Deciding on Future Science - what to prioritise?

by Dr Siska De Baerdemaeker (Stockholm University)

Wednesday 13 May 2026, 15:15 → 16:00 Europe/Stockholm

Albano 3: 6228 - Mega (22 seats) (Albano Building 3)

Many of the recent breakthroughs in physics have been made by huge collaborations using new and large-scale instruments. The Higgs boson was discovered at the LHC, gravitational waves are consistently being detected by LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA, and the first picture of the event horizon of a black hole was made by a telescope spanning the size of the entire Earth. These instruments can cost billions of euros. Given limited resources, how should scientists decide what sort of science to prioritise? Deciding what project to pursue becomes a critical challenge since any new instrument will likely impact the field for decades to come. At the same time, we would never know the breakthroughs that might have been achieved by the projects that were never pursued! In this talk, Siska De Baerdemaeker, researcher at the Philosophy Department at SU, will give us an overview of the challenges that scientists face in making such decisions as a collective. She will raise some important open philosophical questions about what scientists should keep in mind while making decisions about future science. Don't miss this talk on the considerations that could affect how science is funded in the future!