The President of the Scientific Council of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization, Professor Emil Constantinescu, took part in the 40th meeting of the Board of Trustees of the World Academy of Art & Science (WAAS), held online on Monday, May 15th, 2023.
In addition to discussing organisational details, the event included a comprehensive presentation on the progress of the global “Human Security for All” campaign (HS4A), launched in January this year with the support of the United Nations. The World Academy’s flagship programme aims to provide a series of guidelines on whose basis mankind can have an open debate on the definition, and applicability, of the concept of “human security”, starting from the seven facets of the term recognised by the United Nations – community, ecology, economics, food, health, personal and political – to which were added, thus far, the technological, religious and consumer dimensions. The technological dimension of the human security debate has seen the most intense discussion. The World Academy participated in the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas between January 9th and 12th, where Academy leaders launched and promoted discussions among the representatives of companies specializing in technologies with mass appeal on how they can enhance human security by way of forthcoming or emerging electronics. On the subject of technology, the World Academy will also launch a new series of webinars starting May 17th that will continue the discussions begun in Las Vegas on safeguarding human security through technology, including discussing the latest advances in Artificial Intelligence or Big Data Management.
Another area of interest for the HS4A campaign has been the promotion of human security through the lens of education and academia. In this regard, the World Academy, in partnership with the World University Consortium and the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest organised an international conference between March 7th and 9th in order to discuss the impact of “Education for Human Security” (E4HS). The event, attended by over 125 invited speakers across 20 thematic panels held in parallel over the three days of the conference, debated the role of education and teaching and academia (broadly defined) in structurally rethinking education systems to meet current challenges to human security around the globe. The final recommendations agreed-upon by the conference participants, which will also be collected in a volume of conference proceedings, aim to constitute a new paradigm responding to the needs of both academia and a labour market in the midst of unprecedented technological flux.
The third area of interest that the World Academy’s global campaign has explored thus far concerns environmental and ecological hazards. In this regard, from April 9th to 23rd 2023 the Academy participated in EarthX 2023, the world’s largest environmental exhibition bringing together environmental organisations, business representatives, academic institutions and government agencies, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of participants from among the general public. Held in Dallas, Texas, the event provided an opportunity for the World Academy to draw attention to the fundamental impact of threats to the environment and human security, opening up fruitful discussions from the event participants focused on identifying and quickly planning the immediate next steps needed to safeguard human well-being and security.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization is a Centre of Excellence of the World Academy of Art & Science, and supports the Academy's initiative to advance academic, political, civil society and business debates on this critical topic: safeguarding human security as a whole.
