“Research Horizons in Geo-Biosphere Interactions”, a new conference within CIVIS “Cups & Cakes” Web Seminars

On Monday, May 31, 2021, CIVIS organizes the conference “Research Horizons in Geo-Biosphere Interactions”. The event, part of the “Cups & Cakes” Web Seminars, will take place between 10:00-11:00 (CET) on Zoom. Speaker within the conference is Todd Ehlers, Professor of Geosciences at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

The seminar starts from the premise that the Earth’s surface is modulated by fascinating interactions between climate, tectonics, and biota. These interactions are manifested over diverse temporal and spatial scales ranging from seconds to millions of years, and microns to thousands of kilometres, respectively. Investigations into Earth surface shaping by biota have gained growing attention over the last decades and are a research frontier.

Examples of the scales of biotic interactions with surface processes range from microbial and fungal consumption of mineral surfaces over short temporal and small spatial scales to vegetation interactions with climate, sedimentation, and erosion over time scales of hours to millennia, and spatial scales of centimetres to kilometres.

In this lecture, Todd Ehlers presents an integration of research activities and opportunities related to this topic with an emphasis on processes spanning from human to geologic timescales. This lecture is intended for a general audience of viewers.

CIVIS has been established as a University that reaches from the local level to the international dimension, focused on responding to local needs, contributing to regional development strategies and addressing global challenges. The development of Research and Innovation (R&I), as an integral component of its educational mission, has been part of the CIVIS mission from the very beginning.

It is in this perspective that RIS4CIVIS has been elaborated and now operates. The overall objective is to produce an integrated, long-term R&I Strategy that, will over time enable the constituent members of the CIVIS European University to seamlessly integrate their know-how, expertise and resources in the service of Research and Innovation that effectively addresses current and future societal challenges, at local, regional and international level.

As part of the activities developed to reach this objective, the Cups&Cakes meetings aim to create a discussion forum for researchers to connect and get an overview of what is happening in other partner universities on a specific topic. In the longer term, these exchanges also aim to foster exchanges and develop potential collaborations within the CIVIS Alliance.

These Cups&Cakes will be scheduled for one hour and will consist of two phases:

– A 40-minutes presentation of current research work chosen by the speaker (including a 5-minute introduction of general expertise and work in progress within the university on the topic of interest).

– Open discussion of about 20 minutes.

These meetings will take place on Mondays every two weeks from 10h00 to 11h00. Each partner University, in turns, will have the opportunity to present to the CIVIS Community a subject of their research. The first opportunity for the ULB will be on Monday 14 June.”

More details about the events organized within CIVIS “Cups & Cakes” Web Seminars and about registration for each of this events are available here.