Connecting economics with the arts

“Art is the highest form of hope”, as the renowned visual artist Gerhard Richter stated. Hope or the desire for stability and better prospects is also fundamental to how economies and societies evolve over time. It feeds into our consumption and production patterns, and is also a driver of investments in productive, innovative, low-carbon entrepreneurial activities and in various other forms of climate action.

ICENS lab embraces both reasoning and sentiment, both rationality and emotional intelligence. To achieve this, we propose to bring more to the foreground the much neglected and undervalued role of arts. The latter is taken to mean all cultural production, be it literature, visual art, music, philosophy, film, storytelling, or other creative practices and artistic forms of expression that have the capacity to  connect people with each other’s lived experiences.  Arts has the potential, not only to convey the complexity of science and disseminate research findings more empathetically, but also to foster innovation, stimulate imagination, stir emotions, and instil change.