How can research best address the challenges we face today? Academia, more specifically academic research as it exists now, is losing the ability to address the crises of today. And the issues we face are linked to the limitations of our ways of thinking and understanding our place in the world. Hence addressing them requires convening all sources of knowledge and creativity. A transformation in the pathway of research can only happen when transdisciplinary models of thinking and community-driven research initiatives are considered to be the mainstream.
The BRIDGES Coalition, supported by UNESCO and its international science programme Management of Social Transformations, is a cutting-edge initiative by a large number of partners working together towards the reframing of research to serve humanity in ways attuned to the magnitude of the challenges. The Club of Rome invited participants in the 2023 LearningPlanet Festival to a joint session with BRIDGES as an introduction to the work being done, including a discussion of what comes next.
Organised on the first day of The Learning Planet Festival this interactive session featured Raad Sharar and Vice President Carlos Alvarez Pereira of The Club of Rome, together with UNESCO Assistant-Director General for Social and Human Sciences Gabriela Ramos, President of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences Luiz Oosterbeek, filmmaker Maria Clara Parente, PhD candidate Snothile Mkhize of University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, BRIDGES Coalition Founding Executive Director Steven Hartman and other guests from the Coalition’s developing communities of purpose. Watch the full session here.
