The University of Chicago Convocation

"Team research, especially interdisciplinary research, is characterized by synergies among experts that can transform both scholars and scholarship"  More news »

The Arete Initiative lowers barriers for team science.

How can universities better bring together the brightest minds to tackle the most challenging problems facing humanity? For instance, how do we generate the knowledge needed to combat avian flu, a pandemic most virulent among young, healthy first responders, and that ultimately might kill millions worldwide? What tools do we need in order to vastly accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to alternative sources of power, marking progress in years rather than decades, in order to avert climate change? How do we know what really works in lifting the developing world out of poverty?

Such broad but profoundly important questions are simply too complex to be answered by a single individual, a single lab, or even a single discipline. Although many brilliant scholars are working on such questions, the answers derived are often partial and rarely impart a comprehensive understanding of a problem.  With the creation of the Arete Initiative, the University of Chicago seeks to become more deliberate and supportive in how it harnesses its intellectual resources and catalyzes research teams to tackle complex problems of serious intellectual weight and public import.