WU 2040 Impulse Lecture Series

Panel Discussion and lectures

Date: May 13, 2026, 4pm-5:30 pm

Speaker: Gerd Gigerenzer

Language: English

Place: Clubraum LC.2.400* // The event will also be streamed live

*Please note: Registration is required if you wish to attend the event in person on Campus WU.

As the number of seats in the Clubraum is limited, seating is provided on a first-come-first-served basis.

What will the future of universities look like in 2040? What role will educational institutions and the transfer of knowledge play? Technological progress and societal developments are increasingly posing challenges for universities, which WU seeks to address proactively.

We are launching a new impulse lecture series, to be held two to three times per semester, which will take up and discuss selected topics of particular relevance to the future of universities.

Keynote

Gerd Gigerenzer

Teaching Sound Decision-Making: The Future of Higher Education Between Education and Research

Will we still need higher education in 2050? By then, AI assistants may know more than we do, manage our health, invest our money, and recommend which political party we should vote for. The central question is no longer whether students will use AI, but whether they will use it to strengthen their own competence or to delegate their judgment.

This talk asks what universities can and should teach in an age of intelligent machines. Will they survive as places of learning, research, and democratic formation, or be replaced by online tutors, future generations of ChatGPT, or the metaverse? Will higher education narrow its mission to technological know-how and entrepreneurial skills, as many tech leaders envision? Or will it preserve broader human goals: Wilhelm von Humboldt’s ideal of personality development, critical judgment, or Dewey’s and Habermas’s vision of democratic discourse?

The future is not something we can predict with certainty. But it is something we can help shape. I argue that universities should make sound decision-making under uncertainty a central part of higher education. This requires digital literacy, risk literacy, and the courage to remain in charge when algorithms promise convenience, certainty, and relief from responsibility.

Gerd Gigerenzer is one of the world’s most renowned psychologists and decision-making researchers. He was Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development for many years, currently heads the Harding Centre for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, and is Vice-President of the European Research Council (ERC). Previously, he was Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and John M. Olin Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. His research focuses on decision-making under uncertainty, risk and statistical literacy, as well as how people can make good decisions in complex situations even with limited information. His work has had a significant impact on science, politics, medicine, business and education. He is also the author of numerous highly acclaimed books aimed at a wide audience.