Rethinking research: Prof. Christian Beste on his fellowship at the Wissenschaft­skolleg zu Berlin

Since its foundation in 1981, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin has invited yearly 30 to 40 outstanding academics from all over the world to spend a year working on their own projects, free from institutional obligations. This "learning community" is intended to promote sustainable scientific innovation and intellectual freedom. Every year, researchers from the humanities, social sciences and life sciences come together with artists on the Wissenschaftskolleg's small campus in the west of Berlin.

Prof. Christian Beste, Professor of Cognitive Neurophysiology at TU Dresden and Director of the University Neuropsychology Centre (UNC), has been appointed as a Fellow for the 2027/28 academic year. In this interview, he talks about his application, his plans for the fellowship and what makes the Wissenschaftskolleg a special place.

The selection process for the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin is considered highly competitive. How did you find out about this invitation and what was going through your mind at the time?

I applied in an open competitive process. The basic idea of the Wissenschaftskolleg is to give researchers the freedom to think. In an interdisciplinary setting, fellows can get new impulses, reflect on their own research and explore new fields. The Kolleg brings together not only neuroscientists, but also economists, social scientists, artists and writers – the entire spectrum of disciplines is represented. The aim is to work on a theoretical and conceptual issue of your choice. In the application process, you should outline an idea that embeds certain questions in a suitable theoretical framework. The application is reviewed internationally and then evaluated by the Scientific Advisory Board. They check whether the topic fits the Kolleg's intellectual agenda and how an interdisciplinary team can be put together from the selected projects. There are around thirty places per year, for which researchers from all over the world apply – so the chances of success are quite slim. So I was all the more delighted when I received the acceptance and the invitation letter. For me, this is a special opportunity to advance not only my research, but also the field that I represent at the Faculty of Medicine.

Your fellowship doesn't start until September 2027. Do you think this prospect will already influence your current work?

Yes, definitely. People say you get more out of such a stay if you prepare it well. I will also be living in Berlin during this time. The idea is to invite experts to the Kolleg as guests for two to three days in a targeted manner and work with them on specific aspects of my project. Of course, this requires a lot of planning. I have to consider the topics I want to address at the Kolleg and contact the potential discussion partners early on so that they are available at the relevant times. Although the "hot phase" won't start for another year and a half, I will already be contacting individual guests at the end of this year. If you only start on site, it's actually too late. The eight months that I will spend at the Kolleg need to be just as well prepared, eight months in advance. That way you can really use the time on site productively.

This application certainly took a lot of time. How long did it take you?

It was indeed a longer process. The topic you apply with should be innovative and visionary; something that has not yet been researched and truly opens new doors. That means you have to zoom out a bit: Where do you stand? Where do you want to go? And is where you want to go really something new? Are there links to other academic disciplines that you can benefit from within the Kolleg structure? The Kolleg explicitly encourages you to examine your own ideas in the context of interdisciplinarity. As part of the application process, you have to reflect on how this idea is viewed not only by neighboring disciplines, but also by all other scientific fields.

Speaking of interdisciplinarity: you are involved in science communication at the Agentur für Überschüsse and use creative formats, among other things. Will you continue or further develop this activity at the Kolleg?

Yes, it is an ongoing activity. Together with three colleagues, a neurologist, a cognitive psychologist and a media scientist, I regularly produce podcasts. We are planning the next recordings in the coming weeks. I can well imagine using my time at the Kolleg to gain new ideas for science communication, especially by talking to scientists from completely different disciplines. I can record these different perspectives directly on site for our podcast.

Now to the actual core of your work. If you can reveal it, what exactly will your time at the Kolleg be about?

The focus will be on the question of how ideas arise, in as broad a sense as possible. How does a patient with psychosis come up with a certain idea that they experience as reality at that moment? How do I get the spontaneous idea to go to the fridge? How do I arrive at this deliberate action? Ideas about certain states that are achieved after an action form the basis of our actions. Intentional actions and their disorders in neurological or psychiatric illnesses have been relatively well researched. But hardly anyone has yet asked: How does the idea on which an action is based arise in the first place? It is precisely this question that I would like to explore in greater depth at a theoretical level. To do this, I am drawing on perspectives from neurophysiology, psychology, sociology and law. What does culpability mean, for example? Does only the action count or the intention behind it? With the legal terms "murder" and "manslaughter", the same act leads to different evaluations because the underlying idea is different. These questions have implications for neurological and psychiatric research as well as for human behavior in everyday life. Ideas and creativity are very closely linked as well. What is the idea in art? And how do the ideas behind the various interpretations of art come about? With the term "idea", I want to create a kind of hub where different disciplines can exchange ideas and create added value for each other.

Are there other aspects that make this fellowship special?

The Kolleg is about exploring unconventional paths and simply thinking in a completely different direction. This requires creative scientific freedom, which we hardly have in our everyday lives with science, clinical work, various research groups and a packed calendar. That's why the Kolleg organizes this competitive selection process and pays the fellows their salary to "buy them out", so to speak. This gives you the unique opportunity to pursue completely different approaches and reinterpret your own field of research.

Looking ahead to the summer of 2028 after your stay at the Kolleg, what are your hopes for your research and your future career?

I will use the first part of my stay, from 2027 to early 2028, to systematically explore my field, discuss it with other fellows and develop questions in a targeted manner. I would like to implement these in the form of opinion papers and applications for further research funding. The theoretical work at the Kolleg thus serves as a basis for future empirical projects. At a certain point, you have to ask yourself what happens next. I hope that my stay at the Kolleg will give me the space to lay out possible paths that I can then pursue further.

What tips would you give to colleagues who would also like to apply for the fellowship?

This is definitely not an application that you can just write during a weekend. You should really take a lot of time to ask yourself: What do I actually want to do there? What will I gain from my stay? How can I develop a concept that is clearly different from traditional research proposals? In research, you normally work with clear questions and tasks, but that's not the case here. You have to get out of your academic comfort zone and explore new ways of thinking. Last year, I spent the summer months working on my application. You have to write down your research question in such a way that it is understandable and relevant in an interdisciplinary context. The real challenge is to formulate a cutting-edge idea so that people from completely different departments consider it relevant to their own discipline. The true art is to present this interplay. After all, there is often too little time for reflection. But it is precisely this reflection time that we need to drive innovation forward.