Chairs: Guy Koninckx, S&O A.S.B.L, Groupe d’Intervention et de Recherche en organisation des Systèmes (G.I.R.O.S.), and UES, Brussels, Belgium, Claude Lambert, Prosoft Sàrl, Kleinbettingen, Luxembourg, S&O A.S.B.L., G.I.R.O.S., and UES, Brussels, Belgium, Rafael Lostado Bojó, University of Valencia, Spain, Presidente de la Sociedad Española de Sistemas Generales (SESGE), and President of UES, Alexandre Makarovitsch, Professeur associé à l’IMA/UCO, AFSCET, Emergence group, and UES, Paris, Andrée Piecq, G.I.R.O.S., S&O A.S.B.L., and General Secretary of UES, Brussels, Belgium, Valérie Renault, Research engineer at the University of Technology of Troyes, AFSCET, and UES, France, Maria Sanz, Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera, SESGE, and UES, Spain, and Anne Steenhout, Groupe d’Etudes Ecotoxicologiques sur les Polluants, la Santé et les Impacts sur l’Homme (GEEPSIH), IGEAT (Institut pour la Gestion de l’Environnement et l’Aménagement du Territoire), Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, S&O A.S.B.L., and UES, Belgium
Presentation of the problem, invited papers, and plenary discussion
Complexity and diversity become the first challenge of our time. This symposium aims to present and discuss observations showing that the pressure applied to scientific and civil societies, makes them suffer and is leading to a peculiar societal context: a global crisis becoming more dangerous day by day because of the emergence of exclusion, discrimination, nationalism, violence, fanaticism, extinction of species, environment poisoning, run to maximum productivity, to speculation, and the pressure to always make something new in all fields. We can say that all those behaviours may be the symptoms of the beginning of the twenty-first century. All of us are pushed by a storm of changes. Homeostasis and the no-change can’t exist. There is no time for understanding and thinking. Everything must be done as if in cases of urgency and when something is just finished it needs to be changed again and again in an endless circular chain. That allows us to say that things are as if everything must always be done in more quantity, ever faster, without pause, without limit, without feedback. Why?
We must enter a new era. If humanity wants to survive, grow and organize itself facing all stacking of societal problems, facing the emergence of new discoveries, our approach toward phenomena has to change. Time has brought us to a new way of seeing societal and environmental programs and the behaviours. The understanding of all these problems will emerge by the study of complexity, of transdisciplinarity. A holistic education may lead to a Meta level.
How?
“La difficulté n’est pas de comprendre les idées nouvelles mais d’échapper à l’emprise des idées anciennes.”
“La dificultad no es comprender las ideas nuevas, es escapar de la influencia de las ideas antiguas.”
“The difficulty is not to understand the new ideas but to escape the influence of the former ones.”
“La difficoltà non è di comprendere le idee nuove, è di liberarsi delle idee vecchie.”
“Die Schwierigkeit das besteht nicht darin die neuen Ideen zu verstehen, das besteht darin sich von alten Ideen zu befreien.“
The aim of this symposium is to identify similarities, analogies, and differences in fields of research and practices. We want to put together persons who have different viewpoints, different experiences in the practice of organisations: pedagogues, doctors, economists… to show how action and research are indissociable.
The symposium will consist in paper presentations and plenary discussions.
Schedule
Session 1
- A few words about the symposium by Andrée Piecq and Rafael Lostado Bojo
- Andrée Piecq: Systemic theoretical knowledge applied to practical action: Strategies to manage human organization in a crisis context
- Rafael Lostado Bojo: SISPROMA: a Knowledge and Integration Platform for Systemics and Project Management to Train Professionals in Managing Change during Crises
- Alexandre Makarovitsch: Boundaries, brakes and/or boosters
Session 2
- Claude Lambert: A transdisciplinarian look on coordination and co-operation in organizations
- Maria Sanz: Welfare and Human Population in Austria
- Anne Steenhout: An ecosystemic approach of complexity in the field of environment and health Scientific assessment, addressing vulnerabilities and the potential for action
Session 3
- Valérie Renault: A systemic “compass” to manage a housingproject’s complexity
- Guy Koninckx: Organizational resilience: a crisis response?
- Round table and discussion
