Aktuellt från Strömstad akademi: Nr 5 ,januari 2010

Redaktörens ruta

”God fortsättning på det Nya Året!”

    Ett innehållsrikt kalenderår är slut – och ett nytt, lika innehållsrikt år hägrar framför oss. Det är många utmanande uppgifter som ligger framför:

    Våra planer på ett tvärvetenskaplig framtidseminarium, som syftar till att behandla några kärnfrågor har tagit fast form. ”Utmaning och anmaning” är den preliminära titeln. Seminariet äger rum på Tekniska Museet i Stockholm, fredagen den 5 mars och lördagen den 6 mars. Preliminärt program, se nedan.

    Våra planer på att ge ut en antologi med titeln ”Forskaren i det postmoderna samhället” går också i lås. Vi har fått in många bidrag, se nedan. Antologin inleds av en intervju med förre landshövdingen i Bohuslän, Kjell A. Mattson, se nedan.

    En akademisk festival kommer att äga rum i Strömstad den 17 – 19 juni 2010 varvid några populärvetenskapliga föredrag också föredrag kommer att ges i Stadsparken. Något mer om detta i Rektorns spalt.

Rektor Lars Broman har ordet:

Hej akademiledamöter/Academy Fellows!

The world has just entered not only a new year, but a new decade. Let's hope this will become a decade with less war, less famine, and less terrorism than the previous decade, but instead with forceful measures against climate change being taken. Also for Strömstad Academy it is a new year, which we hope will continue our development into an important Institute for Advanced Study. We can definitely look forward to an active and interesting year: The Perspective Seminar Challenge and Request 5-6 March in Stockholm - see separate Invitation and Call for Abstracts. Our first Anthology - with many of you as chapter authors - will be published during the spring. Our 2nd Interdisciplinary Conference and Academic Festival 17-19 June in Strömstad - invitation will be sent to you by the end of March, but note the dates already now The Academy attracted many new Fellows during 2009, and hopefully our growth will continue during 2010.

We now have an office in Strömstad City Hall, up under the roof ridge (but unfortunately with no elevator). It is nice and bright and with breathtaking view over the archipelago and the western horizon. There are two desks, a sleeper for one person, and a small kitchen - really a good place for retreat during a week of undisturbed thinking and writing. The office is at your disposal free of charge, so you are welcome to reserve it for the time you want by contacting me at akademi@stromstad.se.

 We have now reached enough academic depth and academic width to begin marketing us in different ways. Most important are your activities, by using your status as Fellow of Strömstad Academy e.g. whenever you publish a scientific paper or give a presentation at a conference. Whenever you do so, please send me a short note about it, so it can be published on our web site. During much of the summer and autumn 2009, we had technical problems with the web site, but now it is working well again, so please take the time to improve it. Many of you have sent me a personal description for the site, but there are quite a few of you who still have to do it. So please do - our site is an important display window for us. It is better to send me just a few lines about yourself than to wait forever!

You are also more than welcome to undersign what you publish and make public with your name + Strömstad Academy as your address. If, however, you would like to publish something on behalf of the Academy, you must have the Board's permission to do so. In such a case, send me your manuscript for approval before publication. I hope this doesn't discourage you, since we have to collaborate in making our Academy well known. Presently, an article about us is due in Universitetsläraren 1/2010 on 25 January, and another article in Dalarna's most read weekly paper Annonsbladet, also in January.

Probably most important way of making others learn about our existence, especially among prospective new Fellows, is that all of us spread information about us among colleagues and friends. Attached to this message are English and Swedish updated versions of our small brochure. Distribute it electronically, or print it and hand it over or - if you need it, let me know how many copies you would like and I can print it out and send it to you.

A new year also means that you have to pay a new yearly membership fee. Some of you have already done it in advance, but I would ask the rest of you to pay SEK 600:- to plusgiro: 487542-3 or bankgiro: 341-2913 or, if from outside Sweden, to IBAN 9500 0099 6034 0487 5423, BIC NDEASESS, Bank Nordea, SE-10571 Stockholm, SWEDEN no later than 31 January. The fee includes a copy of the Anthology.

 Looking forward to meeting you in Stockholm in March and/or in Strömstad in June! Lasse.

Prorektor Carl E. Olivestam har ordet:

Bidraget kommer att, läggas in på hemsidan.

Framtidsseminariet: ”Utmaning & Anmaning!”

Seminariet organiseras som ett samverkansprojekt mellan Strömstad akademi och Tekniska museet.

 Tid och Plats: fredagen den 5 mars och lördagen den 6 mars på Tekniska museet i Stockholm.

Program

Fredag den 5 mars

12.45 Öppnas seminariet av Mariana Back, intendent vid Tekniska museet, Lars Broman och Aadu Ott, professorer vid Strömstad akademi.

13 – 15: Tema 1: Leva i klimatsmart värld. Inledare professor Lars Kristoferson, som bl a var generalsekreterare för WWF–Sverige och dess-förinnan chef för Baltic 21 och chef för Stockholm Environment Institute.

15 – 16: Kaffe; Mariana Back guidar i några av museets avdelningar

16 – 18: Tema 2: Lärande på hjärnans villkor.  Inledare professor Aadu Ott, från ”BLI”, Brain and Learning Initiativ, vid Göteborgs universitet.

18 – 19.30: Buffé, typ pizza, och mingel.   

Lördag den 6 mars

10.30 – 12.30 Tema 3: Vetenskaplig allmänbildning, VETA. Inledare professor Erik Hovrén, tidigare landsantikvarie, chef för Tekniska Museet, direktör för Arbetes Museum, ledamot av Sekretariatet för Framtidsstudier...

12.30 – 13.15: Lunch, baguett + Loka.

13.15 –  c:a 16: Möjlighet för akademins ledamöter att presentera bidrag till seminariet. Dessa kan bygga på de bidrag som ingår i Antologin, gärna med kopplingar till framtidstemat.

Det vore värdefullt att sammanställa de tankar och bidrag som kommer fram på seminariet till en ”Proceeding”.

Allmän information om konferensen:

Vi vill minimera den administrativa delen. Vi har ingen konferensavgift, men det medför att vi ber deltagarna att till självkostnadspris stå för egna kostnader för förtäringen.

Eftersom antalet platser är begränsat behöver vi ha in förhandsanmälan om deltagande i seminariet till aadu.ott@stromstadakademi.se. Anmäl också om du vill medverka under lördag eftermiddag.

Antologin

Arbetet med antologin fortskrider som planerat. En lista över inkomna bidrag bifogas. Det mycket intressanta innehållet avspeglar vidden och djupet i kunskaperna hos ledamöterna i akademin.

Eftersom slutredigeringen inte är gjord ännu, finns det möjlighet för ytterligare ledamöter, som vill vara med, att sända in bidrag.

Inledning: Torbjörn Ott intervjuar tidigare landshövdingen i Bohus län,

Kjell A. Mattson som ger sin syn på Strömstads näringsliv igår, idag och imorgon.

Artiklar

Per Sigurd Agrell: Lobbyism

Lars Broman: Strömstad akademi igår – idag - imorgon

Lars G. Blomberg: Professional supervision of doctoral education in science

Lars Broman: Astronomisk allmänbildning ASTRA

Georg Granér: Verklighetens Vidgade-Vyer-Vortex

Kjell-Åke Forsgren: On Natural Sciences and Linguistics from a Historical Perspective

Om naturvetenskap och språkvetenskap I ett historiskt perspektiv

Christina Heldner: Poetry and Physics? On “symmetry brfeaking” in Dante´s

Divine Comedy

Nils G. Holm: Att undervisa religioner

Erik Hofrén: Vetenskaplig allmänbildning

Carl E. Olivestam: Religious Education in Russian Schools in the making

Aadu Ott: Bridge over Stormy Waters – A tentative approach to unify neuroscience and education

Olev Ott: Is the Berlin Wall still dividing Europe's history books?

Eugen Ungethüm: Atmosfärelektricitet och Elektroklimatologi

Lennart Wetterberg: Internationalisering av grundutbildningen I psykiatri – ute och hemma.

Gunnar Windahl: Antirealism och realism inom samhällsvetenskap och psykologi

En av våra medlemmar deltog i den nyligen genomförda klimatkonferensen och har sammanställt en rapport:

Ari Lampinen: Strömstad Academy at Copenhagen Climate Conference

The Academy was granted an observer organization status at the United Nations climate conference held in Copenhagen in December 7-19 as a member of the RINGO (Research and Independent Non-governmental Organizations) constituency.   I took part of the conference for the whole of its duration and Lars Broman attended the conference for one day.

The role of Strömstad Academy was to lobby for increasing use of existing solutions to the climate change problem, especially the abundant technical and political options to replace fossil fuels by renewable energy sources. The observer status enabled us to interact with members of national delegations as well as intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental organizations.  Spreading of information took place via personal communication and via seminars and other events. Specific negotiation related targets were to

·        enable strong emission reduction commitments of industrial countries for the 2^nd and 3^rd commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (QELROs),

·        enable easy use of small scale renewable energy technologies in the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol (CDM), and

·        enable use of renewable energy targets within Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions as the legally binding commitments of developing countries under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol (NAMAs).

In all of these negotiation tracks knowledge of readily available technical and political solutions is crucial, especially since misinformation and even disinformation of the solutions are still being actively lobbied to the negotiators and their governments causing both hesitation and resistance to implement effective international and national climate change combating policies.

The Copenhagen conference was a failure, since none of the main negotiation tracks were finished. But on the other hand, it was a success, since no weak agreement was reached and since all the important negotiation tracks are still alive. Overall, the outcome of the negotiations cannot yet be judged. The Copenhagen Accord solved the largest obstacle (the US/China/India negotiation block) to global treaty including legally binding quantitative emission reduction or limitation commitments for both industrial and developing countries. The negotiation table still contains very strong commitment options for both industrial and developing countries. If these good options can be agreed to in the forthcoming climate conference in Mexico City in December 2010, the world will go very long way towards solving the climate crises.

Bilagor

På hemsidan finns tvåaktuella broschyrer, en på engelska och en på svenska, som kan användas då man berättar om akademin för intresserade.

Lars Broman har framställt dem så att ett A4 papper kan vikas i tre delar.

Vid ordbehandlaren

Aadu Ott