8th European Advanced School in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS), “Philosophy of biology for a healthy planet”
KLI (Klosterneuburg, Austria, https://www.kli.ac.at), September 7-11, 2026
Directors
Sabina Leonelli (Technical University of Munich) and Thomas Reydon (Leibniz University Hannover)
Keynote speakers
Alkistis Elliott-Graves (Bielefeld University) and Julie Jebeile (University of Bern)
Applications
Applications should include a letter of motivation (max. 500 words), an abstract of your current research (max. 500 words) and a short CV (max. 3 pages). Please send applications as a single PDF to EASPLS2026@philos.uni-hannover.de (the deadline for applications is 15 January 2026).
Registration
Registration fees will be 350 €. The summer school will cover lunches and two dinners. Participants should arrange their own accommodation and travel expenses. The EASPLS consortium may be able to provide some financial support for participation. For inquiries please write to EASPLS2026@philos.uni-hannover.de.
About the summer school
The European Advanced School for the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS) is a biennial one-week summer school that aims at fostering research, facilitating collaborations, and providing professional training to students in the field of the philosophy, history, and social studies of the life sciences, broadly construed. The summer school includes lectures by invited keynote speakers as well as by senior researchers from the organizing consortium, group work, and general discussions. Special sessions will be dedicated to career and skills development.
The summer school is aimed at early-career researchers working on any topic in the philosophy, history, and social studies of the life sciences, but every edition of EASPLS has a focus theme. The 2026 focus theme is “philosophy of biology for a healthy planet”. Our planet is increasingly facing threats of climate emergency, biodiversity depletion and anthropogenic harms to life cycles around the globe, with challenges including a radical threat to the “health, maintenance and future of the web of life on planet Earth” (UNESCO – Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems). This situation raises the question what it means to lead a healthy life on a threatened planet, what the goal of a “healthy planet” would encompass, and how scientific research may contribute to achieving it. Never before has biological research been under more pressure to address what may constitute healthy living, under which conditions healthy living can still be achieved, and for which species and ecosystems a concept of healthy living can be applied. The philosophy of the life sciences can and should play an important part in addressing such questions.
Participants will be able to present their own research and there will be ample time for discussion on participants’ own topics, but participants will also be asked to reflect on how their work could contribute to achieving a “healthy planet”.