No. 111/2020

17 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 111/2020 Photo: Humboldt Foundation/Mario Wezel Physical and virtual mobility should not stand in binary op- position to one another. The challenge is to discover how both can be practised best in the highly flexible, dynamic mesh- work of interlocking networks so that the knowledge we need for the future can be produced. In new, multidimensional networks, this knowledge should be understood as a structure, not a personal good. It is up to all of us to create the ‘Humboldt Network 4.0’.” fee or dinner, the American emphasises. And these are so very productive, Caroline S. Wagner confirms and adds that, in her own research, she found that close to 90 per- cent of the collaborations began face-to-face in some way. Last year, more than 1,700 researchers in Germany signed a petition committing to abstaining from air travel on business trips of less than 1,000 kilometres. Whilst organisations can consider sending only some representa- tives to conferences by air, who can represent their organ- isations and later act as multipliers, even the experts do not doubt the sense and purpose of research visits – despite cli- mate change. One reason for this is that these offer differ- ent ways of accessing explicit and tacit knowledge, a con- cept attributed to the philosopher, Michael Polanyi. Explicit knowledge denotes knowledge that can be clearly formulated and reproduced; tacit knowledge, on the other hand, always has a personal quality. Explicit knowl- edge, such as an online presentation at a conference or a webinar at university, can easily be communicated using digital means or, in some cases, via digital platforms. In order to learn and apply tacit knowledge like tried and tested research practices, it is necessary for individuals to be phys- ically present in a different research environment. Only by experiencing a trusting relationship with senior research- ers can young scientists and scholars learn from their way of working, methods and informal practices and thus also form unexpected linkages. “Networks only ever exist as networks within networks,” Hartmut Böhme has observed. So, today’s researchers have long been involved in many networks at the same time, both analogue and digital. They and their knowledge must be able to circulate, digitally and analogously. Travel, espe- cially by air, will become less frequent, let us venture to pre- dict. But it will not often be possible to find a substitute for personal encounters. HANS-CHRISTIAN PAPE , President of the Humboldt Foundation “