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Introduction
The top priority of the 3rd Millennium is World Society Well Being and Quality of Life. The
World Society Well Being and Quality of Life Project (WSWBQoLP) includes
the World Summit on World Society Well Being and Quality of Life (an
IMNRC-NewPOL Network initiative) that shall be hosted by China and that
has received official encouragements from the European Commission (Dalli
Cabinet) and United Nations (Sec Gen). A recent personal communication
from the European Parliament Presidency (a European Parliament Resolution
of 8 June 2011 on "GDP and beyond – Measuring progress in a
changing world.") illustrates the growing political importance that
is given to the whole project. I now understand much better why
International Institutions have been encouraging our efforts and turning
to us. The World Society Well Being and Quality of Life Project in fact forms a part of the IMIRC. We present two resumes: 1. General Introduction - Standard Version (March 2013)Further information can be found by visiting http://www.imnrc.org/NCN/NewPOL%20Network/newpol.htm ---> The Present...
On World Society Well Being and Quality of Life...
The
World is faced with the most difficult and urgent challenge of all times -
World Society Well Being and Quality of Life, the Third Millennium’s Top
Priority – that it finds itself powerless to manage. The
World cannot deal with World Society Well being and Quality of Life
because this is a typical integrated interdisciplinary challenge,
something that education has not prepared it for. The
United Nations, European Institutions, Arab League, African Union, … as
structured, are not configured to achieve let alone sustain
World Society Well Being and Quality of Life. A new integrated
interdisciplinary participative bottom-up top-down global governance model
is needed. But this shall lead nowhere and to further chaos as long as
each lives in a conceptual maze. The first priority is therefore how to
get out of the conceptual maze. This is the Interface Paradigm. Society
Well Being and Quality of Life is a natural full blown extension and
integration of "interdisciplinarity". Take any
College/University in any country and look through their programmes:
hyperfragmented thematics with an impressive choice of (usually) expensive
unidisciplinary degrees... Have all these qualifications improved World
Society Well Being and Quality of Life? No. Well
Being and Quality of Life articulates, blends together all the traditional
curriculum’s fragmented components and far beyond. This is something
that the existing Educational
System cannot do. There is no
curriculum for World Society Well Being and Quality of Life simply because
World Society Well Being and Quality of Life IS the whole curriculum; but
interconnected. The existing
Educational System does the opposite: it fragments
and breaks the connections... Since
the curriculum, the thematic “Society Well Being and Quality of Life”
already exists (but not perceived because presented in a disarticulated
form), it makes no sense creating a theme on “Society Well Being and
Quality of Life” because not only shall you be again fragmenting, but
most do not have the capacity to deal with this highly complex integrated
interdisciplinary challenge in the first place. How can you increase this capacity? By reconfiguring the mindset and making it receptive to interdisciplinary presentations of data. This is what the National (any Country of course) Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile Evaluation Team that shall in turn help in achieving and thereafter sustaining National Society Well Being and Quality of Life, shall help devising. (Please see below). I
feel it would be a good idea if a World Society Well Being and Quality of
Life Project Event could be created at the European Commission and
European Parliament. I shall put through the suggestion to the Commission
and Mr Buzek.
The International Interface Research Center (IIRC)
The
World Society Well Being and Quality of Life Project (WSWBQoLP) is an
integrated interdisciplinary challenge something that the world
educational system has not prepared us for. The reactions and feedback I
am receiving from academics is clear evidence that existing Universities
are not prepared to deal with integrated interdisciplinary challenges. In
order to deal with the WSWBQoLP (or any integrated interdisciplinary
challenge) you first need to change the world educational system. This
means turning to the Education of Tomorrow: integrated interdisciplinarity. All
Human Beings are potential Leonardo da Vincis. How are we going to
“teach”, awaken and develop their latent integrated interdisciplinary
potential? There are no such institutions. You have to create one. This
shall be the futuristic International Interface Research Center (IIRC)
that shall be discussed during Part III of the International
Multidisciplinary Interface Research Congress (IMIRC). If
the IMIRC could be fused with or directly follow the Summit on World
Society Well Being and Quality of Life, this would be ideal. The
WSWBQoLP is already achieving part of its objectives: i.
A general awareness that the existing educational system (from school to
university) is NOT appropriate and sufficiently powerful to deal with
integrated interdisciplinary challenges ii.
Forces nations to think globally: collective awareness regarding the fate
of our planet iii.
Illustrates clearly and simply the complexity of issues that must be
solved for New Global Governance
How To Get Started...
In
order to proceed with an evaluation of Society Well Being and Quality of
Life at World Level, you first need to begin at National Level in every
country. So,
to attend and be eligible for this Summit, each country shall have to
present its own National Society’s Well Being and Quality of Life
Profile. Now this is a challenge of such complexity that
"experts", academics and politicians shall be out of their
depth. This is a typical integrated interdisciplinary challenge something
that education has not prepared them for. And
this is where we come in: assistance in setting up and supervising a
National Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile followed by
coordination and synchronisation for the Summit Presentation including
follow up for National Society Well Being and Quality of Life achievement
and maintenance. 1. Any
National Team is a multicomponent representation of the interests and
concerns of the citizens. Each citizen is invited to participate in
areas/projects of interest for his/her own and national fulfilment... So
any Team is made up of people from all backgrounds and different
organisations. In other words there would be perhaps, say, five people
from one organisation, others would come from other organisations,
academia, civil society, artistic backgrounds, ... all fields of personal
and national interest in any given country obviously. How can we set
up this National interdisciplinary team? The Team Members shall be chosen
from our academic definition of Well Being and Quality of Life (please
refer to the General Introductions). So the "Target Group" shall be a team of people each representing a component of its National Society Well Being and Quality of Life. Once the Team has been set up, the components [or rather each component representative (academic, any stakeholder)] shall interact and see how to make something coherent out of this all. There necessarily IS a connection; if the latter is not seen, it is not the connection that should be questioned but the education one has received that prevents you from seeing the connection. Then we can begin drafting a methodology for assessing the Citizen's Well Being and Quality of Life in his/her own Country's Society, create the profile, achieving and finally sustaining Natonal Society Well Being and Quality of Life. We need
interactive contacts in each country who shall forward the initiative to
colleagues across that country to create this National Interdisciplinary
Network = The Team. Maybe the first contacts shall only be 3 ---> 9
---> 27 ---> 81 ... etc The Team is a vital ally for any national governance. I hope you see this. 2. National Society Well Being and Quality of Life evaluation teams have to be set up from scratch in every country. This can only be achieved by applying the Education of Tomorrow: integrated interdisciplinarity (an application of Interface Theory). Now,
the present level of understanding regarding Interdisciplinarity is
alarmingly low; that of Integrated Interdisciplinarity is practically non
existent. Indeed,
some time ago there was an international two-day colloquium on
“Interdisciplinarity” at the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine,
Sciences and Arts. Professors came from all over the world. After two days
of lectures, I had to conclude that the successive panels were completely
out of their depth. They only had a superficial conceptual understanding
of interdisciplinarity and had obviously not assimilated the notion. I
told them so. This is in fact a serious issue when recruiting NewPOL Network Team Leaders. Please remember that the NewPOL Network forms part of the IMNRC, the official legal academic institution of reference. Selection of NewPOL Team Leaders is based on their profile, outstanding integrated interdisciplinary and leadership potential. They in turn select their own Team Members. NewPOL Team Leaders and Members are called National Coordinators (NCs). The NewPOL Team Leader is the Principal NC (PNC) for his/her own country. This post can only be managed as a full time job. PNCs direct ALL the NewPOL Network's national and international activities. These are multiple: CWINs (Customised World Interdisciplinary Networks), Pilot Schemes, (WSWBQoLP) World Society Well Being and Quality of Life Project, IMIRC (International Multidisciplinary Interface Research Congress), EU FP and Non-FP Calls for Proposals, Non-EU Calls for Proposals, Private Projects). Principal NCs are First Movers. They are Pioneers. They are of a different calibre and very difficult to find. Once selected, there is always a trial period. NewPOL Team Members can choose their project(s) of interest amongst the NewPOL Network's activities. More details and clarifications on the Role of NCs are available here. 3.
You can only really understand how to proceed once you are « in » the
Team. There
are five stages: i.
Evaluation of the citizen’s Well Being and Quality of Life in your
Country’s Society ii. Creating your Country's Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile iii. Achieving Well Being and Quality of Life in your Country's Society iv. Maintaining (sustaining) Well Being and Quality of Life in your Country's Society v.
Each
Stage shall enable you to understand how to proceed with the next stage.
For example, you can't possibly deal with Stage 3 before completing Stage
1. Stage 1 determines Stage 2 that determines Stage 3 and so forth... The
former paves the way for the latter. The
first challenge is to set up your country’s Society Well Being and
Quality of Life Profile Evaluation Team. This in itself is not only
difficult because the Team, a highly articulate national network, must
have thoroughly understood what exactly is meant by Society Well Being and
Quality of Life but also because this means cross-networking between
internal compartmentalised (geo)political structures. You shall have to
reconnect somehow... You can already see the educative value of the
initiative for your country even before applying the project. A
group of people in country X is contacted through their diplomatic
representation in Brussels (or directly through National Institutions and
potential partners) and proposes a Team. We exchange e-mails and select
together the final Team. The Team has of course fully understood the Well
Being and Quality of Life Definition in the Resume. They then see how to
adapt this definition to their own country’s mentality. We then create a
proposal on the best way to proceed with the profile creation (most
appropriate methodology: national media, public information,
questionnaire, other, etc…). The final proposal is submitted to the
country’s own national institutions for funding (see below). Each
National Network Team and Leader shall have their profile posted on our
website.
Once
the National Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile has been
created, the next step shall be to achieve and thereafter maintain
(sustain) national society well being and quality of life. The
very evaluation of the citizen’s well being and quality of life in
his/her own country’s society followed by the World Summit have a high
educational value from bottom-up and top-down. It shall change the mindset
making it more receptive to integrated interdisciplinarity enabling
collective holistic awareness. Once the evaluation has been completed,
achieving and the maintenance (or sustainability) of National Society Well
Being and Quality of Life can be considered after the Summit. In other words, there is a continuum: evaluation of a country’s Society Well Being and Quality of Life --- > National Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile --- > Achieving National Society Well Being and Quality of Life ---> Sustainable National Society Well Being and Quality of Life ---> Sustainable World Society Well Being and Quality of Life. This is essential to understand. This continuum is: The World Society Well Being and Quality of Life Project. We advise and supervise the proceedings through e-mails and regular interactive discussions with the Teams directly. I am prepared to meet the teams in their own country whenever necessary. I welcome NC Applications (see above). He/she would help me out and take on the responsibility of supervising a National Society Well Being and Quality of Life evaluation team. Initial contacts in Brussels with potential colleagues who shall return to their respective countries should considerably facilitate the creation of the National Society Well Being and Quality of Life Assessment Team in their country. They can help interconnect with other participants in their country who have been contacted through Brussels. Once
each National Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile has been
completed, it shall be compared to the other national Society Well Being
and Quality of Life Profiles during the Summit in order to see how these
could be articulated together. What can be done to and how can we improve,
bearing in mind that we are all astronauts living together on spaceship
Earth? The
next stage shall be how to achieve a sustainable National - and thereafter
World - Society Well Being and Quality of Life. This as we said shall be
post-Summit work. Since
this Summit, paving the way to New Global Governance, is the first of its
kind, it is difficult to estimate the amount of time that shall be needed
to create a National Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile. This
shall vary from country to country. We initially proposed to give each
country about one year and that the profile be ready for presentation by
September 2012. Then came the FP7. Whether One leitmotiv in Green Week 2011 was the shocking inertia in virtually anything that has to be undertaken to make things change. "Everybody always waits for the first movers, for others to move first..." The result being that many wait a very long time indeed... Considering the terrible inertia to get anything moving in this world, I had proposed that the hosting country for the Summit (in this case China) would only proceed with its own Society Well Being and Quality of Life Profile once a respectable number of other countries had (nearly) completed theirs. Once there is a REAL atmosphere of mutual trust and determination regarding the WSWBQoLP, we shall make direct official arrangements to determine a Summit date with China. Simultaneaous multilateral preparations for the Summit would inspire and encourage all to proceed actively in this enterprise. I need to discuss all this with many different EU DG Departments. The
challenge ahead is difficult. So
by all means, please do not hesitate to get back to us.
Funding
The World Society Well Being and Quality of Life Project is the only initiative that can defuse the ticking time bomb that threatens our civilisation. Therefore
many possible sources of funding are and MUST be available.
1. National Contribution This should be a
National Duty and considered as an International Obligation. Besides, it
is in every country’s interest to become eligible for this summit
because of the enormous opportunities that such a meeting shall offer to
the participants (including China). Funds must be provided by: i. National Funding Institutions. ii. The Private Sector. 2. Continental Contribution Funds must be provided by Continental Organisations and Institutions, including the Private Sector. i. Europe a. The EU 7nth Framework Programme (FP7).
b.
Other possibilities are under discussion. ii. Latin America iii. Asia iv. Africa v. Oceania vi. Counries/Territories not included in the UNO 3. World Contribution Funding considerations - and this is the case for every single National Team in the world - shall be discussed at National, International and Private Sector levels once the Teams have been constituted.
Deadlines I
personally prefer to concentrate on the WSWBQoLP, the 3rd
Millennium’s top priority. If national interdisciplinary teams can be
set up with the support of the population and local/national authorities,
this is a major achievement for any country. During this time, I shall continue to send in FP7 proposals provided that I can always find a professional FP7 expert to help me deal with the submission procedure without giving me ulcers. I
shall be informed early December if my Health Proposal has passed Stage 1.
If so, I shall have to present THREE proposals in February because Stage 2
for the Health Call is also February. In other words, the Science and
Society proposal PS4 and the SSH proposal CWIN 9 shall both have to be
nearly ready by early December 2011. It
is important to realise that the creation of a National Society Well Being
and Quality of Life Profile Evaluation Team, the preparation, the
presentation for funding, the practical application of the proposal and
the final submission of the Profile is a collaborative enterprise between
each country and the IMNRC-NewPOL Network based on interactive feedback.
An
Introduction to Integrated Interdisciplinarity A
few months ago, I was offered a choice between two thematics for a
meeting. The
first one was: “geopolitical background and balance of power in
neuroscience” I
replied: « You should not think "thematically"... » Interface
Theory demonstrates that not only is there no neuroscience, no
geopolitics, no balance of power as isolated challenges but that this is
also the case for the trio [neuroscience + geopolitics + balance of
power]. "Geopolitical
background and balance of power in neuroscience" is however worded in
a very interesting and challenging way. This could be a very good
conventional introduction to how "hard" and "soft"
"sciences" necessarily interact in everyday life. The
challenge is definitely very complex and I very much doubt that present
day neuroscientists would be able to take up the challenge: you need
Interface Theory. It
could even be the title for a conference. This
said, I have become allergic to high level academic lectures with no
tomorrow. In every human being lies a potential Leonardo da Vinci. If the
presentation is not made intelligible and understandable to all including
how it affects their own daily lives (i.e. their own well being and
quality of life), it could do more harm than good. Not only shall the talk
demotivate the public but since the message shall have been poorly
assimilated, this shall limit the public’s possibilities for
reprocessing the data in their own perhaps more original and less
formatted way, discouraging feedback and consequently innovative counter
suggestions between the conventions. The lecture reaches only a few with
no tangible impact for tomorrow. Nothing has changed. The
only useful thematic worth considering is in fact “Planet Earth Society
Well Being and Quality of Life”. This can be applied to any Planet Alpha
for future generations (SETI) when our descendants shall be forced to find
another planet to survive. The
next suggestion was: « neuroscience applied to food scarcity and famine
» I now propose to fuse both suggestions together: "Food scarcity + famine + geopolitical background + balance of power + neurosciences" and integrate them in "World Society Well Being and Quality of Life". You then have: "World Society Well Being and Quality of Life". This
falls under New Global Governance. Here again, you would need Interface Theory.
World Networking
Participation is open to EVERYBODY. Contact us directly here.
Our First Impressions
1rst May - 27th November 2011. The general inertia to get everything going is quite shocking. Complex system theory says that the more complex a system is, the more inert it becomes. The initiative highlights the World System's complexity and chronic internal dysfunctions at all levels. Nations worldwide are invited to think collectively regarding World Society Well Being and Quality of Life. So what's the problem? 1. World Mental Inertia. The material is very new. The challenge is enormous, complex and difficult to fathom for most. Everybody seems so tired and unprepared. The mental apathy is such that many who receive the project do not even take the trouble to visit the links and read the embedded text. They therefore cannot possibly understand the project. Since they do not understand, they decide that others shall not understand and do not forward or reply to the proposal... 2. Bureaucracy and ICT. Nearly six months have been wasted. Diplomatic Representations in Brussels, Belgium are the first obstacles: i. Some have filters that block e-mails from any new correspondents. - ii. Some don't accept attached files for security reasons - iii. Some receive so many e-mails that the e-mail goes unnoticed or gets lost. - iv. Some don't even read the mail and delete it. Some read the mail but do not forward it to their own country. Contacted by phone, we are informed that in order to receive a response there must be a signed document sent by post or fax. Then why are we not notified? - v. In many Diplomatic Representations, there is a separate EU Mission Department. Unfortunately their specific e-mail address is not easily found so the e-mail is initially sent to a general diplomatic e-mail address. Asked why there has been no response, we are told that we must write to the EU Mission directly; we are then given a specific e-mail address. Why then was the original e-mail not automatically forwarded to the EU Mission Department? vi. A minority (two) inform us that their authorities do not intend to participate in the project. After contacting the academic authorities directly, I am informed that a team shall be created! - vii. EU delegations in countries don't help. Some automatically delete the e-mail without reading it. When we phone up, they apologise and we have to send the e-mail to another address. Bureaucratic political support, yes. Active support that requires an effort by helping us to communicate and reach out to the citizens, no. viii. International Organisations like the African Union or Arab League so far don't help us. "It's not our job to circulate material." Period. Fortunately, some diplomatic representations do get back to us, phone up, request some clarifications and propose a meeting at their Embassy. This is the most sensible way to proceed of course. In fact meeting Diplomatic Representations in Brussels and stakeholders in each country directly seems vital to develop this specific project in each country. So there are two major problems here: ICT technical issues and shocking bureaucratic inertia. Solution: we need an army of secretaries, PRs, administrative and academic staff. E-mails have to be resent periodically everywhere, phone calls have to be made repeatedly, meetings have to be arranged with the Diplomatic Corps, receptions have to be organised at the IMNRC-NewPOL Network Residential HQ, travel arrangements have to be made, ... We need help! 3. National Mindset. Education: The Summit is an integrated interdisciplinary global governance challenge, something that the worldwide Educational System has not prepared us for. Many do not see how their area of interest is related to or has any impact on their country's society well being and quality of life. The connexion in their minds is not made, the initiative is not understood and/or sounds unreal: not sufficiently tangible. For example, some Departments in the Life Sciences (or Medicine, Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Human Sciences, Education, Psychology, Politics, so-called "Interdisciplinary Faculties and Research Institutions", Environment, etc...) completely fail to make the link between their area of expertise and Society Well Being and Quality Of Life, as if these areas had absolutely nothing to do with the latter! Makes you wonder... I find this quite alarming in 2011! Some do see the need to completely reconfigure the Educational System, but what is becoming quite obvious is that such a challenge can only be met and dealt with through a New Integrated Interdisciplinary Global Governance Model. The first task that awaits us is deformatting, deconditioning, defragmenting the Mind followed by the Education of Tomorrow: Integrated Interdisciplinarity. Solution: an interactive dialogue must be set up between all the stakeholders in a given country. This means creating a Team that can activate this dialogue and get through to all, cross-linking everybody: population with institutions with academia with civil society with the Government and non Government Institutions and Organisations etc... 4. Where are the others...? The overwhelming majority waits for the first movers, for others to move first... Exactly what the European Commission said during the Green Week 2011 Congress. For more than twenty years in my experience, the pattern hasn't changed. In Congresses, Conferences, Symposiums, ... you meet people who seem so enthusiastic with what you do. Later you realise that this was for the gallery. Most want easy money and/or easy collaborative projects that fall nicely and neatly in conventional framework programmes. New ideas are definitely philosophically attractive for cocktail discussions, but do not mobilise First Movers... But
even First Movers can be a disappointment. The True Pioneers we are looking for are Sustainable First Movers. They are of a different calibre and extremely difficult to find. 5. Belgium. I
am very critical regarding Belgium. Belgium has been without a government
for more than a year now. The country is going to pieces from inside.
Politicians are getting completely out of their depth and just do not know
what to do. The population is quite apathetic. Worse,
the Belgian State shall be tried before the European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg for not respecting human rights, endangering the life of
citizens, and linguistic/racial/ethnic discrimination regarding access to
healthcare for the elderly. This is not ideal for the Capital of Europe, the Capital of Democracy. The result being that the Belgian “government” is making my working conditions terrible: no subsidies, continuous moral harassment (mobbing at work), threats (electricity cuts, other), intimidation, programmed intellectual and financial asphyxiation. The more successful we are on the international scene, the nastier they are in Belgium. I have received invitations to travel outside Belgium. I replied that for the moment, this would be risky for family property reasons. *** A List of Countries interested in this initiative together with a List of Countries that are not interested in improving World Society Well Being and Quality of Life shall be posted.
Follow up The Follow-Up was initially very discouraging for reasons already explained (see Our First Impressions above and recent follow-up comments). The WSWBQoLP concerns all the countries in the world, around 260 countries. Considering the difficulties of getting everything going, we needed catalysers. CWIN 9, our proposal for an SSH FP7 Call, shall be one catalyser. CWIN 9 shall concern "only" 20 countries. However, CWIN 9 shall only be successful as a catalyser if the evaluators understand the way we reconfigure the data for a practical sustainable solution to world peace, and therefore human rights. [More coming soon...] Former Resumes
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