The idea
Current disciplinary boundaries do not encourage interaction between scientists; researchers from different fields usually occupy different buildings on university campuses, publish in journals specific to their field and attend different scientific meetings.
Existing scientific meetings usually fall into two categories; small meetings specializing on specific scientific questions, and large meetings covering a wide field. The former target a specific (and small) group of scientists who are already aware of each other’s work (and potentially collaborating), while the latter target a diverse group of scientists but usually do not allow specific interactions to develop due to their large size and a crowded presentation program.
The main objective of Frontiers of Multidisciplinary Research: Mathematics, Engineering and Biology is to maintain diversity in the attendees’ backgrounds and expertise, while at the same time encouraging the structural elements of the meeting that allow interaction.
More specifically, Frontiers will:
- bring together a carefully selected set of speakers from a diverse set of theoretical and experimental fields;
- allow almost all attendees to present their work as an oral or poster presentation;
- be structured to provide ample interaction and discussion time;
- use a single venue to host talks, poster sessions and lunch in order to facilitate interaction among attendees.
