Project Head:
Thomas Jahn
Project Team:
Thomas Jahn
Egon Becker
Peter Wehling
Diana Hummel
Immanuel Stieß
Funding:
UNESCO, Paris
Duration:
1995 - 1997 more
information
Field of research
Research Area:
Transdisciplinary
Concepts and Methods
about the Institute
|
In light of new kinds of global developmental tendencies and transformation processes,
the social sciences also find themselves in a phase of radical theoretical and conceptual
change. In this situation "sustainable development" has become, since the UN
conference on "Environment and Development in 1992, an internationally accepted model
for environmental and development policy. Intended here is a new idea of societal
development, one which includes the maintenance of a natural basis within it and is
grounded on a sense of responsibility toward future generations.
The idea behind the UNESCO project, which is part of its MOST program ("Management
of Social Transformations"), is to initiate a discussion within the various social
sciences concerning the extent to which "sustainable development" can represent,
as a comprehensive concept, a response to the new problem situation.
The tasks of the project, then, are, first, to initiate a process of discussion and
reflection within the different social scientific disciplines concerning whether and, if
so, how "sustainable development" can be formulated as a viable concept for the
social sciences; and, second, to develop project ideas which, in the course of the
discussions that have been started, can be set up over the long run within the social
sciences.
For 1996 a symposium has been planned to which approximately 20 social scientists,
selected from around the world from various disciplines and countries, have been invited
to attend and to submit papers in preparation. The focus of the symposium consists of four
points:
- to investigate the possibility of an environmentally friendly, socially just and
democratic model of development which is limited neither to economic rationalization nor
technical modernization
- to work out new systems of indicators for the operationalization, evaluation and
auditing of development processes and strategies for action
- to work out the theoretical and methodological consequences of the adaption of
"sustainable development" within the social sciences
- to improve interdisciplinary cooperation among the social sciences and also between the
social sciences and the natural sciences.
Moreover, other important goals are the formulation of further research needs, and the
sketching of future international research programs.
Further
Information
about the project - declaration
|