Bordeaux Montaigne University invites to a conference with Olivier Hamant on the topic "Robustness – an antidote to the cult of performance?". The conference takes place on 26 June 2025 as a hybrid event in Bordeaux and online in French language.
Socio-ecological disruption is no longer a prediction; it is a reality, punctuated by crises. In response, we produce sustainable development, a prescription for sobriety and rising levels of ecoanxiety. But what if we were on the wrong track? Scientific reports agree that the twenty-first century will be turbulent. Our only certainty is that uncertainty will persist and that it will increase. In the face of such fluctuation, control, optimization and performance are locking us into a very fragile and narrow path. Robustness – keeping the system stable despite fluctuations – is the operational response to turbulence. Unlike performance, robustness opens up possibilities and reconnects us to living organisms, which are robust in essence. Furthermore, recent advances in biology also provide us with an important key: robustness is built first and foremost on heterogeneity, redundancy, randomness, waste, slowness, incoherence... in short, robustness is the antithesis of performance. The shift towards robustness reverses all the paradigms of our time and helps us move beyond an epidemic of burnout. With no regrets.
Amongst other points, Olivier Hamant will address the way of integration robustness in transformative education for sustainability, in HEI and elswhere.
Olivier Hamant is a senior researcher at the National Institute for Agronomical Research (Lyon, France). He is working on feedbacks in plant development using cell biology, mechanics and modeling (see e.g. Hamant O et al., 2008 Science; Uyttewaal et al., 2012 Cell). Most of the concepts developed in this work arise from analogies between disciplines, including social sciences and art. In 2012, he was awarded the “Laurier jeune chercheur INRA” and the Paul Doisteau – Emile Blutet prize from the French Academy for his interdisciplinary work on plants. More recently, he has received a grant from the European Research Council to consolidate this research (ERC “MechanoDevo”). As a member of the Michel Serres Institute on the question of the shortage of resources and public goods, he is strongly interested in the challenges that the Anthropocene raises.
The conference will be in held in French in a hybrid format – you are welcome to participate online. Please register here.
If you do not understand French or if you are not available on 26 June 2025, you can also watch some short videos (home-made by Olivier):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvGCsOU_9Aw&list=PLy95kO20JEyv6hXiiM0dqfe73neN61ic7&ab_channel=InstitutMichelSerres
There is also his "manifesto" (Galimard), which is not free but the fee is reasonable :
https://tracts.gallimard.fr/products/tracts-n-50-antidote-to-the-cult-of-performance-robustness-of-nature?variant=45755025490186
