In collaboration with the Club of Rome, WAAS organized an E- roundtable on Catalyzing Rapid Social Transformation. This follows the first successful joint meeting between the two organizations on the Emerging New Civilization Initiative in March 2019. This roundtable was held online on March 9, 2020.
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
Donato Kiniger-Passigli
Vice-President
Nebojša Neškovic
Secretary General
Ivo Slaus
Honorary President
Alberto Zucconi
Chairman of the Board
Rodolfo Fiorini
Trustee
Thomas Reuter
Trustee
Natalia Pogozheva
Acting Treasurer
Mila Popovich
Chair
Nominations
Heitor Gurgulino de SouzaHon. President of WAAS
Herwig SchopperFormer CEO
of CERN
Federico MayorFormer Director General
of UNESCO
Ivo ŠlausHon. President of WAAS
& Council Chair
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The World Academy is incorporated in the State of California and Fellows elected from 86 different countries. WAAS is recognized by the US Internal Revenue Service as a tax exempt Public Charity under section 501(c)(3). By CheckMake payable to World Academy of Art & Science and mail the check to: WAAS, 4225 Solano Avenue, Suite 631, Napa, CA 94558, USA. For wire transfer or for additional information on donations, please send an email to donations@worldacademy.org.
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SUBSCRIBE TO FREE ELECTRONIC EDITION ISSN 2038-5242 - Cadmus (Trieste. Testo stampato) |
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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.
