Events by TJD

The Unit­ed Nations Envi­ron­ment Pro­gramme (UNEP) and the Inter­na­tion­al Sci­ence Coun­cil (ISC) are cur­rent­ly estab­lish­ing an inde­pen­dent fore­sight expert pan­el. It will devel­op a for­ward-look­ing and cul­tur­al­ly sen­si­tive sus­tain­abil­i­ty strat­e­gy for pol­i­tics and research. This should help to bet­ter man­age sit­u­a­tions of uncer­tain­ty and dis­rup­tive changes on a glob­al scale. The pan­el — com­posed of 20 dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sion­als from across the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty — is intend­ed to fos­ter for­ward think­ing to proac­tive­ly address chal­lenges and make deci­sions that ben­e­fit the glob­al envi­ron­ment. The Inter­na­tion­al Geo­graph­i­cal Union (IGU) nom­i­nat­ed Prof. Dr. Ben­no Werlen for the ​‘Fore­sight Expert Pan­el’ based on his research pro­file and as ini­tia­tor and coor­di­na­tor of inno­v­a­tive trans­dis­ci­pli­nary projects such as the ​“2016 Inter­na­tion­al Year of Glob­al Under­stand­ing”, from which the ISC itself emerged. Like­wise, his long-stand­ing involve­ment in the Euro­pean Research Coun­cil, the Agence Nationale de la Recher­ché and Acad­e­mia Europaea is highlighted.

Edu­ca­tion on Tech­nol­o­gy for Human Security

How can tech­nol­o­gy edu­ca­tion meet human secu­ri­ty needs while impart­ing the knowl­edge need­ed to min­i­mize the side effects of technologicaldeployment?

To the session

Trans­dis­ci­pli­nary Per­spec­tives for Human 

Explor­ing how edu­ca­tion can sup­port human secu­ri­ty for all through trans­dis­ci­pli­nary, holis­tic, human-cen­tered perspectives.

To the session

Edu­ca­tion in the Arts for Human Security

Lib­er­al arts edu­ca­tion as a pow­er­ful medi­um for pro­mot­ing social aware­ness, under­stand­ing, val­ues and com­mit­ment to human secu­ri­ty for all.

To the session

The Human­is­tic Approach 

Explor­ing changes in con­tent and ped­a­gogy that can make the full spec­trum of human­i­ties edu­ca­tion a more effec­tive and con­scious tool to pro­mote Human Secu­ri­ty for All.

To the session

Human Secu­ri­ty and Glob­al Under­stand­ing: Towards New World Rela­tions
Ben­no Werlen 

Wide­spread aware­ness of how every­day actions are exposed to glob­al and local secu­ri­ty threats is nec­es­sary. This includes the abil­i­ty to under­stand con­nec­tions between actions that may seem dis­con­nect­ed across time and space. 

Read more: PDF, 281 KB

Infor­ma­tion about the lec­ture series can be found at the fol­low­ing link: 

Lec­ture series

Zur Orig­i­nal-Mel­dung von Clau­dia Hilbert

Prof. Dr. Ben­no Werlen ist erneut in das Prä­sid­i­um des Lan­desver­ban­des Sach­sen, Sach­sen-Anhalt und Thürin­gen der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Vere­in­ten Natio­nen (DGVN) gewählt wor­den. Der Sozial­geo­graph ist seit 2018 Inhab­er des UNESCO-Chairs on Glob­al Under­stand­ing for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty an der der Friedrich-Schiller-Uni­ver­sität Jena. Das Prä­sid­i­um wurde anlässlich der Mit­gliederver­samm­lung in Erfurt im Novem­ber 2022 neugewählt. Ihm gehören ins­ge­samt 19 Mit­glieder an. Die Amtspe­ri­ode dauert vier Jahre. Ben­no Werlen ist bere­its seit 2019 Mit­glied des Präsidiums.

Die DGVN wurde 1952 als gemein­nütziger Vere­in in Baden-Würt­tem­berg gegrün­det und hat bun­desweit 2000 Mit­glieder. Ziel ist es, die Öffentlichkeit über die Ein­rich­tun­gen, Grund­prinzip­i­en und die Arbeit der Vere­in­ten Natoinen zu informieren und die aktuelle UN-Poli­tik aktiv mitzugestal­ten. Die DGVN ist in aktuell sieben Landes­verbänden organ­isiert. Der Lan­desver­band Sach­sen, Sach­sen-Anhalt und Thürin­gen veröf­fentlicht regelmäßig einen Pod­cast zu The­men der Außen- und Sicher­heit­spoli­tik und organ­isiert ver­schiedene Ver­anstal­tun­gen wie Schul­pro­jek­te und Vorträge.

Guide­lines for Knowl­edge Mobilization

The thought lead­er­ship paper ​“Future Knowl­edge Mobi­liza­tion for Deep Soci­etal Trans­for­ma­tions”, authored by Ben­no Werlen, Joanne Kauff­man, and Karsten Gae­bler is avail­able for down­load now. The paper was pub­lished as part of a series on Knowl­edge Mobi­liza­tion, issued by the Cana­di­an Com­mis­sion for UNESCO and the Social Sci­ences and Human­i­ties Research Coun­cil of Cana­da (SSHRC), who spon­sored the project. The series of sev­en thought lead­er­ship papers deliv­ered by UNESCO Chairs from Cana­da and world­wide address­es top­ics such as open edu­ca­tion, geo­graph­i­cal­ly embed­ded knowl­edge, or inter­cul­tur­al and inter­na­tion­al research with Indige­nous and rur­al peoples.

Guide­lines for Knowl­edge Mobi­liza­tion in a time of pro­found soci­etal change are addressed in the paper deliv­ered by the UNESCO-Chair on Glob­al Under­stand­ing for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Based upon a series of inter­views with experts in the field of trans­dis­ci­pli­nary sus­tain­abil­i­ty sci­ence and sci­ence pol­i­cy, the authors first describe over­ar­ch­ing trends that shape the envi­ron­ment of cur­rent Knowl­edge Mobi­liza­tion, such as the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion, de-/glob­al­iza­tion, or shift­ing rela­tion­ships between sci­ence and soci­ety. In the sec­ond part of the paper, they sug­gest dif­fer­ent strate­gies to make Knowl­edge Mobi­liza­tion more effec­tive, e.g., col­lab­o­ra­tion with local com­mu­ni­ties based upon a more par­tic­i­pa­to­ry cul­ture and epis­temic diver­si­ty, build­ing insti­tu­tion­al frame­works that reward bound­ary-cross­ing research, or the pro­mo­tion of ​“real life” learn­ing approach­es in edu­ca­tion­al contexts.

The full brochure is avail­able here:
Eng­lish ver­sion PDF, 12 MB
French ver­sion PDF, 12 MB.

In the cur­rent cli­mate change sce­nario, solv­ing the envi­ron­men­tal imbal­ances can be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to build a renewed per­spec­tive of society’s progress and wel­fare, hav­ing as a start­ing point the con­cil­i­a­tion of eco­nom­ic, social, and envi­ron­men­tal interests.

In this sense, the 4^th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence of CEGOT has a sig­nif­i­cant objec­tive to debate the role of Geog­ra­phy in the Con­struc­tion of Sus­tain­able Territories.

In an impor­tant moment in the His­to­ry of Human­i­ty, Geog­ra­phy has an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to reaf­firm itself as Science.

Prof. Dr. Ben­no Werlen deliv­ered as keynote speak­er the conference’s open­ing lec­ture on ​“Glob­al Under­stand­ing – Under­stand­ing the Glob­al Con­di­tion. A new geo­graph­i­cal par­a­digm for the 21^st cen­tu­ry?” on Wednes­day, Octo­ber 26, 9:00 – 10:00 a.m.

Under the slo­gan ​“con­nect, empow­er, and trans­form”, the Glob­al Cit­i­zen­ship Con­ven­tion (GCC) has tak­en place at the Friedrich Schiller Uni­ver­si­ty of Jena from Octo­ber 13 – 21. More than 70 par­tic­i­pants from 20 dif­fer­ent coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ed in the conference.

The pri­ma­ry motive of the Glob­al Cit­i­zen­ship Con­ven­tion 2022 is to bring peo­ple togeth­er from all over the world, to con­nect them, and to enable an exchange of young pio­neers, prac­ti­tion­ers, and experts to devel­op col­lab­o­ra­tive solutions.

Prof. Dr. Ben­no Werlen deliv­ered an intro­duc­to­ry pre­sen­ta­tion to the pan­el dis­cus­sion ​“Mak­ing Sense of the World” on the top­ic ​“Cul­tur­al and Region­al Dimen­sion of Glob­al Sus­tain­abil­i­ty”. He also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the sub­se­quent World Café.

More infor­ma­tion: The Glob­al Cit­i­zen­ship Convention

On the occa­sion of the Gen­er­al Assem­bly on Sep­tem­ber 6, 2022, Prof. Ben­no Werlen has been appoint­ed as a mem­ber of the World Cap­i­tal Insti­tute Exec­u­tive Committee. 

The World Cap­i­tal Insti­tute (WCI) World Cap­i­tal Insti­tute is an inde­pen­dent inter­na­tion­al think tank whose pur­pose is to fur­ther the under­stand­ing and appli­ca­tion of knowl­edge as the most pow­er­ful lever­age of devel­op­ment. Its head­quar­ters are in Queré­taro, Mex­i­co and it has sev­er­al offices around the world.

WCI focus­es on five the­mat­ic pro­grams: Knowl­edge-Based Devel­op­ment, Knowl­edge Cities, Alter­na­tive Economies, Knowl­edge for the Anthro­pocene, and City Pre­pared­ness for the Cli­mate Cri­sis. WCI pro­motes this through four main ser­vices and path­ways. In addi­tion to pub­lish­ing the Jour­nal of Knowl­edge-Based Devel­op­ment, the­mat­i­cal­ly rel­e­vant edit­ed vol­umes, one of the main activ­i­ties has been offer­ing and main­tain­ing the glob­al recog­ni­tion plat­form for cities and region­al knowl­edge clus­ters for the Most Admired Knowl­edge Cities (MAK­Ci) Award MAK­Ci. Also promi­nent is the Knowl­edge Cities World Sum­mit, the annu­al WCI con­fer­ence, that just cel­e­brat­ed its 15^th con­sec­u­tive edi­tion under the theme ​“Action­able Knowl­edge for the Anthro­pocene”: Wel­come to KCWS 2022.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion and con­tact details can be found at the WCI web­page: World Cap­i­tal Institute.

“Cul­tur­al and region­al diver­si­ty should be the start­ing point for any and all sus­tain­abil­i­ty strategies.”

The project involves 20 Prac­ti­cal Steps towards a Cul­tur­al Age. Here is the link to the project and Ben­no Wer­lens contribution:

Cul­ture as a Reality

Päi­jät-Häme’s Cul­ture and Wel­fare Devel­op­ment Day, Lathi, Finnland.

Project Lumobag

Sup­port­ed by the Bavar­i­an Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs, Region­al Devel­op­ment and Energy

ZIB Mag­a­zine did a fan­tas­tic report on the Sci­ence Moon­shot 2022.

ZIB Mag­a­zine — Lumobag

“LUMOBAG”, the win­ning project by physi­cist Rad­ko Pavlovec and com­mu­ni­ca­tion expert Andrea Pavlovec-Meixn­er was devel­oped from an idea based on ele­men­tary physics to mar­ketabil­i­ty in all sci­en­tif­ic, tech­ni­cal, eco­nom­ic, and eco-social details dur­ing the 72 Moon­shot hours.

What can our lives and our liv­ing togeth­er look like in the future that is per­me­at­ed by sus­tain­abil­i­ty? What can a cul­ture of sus­tain­abil­i­ty look like? These ques­tions are debat­ed at the UNESCO Chairs Con­fer­ence « Cul­tures for Sus­tain­able Futures » at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Jena by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of UNESCO Chairs, artists, com­mit­ted cit­i­zens as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of inter­na­tion­al organizations.

The videos of the con­fer­ence on youtube

RWYC 2^nd INTER­NA­TION­AL SEMINAR

This Inter­na­tion­al Sem­i­nar orga­nized by Recon­nect­ing With Your Cul­ture to cel­e­brate the 40^th. World Her­itage Day on April 18, 2022 is designed to exam­ine the cru­cial role that cul­ture can play in cre­at­ing the sys­temic change and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment that are required to chart a new course for human­i­ty and the world in the future. 

Theme:

CUL­TURE: KEY TO SYS­TEMIC CHANGE AND SUS­TAIN­ABLE DEVELOPMENT

A sem­i­nar to exam­ine the cru­cial role of cul­ture in cre­at­ing the sys­temic change and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment that are required to chart a new course for human­i­ty and the world in the future. 

Every six months, the EC2U Alliance orga­nizes a week to pro­mote open dia­logue on press­ing soci­etal issues and share best prac­tices. The 4^th EC2U Forum was host­ed by Uni­ver­sità di Pavia from April 4 – 7, 2022 in Pavia as a hybrid event. Stu­dents, teach­ers, researchers, employ­ees of all sev­en EC2U uni­ver­si­ties, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the sev­en cities gath­ered to con­tin­ue the ongo­ing work to build the Alliance. Prof. Dr. Ben­no Werlen, UNESCO Chair on Glob­al Under­stand­ing for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at Friedrich Schiller Uni­ver­si­ty, deliv­ered the keynote address on ​“Cul­tur­al and region­al dimen­sions of glob­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty” at the ​“SCC Vir­tu­al Insti­tute” on April 6^th.

Coop­er­a­tion with the UNESCO Chair Art and sci­ence for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals, INC Cre­ative Busi­ness School, Nancy.

Chair: Prof. Paul Shrivastava

The Jena Dec­la­ra­tion @ Inter­na­tion­al UNESCO Chairs Forum at Expo Dubai

Italy and UNESCO at Expo 2020 Dubai joint­ly orga­nized the Inter­na­tion­al UNESCO Chairs Forum on the Futures of High­er Edu­ca­tion to mark the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Edu­ca­tion 2022. The Forum fits with­in the over­all frame­work of UNESCO’s Futures of Edu­ca­tion ini­tia­tive which seeks to gen­er­ate an agen­da for glob­al debate, research, and action on the futures of edu­ca­tion, learn­ing, and knowl­edge in a world of increas­ing com­plex­i­ty, uncer­tain­ty, and pre­car­i­ty. The Jena Dec­la­ra­tion has been pre­sent­ed in the last sec­tion of the con­fer­ence as a part­ner­ing project of the Ital­ian UNESCO Chairs Dec­la­ra­tion for Sustainability.

5^th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Future Edu­ca­tion is orga­nized by the World Uni­ver­si­ty Con­sor­tium and World Acad­e­my of Art & Sci­ence. This con­fer­ence will exam­ine the chal­lenges in high­er edu­ca­tion today, and iden­ti­fy cat­alyt­ic strate­gies capa­ble of address­ing glob­al prob­lems, sup­port­ing imple­men­ta­tion of the UN SDGs and Human Secu­ri­ty for all.

The Jena Dec­la­ra­tion was pre­sent­ed on Decem­ber 6, 4 – 5 PM in the frame­work of:

Glob­al Lead­er­ship Chal­lenge in High­er Edu­ca­tion for Effec­tive Mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism & Sus­tain­able Human Security

Chair: Ben­no Werlen

Pan­elists

- Mam­phela Ram­phele: Co-Pres­i­dent, The Club of Rome
- Anne Snick: Philoso­pher of Edu­ca­tion KU Uni­ver­si­ty Leu­ven, Club of Rome; Fel­low WAAS
- Joanne Kauff­man: Inde­pen­dent Expert, Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Sci­ence, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of
Tech­nol­o­gy (MIT).
- Fad­wa El Guin­di: Cul­tur­al Anthro­pol­o­gist, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les; trustee WAAS
- Sander van der Leeuw: Direc­tor of the ASU-SFI Cen­ter for Bioso­cial Com­plex Sys­tems, Ari­zona State
Uni­ver­si­ty
- Car­los Alvarez-Pereira: Exec­u­tive com­mit­tee, The Club of Rome; Fel­low, World Acad­e­my of Art &
Sci­ence
- Luiz Oost­er­beek: Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil for Phi­los­o­phy and the Human Sci­ences
(CIPSH)
- Howard Blu­men­thal: Founder, Kids on Earth; Pro­duc­er, Rein­vent­ing School, The Uni­ver­si­ty of
Penn­syl­va­nia
- Paul Shri­vas­ta­va: Direc­tor of the Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Insti­tute and Chief Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Offi­cer, Penn­syl­va­nia
State Uni­ver­si­ty, Mem­ber of The Club of Rome

The press­ing glob­al crises today are soci­etal rather than pure­ly envi­ron­men­tal issues.
Read the arti­cle ​“What Con­sti­tutes Soci­etal Trans­for­ma­tion?” by Ben­no Werlen. 

Learn more

In coop­er­a­tion between RWYC and the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion & Cul­ture of the Repub­lic of Indone­sia presents the 1^st Inter­na­tion­al RWYC Con­fer­ence 2021, ​“Recon­nect­ing with Your Cul­ture in The World” — We are Ambas­sadors of Culture. 

BACK­GROUND

Ana­lyz­ing the real­i­ties of dif­fer­ent coun­tries of the world, from the Far East to the far West, there is a need to acti­vate a new ​“human­ism” and for this rea­son, it is nec­es­sary that Cul­ture enters ful­ly into the whole ideation of the new and inno­va­tion on which it is impor­tant from now on to invest. To do all this, how­ev­er, we must start from the younger gen­er­a­tions and then plant seeds to obtain good fruits and there­fore a very good har­vest in the near future.

In con­junc­tion with Nation­al Cul­tur­al Week (Pekan Kebu­dayaan Nasion­al 2021) in Indone­sia, it is the right moment to hold an Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence address­ing Cul­ture. We would be pre­sent­ing the inter­na­tion­al ped­a­gog­i­cal project ​“Recon­nect­ing with your Cul­ture” pro­mot­ed by the EdA Inter­na­tion­al Research Cen­ter Esem­pi di Architet­tura and UNESCO Uni­ver­si­ty and Her­itage. The project pur­sues the ​“Qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion” objec­tives of the UN 2030 Agen­da. The ped­a­gog­i­cal method ​“Recon­nect­ing with your cul­ture” brings chil­dren and young peo­ple clos­er to the themes of cul­ture and civic for­ma­tion because only by know­ing and enhanc­ing their respec­tive cul­tur­al her­itages is it pos­si­ble to appre­ci­ate the present and build the future well. For these rea­sons, it is very impor­tant to hold this Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence address­ing Cul­ture in Nation­al Cul­tur­al Week (PKN 2021).

AIMS

• Intro­duc­ing RWYC ped­a­gog­i­cal method to Indone­sia and Inter­na­tion­al audiences.
• To bring young gen­er­a­tions clos­er to the val­ues and con­tent of local cul­tures, at the same time expos­ing them to the diver­si­ty of cul­ture in the world.
• To open dia­logu­ing between nations based on cul­ture address­ing cul­ture edu­ca­tion to the young generation.
• To share cul­tur­al knowl­edge from Indone­sia and Inter­na­tion­al participants.
• To present some per­for­mance, craft­ed, draw­ing or oth­er cul­tur­al prod­ucts from chil­dren in Indone­sia and Inter­na­tion­al as well.

CON­CEPT OF ACTIVITY

RWYC Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence con­sists of online activ­i­ties through the zoom plat­form to intro­duce the ped­a­gog­i­cal method of RWYC Inter­na­tion­al pre­sent­ed by Glob­al Direc­tor of RWYC Inter­na­tion­al Prof. Olimpia Niglio. The RWYC Indone­sia com­mit­tee will also present the results of the RWYC work­shop in Indone­sia. As one of the ini­tia­tors, the Direc­torate Gen­er­al of Cul­ture of the Repub­lic of Indone­sia Dr. Hilmar Farid will join the conference.

RWYC Net­work, around the world from 4 con­ti­nents will also join as par­tic­i­pants and speak­ers as well. We also have the inten­tion to invite the Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture of the Repub­lic of Indone­sia H.E. Nadiem Makarim.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion is open to the pub­lic in Indone­sia (espe­cial­ly the Edu­ca­tion Bureau from all provinces) and Inter­na­tion­al as well, includ­ing all chil­dren that have par­tic­i­pat­ed in RWYC work­shops from around the world.

This activ­i­ty is an event that is inde­pen­dent pure­ly from ini­tia­tives to sup­port Qual­i­ty Edu­ca­tion in Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals no. 4 pro­claimed by the Unit­ed Nations (SDG UN Goals 2030).

CON­FER­ENCE THEMES

“Recon­nect­ing with Your Cul­ture in the World”
Tagline: We are ambas­sadors of Culture

AGEN­DA

09.00 Open­ing and Intro­duc­tion by Host
09.10 Mes­sage from the Pres­i­dent of RWYC Inter­na­tion­al by Prof. Olimpia Niglio
09.15 Mes­sage from the Direc­torate Gen­er­al of Cul­ture of Repub­lic of Indone­sia by Dr. Hilmar Farid
09.35 Expo­sure About RWYC by Prof. Olimpia Niglio
10.00 Les­son Learned RWYC (RWYC Net­work) by Prof. Rana P.B. Singh and Prof. Adi­ti Mis­ra
10.20 Pre­sen­ta­tion of RWYC Indone­sia (results of RWYC work­shop in Indone­sia) by Dr. Mira Sar­ti­ka
10.40 Video Pre­sen­ta­tion and exhi­bi­tion from chil­dren around the world includ­ing from Indone­sia,
Japan, India, Latin Amer­i­ca, Europe and Africa
10.50 Mes­sage from UNESCO Chair on Glob­al Under­stand­ing for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at the Friedrich
Schiller Uni­ver­si­ty Jena by Prof. Ben­no Werlen. Fol­low with sign­ing cer­e­mo­ni­al the
Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing between UNESCO Chair and RWYC Inter­na­tion­al.
10.55 Mes­sage from the Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion, Cul­ture, Research, and Tech­nol­o­gy of the #
Repub­lic of Indone­sia
11:00 Clos­ing

The 5^th Leisure Expo and Forum
Octo­ber 15 – 17, 2021, Hangzhou, China

The 5^th World Leisure Expo and Forum was host­ed by the World Leisure Orga­ni­za­tion (WLO) and the Hangzhou Munic­i­pal Peo­ple’s Gov­ern­ment on ​“Dig­i­tal Smart Future. Liv­able Par­adise”. Estab­lished in 1952, the WLO is a world­wide asso­ci­a­tion, non-gov­ern­men­tal and non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, that pro­motes leisure as an inte­gral part of social, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The UNESCO Chair hold­er was invit­ed as the Founder and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Inter­na­tion­al Year of Glob­al Under­stand­ing and Chair of the IGU Research Group ​‘Glob­al Understanding’, 

The deliv­ered online pre­sen­ta­tion you find here: 

5^th World Leisure Organization

The online kick-off event will fea­tures con­tri­bu­tions from promi­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the JD action lines, (arts, learn­ing and civ­il soci­ety). They include, among oth­ers, Mam­phela Ram­phele, Co-Pres­i­dent, The Club of Rome; Mir­wais Sidi­ki, Musi­col­o­gist, Afghanistan; youth activists such as Luisa Neubauer, Ger­many; and per­for­mances by artists includ­ing Andy Innes and his group, Musi­cian, South Africa.

All videos of the event on salve​.tv

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The Jena Dec­la­ra­tion on Sustainability

The Unit­ed Nations’ Agen­da 2030 came into force on Jan­u­ary 1, 2016. In this Agen­da, the mem­ber states com­mit­ted them­selves to doing every­thing pos­si­ble over the fol­low­ing 15 years to achieve 17 goals for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in the world. These goals include end­ing pover­ty; edu­ca­tion and a healthy life for all; and achiev­ing sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion. Increas­ing­ly, experts are now point­ing out that despite immense polit­i­cal, legal and finan­cial efforts, the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty is about to miss its last chance to achieve these UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals in time. Mere­ly increas­ing exist­ing resources does not appear to be suf­fi­cient to imple­ment Agen­da 2030.

A net­work of renowned inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions, such as the Club of Rome, the World Acad­e­my of Art and Sci­ence, the Acad­e­mia Europaea, and the Ger­man and Cana­di­an UNESCO Com­mis­sions, is there­fore now call­ing for a clear change of strat­e­gy through a new cul­tur­al approach. On the ini­tia­tive of Prof. Ben­no Werlen of the UNESCO Chair on Glob­al Under­stand­ing for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at Friedrich Schiller Uni­ver­si­ty Jena, more than 30 insti­tu­tions have already adopt­ed ​“The Jena Dec­la­ra­tion”, in which they define a new cul­tur­al approach through which the Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Goals can still be achieved.

Speak­ers at the launch event at 3:00 p.m. on 9 Sep­tem­ber 2021 will include the Co-Pres­i­dent of the Club of Rome, Mam­phela Ram­phele, the Pres­i­dent of the World Acad­e­my of Art and Sci­ence, Gar­ry Jacobs, as well as impor­tant co-sig­na­to­ries to the Dec­la­ra­tion such as Prof. Hart­mut Rosa, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Ger­man UNESCO Com­mis­sion, Dr Roman Luckscheit­er, the Pres­i­dent of the Leib­niz Asso­ci­a­tion, Prof. Matthias Klein­er, but also, the Ger­man cli­mate activist Luisa Neubauer and artists from Afghanistan, Iran and South Africa, among others.

“It will take a broad-based glob­al social move­ment to change think­ing and action“

Top-down mea­sures to tack­le glob­al chal­lenges, which have dom­i­nat­ed so far, can­not take suf­fi­cient account of the diver­si­ty of cul­tur­al and region­al dif­fer­ences. For exam­ple, many glob­al pro­grammes are poor­ly adapt­ed to actu­al local liv­ing con­di­tions and there­fore find lit­tle accep­tance. ​“It will take a broad-based glob­al social move­ment to change think­ing and action for the tran­si­tion towards sus­tain­able pros­per­i­ty. This requires fine tun­ing to local needs and con­di­tions,” empha­sis­es Gar­ry Jacobs, Pres­i­dent of the World Acad­e­my of Art and Sci­ence and one of the first sig­na­to­ries to the Dec­la­ra­tion. The pri­ma­ry aim is to get such a move­ment up and running. 

In order to accel­er­ate and deep­en the nec­es­sary soci­etal change, the Unit­ed Nations and polit­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ers must approach more direct­ly the most impor­tant actors of change: indi­vid­u­als with their every­day rou­tines and habits. The aim of ​“The Jena Dec­la­ra­tion” is to draw greater atten­tion to the way in which human activ­i­ties are embed­ded cul­tur­al­ly, region­al­ly and his­tor­i­cal­ly. Build­ing on this, the net­work is call­ing on every­one to devel­op inclu­sive solu­tions tai­lored to local con­di­tions. This requires first of all a respect­ful appre­ci­a­tion of, and regard for, cul­tur­al diver­si­ty. ​“The fact that young peo­ple world­wide are assigned a cen­tral role in the real­i­sa­tion of the pro­gramme of the Jena Dec­la­ra­tion on Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy and, in my view, absolute­ly nec­es­sary. With­out the ideas, the demands and the com­mit­ment of the gen­er­a­tion of tomor­row, it will not be pos­si­ble to over­come the great social chal­lenges. Today’s gen­er­a­tion is obvi­ous­ly find­ing it very dif­fi­cult to do so. There­fore, young and old, hand in hand for sus­tain­able improve­ment, that can be the key,” empha­sis­es Prof. Uwe Cant­ner, Vice-Pres­i­dent for Young Researchers and Diver­si­ty Man­age­ment for of Friedrich Schiller University.

World Sec­re­tari­at in Jena

The Declaration’s pro­gramme accord­ing­ly aims to reach peo­ple of all ages – espe­cial­ly younger gen­er­a­tions – and of diverse cul­tur­al, social and region­al back­grounds, and to make it eas­i­er for them to act local­ly in the spir­it of glob­al sustainability.

The nec­es­sary change extends into all areas of life, as Mam­phela Ram­phele, Co-Pres­i­dent of the Club of Rome, points out, using edu­ca­tion as an exam­ple: ​“Human­i­ty has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of inter­con­nect­ed plan­e­tary emer­gen­cies upon us. To learn the les­son we have to embrace nature’s wis­dom reflect­ed in indige­nous knowl­edge. At the same time we need to break down the knowl­edge silos in our out­dat­ed edu­ca­tion systems.”

Imple­men­ta­tion of the dec­la­ra­tion will take place along the three pro­gramme lines ​“Art”, ​“Edu­ca­tion” and ​“Civ­il Soci­ety”. These will be coor­di­nat­ed by a World Sec­re­tari­at estab­lished at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Jena in coop­er­a­tion with the Max Weber Cen­tre for Advanced Cul­tur­al and Social Stud­ies (Max-Weber-Kol­leg) of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Erfurt and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar. ​“It is a spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty for Thuringia and Ger­many to be able active­ly to shape future sus­tain­abil­i­ty pol­i­cy togeth­er with such influ­en­tial part­ners and a broad social move­ment,” says Prof. Ben­no Werlen, head of the coor­di­na­tion office.

The livestream of the event and fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found at: 

https://​www​.the​je​nade​c​la​ra​tion​.org/

The Euro­pean Human­i­ties Con­fer­ence will take place from May 5 – 7, 2021 in Lis­bon and as an online event. The con­fer­ence that will be held under the Por­tuguese Pres­i­den­cy of the Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union will address top­ics such as ​“Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Dynam­ics as Edu­ca­tion and R&D strate­gies for mean­ing­ful prob­lem solv­ing“, ​“Her­itage, mobil­i­ty and iden­ti­ties“, ​“Influ­ence and impact of the Human­i­ties in soci­ety“, and ​“The Human­i­ties in the 21^st Cen­tu­ry“. Ben­no Werlen serves as a mem­ber of the con­fer­ence’s sci­en­tif­ic com­mit­tee and as one of the ambas­sadors of the EHC (see here).

Learn more

Vir­tu­al Con­fer­ence
Octo­ber 21 – 22, 2020
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The online con­fer­ence ​“Human­i­ties and Social Sci­ences for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty”, orga­nized by the UNESCO Chair at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Jena (Ger­many), was held from Octo­ber 21 – 22, 2020 at the vir­tu­al Dorn­burg Palaces. Under the aus­pices of the Cana­di­an Com­mis­sion for UNESCO, 24 speak­ers and dis­cus­sants from all parts of the world debat­ed new strate­gies to strength­en human­i­ties and social sci­ences per­spec­tives in sus­tain­abil­i­ty research and policies.

Enter the vir­tu­al conference

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UNESCO ini­tia­tive on the ​“Futures of edu­ca­tion” launch­es edit­ed volume

As part of a glob­al UNESCO ini­tia­tive on the Futures of Edu­ca­tion, launched in 2019, a new book was released in Jan­u­ary 2020. The vol­ume ​“Human­is­tic futures of learn­ing. Per­spec­tives from UNESCO chairs and UNITWIN net­works” address­es how knowl­edge and learn­ing can con­tribute to deal­ing with a world of increas­ing com­plex­i­ty, uncer­tain­ty, and pre­car­i­ous­ness. UNESCO chair hold­ers from all over the world present their exper­tise on top­ics such as com­mu­ni­ties of knowl­edge, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry learn­ing, the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of knowl­edge, or dis­rup­tive inno­va­tion in uni­ver­si­ties. Ben­no Werlen and Howard Blu­men­thal, mem­ber of the chair’s advi­so­ry board, con­tributed a piece on ​“Glob­al under­stand­ing, edu­ca­tion and sustainability.” 

The UNESCO ini­tia­tive is par­tic­u­lar­ly geared to pro­mote per­spec­tives from the human­i­ties and the social sci­ences. As Audrey Azoulay, Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of UNESCO, stat­ed, ​“Our deeply human­ist DNA can­not let us reduce edu­ca­tion to a tech­ni­cal or tech­no­log­i­cal issue, nor even to an eco­nom­ic one.” To coun­ter­act recent trends of a mar­ke­ti­za­tion or instru­men­tal­iza­tion of learn­ing and shape human­is­tic futures of edu­ca­tion, UNESCO has set up an inde­pen­dent Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion under the lead­er­ship of H.E. Sahle-Work Zewde, Pres­i­dent of the Fed­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Ethiopia. The com­mis­sion is com­posed of lead­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty, pol­i­tics, and pub­lic life. For exam­ple, it includes influ­en­tial pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als such as Arjun Appadu­rai or Evge­ny Moro­zov, lead­ing researchers from the edu­ca­tion­al sci­ences such as António Nóvoa, or Vaira Vike-Freiber­ga, for­mer Pres­i­dent of Latvia and cur­rent head of the World Lead­er­ship Alliance/​Club de Madrid. The recent­ly pub­lished vol­ume and the com­mis­sion’s 2020 report will serve to stim­u­late pub­lic debate on the futures of edu­ca­tion and help to shape respec­tive policies.

UNESCO offers var­i­ous ways to get involved in this ini­tia­tive. On an online plat­form, con­tri­bu­tions can be made as text, par­tic­i­pa­tion in a sur­vey, or artis­tic work.

For fur­ther ideas please also con­tact futuresofeducation@​unesco.​org.

On July 22, Ben­no Werlen debat­ed togeth­er with Hart­mut Rosa (Uni­ver­si­ty of Jena/​Erfurt), Tia­go de Oliveira Pin­to (Uni­ver­si­ty of Music Weimar), and jour­nal­ist Michael Hel­bing about world-bind­ing, res­o­nance, music, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. The con­ver­sa­tion took place at Salve TV’s ​“Kul­tur Talk”.

You can watch the full talk here

On the basis of last gen­er­al assem­bly’s deci­sion, Prof. Ben­no Werlen was recent­ly appoint­ed as Fel­low of the World Acad­e­my of Art and Sci­ence (WAAS). Under the mot­to ​“Lead­er­ship in thought that leads to action,” the acad­e­my brings togeth­er schol­ars and artists from all fields to address glob­al chal­lenges and ​“serve the com­mon good of all human­i­ty.” Cur­rent­ly, the acad­e­my has more than 700 mem­bers from all over the globe, eleven of them from Ger­many. WAAS was found­ed in 1960 as an inde­pen­dent insti­tu­tion that facil­i­tates dia­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion with­out vest­ed inter­ests or region­al attach­ments. The found­ing mem­bers includ­ed schol­ars like Albert Ein­stein, Robert Oppen­heimer, or Bertrand Rus­sell. In the past decades, the acad­e­my has emerged as an impor­tant voice of trans­dis­ci­pli­nary, social­ly respon­si­ble research. Among oth­ers, WAAS con­sults UNESCO and the UN Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil (ECOSOC). For Prof. Werlen ​“this appoint­ment allows the UNESCO-Chair a clos­er coop­er­a­tion with UN-orga­ni­za­tions in the fields of research, edu­ca­tion as well as for knowl­edge mobi­liza­tion for deep soci­etal transformations.”

Social trans­for­ma­tions through human­i­ties, social sci­ences, and arts

The first issue of the new inter­dis­ci­pli­nary mag­a­zine ​“Human­i­ties, Arts & Soci­ety” (HAS) will be launched on June 16, 2020. The mag­a­zine cov­ers crit­i­cal top­ics in con­tem­po­rary soci­ety from the per­spec­tive of the human­i­ties, social sci­ences and the arts. It offers a plat­form to pro­mote social trans­for­ma­tions through both aca­d­e­m­ic and artis­tic approach­es. Con­tri­bu­tions include ana­lyt­i­cal texts, doc­u­men­tary projects, and cre­ative propo­si­tions. The HAS project was ini­ti­at­ed by UNESCO’s Man­age­ment of Social Tran­si­tions pro­gram (MOST), the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil for Phi­los­o­phy and Human Sci­ences (CIPSH), the Glob­al Chi­nese Arts and Cul­ture Soci­ety (GCACS), and Mémoire de l’Avenir. Both CIPSH and Mémoire de l’Avenir were long-term part­ners of the 2016 Inter­na­tion­al Year of Glob­al Under­stand­ing. The mag­a­zine will be pub­lished in Eng­lish, French and Chi­nese and is freely available.

The mag­a­zine can be found here.