How can we guard ourselves against the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic? And how should we prepare for future outbreaks of such infectious diseases?
The COVID-19 pandemic made much of the world end up in several entwined crises at once: a public health crisis, an economic crisis, a crisis of inequality, a knowledge crisis, and a moral crisis.
Attempting to get beyond these crises in a fair, equitable and responsible way, requires many types of knowledge and value articulations, and governance arrangement for weighing and connecting those. Disciplinary approaches do not suffice: in trying to solve one aspect of the problem, other aspects amplify, and new, unforeseen problems emerge. Alternatives to mono- or multi-disciplinary research include transdisciplinary approaches that entwine research and (policy) action.
Aura Timen, professor at the Athena Institute and head of the national Centre for Infectious Disease Control (LCI) of the RIVM, together with researchers Teun Zuiderent-Jerak, Linda van de Burgwal, Frank Kupper, Elena Syurina and Tjerk Jan Schuitmaker, conducts transdisciplinary research into responses to outbreaks of infectious diseases and crises. They analyse the effects of measures on citizens, reflect on the framing of problems and solutions, and develop innovative methods to include the knowledge and experience of different groups in the development of crisis measures. This transdisciplinary approach integrates scientific and other types of knowledge and seeks to contribute to a better, more inclusive response to outbreaks—now and in the future.
Watch here the inaugural lecture of Aura Timen.
