Thierry Labro: Interdisciplinarity is the word you're going to use a lot at the start of the new academic year. Tell us about it.

: It has to do with professional collaboration. Above all, there has to be interdisciplinarity. That's very important. The talents of tomorrow are going to have to tackle some very complex issues, such as the climate and digitalisation. It's not just technology or just social issues, it's a bit of both. You need people who know how to tackle these complex issues. I addressed this issue at [the] Nexus [technology conference in June]. The great scientists of the previous era, Michelangelo or Da Vinci, covered extremely broad fields. They could make important contributions to philosophy, biology, medicine or literature. This has been totally lost. We have arrived at total specialisation. For his theories on relativity, it was useful that Einstein didn't spend half the day thinking about sociology. But everyone realised that this would not be be enough. It's obvious that physics and biology studies will leave a little room for biophysics. The same goes for computer science and sociology. Artificial intelligence does exactly that, it can recognise similar approaches between several subjects. We need people who can work with that.

Are we adding subjects that weren't in the masters ten years ago, or are we taking some out and replacing them with new subjects?

That's the question that really hurts. If I go to my colleagues who teach physics or sociology and tell them that I'm taking something away to add AI, they'll say 'but we're losing something'. Yes. But we'll still have 'pure' masters degrees, but we need other training. You can't develop a quantum computer without knowing how the quantum world works. This is essential. But you need people who understand how artificial intelligence and society interact. You have to do both. A major problem in cyber security is that people click on buttons they shouldn't. This is not a technological issue. There's nothing technological about that, it's psychology.

Interdisciplinarity also makes it possible to involve people from different backgrounds in issues that touch on different themes.

A key element for the future, for talent as well as for innovation, is interdisciplinarity. Technology has already understood this over the last ten to twenty years. That's where the expression 'key enabling technology' comes from. Being able to disseminate the same technology in different sectors is a great strength. It's a superstrategy for Luxembourg to gain mobility. We can't afford to focus on just one thing. The key generic technology of tomorrow is AI. ChatGPT is a technology. We're going to use it in finance, in medicine, in every field. Before applying it to medicine or finance, it would still be useful to know how medicine or finance work. This is where continuing education plays a very important role. Mobility and flexibility are also very important. Perhaps Luxembourg still needs to learn a little more about this. If we look at the Adem [employment agency] figures, there are jobseekers who will have to adapt.

With the emergence of new technologies, social sciences are no longer as exciting, but technoscientists also carry the fears of tomorrow's society, from autocratic excesses to bias and surveillance. We also need philosophers and thinkers in the broadest sense.

Absolutely. I agree 150%. I would be very worried about having fewer social sciences in our society. We sorely need them. The human sciences are not the icing on the cake, but the part that makes the cake set and hold together.

How can we motivate people to return to these disciplines?

Interdisciplinarity is interesting. Not just languages, but also cognitive intelligence and AI are very attractive. In particular, as we know, it's very attractive to women. At university, the easiest way to support women is to push for interdisciplinarity, and this has been proven internationally. Women are very interested in these themes, at the interface between ecology and digitalisation.

It's also a failure on the part of our societies, because ten or fifteen years down the line, we can't manage to supply the market with experts of both sexes?

It's a failure of society. Particularly in our part of the world. Among the worst performers in terms of women in Stem [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] are the countries of the Greater Region, including Switzerland. In the Nordic and southern countries, it's a different story. There are a lot of losses in the curricula, but we need to start earlier. You have to start at secondary school level. That's why we set up Scientistin Labs. At the university, we're going to be even more determined to encourage female professors. It's a role model. Even if we're at the end of the road. We can't catch up with female students who choose not to study computer science. We need to give them the right conditions to do so, but also to ensure that we don't lose more of them. We have 50-50 students and PhD students, with more women in sociology and more men in IT. When it comes to professors, in our university the ratio is the same as in Germany or Belgium, with 25% to 30% women. After the thesis, we lose them. We don't have the right to lose them. It's a huge loss for society. It's a brutal question of excellence that we're depriving ourselves of.

Read the original French-language version of this interview