In total, we were involved in 5 conferences and organised two further lecture series that expanded the perspectives discussed in 2021.

Michael Roos made the start. He spoke at the conference Zukunftswissen – Energie about “What knowledge we [can] have about the future and how we [can] generate it”. Among other things, the conference asked how and to what extent knowledge about the future can meet the criteria of scientific validation, possible generalisability and goal-oriented applicability.

Tina Asmussen, together with colleagues from the USA, the Netherlands and Italy, organised a workshop entitled Gold & Mercury | Metals in Transit at the Lorentz Center in Leiden. The interdisciplinary workshop convened scholars working at the intersections of science, artisanal practice and the humanities. This research project is the first to present a comparative examination of gold and mercury, how their entwined chemical histories have reshaped cultures, bodies, and environments across the millennia to our present time. The meanings and contexts behind the products and controversies that trigger the chemical link between gold and mercury are examined. Researchers challenged the vaunted status of gold and its association with human constructs such as wealth, beauty, spirituality and purity by addressing the uncomfortable ethical questions that have always accompanied the trade in gold.

Furthermore, PIs from our ScienceCampus attended the conference The 25 ‘Great Challenges’ in Archaeology through an ABM Perspective 2022 at the Lorentz Center in Leiden and supported the conferences Deindustrialization and the Politics of our Time (DEPOT) and ResourceScapes in the Iranian Highlands.