What makes a warning signal truly effective?

This is the intriguing question we are exploring in the Better Wave than Worry project. Is a sudden change in air pressure as valuable to a meteorologist as an ultrarare mutation is to a geneticist? What are the underlying concepts that determine this value?

On December 2nd, we will be taking another step towards answering these and similar questions during the fourth Waving Monday. As previously, the researchers in genetics, botanical sciences, mathematics, and meteorology, that have thus far been involved in Better Wave than Worry will meet at this Waving Monday, but we are specifically asking you to come and diversify our group even more with your expertise. At this fourth Waving Monday we will further elaborate on the metaphors we have thus far defined to unite these fields and uncover what makes a warning signal visible, reliable, and actionable, and how we can enhance these traits in every field.

Participation is free!

The programme is as follows:

• 10:00-10:30: Position paper in the making on early signals
• 10:30-12:00: Workshop Weighing signals in decision-making - specifically for PhD students and postdocs
• 12:00-13:00: Walking lunch
• 13:00-14:00: Inspiration Lecture
• 14:00-15:00: The future of Better Wave

We warmly invite you and your peers who find themselves working on early signals (in any domain) and who grapple with filtering out valuable signals, interpreting them, or using them to make decisions, to join our workshop. We also encourage you to bring along your senior colleagues to the lunch walk and the subsequent Inspiration Lecture, so we can collectively explore how to transcend disciplines to improve early signalling.

Utrecht University PhD students of the Graduate School of Life Sciences, Social and Behavioural Sciences, and others can obtain 0.15EC by attending this event.

BetterWave than Worry is an initiative of researchers from Utrecht University, UMC Utrecht, Wageningen University & Research, and Eindhoven University of Technology. We are affiliated with the CUCo (Centre for Unusual Collaborations). Beyond our research, we aim to foster a movement for awareness about signals and growing insights into them. Although it is not entirely clear what we will find or even what we are looking for, we believe that exploring early signals can lead to fascinating discoveries.