Mobility Programmes: Bridging the Gap in Talent Acquisition
Talent acquisition is one of the most pressing concerns for the global research ecosystem today. As countries and institutions vie for skilled researchers, scientists, and innovators, the competition has become fiercer, and the brain drain phenomenon is growing.

Talent Development and Training Gaps: The Missing Link
While mobility programmes play a crucial role in talent redistribution, they cannot fully address the root causes of the talent gap in many countries. In many parts of the world, education systems and training infrastructures are struggling to keep pace with the demands of a rapidly evolving research landscape.

Funding Crises and Political Unrest: Eroding the Research Foundation
In addition to talent gaps, the global research ecosystem is facing severe funding crises that disproportionately affect early-career researchers and research in underfunded regions. Research budgets have stagnated in many countries, and in some, they are being slashed due to economic downturns, shifting political priorities, or austerity measures.

Frontier Science
The project on “The Role of Mobility Programmes in Shaping the Future of the Research Ecosystem Amidst Talent Acquisition Challenges and Global Crises” qualifies as frontier research for several reasons. This research pushes the boundaries of global scientific collaboration, policy innovation, and sustainable talent development in response to the rapidly changing dynamics of the global research environment. Here’s why this project is considered frontier research:
1. Addressing Global Talent Shortages and Disruptions
2. Innovating Global Research Collaboration Frameworks
3. Interdisciplinary Integration of Policy, Technology, and Education
4. Reimagining the Future of Research Ecosystems
5. Developing New Models for Talent Development in Crisis Situations
6. Expanding Access to Research Opportunities in Under-Resourced Regions
7. Long-Term Implications for Science Diplomacy and Global Knowledge Sharing
8. Leveraging Technology to Overcome Mobility Barriers

This project qualifies as frontier research because it addresses some of the most critical and urgent challenges facing the global research ecosystem today. It is exploring new models of research collaboration, talent development, and global mobility that are not just innovative but essential for the future of science. The interdisciplinary nature of the project, its focus on resilience, and its exploration of technology-driven solutions to address talent shortages, political instability, and economic crises position it at the cutting edge of global research. It has the potential to reshape how we think about global collaboration, equity, and innovation in the research ecosystem in the years to come.

Climate-resilient agriculture and sustainable crop production: From viticulture and horticulture to ornamental plant cultivation, we explore innovative and resource-efficient farming systems. Our work includes plant breeding, smart irrigation and the use of sensor technologies to optimize inputs and reduce environmental impact.
Bioeconomy and food innovation: We investigate how plant-based products can be processed sustainably and marketed successfully, focusing on food safety and fresh produce logistics. Topics include extraction and formulation of functional ingredients from harvest products and their health effects, circular production systems and consumer behaviour and preferences.
Urban green spaces and cultural landscapes:Our interdisciplinary research focuses on developing and assessing nature-based solutions and climate adaptation strategies for urban and rural landscapes—with particular attention to traditional winegrowing regions. We investigate how green infrastructure can contribute to ecological resilience and environmental quality in cities and cultural landscapes under climate stress. We actively contribute to regional transformation processes, including close cooperation with the Rheingau region within a living lab and the Federal Garden Exhibition (BUGA) 2029.
Climate change adaptation and mitigation: We assess risks and develop strategies to ensure food security, protect biodiversity, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Current projects range from water management, use of biochar and pest control to agroforestry and agro-PV.
Digital transformation in agriculture and landscape planning: We implement and evaluate digital tools—from drone technology and sensor-based diagnostics to AI-driven modelling and precision agriculture —for improved decision-making in production, processing, and spatial planning.
These research fields offer rich storytelling opportunities for science journalists. Our unique infrastructure provide direct access to field trials, labs, greenhouses, and real-world innovation environments. Our 50 professors along with researchers from all over the world use this unique research setup as part of our ca. 180 international cooperations with universities, institutions and companies.

Frontier Research

Geisenheim University conducts research that breaks new ground at the intersection of plant science, climate adaptation, food systems, and landscape transformation. Our distinctive focus on special crops—such as grapes, fruits, and vegetables—provides a highly specific yet globally relevant research area, in which we explore urgent questions about the sustainability and resilience of our food systems in the face of climate change and biodiversity losses.
Geisenheim University’s work is frontier research because we tackle complex, system-level questions: How can vineyards and horticultural systems adapt to increasing heat and drought? How can cultural landscapes be reimagined as multifunctional, biodiversity-supporting, and socially inclusive spaces? How can digital tools—from virtual vineyards to AI-driven pest forecasting—support sustainable agriculture in real time?
Our university plays a key role in real-world transformation processes. Through experimental settings such as the Living Lab Rheingau and contributions to the implementation of the Federal Garden Exhibition (BUGA) 2029 in the Middle Rhine Valley, we co-create knowledge with stakeholders and test new solutions under real conditions. This collaborative and innovative approach expands classical research formats and bridges the gap between science, policy, and practice.
Furthermore, we also maintain close cooperation with companies—ranging from local producers to international partners—ensuring that our research remains relevant, applicable, and forward-looking. We actively support innovation and entrepreneurship by encouraging new ideas and start-up initiatives developed by our students and academic staff.
Through the combination of methodological innovation, transdisciplinary ambition, and real-world relevance, our research not only generates new knowledge—it challenges and reshapes existing paradigms in agriculture, climate science, and landscape planning.
Furthermore, our focus on special crops – a largely underrepresented field in mainstream agricultural research – opens up new scientific terrain, particularly in relation to climate adaptation, soil health and the sustainable processing of plant-based foods.
With its interdisciplinary setup, experimental openness and transfer orientation, our research not only explores future scenarios—it helps shape them.
A key success factor for this is a close collaboration with all involved parties, be it authorities, industry partner or the general public. Thus, getting support and partnership for the Geisenheim research areas from the Frontiers network would significantly contribute to the success of the transformation of the agriculture as such.

At the moment, we have three Wicked Problems running:

1. Complex Cross-Sectorial Challenges in Africa: Challenge 1 – The West-African Climate-Nature-Health Nexus
Using Guinea Bissau as a case study, this project explores how global inequality is exacerbated by climate change disproportionately affecting the world’s poorest countries. By framing the extensive, complex, and disproportionate impacts of climate change as a wicked problem, the project aims to shed light on environmental, economic, and health impacts faced by underprivileged nations, and to ultimately collaborate with local communities to improve their living conditions and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
Project leadership:
Christine Stabell Benn, DIAS Chair of Health Sciences, Department of Clinical Research, SDU

2. Interacting Robots in Everyday Life and the Transformation of Society (IRELTS)
This project explores the technical and societal dynamics of integrating robots into daily life. By framing human-robot interaction as a potential wicked problem, the project aims to enhance the understanding of both robots and humans, emphasizing the need for predictive models of human behavior to ensure smooth interactions and positive societal reception.
Project leadership:
Norbert Krüger, DIAS Chair of Engineering, the Maersk McKinney Moller Institute, SDU

3. Capitalism in the Danish Experience
This project explores the economic trajectory of capitalism, specifically how it has been shaped by historical contingencies, social conflicts, and global entanglements, using Denmark as a case study. By framing capitalism itself as a wicked problem, the project seeks to move beyond simplistic narratives and instead explore the complexities that define Denmark’s economic development.
Project leadership:
Paul Sharp, DIAS Chair of Business and Social Sciences, Department of Economics, SDU
Jeppe Nevers, DIAS Chair of Humanities, Department of Language and Culture, SDU

Frontier Research
Our project at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) qualifies as frontier research due to its interdisciplinary approach, curiosity-driven focus, and global impact. DIAS brings together top researchers from various fields to tackle complex societal challenges, fostering innovative solutions and groundbreaking ideas. The “Wicked Problems” initiative exemplifies this by addressing issues that lack clear solutions and require multidisciplinary approaches, paving the way for new perspectives and potential scientific breakthroughs.

Science journalists working with DIAS through the Frontiers database can gain access to cutting-edge research and collaborate with leading experts, enhancing their storytelling with rich, compelling content. The experience offered by the FRONTIERS residency program allows journalists to deeply understand the research process and the complexities of frontier science, providing valuable networking opportunities and insights into the latest scientific advancements.

Therefore, the frontier of research relies not only on what we research -i.e., social-ecological systems -, but also on how we do research – i.e., weaving diverse scientific disciplines, knowledge systems, and communication tools, including arts.

Frontier research

To understand how to foster transformations for sustainable and fair futures is a research endeavour that is placed in the frontier of (1) disciplines, considering interdisciplinary topics such as biodiversity conservation, biocultural diversity, governance, nature’s contributions to people, or environmental justice; and (2) knowledge systems, integrating practices and knowledge from Western science and Indingenous and Local Knowledge systems.

Research activities in UCD Conway Institute are aligned under three overarching umbrella themes that enables the delivery of strategic goals and objectives:

Personalised & Translational Medicine
Using information about a person’s genes, proteins or environment to develop more precise medical models to identify, prevent or treat disease.

One Health
Exploring the complex interplay between the health of animals, humans and the environment to improve the condition of each.

Discovery Research
Creating new knowledge by studying the
fundamental processes in cells and living organisms to better understand health and disease.

We have an established structure to manage suites of core technologies with the ability to integrate emerging technologies and provide a comprehensive service offering to researchers. We have expertise that can contribute to the solution of major societal challenges.

This is underpinned by an record in active engagement and co-creation with cohorts
of the Irish public including secondary school teachers, pupils, patients and their families to ensure our research has tangible societal impact for future generations.

Frontier research

In addition to facilitating team-based science, the Institute is a home for individually excellent scientists, particularly in respect of ‘blue skies’ research, and welcomes and fosters multidisciplinary. Enabling scientists to pursue blue-skies, hypothesis-based research that will ultimately drive discovery is crucial. We encourage researchers to pursue their own ideas driven solely by the criterion of excellence. We encourage a culture that enables play as an integral part of the design thinking process.

Today, 160 Conway Fellows lead teams in research areas including cancer, infection, diabetes, obesity, neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, arthritis & rheumatoid disease. Exploring mechanisms of health and disease so as to develop strategies that maintain good health, diagnose disease early and find new and effective treatments.

Since its establishment in 2006, the ES Department has become a reference in climate- and air quality-related research in Europe and beyond, as well as in health and other societal impacts of climate change.

The Global Health Resilience (GHR) group, within which the candidate would work, works on co-designing policy-relevant decision-support tools to enhance surveillance, preparedness, and response to global health challenges. The GHR group applies cutting-edge approaches to understand the links between climate change, socio-economic inequalities, and infectious disease emergence and spread, from local to global scales. It contributes to international initiatives to ensure these digital tools have a downstream impact to strengthen global health resilience to emerging threats.

Frontier Research
Climate change, environmental degradation, and socio-economic inequalities can increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks and lead to excess mortality and morbidity. The goal of the Global Health Resilience (GHR) group at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center is to co-design decision-support tools to enhance surveillance, preparedness, and response to global health challenges, including climate-sensitive infectious diseases.

At the GHR group, the researchers apply a transdisciplinary approach, co-developing solutions at the interface of epidemiology, climate science, planetary health, biology, statistical modelling, machine learning, and data science.

Their cutting-edge methodological research aims to understand the links between environmental change, socio-economic inequalities, and infectious disease emergence and spread from global to local scales.

Through a co-creation process, they develop indicators, impact-based forecasting models and early warning systems at sub-seasonal to decadal time scales, which help to anticipate future risk in collaboration with public health, disaster risk management, and humanitarian agencies all over the globe.

Moreover, the group works closely with climate scientists, software engineers and knowledge integration experts from across the Earth Sciences Department, as well as researchers specialising in disease intelligence data generation.

These collaborations ensure integration with the latest technology and novel data streams to strengthen decision-support tools for public health decision-makers that ultimately build resilience to emerging health threats and protect the most at-risk communities.

The research of the GHR group contributes to global initiatives to ensure digital tools have a downstream policy impact to strengthen global health resilience to emerging health threats.

CENTER FOR GENE AND CELL THERAPY TECHNOLOGIES (CTGCT)
This center of excellence will make an important contribution to Slovenian healthcare by bringing together Slovenian experts with their colleagues from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany. The main goal of the CTGCT is to develop new, personalized treatments. Statistics show that one in three people will develop cancer in their lifetime, and five percent of the world’s population suffers from a rare genetic disease. Advanced technologies such as gene and cell therapies offer potentially effective treatments for these conditions.

CENTER FOR DEVELOPMENT, DEMONSTRATION AND TRAINING OF CARBON-FREE TECHNOLOGIES (DUBT)
This center will be established to ensure the development of technologies for the green transition. With the green transition, Slovenia and Europe will become climate-neutral and energy-independent more easily and quickly. At the same time, this is an important contribution to achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Slovenia by at least 40% by 2030, as well as a contribution to the fight against global warming. DUBT aims to bridge the gap between the development of advanced carbon-free technologies and their industrial application. By providing state-of-the-art facilities and equipment for research, development and training, the center will accelerate the transfer of knowledge from research units to industry and facilitate the commercialization of innovative solutions.

PROGRESS: Reading provenance from ubiquitous quartz: understanding the changes occurring in its lattice defects in its journey in time and space by physical methods .
ERC-funded project developing a new, beyond state of the art, provenance and multi-scale time analysis method for rock samples, based on analyzing quartz – an abundant mineral, whose structure and defects can record time as they trap charge during interaction with natural radioactivity.

Institute of Interdisciplinary Research in Bio-Nano-Sciences.
The main BBU facility for experimental interdisciplinary research, with a focus on bio-, nano-sciences, and on the interface of biosystems with artificially or naturally nanostructured systems. Transferring the experimental results into industry is also one of the institute’s main goals.

Strengthening the Research Capacities for Extreme Weather Events in Romania – SCEWERO.
Horizon-funded project aiming at developing AI-enhanced abilities to forecast extreme heat and precipitation events using emerging technologies. The goal is to redesign the thresholds for early warnings in Romania for heat events, currently undervalued, and to increase the communities’ resilience when facing such extreme events.

The PsyTech-MATRIX PLATFORM – Platform for Robotics/Robotherapy and Virtual Reality Enhanced Therapy.
Platform hosting laboratories and technologies underlying the integration of psychology and technology as means of evidence-based mental health services. It focuses on stress control, enhanced cognitive-behavioral therapies for children, adolescents and parents, and makes use of digital affective technologies and therapeutic robots.

RESTORY – Recovering Past Stories for the Future: A Synergistic Approach to Textual and Oral Heritage of Small Communities.
Horizon-funded project focused on the challenges faced by small and middle-sized communities of past and present in sustainably managing and reusing a limited amount of human and material resources, with the aim of helping citizens and researchers understand the drives behind (re)use and (re)adaptations.

NOTA – Note-taking and Notebooks as Channels of Medieval Academic Dissemination across Europe.
ERC-funded project studying medieval university learning by delving into deep creative reflections on the motivation and technical aspects involved in producing notebooks of the 14th and 15th centuries, when paper entered universities, aiming to elucidate their role in knowledge transfer.