High-profile symposium ‘Ways out of the polycrisis’

On Friday, 27 February 2026, the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz hosted the symposium ‘Ways out of the polycrisis: daring to do more prevention’ as part of the ‘Aldous Huxley Future Forum’ series of events. The confluence of climate change, economic uncertainty, ailing healthcare systems, military conflicts and rising extremism is unsettling large portions of the population. This prompted Prof. Dr. Klement Tockner (member of the Academy and Director General of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research) to assemble a high-profile panel to discuss the pressing issues.

The symposium focused on prevention as a new approach to crisis management. This was discussed in keynote speeches and a panel discussion by speakers Prof. Dr. Nicole Deitelhoff (Leibniz Institute for Peace and Conflict Research), Prof. Dr. Gabriele Britz (Goethe University), Prof. Dr. Markus Reichstein (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry), Prof. Dr. Iris Pigeot (Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology) and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Clemens Fuest (ifo Institute) and moderated by Prof. Dr. Klement Tockner. The participants presented perspectives from political science, law, biogeochemistry, medicine and economics, which were discussed in an interdisciplinary manner.

The focus was on systemic and preventive solutions, early warning systems, innovative market mechanisms and targeted communication. Until now, ‘damage first, restore later’ seems to have been the prevailing principle in crisis management. In environmental protection, for example, 94 per cent of the approximately 80 billion euros spent annually goes towards waste and wastewater management and the remediation of environmental damage – in other words, towards subsequent ‘clean-up work’. The situation is similar in healthcare: 94 per cent of funds are spent on treatment, while prevention and precautionary measures remain severely underfunded.