Science academies in the 21st Century: Can they address the world's challenges in novel ways?

Authors

  • Ellis Rubinstein

Abstract

Challenged to speculate on what roles science academies might play in the 21st century, the author of this chapter, who heads a unique academy with many novel initiatives, acknowledges the important and diverse roles now played by the most successful academies. He then distinguishes these roles from those played by the earliest academies, whose efforts, he says, have surprising relevance today. The author propounds a theory that the complex challenges of the modern world can best be addressed through multilateral, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional and multi-sector partnerships. He provides some examples of innovative alliances, and posits that neutral and highly respected institutions are best suited to the tricky task of facilitating them. He describes examples whereby his academy has facilitated multilateral partnerships, and concludes that other science academies could make enormous contributions to the advancement of science by joining his academy in this role of respected, neutral facilitator of global alliances to address science and technology-related challenges.

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Published

2012-03-01

Issue

Section

Tercera part: Reflexions entorn del passat, present i futur de la biologia i les societats científiques