my master thesis, I attempt to bring together two complementary ways of thinking: I investigate scientists‘ and Kenyan farmers‘ perspectives on “good nutrition”, contrasting two different knowl-edge cultures, assessing their congruencies and points of friction, and finally pointing out conditions that foster mutual understanding and exchange.

Mutual understanding deems crucial to me re-garding many areas of life – my 2 to 3 month long stays in Ethiopia, Pakistan and the U.S. made me more sensitive towards different ways of perceiving the world. I learned to appreciate the particularities of these perceptions, their internal logic, consist-ence and their raison d‘être – dispite their striking differeces. In my view, transdiciplinarity in science and intercultural understanding stem from the same root: an intellectual and cultural open-heartedness that enables discussions on eye-level among epis-temic equals. Solutions to world-wide problems can only be sustainable when attitudes and knowledges of different stakeholders are taken seriously – espe-cially when these attitudes are not easily compre-hensible in the first place. In such cases, open-heart-edness is crucial, and as I experienced Cortona in 2014, it is exactly this open-heartedness that is cul-tivated during the Cortona week. I would like to par-ticipate in the Cortona Week 2016 to keep practicing my own openness towards scientific cultures that are different from my own. Thank you in advance for considering my application.

Starting to study Biosciences, I soon felt that many fundamental questions cannot be solved by science alone. Matters of life and death. Like: what happens to the soul? In my subsequent educational path, I always tried to reach out with my sensors to grasp as many influences from outside of my field of study as possible.

I chose a BSc in Liberal Arts and Sciences (Univer-sity College Maastricht), to enrich my life science focus, and during a semester abroad in Chile (PUC), I also took courses in gymnastics, photography and pottery.

I embarked aboard The Scholarship1 an ocean-going campus, where I lived and studied with an in-tercultural community for one semester. In count-less moments, diverse deep discussions arose with these peers from various backgrounds, and during academic field programs we explored critical cur-rent issues on the ground.

Cherishing scientific research and academic writ-ing, I nonetheless also feel the urge to express my ideas and emotions visually. Hence, I make documen-tary films, e.g. “Tasik Chini- Ecosystem On A Brink”2 for Transparency International in Malaysia, or “Fight-ing the Flood” in Panama, both dealing with illegal land degradation and uncertain futures of indige-nous communities.

Moreover, I express myself through my body by practicing Kung Fu and extreme sports like kitesurf-ing or rock climbing. Every activity touches on dif-ferent spheres that life and the world seem to be made of. The Cortona Week represents an amazing opportunity to exchange inspiring ideas, to engage in extraordinary activities and to undergo a fruitful process of critical reflection.

Self-reflection, as well as a reflection of the world-ly context, in which (my) scientific research is em-bedded. I deal with climate change adaptation, thus with a lot of uncertainty -and I hope to find some serendipity in Cortona!

The only thing we can be sure of is change. The cer-tainty that anything eventually changes and/or is already in constant flux even when the changes aren’t apparent confronts us with the fact of uncer-tainty. It confronts us with the insight that we now don’t know what we are still bound to learn. It hum-bles us and our discoveries time after time for we will keep searching for the not yet known, the not yet seen, the not yet heard, the not yet imagined. We will keep searching and we will keep finding even when we aren’t aware of our search. But how shall we possibly look for something when lacking any idea of what it is we are looking for? How can we possibly plan the ephemeral, the spontaneous, the coincidental? What kind of strategies need to be developed and what kind of strategies need to be abandoned to allow for serendipity to occur? Those are only a handful of the many questions that I would happily raise and discuss in the multidisciplinary en-vironment of the Cortona Week. As a strong advo-cator of a transdisciplinary, dialectical and dialogical approach to nearly any intellectual and ultimately practical quest I would like to gain a deeper under-standing of the benefits and limits of interdiscipli-narity. I would like to understand how a common language between the disciplines can evolve in a short period of time and I would like to expand my perception of, well… life itself by genuinely engag-ing with modes of thinking that differ from mine.

I am doing my PhD in the soil protection group at ETH studying soil-plant interactions and nutrient uptake by crops with a focus on sustainable agricul-ture in developing countries. In my study and re-search field I have to deal with complex problems which often require transdisciplinary approaches. With attending Cortona Week 2016 I would like to get out of my daily routine, to open my eyes for other disciplines and thereby stimulate my creativ-ity and come up with new ideas. I believe this course offers the opportunity to get in touch with subjects I am not so familiar with and to exchange with peo-ple from other fields and countries. During my ed-ucation in natural sciences I realized that I am not only interested in this particular field but that I am also very enthusiastic about subjects such as music, psychology or dancing. This is also where I get in-spiration from during my free time, by playing the saxophone, dancing lindy hop, gardening or learn-ing languages.

As part of my PhD project I had the opportunity to work on an agricultural field trial in central India. This was combined with attending the ETH World Food System Centre summer school about sustain-able and organic agriculture. I also visited two inter-national scientific conferences about biogeochem-istry and micronutrients in Turkey (2014) and Japan (2015). During my master studies I did an internship in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, about sanita-tion and hygiene in poor urban settlements.

A previous participant recommended me the Cortona Week and I would love to take part this year. I think it is very beneficial that this course is held in Cortona where we can collaborate much more in-tensely. Lastly, I believe the topic “uncertainty and serendipity” fits very well to the 100 years anniver-sary of the Dada movement.

I study as a PhD student in electrical engineering and information technology. During my PhD studies I am mainly focused on my particular research top-ic which means to understand and find new techni-cal solutions to improve the future technology. Un-fortunately this leaves only little time to put my own project into a bigger context and to understand its purpose for our society. I recognized that the more intense my studies get, from high school to PhD studies, the more specialized I get and the less time I use to look left and right to discover other aspects of life than my specialization. This is contradictory to the fact that with advancing age I should be more and more able to make inter-disciplinary connec-tions instead of getting lost in details of my own specialization. This is one reason why I would like to attend the Cortona Week and take the opportunity to get involved in other aspects of life than my spe-cialization.

Another point which motivates me to attend the Cortona Week are the people. In everyday work life I am most of the time only in contact with other re-searchers who work usually on almost the same top-ic than me. You can have great discussions with them about technical problems, but only rarely the dis-cussion goes beyond technical considerations to put our work in a bigger context. Unfortunately, only in the rarest cases discussions even about other as-pects of life, like arts, literature or philosophy, hap-pen. Therefore I hope to meet interesting people during the Cortona Week who help me getting an insight into topics different from natural science and engineering.

Besides, I hope to get more open-minded about new approaches how to think about problems dur-ing the interaction with other topics. This new ex-periences, which I hopefully gain during the Corto-na Week, might also help to develop new idea and creativeness in my own field of specialization even though they are not connected to my own special-ization.

I did my Bachelor and Master studies in Karlsru-he, Germany which is my home country. During my studies I worked half a year in a research center in Ireland. This half year gave me a great in-sight into research and inspired me to extend my studies with a PhD position after my Masters. Besides, I got the opportunity to get in interaction with a lot of inter-esting people from all over the world. For my PhD I took the chance to go abroad to Switzerland. Even though the cultural differences might not be that big this offers the space to discover another coun-try and culture.

As I was applying for Cortona Week 2015, I had sev-eral expectations. However I learned more than I thought of. Being a part of Cortona Week helped me to understand thinking process better (especially mine), which I believe is a result of many interesting discussions with many smart and well educated peo-ple. In addition, I very much enjoyed discussing with people in different fields, to find out their perspec-tive on issues that as an engineer, I have stopped thinking about. It was an eye opener to challenge thoughts that I took for granted.

My mindset needs a balance of the arts and science, that`s why I decided to study architecture.

Among other things, I appreciate the creative problem solving approach, which I learn during the studies. I do not think that serendipity can be forced, however, I am certain that you can train yourself to recognize chances and work with them trough a creative mind. In my free time I enjoy yoga and got the chance to take affordable dancing and singing lessons during my obligatory internship in Berlin. Things like that foster creative problem solving strongly, which I can use in architecture, but also in many others of my engagements. This years Corto-na Week would give me the opportunity to advance this topic in a direct way and think from an „outside level“ about serendipity & uncertainty.

I also appreciated the studies at D-Arch because it offers you opportunities to travel and discover things. Before ETH I was a Nanny in the US for 1.5 years. With ETH I studied 1 semester in Delft (NL) through the Erasmus program and I got an intern-job (6mt) at the artiststudio of Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, where I was introduced to the topic of uncertainty. At ETH I was accepted for the summer school in Ethi-opia (2010) and the ETH Week on Food (2015).

There I cherished to make new friends, learn about new ideas and perspectives and discuss cru-cial things of today. Because of my studies and my experience in the artistic and scientific field I am certain to be an asset to the group at Corona Week as well as the benefits from Cortona Week to be of positive influence for my future studies and field of actions. That is why I would be very happy to join this years Cortona Week.

In my daily life, I experience people surrounding me as much occupied with their own work, schedules, and duties. Also for me personally it is often difficult to maintain awareness and attention for other are-as of life (such as exploring my immediate environ-ment) and distance myself from the dominating as-pects and duties of my studies. Regardless whom I meet, conversations often circle around these top-ics and even if a conversation goes beyond, then time often runs out too fast.

The Cortona week is a great opportunity to con-sciously experience interactions with people in an environment lacking such distractions of everyday life. I always keep my eyes open for such opportu-nities and new things in general. Right after second-ary school for example, I went to Rajhastan, India for volunteer work. In India, many people face simple lives and they are used to take one day after anoth-er giving enough room for spiritual experiences and personal interactions. During my stay, we taught basic English in a public school during the morning hours while in the afternoons we went to villages to play, sing, and draw with the local children. It was a fulfilling and mind-opening experience to interact with people having such different understandings and perspectives of life. Between my Bachelor grad-uation and civil service I went to Pitigliano, Tuscany for the olive harvest on an organic farm. Once more I realized how deep my personal connection to na-ture is and that for an organic farmer hard work goes hand in hand with pure joy. Back then I felt the same.

I am highly motivated to attend the Cortona week to acquire and help to develop new understandings on the very intriguing and actual issue „uncertainty & serendipity“ in which everyone should be involved. I would very much appreciate if I could get the chance to contribute my part by sharing my personal expe-riences and expertise and be a part of an exchange of thoughts.

As a chemical biologist working in the field of direct-ed evolution for my msc thesis I am greatly depend-ing on serendipity and have to control the experi-ments such that the uncertainty is minimized. Using the very powerful algorithm of Darwinian evolution, which is in its essence based on chance, we try to direct the mutations to spots, where we believe to gain novel function or a better understanding of the function of our molecule of interest. Hence the sub-ject of this week is omnipresent in my work. I am well aware and grateful for serendipitous events, since my life – with which I am very happy – has greatly been shaped by such events.

In my bachelor thesis I went for 4 months to Im-perial College London to work with Prof. A. Spivey. During the four months of my Bsc. thesis I was work-ing with a reaction, which barely worked. Before-hand I already had been working on a similar project with Prof. Bode at ETH. As I then joined Prof. Pen-telute at MIT for 7 months, he pitched an idea to me, which I then could bring to work only thanks to the knowledge acquired during my unsuccessful re-search projects. This lead to one of my best experi-ences so far, as the development of a novel reaction that one invented is probably as interesting as chem-istry can get. Besides the academic life, that I enjoy a lot, I’ve always been keen to see new places and get new experiences. During my high school I worked in McDonalds and am still grateful for this insight, which I (hopefully) will never have again. Before I started to study I went on to work for a year for Canon in Corporate Communications, where I picked up my love for photography. I then worked in a home for youngsters with learning problems, and enjoyed three months in the Philippines as a dive master.

So far I see my life as a chain of serendipitous events, which lead me to the point I am today. I nev-er backed down from uncertainty, if I saw a benefit in taking risks. Therefore I think I would be perfect-ly well suited to take part in this interesting week. Furthermore I would be willing to prepare a short talk or workshop, in which I would try to explain the wonder.