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Framework for Collaboration, Partnership and Sponsorship
1. Past AchievementsConcept DevelopmentThe first edition of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential was published in 1976 as a private venture of the foundation Mankind 2000 and the Union of International Associations (UIA). At the time it was judged to be an "impossible project". It has grown in size over four editorial cycles from one volume to three volumes. In 1995 the section on "Strategies, Actions and Solutions" was added. In 1996 the first CD-Rom edition was released, fully realizing the project's constant commitment to showing interrelationships between the diverse elements of the global "problematique" and "resolutique", and to the international organizations concerned with their respective parts. An extensive demo was made available on the web from 1997. As a result of a contract with the European Commission, the problems and strategies database were further developed over the period 1998-9. The demo was replaced in November 1999 by full scale dynamic access to the main databases on a dedicated server accessible via: http://www.uia.org/data.htm Committed Long-term InvestmentThe project has been supported financially by its originators and the courageous publisher K.G. Saur Verlag. Prior to the contribution of the European Commission in 1997-9, over its previous 20-year development period, this had amounted to around US$400,000 (on average $20,000 per year). In terms of UIA work input, the current content of the Encyclopedia represents an investment of 20 professional "person-years" (an average of one full-time person each year). But equally essential to its realization have been three other types of resources: the materials produced by more than 20,000 international organizations, freely provided and usually without copyright restrictions, for which the UIA serves as a clearing house; the sophisticated use of computer techniques to establish and manage links between disparate data elements (which in 1986 won an international prize for application of computer techniques to typesetting); and enthusiastic editorial contributions from volunteers. 2. Present RealitiesState of the ArtFor nearly three decades, the Encyclopedia has been a project ahead of its time and catching up with its destiny. With each new edition, or electronic variant, more people appreciate and acknowledge its achievements and are inspired by its potential -- which some have suggested is a basis for a futuristic electronic knowledge system, or alternatively a conceptual framework which can hold and interlink the full range of dilemmas and possibilities of human development. It has never ceased to be an "impossible" project in any final sense -- but it has proven to be a "do-able" project whose realization day by day and year by year, is enriched rather than weighed down by its vision. Potentials "On-Hold"In 1996, the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential entered one of its dormant periods. Investment by its publisher in "the next edition" is by no means certain, and will require demonstrated commercial returns on current published stocks of the Encyclopedia. For the foreseeable future, further editorial and development work will be intermittent and largely "voluntary". A current dream, for example, is to enable true interactive partnership in the editorial process by the users of the electronic Encyclopedia -- through facilitated feedback from the CD or Internet, or on the Internet by the selective capture of information or via specialised newsgroups. Another is to enable visualization of the complex networks of problem/strategy interrelationships. As a first step, closed loops of self-perpetuating problem- complexes have been identified. Identifying sustainable cycles of strategies which break such vicious cycles has the potential to raise the analysis of global issues to a new systemic level, but again is unlikely to be realized in the short-term. 3. Immediate ProspectsInstitutional SupportIn principle, the UIA should be able to encourage the interest of other institutional partners (UN bodies, broad- interest regional bodies, foundations concerned with global issues, etc) in further development of the Encyclopedia -- even to the point of running UIA data on an intergovernmental server. In practice, such collaboration usually runs tangent to what is feasible. Lobbying and applying for funds are lengthy (and often costly) exercises. Available funding is often of a short-term nature and/or heavily tied to narrow subsets of data. Few funding institutions have guidelines which can accommodate projects that are international rather than smaller-scale, cross-sectoral rather than bounded, inter-disciplinary rather than subject-defined; most wilt when faced with a project which is all three. Is there a way through? Sectoral Data ProjectsSimilar to, but distinct from, the previous approach, is the ability of the UIA to propose a service to improve specialized areas of Encyclopedia data (eg habitat, refugees, etc) in terms of networks of problems and/or strategies. An additional feature could be the interlinking of the vital statistics of organizations concerned with such issues. Sectoral proposals could be offered to clusters or coalitions of potential partners who might support it. The product would be a specialized disk or a CD, or possibly a set of Web pages. Parties which might be concerned in different ways include:
The challenge would be to work out the nature of the boundaries to protect everybody's interests whilst improving the general quality of the data. Rather than propose work through the UIA directly, for example, it might be proposed and undertaken through a semi-autonomous body with a distinct identity. SponsorshipRelated to, but distinct from, the previous two prospects, is the possibility of seeking some form of sponsorship for the improvement of the Encyclopedia as a whole, or for subsets of data. Some forms of commercial sponsorship would better suit the Internet environment and might be mentioned in the UIA web site. |
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