‘Understanding uncertainty as a driver of innovation’

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, debates about migration, and the consequences of the pandemic show how quickly supposed certainties can vanish. Right-wing populist parties cunningly exploit this lack of orientation. Bielefeld University’s Center for Uncertainty Studies (CeUS) is researching how we deal with and navigate such ubiquitous uncertainty. Since it was founded in December 2022, it has been developing a new specialist area: interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary uncertainty research. The three founding directors of CeUS are now making an initial assessment of the center’s work to date.

‘We often see uncertainty in a very negative light. Frequently, the aim is to avoid, reduce, at least control, or even eliminate uncertainty,’ says historian Professor Dr Silke Schwandt, one of the three CeUS founding directors. The center takes a new approach: ‘We argue that uncertainty can be beneficial to society. We want to understand how social actors navigate through uncertainty—rather like explorers in unknown territory—and how their decision-making behaviour can initiate constructive changes in society.’

Uncertainty accelerates economic innovation

Economist Professor Dr Herbert Dawid, also a founding director, emphasizes the economic aspects: ‘In our studies, we have found that uncertainty can actually boost innovation and technical progress. One example of this is the energy transition, in which uncertainty about which technology will prevail in the future is spurring research efforts and technological progress in various areas,’ says Dawid.

How uncertainty stimulates finding solutions

Social researcher Professor Dr Andreas Zick notes that studies show increasing uncertainty in society. Zick is the third CeUS founding director. ‘Most surveys fail to answer the question as to how people react to perceived uncertainty,’ says Zick. ‘We are investigating which strategies people use in uncertain situations and how they make decisions. If we see uncertainty as a driver of innovation, we can explain how it motivates people to seek competent solutions themselves.’

Interdisciplinary conference seeks solutions

Since its foundation, CeUS has focused on networking researchers across disciplines to advance uncertainty research. ‘One discipline alone cannot solve the problems and challenges of uncertainty,’ says Silke Schwandt. In mid-2023, around 30 researchers from disciplines such as sociology, history, and economics came together at the university’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) to discuss the new field of research. CeUS organized the conference ‘Navigating Uncertainty: Preparing Society for the Future’ there. In their respective keynote speeches, Professor Dr Miriam Posner and Professor Dr Carlo Jaeger addressed the role of data in the humanities, and uncertainty in the Anthropocene.

Moreover, CeUS has developed its own event formats to engage researchers in dialogue—Uncertainty Lunches and Research Afternoons. ‘In the initial phase, we laid the foundations for interdisciplinary uncertainty research,’ summarizes Silke Schwandt. ‘The response from the academic community shows us that we are on the right track.’

The Uncertainty Talks series is not only for researchers, but also for the general public. The topics of the nine public lectures held so far range from the linguistic analysis of uncertainty to psychological theories on decision-making under uncertainty.

British agricultural ecologist Professor Ian Scoones PhD spoke about his new book ‘’Navigating Uncertainty’ at the Uncertainty Talk in October. He urges us to rethink the way we currently deal with uncertainty and to find new ways to navigate an increasingly unpredictable world.

CeUS networks between research alliances

‘Our approach of seeing uncertainty as something productive and systematically investigating the effects of different ways of dealing with uncertainty has attracted and inspired a large number of researchers in a short space of time,’ reports co-founding director Herbert Dawid. More than 50 researchers and a dozen research projects are now associated with CeUS. For example, the new International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS-ModA) is researching uncertainty in the context of global change. The researchers are exploring the geological era shaped by humans and analysing how humans and the environment interact in complex and often unpredictable ways. The mathematically oriented Collaborative Research Centre 1283 ‘Taming uncertainty and profiting from randomness and low regularity in analysis, stochastics and their applications’ is also associated with CeUS. And in the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre 318 ‘Constructing Explainability’, researchers are working on making the often complex functioning of AI systems more comprehensible.

Other examples of projects linked with CeUS:

• PREDICT: assesses the impact of algorithms on social uncertainty, funded by the European Research Council (ERC).
• WaterFutures: examines future urban water supply under consideration of uncertainties such as climate change, funded by the ERC.
• Research Training Group CUDE (RTG 2865): analyses coping with uncertainty in dynamic economies, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
• EPOC research network: researches economic policy in uncertain environments, EU-funded as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network.

Discussion papers explore forms of uncertainty

The CeUS Working Papers contribute to the expansion of uncertainty research. Historian Professor Dr Michael Piotrowski from the University of Lausanne, for example, argues in his discussion paper that uncertainty is unavoidable in digital historical research. He distinguishes between gaps in knowledge about the past and ambiguities in the interpretation of historical data. Piotrowski advocates utilizing both types of uncertainty as an opportunity in computer-based approaches.

Another discussion paper focuses on the distortion of information in the digital age. Bielefeld business mathematician Professor Dr Manuel Förster presents a model and shows how disinformation and fact checks influence the balance of media consumption. A surprising discovery: moderate consumers often use media with opposing biases. Förster shows that competition can reduce disinformation, but also create echo chambers for extreme views. Together with his Bielefeld colleague Dr Gerrit Bauch, Manuel Förster is investigating this question: Why are people persuaded by certain narrative explanations and not by others? In an interview, the two CeUS researchers talk about their joint study. ‘Our research uncovers the complex dynamics of the information age,’ says Andreas Zick from the CeUS board of directors. ‘This helps us understand how to cope with uncertainty in the digital world.’

CeUS plans to expand international network

In the future, CeUS plans to consolidate its role as a vibrant hub for academic exchange in uncertainty research. Co-founding director Silke Schwandt emphasizes: ‘We want to develop ideas for new interdisciplinary projects so that we can explore the many ways in which uncertainty influences academia and society.’ The CeUS Young Scholar Network is also intended to contribute to making Bielefeld’s uncertainty research more visible on the international stage by bringing together researchers from all over the world.