The Institut Origines fosters collaboration between different scientific disciplines. This approach aims to promote the overall and holistic understanding of complex questions concerning the origin of planets and life.
Below are several key ways in which the Institut Origines fosters interdisciplinarity:
-
Inter-laboratory collaboration: The institute brings together researchers and laboratories conducting research in various fields, including astronomy, geology, biology, chemistry, physics and philosophy. This diversity of skills is used to look at fundamental questions from different angles and to draw on the knowledge and methods of each field.
-
Interdisciplinary research projects: The institute actively supports research projects that integrate multiple approaches and expertise. These projects aim to answer complex questions that can only be addressed satisfactorily using an inter-disciplinary approach.
-
International exchanges and collaborations: The Institut Origines also promotes international collaborations to enable researchers to work with colleagues from around the world, who bring their own interdisciplinary perspective to research issues.
-
Workshops and seminars: The institute regularly organises workshops, seminars and conferences that bring together researchers from different disciplines. These events offer a space for the discussion and exchange of ideas, thus fostering the cross-fertilisation of knowledge.
- Interdisciplinary training: The Institut Origines also promotes interdisciplinary training by offering educational programmes that enable students and researchers to develop skills in a number of scientific fields, thereby preparing them to respond to the interdisciplinary challenges of modern research.
In short, the Institut Origines strives to create an environment that is conducive to collaboration between scientific disciplines, thereby furthering our understanding of the origins of life and the universe in an integrated and holistic way.
Our interdisciplinary approach is illustrated by the EXOMIOLE project, which deals with the following themes:
- The origin of primitive small bodies in the solar system.
- The role of the impact of these small bodies in the formation of prebiotic environments on early Earth.
- The consequences and impacts on planetary surfaces.
- The societal, historical and philosophical viewpoints on catastrophic events such as impacts, in relation to the origin of life on Earth.
EXOMIOLE is a project that brings together several of the institute’s laboratories (LAM, PIIM, CEREGE, CGGG) that approach these themes from different complementary angles, in particular celestial dynamics, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, geosciences via observations (in the field, laboratory), experiments, data processing and modelling. It also examines the societal implications of a possible origin of life on Earth through impacts.
Main coordinator: Yoann Quesnel (quesnel@cerege.fr)
Funded by A*MIDEX via the interdisciplinary calls for projects Budget: €300k (funding of 3 post-docs) - May 2023 - April 2026
