On Tuesday, March 23rd 2021, the President of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization’s Scientific Council, Professor Emil Constantinescu, attended an online meeting of the Board of Trustees of the World Academy of Art and Science.
The reunion tackled a broad selection of important objectives. Given the forthcoming and thorough reorganization of the Academy, by way of elections of new Trustees and new Fellows, Associate Fellows and Junior Fellows alike, a new and more robust set of norms and operational regulations for the Academy needed to be elaborated. Further, the Academy’s 2021 budget was also discussed and revised, representatives of the Academy to various partner international organizations such as the United Nations and the World University Consortium appointed, and a mentorship programme for junior members of the Academy was put in place. Moreover, the meeting established a new editorial committee for the reorganization of the Academy’s scientific journal Eruditio, led by Rodolfo Fiorini, Professor at the Polytechnic University of Milan and WAAS Fellow. Lastly, the Board declared the Academy’s support of the Jena Declaration on Humanist and Social Sciences, aimed at revitalizing these scientific fields in the context of new and emerging global challenges.
Another important topic discussed during the Board’s reunion concerned the replacement of two WAAS-appointed members of the Institute’s Scientific Council. At present, two of its five members appointed by the World Academy – Heitor Gurgulino de Souza and Ivo Šlaus – have retired due to medical reasons; and therefore, two new members of the World Academy will need to be appointed to the Scientific Council, following forthcoming discussions on proposed candidacies and the candidates’ validation by the Academy.
During the meeting, President Constantinescu presented in brief an overview of the Institute’s ongoing project, The World Post-COVID-19: A Humanist Vision for Sustainable Development, as well as the steps taken thus far to prepare the project for its transformation into a bilingual volume, to be published in both Romanian and English. As part of the project, the World Academy of Art and Science and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization have partnered in organizing a series of conferences and panels dedicated to the topic, while distinguished members of the Academy such as Garry Jacobs, Donato Kiniger-Passigli, Fadwa El-Guindi, Winston Nagan, Thomas Reuter, Ash Pachauri, Saulo Casali-Bahia, Michael Marien, David Jeffries and Mariana Bozasan have contributed opinion pieces to the project, which can be accessed through the project’s online platform hosted by the Institute’s website.