Search for an Alternative Paradigm to address the Multi-dimensional Global Crisis
International workshop organized by
the World Academy of Art and Science and the Library of Alexandria
Alexandria, Egypt -- June 5 & 6, 2013
Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century: Search For New Paradigm, Alexandria, June 2013
Concept of the Conference
The Issue
The world faces an unprecedented dilemma. Expanding opportunities are emerging side by side with intensifying problems. The proliferation of money, technology, education and global interdependence which have been the main drivers of global development is accompanied by rising levels of financial instability, pollution, unemployment, inequality, arms proliferation and social unrest. Humanity seems driven by mutually exclusive, contradictory goals leading to apparently insoluble problems. Piecemeal sectoral solutions are transparently inadequate.
The Question
Today, the world faces multiple crises of unprecedented scale and seriousness. These crises share common attributes. They all transcend narrow disciplinary boundaries, thus defying solution by partial, sectoral approaches. They are all global in nature and cannot be fully addressed without coordinated actions by the international community. Approaches to resolving the challenges are subject to conflicting claims, priorities and interests. The lack of significant progress on addressing these issues in recent years has raised doubts about the collective capacity of the human community to effectively address them. There is presently no consensus as to whether real, effective solutions are possible and what those solutions should be. Is there any way in which apparently mutually contradictory goals of prosperity, security, sustainability and social justice can all be realized?
Trieste Meeting
Following up on recent articles on this topic in Cadmus Journal, an exploratory discussion was held on March 7 at Castle Duino near Trieste. Among many valuable insights, discussants identified as serious impediments the limitations imposed by the present social construction of knowledge, i.e. the way we perceive and frame the issues, and the tendency to examine complex interconnected issues as if they can be understood in isolation. Stress was placed on the need for new thinking and integrated, value-based theory in the social sciences. The obstacles posed by the current system of international institutions founded on the principle of national sovereignty, the absence of institutional mechanisms for humanity to exercise legitimate rights, and the gap between the rapid pace of technological change and the slower rate of cultural evolution were also emphasized. The increasing speed and reach of global communications, the shift in emphasis to Human Capital intensive development strategies, and the growing prominence of social networks were cited among a list of game-changing emerging trends.
Alexandria Event
As the next step in this process, the Library of Alexandria and the World Academy collaborated with a small group of like-minded organizations and individuals to identify the core elements of an integrated perspective, comprehensive strategy and detailed policy framework capable of addressing the multiple challenges through a more fundamental paradigm change.
The Alexandria workshop addressed the following broad issues:
Search for an Alternative Paradigm to address the Multi-dimensional Global Crisis
International workshop organized by
the World Academy of Art and Science and the Library of Alexandria
Alexandria, Egypt -- June 5 & 6, 2013
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June 5, 2013 |
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11:00 am – 1:00 pm |
Session 1: Introduction Issue: Is there any way in which humanity can realize the apparently conflicting goals of prosperity, security, sustainability and social justice? Topics:
Speakers:
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1:00 pm – 2:15 pm |
Lunch |
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2:15 pm – 3:45 pm |
Session 2: Economy & Employment Issues: How can global food security, full employment and abolition of poverty be achieved within a decade? How can the necessary financial resources be generated and mobilized to achieve the goals of global development? Topics:
Moderator: Garry Jacobs Report on Geneva conference |
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3:45 pm – 4:15 pm |
Coffee Break |
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4:15 pm - 6:00 pm |
Session 3: Energy & Ecology Issue: How can global living standards be raised to middle class levels without depleting or destroying the environment or depriving future generations of the capacity to sustain these achievements? Topics:
Moderator: Jakob Von Uexkull, President, World Futures Council, WAAS Fellow Report on Geneva conference – Alexander Likhotal, President, Green Cross International |
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6:00 pm |
Departure to Hotel |
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June 6, 2013 |
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9:00 am –10:45 am |
Session 4: Human Capital Issue: How can humanity fully tap the potential of a human-capital and social-capital based strategy for global development? Topics:
Moderator: Dr. Aly Eldean Hilal, Professor of Political Sciences, Cairo University Report on Geneva conference – Heitor Gurgulino de Souza, Member, WAAS Board of Trustees and former Rector, UN University |
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11:15 am – 1:00 pm |
Session 5: Governance & International Security Issues: How can we evolve a global cooperative security system that permanently eliminates war and the threats posed by WMD? How can we design and implement system of global governance capable of implementing necessary measures to achieve the other five goals for the welfare and well-being of all? Topics:
Moderator: Mutaz Qafisheh, Professor of Law, the Hebron University, Palestine, Israel and WAAS Fellow Report on Geneva conference – Winston Nagan, Professor of Law, University of Florida, & Member, WAAS Board of Trustees |
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1:00 pm – 2:15 pm |
Lunch |
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2:15 pm - 3:45 pm |
Session 6: Elements of a New Paradigm Issue: On what essential ideas, principles, values, strategies, policies, and institutional mechanisms should the new global paradigm be founded? Topics:
Moderators: Ismail Seregeldin & Garry Jacobs Speakers:
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3:45 pm – 5:30 pm |
Closing session followed by a Coffee Break |
Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century: Search For New Paradigm, Alexandria, June 2013
Conference Participants
WAAS FELLOWS:
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Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis |
Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis is a Visiting Professor of Bioethics at Panteion University, Athens, Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, Honorary Professor of St. Petersburg State Technological University for Plant Polymers, Active Member of the The Club of Rome, Founder and President of the Hellenic Chapter of the Club of Rome, Founding Member of the Middle East Division of Learning Without Borders, Member of the Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO, the Balkan Political Club, the Brussels-EU Chapter of the Club of Rome, the International Bioethics Society etc. She is also Commissioner on The Global Commission to Fund the United Nations, Founding Member of the Balkan Academy of Sciences, New Culture and Sustainable Development and Co-Founder of the International Science Foundation, Scholarship Trustee for the Hellenic Canadian Association. She has also served as Vice-President of the International Bioethics Society, Honorary President of the Association Members and Coordinator for the Mediterranean Region of the "Life in Space" project, and Vice President of the UNESCO-MAB Hellenic National Committee. She is a graduate of Columbia University's Barnard College (B.A.), New York University (M.S.) and the University of Athens (Ph.D.) |
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Heitor Gurgulino de Souza |
Heitor Gurgulino de Souza, currently President of the Brazilian Chapter of the Club of Rome and a member of the Board of Trustees of the World Academy of Art and Science, recently retired as Vice President of the Club. Prof. Gurgulino de Souza was appointed to the Council of the United Nations University (UNU) in 1986 and was selected by the UN Secretary General as UNU’s Rector the following year. He served in Japan (1987-1991 and 1992-1997) in the truly global and interdisciplinary University, was a Special Advisor to the Director General of UNESCO (1988-1989) and Vice-Rector of UNILEGIS, of Brazil’s Federal Senate. He worked for 16 years as Rector of the Federal University of São Carlos, S. Paulo, and as Director of the Department of University Affairs in the Ministry of Education, Director of the National Research Council (CNPq) and, by Presidential appointment, was a Member of the Federal Council of Education, both in Brasilia. Earlier he was Professor Emeritus of Physics at the State University of São Paulo, Brazil, and conducted research work in the Department of Physics at the Universities of Kansas (USA) and S. Paulo, and worked in the Department of Scientific Affairs at the Organization of American States in Washington, DC (USA) and helped set-up its large Regional Programs of Science and Technology. |
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Gerald Gutenschwager |
Gerald Gutenschwager, Professor Emeritus, School of Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis, MO, USA; Scientific Fellow, Department of Regional Planning and Development, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece. Formal education and experience have focused on research, education and administration in relation to planning, international development, urbanization, and health. These concerns have prompted investigations and experiments in social theory,planning theory, educational gaming and simulation, social change, time budgets, the political economy of health and the philosophy of social science.Additional research has focused on modernism and postmodernism as expressed in social theory, urbanism and architecture. Practical work experience has ranged from a city planning department in the U.S. (Chicago) to an extensive tenure with public and private agencies and offices overseas in Athens, Greece.Teaching experience has ranged from junior high to graduate school and with students from all of the continents over a sixty year period since the 1950s. Publications include numerous articles, reviews and presentations, as well as two books: The Political Economy of Health in Modern Greece (1989), Athens, Greece: The National Center of Social Research (in Greek), and Planning and Social Science; a Humanistic Approach (2004). Lanham, MD: University Press of America, also published in Greek by The University of Thessaly Publications, Volos, Greece. |
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Robert Horn |
Robert Horn is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. Robert Horn, who was originally trained as a political scientist, has a special interest in public policy strategy, organisational learning, and knowledge management, and art. He founded and was, for 20 years, CEO of an international consulting company, Information Mapping, Inc. Today, he concentrates on “Social Messes” (aka “Wicked Problems”). He pioneered dealing with such messes through interactive visual analyses with task group workshops using large, visual “Info-Murals” on such issues as global climate-change, energy security, nuclear-waste-disposal, NASA’s research, and mega-flu pandemic. Horn is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Human Science and Technology Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR), and has taught at Harvard and Columbia and consulted for clients such as Boeing, Dupont, AT&T, HP and other Global 1,000 companies as well as the British Foreign Office and the UK nuclear waste disposal agency. He is a member of Global Business Network and a fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences and the International Futures Forum. He has received lifetime achievement awards from two international research organizations. He is also the initial explorer of the semantics of putting words and visual images together in his book, Visual Language: Global Communications for the 21st Century. |
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Garry Jacobs |
Garry Jacobs is Chairman of the Board of Trustees, World Academy of Art & Science; Managing Editor of Cadmus Journal; and Vice-President, The Mother’s Service Society, a social science research institute based in India. Earlier, Mr. Jacobs served as Executive Director and Member Secretary of the International Commission on Peace & Food. He is a researcher, author and consultant on the process of economic and social development as well as a management consultant to firms in a wide range of industries in the USA, Europe and India on strategies to elevate corporate values, accelerate growth, and improve profitability. He is co-author of several books and more than 100 articles on the process of corporate growth, economic and social development, psychology, peace, security and international affairs. Mr. Jacobs was elected to the Academy in 1995 and has also served as the chairman of the Strategic Planning Committee and chairman of the Committee on Peace & Development. |
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Alexander Likhotal |
Alexander Likhotal is the President of Green Cross International. He holds doctorates in Political Science from the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (1975) and in History from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, USSR Academy of Sciences (1987). In addition to an academic career as a Professor of Political Science and International Relations, he served as a European Security analyst for the Soviet Union leadership. In 1991, he was appointed Deputy Spokesman and Advisor to the President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. After Mr. Gorbachev’s resignation, Professor Likhotal served as his advisor and spokesman and worked at the Gorbachev Foundation as the International and Media Director. Having joined Green Cross International in 1996, he is actively involved in furthering sustainable development agenda. |
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Winston Nagan |
Winston Nagan is the Sam T. Dell Research Scholar Professor of Law, University of Florida, Levin College of Law, Gainesville, Florida, Founding Director, Institute for Human Rights, Peace and Development and Fellow, Royal Society of the Arts. Prof. Nagan is a member of the Board of Trustees of the World Academy of Art and Science and the Editor-in-Chief of Eruditio Journal, an e-journal published by the Academy. A member of the Editorial Board of Cadmus Journal, Winston Nagan is also the International Editorial Advisor for the Journal of Law and Politics. He served as Chairman of Amnesty International USA (1989-91) and as a member of the Board (1986-92). He also served as President of Policy Sciences Center, Yale Law School (1986-1991) and on numerous groups of international experts on issues related to human rights, biodiversity, indigenous rights, and traditional knowledge. Winston Nagan is an alumnus of the University of South Africa, where he did his B.A (Law), Brasenose college, Oxford, where he got an M.A (Juris), Duke School of Law where he did LL.M. and later Yale School of Law, where he obtained his Doctorate degree in law. |
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Ruben Nelson |
Ruben F. W. Nelson is Executive Director of Foresight Canada – a Canadian not-for-profit dedicated to nurturing the practice of the next generation of strategic foresight at a high professional level. He is Canada’s most experienced teacher and practitioner of strategic foresight and futures research. In 1960, he Co-Chaired what may have been the first formal futures conference in Canada. In 1976, he was one of the founders of the Canadian Association of Futures Studies, and subsequently its third President. He has served as Treasurer and a member of the Executive Board of the World Futures Studies Federation. His primary research interest is in the long evolution of human consciousness, cultures and civilizations. He is particularly interested in the emergence, flowering, decline and transformation of the modern/Industrial form of civilization and the possibility of the emergence of a truly post- modern/Industrial form of civilization. His formal training is in philosophy, political theory and theology. |
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Ljudmila Popovic |
Mila Popovich is a young scholar associated with the University of Colorado at Boulder, whose doctoral work focuses on the issues of woman’s migrations and subjectivity within globalization processes. She is a Junior Fellow at the World Academy of Art and Science, where she serves on board of the Membership Communications Committee. She is an Associate Expert on Gender Issues and Humanities within the Seventh Research Framework Programme at the European Commission. Additionally, Popovich is an Associate Editor for the “International Journal of the Humanities,” and a member of the Editorial Board of the “Journal of Women’s Entrepreneurship and Education,” of the Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade. Equally invested in the critical work as well as creative, she has published on a range of interdisciplinary topics such as international cinema, nationalism and women’s issues, new economic paradigm and global crisis. On the creative side, she has been publishing poetry both in her native Montenegro and in the U.S., as well as performing as an international dance artist. As an activist, Popovich is engaged in the environmental and women’s issues in her resident community of Denver, Colorado. |
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Mutaz Qafisheh |
Mutaz M. Qafisheh is a Professor of International Law and Legal Clinic Director, Hebron University, Palestine. He holds a PhD in International Law, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. He is a practising international lawyer, advising a number of international organizations, including the UN and the PLO. He has formerly worked as Human Rights Officer, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Beirut and Ramallah; Regional Director, Penal Reform International, Middle East and North Africa, Amman; Director, Security Sector Reform, Birzeit University; Director, Legal Education, Palestinian Law Schools, Jerusalem; Legal Advisor, Palestinian Parliament; Co-Founder, Human Rights Program, Al-Quds-Bard Honors College, Jerusalem and New York. His twenty-five studies include: Palestine Membership in the United Nations: Legal and Practical Implications (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013); The International Law Foundations of Palestinian Nationality (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008); ‘Article 1D: Definition of the Term ‘Refugee,’’ in A. Zimmermann, ed., The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary (Oxford 2011); ‘The Dilemma of Legislative Reform in Line with International Standards on Gender Equality in the Islamic World: The Case of Palestine’, International Journal for Legislative Drafting and Law Reform (London 2013); ‘The Ability of the Palestinian Legal System to Secure Adequate Standards of Living: Reform or Failed State Duty,’ Asian Journal of International Law (Cambridge 2013). |
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Ismail Serageldin |
Ismail Serageldin is the Director of Library of Alexandria, and also chairs the Board of Directors for each of the Library’s affiliated research institutes and museums. He serves as Chair and Member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific and international institutions and civil society efforts which includes the Institut d'Egypte (Egyptian Academy of Science), US National Academy of Sciences (Public Welfare Medalist), the American Philosophical Society, TWAS (Academy of Sciences for the Developing World), the Indian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is former Chairman, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, 1994-2000), Founder and former Chairman, the Global Water Partnership (GWP, 1996-2000) and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP), a microfinance program (1995-2000) and was Professor of the International Chair Savoirs contre pauvreté (Knowledge Against Poverty), at Collège de France, Paris, and Distinguished Professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Dr.Serageldin has also served in a number of capacities at the World Bank, including as Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (1992-1998), and for Special Programs (1998-2000). He has published over 60 books and monographs and over 200 papers on a variety of topics including biotechnology, rural development, sustainability, and the value of science to society. |
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Jakob von Uexkull |
Jakob von Uexkull is a Fellow, World Academy of Art & Science; Chair, World Future Council. He is the founder (1980) of the Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'. He is a co-founder (1984) of The Other Economic Summit and a past Member of the European Parliament (1987-9) where he served on the Political Affairs Committee. He is a patron of Friends of the Earth International and a member of the Global Commission to Fund the United Nations. He served on the UNESCO Commission on Human Duties and Responsibilities (1998-2000). He has also served on the Board of Greenpeace, Germany, and on the Council of Governance of Transparency International. He lectures widely on environment, justice and peace issues. He is also a recognised philatelic expert with publications including 'The Early Postal History of Saudi Arabia' (London, 2001). |
Non-Fellows:
| Aly Eldean Hilal |
Professor of Political Sciences, Cairo University, Ex-member of the Shoura Council. He chaired the Political Science Committee of the Supreme Council of Culture, member of the board of Directors, the National Center for Social Studies and editor in chief of the quarterly journal Al Nahda (Renaissance). He served as Egypt’s Minister of Youth (1999-2004), Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University (1993-1999) and Director of the Center of Political Studies and Research at Cairo University (1986-1993). He was a member of: the UN Special Experts Group on Disarmament and Development (1979-1980), the ACLS/SSRC committee on the comparative study of Moslem Societies (1988-1991), Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, IISS (London) for nine years (1983-1992) the UN Expert group on the Economic Aspects of Disarmament and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDER) (1991-1992). He was a visiting professor at the American University in Cairo, Calgary Univ., Univ. of California at Los Angeles, and Princeton Univ. His publications in English include: Islam and Power, Egypt and the great powers, Islamic Resurgence in the Arab World, The future of the Arab Nation, Egypt’s Economic Potential, and Foreign Policies of the Arab States. |
| Saad Eddin Ibrahim |
Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a Professor of Sociology at the American University in Cairo and a prominent human rights activist in Egypt. Ibrahim founded the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Cairo and the Arab Organization for Human Rights. He has been criticized for accepting international funds to promote civil society and election monitoring in Egypt, and for suggesting that the United States should condition its aid to Egypt on improvements in the country's human rights record. Ibrahim is currently working with the Arab Democracy Foundation in Doha to promote philanthropy and Arab investment in development. In this interview, Ibrahim speaks about his involvement in the promotion of human rights and civil liberties in Egypt. He also shares how Islam has impacted his work and the work of others in human rights development. |
| Nadine Mourad Sika |
Nadine Mourad Sika is an assistant professor of political science at The American University in Cairo, Egypt. Before joining AUC, she was visiting scholar at the Political Science Institute of the University of Tübingen in Germany and assistant professor of political science at the Future University in Egypt. She is currently consultant to the UNDP; a member of the Board of Directors of Partners in Development, an independent Egyptian think tank; and a contributing author to International Democracy Watch's "First International Democracy Report" in 2011. Dr. Sika received a Ph.D. in comparative politics from the University of Cairo. |
Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century: Search For New Paradigm, Alexandria, June 2013
Conference Papers & Presentations
Papers/ Presentations
Background Papers
Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century: Search For New Paradigm, Alexandria, June 2013
Ideas, Principles & Values for a New Paradigm
This report presents ideas discussed at the WAAS international conference at UN in Geneva and the Library of Alexandria workshop in June 2013. They represent an initial, incomplete set of guidelines for evolving a new global paradigm to address the multiple challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. This document is intended to serve as a basis and stimulus for further discussion.
Core Concepts
Economy
Energy & Ecology
Human Capital
Governance & Security
Send comments, modifications and additions to paradigm@worldacademy.org
Opportunities and Challenges for the 21st Century: Search For New Paradigm, Alexandria, June 2013
Conference Photos
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Garry Jacobs, Winston Nagan & Heitor deSouza |
Ismail Serageldin, Garry Jacobs & Winston P. Nagan |
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Mutaz Qafisheh, Ismail Serageldin, Garry Jacobs, Winston Nagan, |
Librarian, Ismail Serageldin, Garry Jacobs & Winston P. Nagan |
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Winston Nagan, Heitor deSouza, Aly El Din Hilal, Robert Horn, |
Winston Nagan, Heitor deSouza, Aly El Din Hilal |
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Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis, Mary Gutenschwager, Gerald Gutenschwager, |
Heitor deSouza, Aly El Din Hilal, Robert Horn, Alexander Likhotal |
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Left to Right: Winston P. Nagan, Gerald Gutenschwager, Garry Jacobs, Robert Horn, Heitor Gurgulino de Souza, Ruben Nelson, Agni Arvanitis, Jakob von Uexkull, Ljudmila Popovic, |
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The World Academy of Art & Science (WAAS) was founded in 1960 by eminent intellectuals including Albert Einstein; Robert Oppenheimer, Father of Manhattan Project; Bertrand Russell, Joseph Needham, co-Founder of UNESCO; Lord Boyd Orr, first Director General of FAO; Brock Chisholm, first Director General of WHO and many others. The Academy serves as a forum for reflective scientists, artists, and scholars dedicated to addressing the pressing challenges confronting humanity today independent of political boundaries or limits, whether spiritual or physical -- a forum where these problems can be discussed objectively, scientifically, globally, and free from vested interests or regional attachments to arrive at solutions that affirm universal human rights and serve the common good of all humanity. WAAS is founded on faith in the power of original and creative ideas -- Real Ideas with effective power -- to change the world.
Our motto: Leadership in thought that leads to action
WAAS Fellows come from diverse cultures, nationalities, intellectual disciplines and professions, chosen for eminence in the natural, technological and social sciences; the arts and humanities; different professions and fields of public service. Its focus from the beginning has been to address global social challenges. Its founding motive comes from the knowledge that academic knowledge cannot be separated or divorced from the social responsibility of how the knowledge is used.
WAAS approaches all its activities from a value-based, human-centered, comprehensive and transdisciplinary perspective encompassing issues related to peace and security, human rights and governance, economy and finance, education and human development, society and culture, technology and ecology. It is engaged in a variety of activities with UN organizations. The Academy collaborates with a network of national centers and international partners around the world.
One of the aims of the Academy's founders was to function as "an informal WORLD UNIVERSITY”. In pursuit of this goal, in 2013 WAAS collaborated with other organizations to found the World University Consortium(www.wunicon.org). In collaboration with WUC, it conducts a series of international conferences on future education, curriculum development roundtables to develop new transdisciplinary subjects, and pilot projects in collaboration with experimental partnering educational institutions.
WAAS has been accorded special consultative status by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and consultative status by UNESCO.
The World Academy of Art and Science is an association of committed individuals drawn from diverse cultures, nationalities, occupations and intellectual pursuits spanning the arts, humanities and sciences, conscious of the profound social consequences and policy implications of knowledge, and united by a common aspiration to address the urgent challenges and emerging opportunities confronting humanity today. Our mission is to promote cross-disciplinary dialogue generative of original ideas and integrated perspectives that comprehend the root causes and effective remedies for our common problems, while furthering those currents of thought and social movement that affirm the value of human dignity and equitable development. The Academy dedicates itself to the pursuit of creative, catalytic ideas that can provide to present and future generations enlightened leadership in thought that leads to effective action.
The idea of founding an international association for exploring major concerns of humanity in a nongovernmental context grew out of many conversations that took place among leading scientists and intellectuals in the years following World War II. Prominent among this group were people such as Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer who had played a part in the development of the atomic bomb and were deeply concerned about how it and other scientific advances might be used – or misused.
This informal project took a major step forward in 1956, when a meeting – The First International Conference on Science and Human Welfare – was held in Washington, D. C. The organizers were two American scientists: Richard Montgomery Field of Princeton, who had worked for many years as chairman of an international committee on the social values of science; and John A. Fleming, former President of the International Council of Scientific Unions. At the end of the conference, participants agreed to take steps toward the formation of a World Academy, and elected an International Preparatory Committee for that purpose. Its members were: (from France) Pierre Chouard, George Laclavére and G. Le Lionnaise; (from the United Kingdom) Ritchie Calder, H. Munro Fox and Joseph Needham; and (from the United States) Robert Oppenheimer.
The Academy was formally founded (and its first officers elected) in 1960. They were: as President, Lord John Boyd Orr of Scotland; as Vice Presidents, Hermann Joseph Muller of the United States and Hugo Ostvald of Sweden; and, as Secretary General, Hugo Boyko of Israel.
Garry Jacobs
President & CEO
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Vice-President
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Heitor Gurgulino de Souza
Hon. President of WAAS
Herwig Schopper
Former CEO of CERN
Federico Mayor
Former Director General of UNESCO
Ivo Šlaus
Hon. President of WAAS Council Chair
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Being a world academy composed of members drawn from the arts, social and physical sciences, humanities, business, public administration and civil society poses fundamental questions. How can WAAS distinguish itself from other national and regional academies? Is there really a common meeting point between art and science? Is there a unique contribution that WAAS can make to the world’s knowledge?
At the New Delhi General Assembly, Fellows explored facets of a new program framework developed by the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) which seeks to answer these questions in the affirmative. Rather than distinguish itself by specializing on a particular set of disciplines, issues or geographic area, the framework is an attempt to formulate a comprehensive approach and integrated perspective of knowledge inclusive of all disciplinary perspectives and applicable to social problems and opporunities in all fields.
The core of the framework is a human-centered conception of what constitutes reliable knowing, a question posed to the SPC by Ruben Nelson. In his presentation to the GA, Garry Jacobs explained how this conception applies to WAAS’s projects on new economic theory, individuality and limits to rationality. Pushpa Bhargava pointed out that a human centered perspective naturally incorporates ecology, since the survival and full development of humanity depends on its capacity to evolve in harmony with the environment.
Cadmus is a journal for fresh thinking and new perspectives that integrate knowledge from all fields of science, art and humanities to address real-life issues, inform policy and decision-making, and enhance our collective response to the challenges and opportunities facing the world today.
Eruditio is the electronic journal of the World Academy of Art & Science. The vision of the Journal complements and enhances the World Academy's focus on global perspectives in the generation of knowledge from all fields of legitimate inquiry.
