The School
The 4th INTP Autumn School "Syntheses in Theoretical Community Ecology" will take place from October 12 to 17, 2026 in Ariège, in the French Pyrenees, hosted at the INTP campus in Surba.
Every edition draws on the previous ones to progress toward a more unified perspective on theory in community ecology. The program is constructed jointly by the lecturers, revisiting a broad spectrum of topics — from niches to networks and invasions — in order to emphasize the many explicit or hidden connections and tensions between leading theoretical approaches.
The goal is for each attendee to take a step back from their accumulated knowledge, and formulate a synthetic and critical viewpoint on the field's current state and open questions.
Who should attend?
The school is mainly intended for researchers (including graduate & post-doctoral) with prior experience in theoretical community ecology, complex systems and adjacent fields. Practical knowledge of modelling (e.g. dynamical models, numerical simulations) will be assumed.
Applicants with interdisciplinary skills — physics, mathematics, computational science — fitting these criteria are especially welcome. We encourage applications from any country and diverse personal backgrounds.