Brussels Institute for Advanced Studies

BrIAS official website



The topic for the 2023-2024 edition is Sustainable Robotics. As Robotic and Automated Devices become an integral part of our lives, it has become critical to understand if they can be truly durable and how they could optimally contribute to sustainability as a whole.

About BrIAS

The newly founded Brussels Institute for Advanced Studies (BrIAS), co-founded by the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), aims to expand upon the mission of other IASes as an incubator of ideas and research by focusing on current and urgent themes with a great societal impact. 

Located in the heart of Brussels, it aims to attract the very best scientists, artists or designers, coming from various fields or countries and with no philosophical or political restriction, and provide the opportunity to work in an atmosphere of complete freedom, collaboration, mutual emulation and cross-fertilisation. In this context, BrIAS aims to facilitate collaborations with countries facing critical challenges pertaining to sustainability.

Click here for more information about the mission statement and vision of BrIAS.

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About the BrIAS research theme in 2021-2023

The first interdisciplinary research theme was The past, present and future of food, climate and sustainability. 

The world’s future food supply is in jeopardy. The prospect of fast-growing populations combined with environmental degradation and shrinking agricultural yields because of the climate crisis has urged researchers from all disciplines to develop new ways of thinking about food security and sustainability. 

During two editions, BrIAS has approached that topic from a wide array of viewpoints, with the input of scholars from agricultural sciences, anthropology, archaeology, biology, biotechnology, chemistry, ecology, economic botany, economics, ethnography, history, hydrology, law, medicine, political sciences, sociology, and urban studies. In addition, BrIAS has involved policy makers and NGOs at a national and supranational level as well as start-ups and companies from Brussels and beyond. Attention was also given to legal aspects of future agricultural and food technologies, and to medical and nutritional aspects of food.

The 2023 edition brought together 32 participants from 19 countries and 140 speakers from 27 different nationalities.