Where will the conference be held?

The conference will be held in Berlin, DEU.

What is the format of the conference?

The conference is an interdisciplinary event, suggesting a format that encourages cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration.

When does the conference take place?

The conference is scheduled to begin in the fall.

2nd Annual Interdisciplinary WZB Conference 2026

Name: 2nd Annual Interdisciplinary WZB Conference 2026
Start: 2026-10-07T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-10-09T00:00:00Z
Location: Berlin

Oct 7–9, 2026Berlin, GermanyIn-person

Registration open

The 2nd Annual Interdisciplinary WZB Conference is set to convene in Berlin, DEU, fostering a collaborative environment for scholars across diverse fields. This event aims to bridge disciplinary divides, encouraging new perspectives and innovative solutions to complex global challenges. Participants will engage in discussions and presentations designed to advance interdisciplinary research and cooperation.

Committees & topics

Topics
Shifting International Orders Across Climate, Health, Migration, Trade, Technology, and Development · Causes of Order Change: Power Shifts, Economic Transformation, and Contested Identities · Consequences for Peace, Development, Environment, Solidarity, and Inequality

Why it matters

In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability to integrate knowledge from various disciplines is paramount for addressing multifaceted issues ranging from climate change to social inequality. Events like this conference are crucial because they provide a platform for experts to transcend traditional academic boundaries. By bringing together different perspectives, the conference facilitates the cross-pollination of ideas, which is essential for generating holistic understandings and actionable insights.

The focus on interdisciplinarity is not merely an academic exercise; it reflects a growing recognition that real-world problems rarely fit neatly into single disciplinary boxes. Whether examining economic trends through a sociological lens or exploring technological advancements with ethical considerations, an interdisciplinary approach leads to more robust and comprehensive solutions. This conference, held in a major European capital, underscores the importance of such collaborative endeavors in shaping future research agendas and policy recommendations.

How to prepare

To maximize the benefit of attending, participants should consider how their specific research or expertise can contribute to broader interdisciplinary dialogues. Preparing to articulate the relevance of one's work to scholars from different backgrounds will be key. This involves not only presenting findings but also actively seeking connections and potential collaborations that might not be immediately obvious.

Attendees should also be prepared to engage with diverse methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Familiarity with the core concepts of various fields, even outside one's primary area of study, can enhance the depth of discussions. The conference format in Berlin, DEU, encourages active participation, making it beneficial to arrive with an open mind and a readiness to explore new intellectual territories.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 3 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Germany

As the host nation, DEU emphasizes academic collaboration and innovation.

Role in topic

DEU plays a significant role in fostering academic exchange and interdisciplinary research, providing a central European hub for such intellectual gatherings. Its research institutions are often at the forefront of collaborative initiatives.

United States

USA researchers are key contributors to interdisciplinary studies.

Role in topic

Researchers from the USA frequently contribute to interdisciplinary conferences, bringing diverse perspectives and often leading in various fields of scientific and social inquiry. Their participation is vital for global knowledge exchange.

China

CHN is increasingly investing in interdisciplinary research.

Role in topic

CHN's academic community is rapidly expanding its engagement with interdisciplinary research, particularly in areas related to technology, environment, and social development. Their contributions offer unique insights from a rapidly evolving society.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Shifting International Orders Across Climate, Health, Migration, Trade, Technology, and Development

The post-1945 liberal international order organized cooperation through a dense web of multilateral institutions — the UN system, Bretton Woods institutions, the WTO, and a growing constellation of regimes covering climate (UNFCCC, Paris Agreement), health (WHO, IHR), refugees (1951 Convention), trade (GATT/WTO), technology standards (ITU, ICANN), and development cooperation (DAC, SDGs). Each of these regimes embedded particular norms — open trade, universal human rights, scientific multilateralism, donor-recipient development models — that defined what counted as legitimate international behavior in its issue area. Over the past two decades these orders have visibly fragmented and reconfigured. In climate policy, the top-down Kyoto architecture gave way to the pledge-based Paris regime, while loss-and-damage finance and carbon border adjustments have reopened North–South cleavages. Global health saw the WHO sidelined during early COVID-19 responses before the 2024–2025 negotiation of a Pandemic Agreement; migration governance has shifted from refugee protection toward externalization and bilateral deals; the WTO's dispute settlement system has been effectively paralyzed since 2019, with industrial policy and export controls returning; technology governance is splintering into rival US, EU, and Chinese regulatory spheres; and development cooperation is increasingly shaped by South–South lenders, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the BRICS+ New Development Bank rather than the traditional DAC donors. Today, scholars debate whether we are witnessing the erosion of a single liberal order, its pluralization into overlapping regime complexes, or a contested transition toward a multipolar order with competing normative templates. The empirical question for this committee is how these changes vary across issue areas — some regimes (climate) deepening even as others (trade) hollow out — and what that unevenness implies for global governance.

Key players

Causes of Order Change: Power Shifts, Economic Transformation, and Contested Identities

Explanations for the reconfiguration of international orders cluster around several causal logics. Realist accounts emphasize material power shifts: China's rise to roughly 18% of global GDP, the relative decline of US and European shares, and the diffusion of military and technological capabilities have eroded the unipolar moment that underwrote 1990s-era institution building. Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, escalating US–China strategic competition, and the assertiveness of middle powers such as India, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil all reflect this redistribution. Economic transformations provide a second driver. The 2008 financial crisis, the China shock to Western manufacturing, supply-chain disruptions during COVID-19, and the green and digital transitions have shifted elite and public preferences away from hyperglobalization toward industrial policy, friend-shoring, and strategic autonomy. The US Inflation Reduction Act, the EU Green Deal Industrial Plan, and China's Made in China 2025 illustrate a convergent turn to state-directed economic statecraft that strains WTO rules. A third set of causes is ideational and sociological. World-society scholarship (Meyer, Boli) has documented how cultural scripts of rights, science, and rationalized statehood diffused globally; more recent work highlights backlash dynamics — populist and identitarian movements, civilizational discourses, and the politicization of migration and gender — that contest those scripts. Decolonial critiques from the Global South, demands for epistemic and reparative justice, and the rise of religious-conservative transnational networks all reshape what counts as legitimate authority in international politics. Disentangling how much of observed order change is driven by power, economics, or identity remains a central analytical and policy question.

Key players

Consequences for Peace, Development, Environment, Solidarity, and Inequality

The reconfiguration of international orders carries uneven and contested consequences. For peace and security, the weakening of arms-control architectures (INF, Open Skies, stalled New START follow-on), the return of major interstate war in Europe, and conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa coincide with a Security Council frequently deadlocked by P5 vetoes. SIPRI and ACLED data show both military spending and battle-related deaths at multi-decade highs. For economic development and inequality, the picture is mixed. Extreme poverty reduction has stalled since 2019, with the World Bank estimating that roughly half of low-income countries are in or near debt distress. The SDGs are off-track on most indicators, while industrial-policy competition risks crowding out fiscal space for development in poorer states. At the same time, South–South trade and finance, digital public infrastructure (e.g., India's stack), and renewable-energy cost declines offer new development pathways. Environmentally, the Paris regime has avoided collapse but is failing to deliver a 1.5°C-consistent pathway; UNEP's Emissions Gap Reports document a persistent ambition–implementation chasm. Loss-and-damage finance, contested at COPs, has become a litmus test for global solidarity. Socially, polarization within democracies, restrictive migration regimes, and the erosion of refugee protection norms suggest weakening transnational solidarity, even as new transnational coalitions form around climate justice, gender, and digital rights. The net consequence is a more crowded, contested, and unequal international system in which governance capacity is increasingly mismatched to the scale of shared problems.

Key players