Masterclass Registration Form

Dear Student,

During the 2025/2026 academic year, the EURIP team is organizing a full calendar of masterclasses featuring international and highly relevant speakers. These masterclasses will cover a wide range of topics including biology, anthropology, sociology, robotics, statistics, psychology, ecology, philosophy, and medicine. The goal is to provide you with a broad and interdisciplinary overview of topics related to planetary health.

The masterclasses will take place on Fridays from 12:00 to 14:00 in Room 0.06 (Learning Center Extension) at the Learning Planet Institute. There will be 1 to 2 masterclasses per month, from September to February, for a total of 10 sessions. EURIP will provide lunch to all attendees.

Students enrolled in the Master of AIRE program must attend these classes, but PhD FIRE students may participate as well. Due to space and catering constraints, registration is mandatory, and there is a maximum of 30 slots per masterclass. Attendance must be in person, no online participation is allowed.

You may register for as many masterclasses as you wish, but please make sure to attend the ones you sign up for, otherwise, you may be taking a spot from someone else.

For any questions, feel free to contact Inês Lages (ines.lages@learningplanetinstitute.org) or Alice Robineau (alice.robineau@learningplanetinstitute.org).

We hope you enjoy the masterclass program!

Best regards,
The EURIP Team

September 26th, 2025

Todd Lubart - Professor of Psychology, Head of the Chair 'homo creativus', fondation Université Paris Cité, France

Creativity and Innovation from a 7 Cs perspective

This workshop will explore the topic of creativity and innovation - how people get new , valuable ideas, and develop and exploit them. A 7 Cs approach will be presented in which the nature of Creators ( personal characteristics), Creating ( processes), collaborations, contexts, creations ( productions), consumption ( adoption of new ideas) and curricula ( training for creativity) will be explored. Examples of research will be presented as well as some examples of tools or techniques to support creativity and innovation.

October 10th, 2025

Julia de Freitas Sampaio - Post Doctoral Research at Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, University of Luxembourg

Pollution, Green Transition, and Vulnerabilities —A Case Study of Paris

This class will engage students in a comparative case study of environmental justice, focusing on how the green transition in Paris is affecting different demographics in the city. Through a lens of pollution, green policies, and environmental racism, the class will explore the uneven distribution of environmental benefits and burdens in urban spaces. The focus will be on understanding how certain communities, particularly marginalized ones, are disproportionately impacted by both the historical and contemporary aspects of environmental policy. 

October 24th, 2025

Raja Chatila - Professor émerite of Robotics, AI and Ethics, ISIR-CNRS and Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

Artificial Intelligence: From Science to Ethics to Regulation

Current AI systems are based on Machine Learning techniques that process data to build statistical models used to make decisions, to predict outcomes or to generate content. They have impressive performance and have become of widespread use in almost all sectors, from Healthcare to Warfare, and are of general use in daily life.
We recall scientific and technical foundations of AI systems, illustrate their operation, expose what are their limitations, and why they raise ethical concerns related to safety, human autonomy, understandability, or fairness. We discuss the main ethics principles and requirements that should be considered for the design and operation of AI systems, such as safety and security, transparency, human oversight or social end environmental well-being. Finally we introduce governance frameworks that are put in place with a focus on the European AI Act.

November 7th, 2025

Lou Safra - Sciences Po, CEVIPOF, CNRS, Paris, France 

Stereotypes, discriminations and racism - a cognitive approach

In this class, we will review the main psychological and neural mechanisms underlying discriminations. This will allow you to get keys to understand why discriminations are so common and prevalent despite efforts to reduce them as well as practical tools to help fight these discriminations at the individual and collective level.

November 21st, 2025

Yves Charbit - Emeritus Professor of Demography, University of Paris Cité, France

The Theory of Change and Response - Guidelines for Research on Population and Development in Africa

The topic of population and development covers a broad array of issues and questions in which demographic facts are embedded in economic, social, cultural, and political realms. Research must to extend across disciplines and analytical levels, touching on themes such as poverty, power, social organization, resources, and environment that lie at the core of explanations of development success and failure. I propose a new theoretical framework in order to analyse these issues, one that is better able to confront the problems of causality arising in any investigation of population and development. But what exactly should the causal relationships encompass? Which “changes” and which “responses” should be taken into account? I shall examine the relationships between them, in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa showing how field research allows a better understanding of the structural inertia lying at the centre of underdevelopment. Concrete examples drawn from my field experience in Africa illustrates theoretical views.

December 5th, 2025

Patrício Costa - Associate Professor, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal

The Importance of Statistical Literacy within Research

Statistical literacy is increasingly vital in today’s data-driven world, enabling individuals to interpret and evaluate statistical information critically. This masterclass explores how statistical literacy supports informed decision-making across disciplines and enhances critical thinking when integrated into curricula. We will address the “data stork myth,” the misconception that data is self-explanatory without contextual analysis, highlighting the risks of passive consumption versus active engagement with data. Participants will leave with an enriched understanding of the importance of statistical literacy for research, education, and real-world decision-making in a complex and uncertain world.

January 9th, 2026

Johannes Jaeger - Freelance Philosopher, Researcher & Educator. Associate Faculty: Complexity Science Hub (CSH), Vienna, Austria

A Science Beyond the Age of Machines?

The Age of Machines, modernity, is coming to an end. Our dream of total control over our world is falling apart. If there is one lesson to be learned from the complexity science revolution it is this: whenever we intervene in such systems, there will be unintended consequences. We are experiencing a whole range of these right now, which come together in a crisis of crises - a metacrisis - consisting of synergizing societal, ecological, economic, and psychological emergencies. In this talk, I will present some of my thoughts on how the world will look like when we no longer believe that it is a machine, a mechanism, to be controlled and exploited. And I will discuss a vision for a science that fits into this age beyond the machine, a science that contributes to a truly sustainable and participatory future for humanity on this planet.

January 23rd, 2026

Philippe Descola - Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Collège de France, Researcher in Anthropology, Ethnology and Philosophy, Paris, France

Cosmopolitics of the Anthropocene

In many parts of the world, the use of land depends on a host of non-human entities endowed with an autonomous agency with whom humans must negotiate – deities, spirits, genies, ancestors, mountains, animals, meteors. The political relationship to the land differs from what we are familiar with in the Western world, either because non-humans are social agents within an encompassing collective, or because they are seen as subjects acting within their own collectives. These examples are worth considering for a less destructive and less anthropocentric approach to the Earth.

February 6th, 2026

Chiara de Gregorio - Post Doctoral Research, Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology (DBIOS), University of Turin, Italy & Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, UK

Singing Primates: Between Music, Language, and Evolution

The evolution of human language remains one of the most compelling questions in science, demanding insights across disciplines. This talk explores a comparative approach to the origins of language and music through the study of nonhuman primate communication. Focusing on species such as lemurs, titi monkeys, and orangutans, the presentation highlights how animal vocal behaviours can inform our understanding of the evolutionary roots of rhythmicity, vocal learning, and complex signalling.
Particular attention is given to the vocal behaviours of our distant—yet oddly familiar—relatives: from the singing lemurs of Madagascar to the antiphonal duets of titi monkeys, and the expressive, alarm-like calls of orangutans. These primates, like us, sing in synchrony, structure their vocal sequences hierarchically, and display a rhythmic organization that would not disappoint Freddie Mercury.
This masterclass will bridge zoology, bioacoustics, linguistics, and biomusicology, offering a multidisciplinary perspective on how communication systems emerge and evolve. Importantly, it underlines the critical role of conservation efforts to preserve these species and their vocal cultures, models that continue to teach us profound lessons bout ourselves and our shared evolutionary heritage.

February 20th, 2026

The Shift Project : Yves-André Gagnard - Head of Investment, Business Transformation and Innovation & Olivier Carrot - Global Vice President at Concentrix

Climate change will impact your job

This conference is built around the idea of giving students and professionals keys to understanding the world they live in or are about to enter. The first part will outline mechanisms of global warming and what is at stake. The second part will discuss the choice that businesses face. We will then propose ideas for action for students and young professionals.
This conference develops three main ideas:
- The future is not set, contrary to the many disaster scenarios circulating in the climate change community.
- Companies are constantly interacting with their environment, and assessing the relevance and impact of those interactions on climate change or climate adaptation is complex but critical.
- The business world can change, but it has to be part of an overall social movement.