The Institut Natura e Teoria en Pirenèus is opening its 2024 series of scientific and/or artistic research residencies.

Please apply through this online form.

The goal of INTP is to facilitate creativity in research, and create spaces and times for experimentation in how we work within and across disciplines.

While any kind of creative or intellectual exchange is welcome, we wish to foster those that have become rare or difficult in classic research institutions and events – for instance, interactions that take time away from scientific productivity, involve participants other than full-time academics, or require true interdisciplinary communication.

We are notably looking for visitors who want to interact beyond the boundaries of their own field and community, with an engaged and patient non-expert audience, and take a step back to reflect on their research. Our own work tends to focus on complex systems in physics and ecology, but we have happily hosted philologists, historians, food scientists and mathematicians among others.

The applicants' background, field or career stage are less important factors than their interest in doing and sharing research differently. We welcome not only individual residents, but proposals for activities and events (e.g. popular science talks, original formats for workshops, retreats, summer camps, etc.)

The baseline length of a first residency will be from 3 to 14 days, barring exceptional circumstances. Longer stays can be offered at a later stage.

Some examples of residencies

- Writing retreat for an article, a book or a thesis
- Public seminar accompanied by in-depth discussions of the underlying science
- Thinking and discussing through a pivotal time (early career, change of topics, etc.)
- Art and science project
- Research retreat for people who are not full-time professional researchers (e.g. students, citizen scientists, independent scholars)
- Workshops on negative results, enigmas and speculative ideas, or collective creativity in science

Setting

Residents will be hosted in our campus (see all details here) in Surba, in the French Pyrenees.

Six members or associates are permanently living or working on campus, and there will often be two to three visitors at a time during any given residency period. Visitors will usually be hosted in individual rooms, and be provided some office space.

Contributions

The INTP is a small-scale, self-funded and self-energized nonprofit, so we hope that visitors will want to help us keep it running!

Contributions to the upkeep of INTP can take different forms (depending on availability)

- accommodation fees (cost of food not included)
* 50 euros/day for visitors with institutional or personal funding
* Pay what you can for visitors without funding and with limited means (recommended minimum of 10 euros/day to cover basic utilities, but truly what you can)

- or volunteering time to help with maintenance and activities (3 hours/day)

Please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss these options on a case-by-case basis.