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A group of people sitting on a dock watching the aurora reflecting in a river.
Published: 2025-10-16

IceLab Camp students see science in a new light

PROFILE Science often rewards speed. Publish quickly, move on, don't fall behind. But one hour up the river from Umeå in late September 2025 a group of young researchers learned the opposite: take your time. This was IceLab Camp, a course within the Stress Response Modeling graduate research school meant to teach students to ask questions, and come up with ideas for research proposals. The essence of IceLab Camp, however, lies not in what the students create on paper, but in how they get there.

Image: Gabrielle Beans
A group of people sitting on a dock watching the aurora reflecting in a river.

Take your time. Be curious. Don’t just finish a project—understand it.

The bus wound north as villages, forests, and the Umeå river flitted by outside the windows.  The leaves on the birch trees were well on their way to turning yellow. On board, twenty young scientists from ten different countries traded questions briefly before switching partners and starting up new conversations. By the time the bus rolled into Granö, they were ready for fika—and ready to stand up and introduce someone they had only just met.

“That immediately set the tone,” says Zimai Li, a PhD student studying the social behavior of ants in Germany. “People shared quirky and personal things—it felt more like friends than colleagues.”

It was a signal of what was to come. For four days, strangers would listen, think about the words they used when they spoke, make space for creativity in the middle of intense work sessions, and test an idea that rarely finds space in the modern research world: that science can move forward by taking its time.

Playing with ideas

Each day, seemingly bizarre games and activities disarmed the students, provoking laughter as they came up with wild research ideas from random keywords or attempted to interpret blurry, odd images. The games echoed a video shown during the camp by comedian John Cleese, who spoke about the “open mode” of creativity: a state of play, space, and time where ideas can emerge.

The games were not just fun, but deliberate interruptions of routine. “Everything was curated in a way that shows a completely new perspective and helps reroute old brain patterns,” says Iryna Yakovenko, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Clinical Microbiology in Umeå.

You feel how difficult—but also how rewarding—it is to bridge disciplines.

“What’s the meta?” was a common refrain from the course instructors following one of these games. Following the laughter, reflection and discussion would yield lessons the students could carry forward in their project work, and in their scientific lives.

Learning to listen – and speak clearly

The teams were assembled with no regard for disciplinary borders: physicists, plant biologists, computer scientists and sociologists worked together. For many, it was the first time working so far outside their own field.

“It was eye-opening to sit with mathematicians and social scientists and try to build a shared language,” says Gizem Süer, a PhD student in microbial stress responses and part of the new IceLab Stress Response Modeling research school. “You feel how difficult—but also how rewarding—it is to bridge disciplines.”

Even simple terms became stumbling blocks. “We kept using the same words but meaning different things,” recalls Jan von Pichowski, a network scientist from German

y. “Take the word model. For me it’s a machine learning tool we can work with, even if we don’t fully understand it. For biologists, it’s a very specific construct. That gap was confusing—but it also made me curious.”

The process could feel chaotic. “It was like being in wavy water,” recalls Ramona Ottow, a network scientist in Barcelona. “Sometimes you lead, sometimes you support, and you wait for the next wave to carry you.”

Through the confusion, clarity emerged. Gizem remembers her team finding common ground in the word heterogeneity. “For me it meant bacterial populations. For others, human diversity or network clusters. Realizing we could connect through that word helped us move forward.”

Culture first, output second

How do you write a truly innovative interdisciplinary research proposal? Start with creating a culture where collaboration can take root: meals eaten together, moments of honesty about failure, walks in the forest. “Real human beings do science and have vulnerable sides,” says Iryna. “It reminded me how essential it is to build an inclusive, open and helpful environment.”

In an exceptional bout of good luck, the aurora appeared over the river on two nights. Groups of students wandered beneath the lights, taking them in, forgetting about obligations for a while. For many of the students, the proximity to nature in Granö was hugely important in balancing

the intensity of the work sessions. 

“Even when we didn’t have personal space, being in nature eased the pressure,” Gizem explains. “Just stepping outside for fika helped reset my mind.

What lasts

On the final day, each group pitched a research idea: from waterborne diseases in São Paulo, to the chemistry of bonobo behaviour, to safe drinking water in vulnerable communities. Some were playful, others serious. All bore the fingerprints of teams that had no obvious reason to exist, except that they had been placed together.

“The camp showed me research doesn’t have to stay inside silos,” says Zimai. Inspired, Zimai is already planning a joint project with a fellow participant at Berlin Science Week.

Real human beings do science and have vulnerable sides

Ramona left with new optimism about cross-field collaborations. Iryna gained courage to shift direction in her own research. And Gizem saw how the experience could shape the Stress Response Modeling school itself: “It gave us a shared mindset for how to think about stress in biology, society, and beyond.”

Jan’s takeaway was simpler: “Take your time. Be curious. Don’t just finish a project—understand it.”

An experiment in science itself

In an academic system that often equates productivity with speed, IceLab Camp offered another lesson: there is a different way of doing science. Con

structive rather than competitive, creative rather than rushed, human rather than hurried.

For four days in Granö, beside the yellow birches and a flowing river, twenty young scientists were given space to experience this. They left with new ideas and new collaborators, but also with something harder to measure: the experience of science as it might be if we made time for it.

IceLab Camp in Three Words

Busy, inspiring, night sky (Iryna Yakovenko, Postdoctoral fellow at Umeå University).

Nature, magical, diverse (Sena Gizem Süer, Stress Response Modeling PhD student at Umeå University).

Take your time (Jan von Pichowski, PhD student at University of Würzburg, Germany).

Learning, structure, welcoming (Ramona Ottow, PhD student at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain).

Open-minded, Balanced, Supportive (Zimai Li, PhD student, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany).