“As a researcher, I thrive when I can work in an environment that combines social sciences and the humanities with natural science. It opens the way for a broader mindset.” So says Magdalena Kuchler, a senior lecturer who is conducting research in the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development programme at the Department of Earth Sciences. She strives to establish fruitful collaborations with other researchers from various research areas.
How can we integrate subterranean buildings into Stockholm’s future urban planning? How can researchers help policymakers to integrate ambitious carbon dioxide budgets into regional climate policy? How can people envisage alternative energy futures in a fossil fuel-dependent society? Over the past year, Magdalena Kuchler has been awarded grants of almost SEK 25 million for several major projects addressing various research questions. This is an exciting and innovative research area, something that research funders appear to agree on.
Something that permeates all of the projects is a focus on the future and understanding how we can create or shape visions that can guide and influence the decisions being made today. Kuchler’s coveted interdisciplinarity is another thing that the projects have in common.
“I was quick to realise the benefits of collaborating across disciplinary research areas. Social scientists, humanists. scientists and technicians should all be working interdisciplinarily to a greater extent, as this provides fresh perspectives and places one’s own research in new, often necessary contexts, something that enriches everybody’s research,” says Kuchler.
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