IN THE FOREGROUND

The Giannino Bassetti Foundation and the Icona Interdepartmental Centre at Milan University have devised a joint training project, the Workshop on Responsible Innovation in the Public Authorities. The project is born of the conviction that innovation in and by the public authorities – in the sense of change in their structures, processes, relations, and allocation and use of existing and new resources – is a crucial factor for acquiring more effective public sector policies and more efficient markets. The first workshop has been held on 18 June and had as its guest speaker the Hon. Lucio Stanca, former innovation and technologies minister, who will speak on the topic of Technological Innovation in the Public Authorities. The follow-up debate, to be conducted by the students via a call for comments sent out on the Bassetti Foundation web site, is to be a major aspect of the encounters with the guests.

News

1-2 March 2007
The Bassetti Foundation in Salerno

The volume, Sapere, fare, potere. Verso un’innovazione responsabile, edited by Massimiano Bucchi, published by Rubbettino and containing the collected Giannino Bassetti Foundation lectures organised from 2002 to 2005, was presented in the Province of Salerno Hall on 1 March.
Contributions from US bioethicist Daniel Callahan, French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latour and Columbia University economist Richard Nelson are published in the volume, along with the preface by Piero Bassetti and the postface by Cristina Grasseni.
On the following day, Piero Bassetti, chairman of the Giannino Bassetti Foundation, delivered a guest lecture at the University of Salerno School of Journalism directed by Biagio Agnes. The occasion provided an important opportunity for discussion with the young people who will be called upon to perform the finely-balanced task of “putting across the improbable,” meaning innovation and the responsibilities it brings.

20 April 2007
Science and Technology in Contemporary Society

The Ernesto Balducci Foundation organised a forum devoted to science and technology in contemporary society at its San Domenico di Fiesole headquarters.
Geneticist Marcello Buiatti, sociologist Sergio Caruso, physicist Angelo Baracca, Giuseppe Grazzini of the Florence University Department of Energetics, psychiatrist Luigi Cancrini, theologist Enrico Chiavacci and Piero Bassetti took part in the debate, the latter presenting a paper entitled: New Science and New Politics.

14 May 2007
Science, Society and Politics. Umberto Colombo’s Crusade

The University of Milan-Bicocca organised a symposium in memory of Umberto Colombo: Science, Society and Politics. Umberto Colombo’s Crusade. Piero Bassetti took part in the symposium, which was attended by ministers Luigi Nicolais and Giuliano Amato, with an account of the social and civic endeavours of the illustrious academic, who died in May 2006.

PUBLICATIONS

The latest issue of the Journals of the IReR, the Lombardy Regional Research Institute, contains the proceedings of the symposium devoted to Scientific and Technical Innovation, Innovation in Democracy. The papers published in the Journal include the opening contribution, Governance and Scientific and Technical Innovation: A Number of Interpretative Cues, by Piero Bassetti. A series of questions steers the train of thought: Who are the people who bring innovation about in the present-day world? And are those people aware of the responsibilities incumbent on them? How can responsible innovation be promoted? “In a complex society, the idea cannot be that the solution to the problem has to come wholly and exclusively from the public institutions,” the article states (p. 21). “To be honest, the power to change our lives no longer lies solely with the Prince. Neither the scientist nor the captain of industry holds it: we have built up a system in which the risk is that nobody holds it any more, and this is a dangerous situation. However, this means that we all hold it to some extent, and that we are therefore called upon to wield it in the institutions, as an issue that has to be raised to the political level, preferably in a bottom-up process.”

FROM THE FGB SITE

Call for comments

Reinventing learning and research? is the title of the manifesto signed by Elias Carayannis of Washington University and Piero Formica of Jonkoping University. It is a highly topical issue: How can university teaching and reseach be reinvented, so as to enhance them, and how can the issue of resource concentration and academic performance assessment be addressed? Readers are invited to debate the proposals set out in the manifesto and to advance any alternative solutions to the problem by responding to the call for comments.

Innovation and Politics

Following Responsibility in Innovation, the second lecture, Innovation and Politics, that Piero Bassetti delivered in February 2006 as part of the Interdisciplinary Scientific and Technical Research Epistemiology Course at the Milan Polytechnic is now on line.

Transferring Tecnologies: Space Technology Transfer in Europe
by Vittorio Bertolini

Research and development investment in what is chiefly a sector of public interest cam trigger technology innovation in spheres completely different from the original one. We thus learn from Fabio Biscotti and Marco Saverio Ristuccia’s book Transferring Technologies. Space Technology Transfer in Europe (Ricerche Marsilio, December 2006), a work packed with information and examples, that the European aerospace programme has had spin-offs in medicine, computer science, materials science, and even household consumer protection. Despite these achievements, of which the book gives a detailed account, space technology transfer in Europe has not come up to expectations, particularly in comparison with the situation in the United States.

From Jeff Ubois’ Blog

Jeff Ubois is attempting, via a series of interviews with prominent personalities (Ignacio Chapela, Arthur Caplan, Christine Peterson, Lawrence Gasman, Jeff Jonas etc.), to explore the hottest responsibility in innovation issues. Albeit touching on fields that are apparently far apart, such as, for instance, the nanotecnologies and prenatal sexual knowledge, he highlights a number of recurrent common topics: the need for interdisciplinary dialogue to mitigate the drawbacks of specialisation; the difficulty of predicting future consequences; the institutions’ shortcomings in responding to the new frontiers of innovation; the need to improve public debate, and the existence of ideas for revamping the institutions.

From Cristina Grasseni’s Blog

Anthropology and history of science studies have profoundly changed the traditional concept of the exact sciences, their role in society, their cultural origins, and their metaphysical entrenchment. Cristina Grasseni is publishing on her blog a number of interviews with historians, philosophers and sociologists of the international calibre of Peter Galison, Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour.

From Tommaso Correale Santacroce’s Blog

Tommaso Correale Santacroce’s blog, which was launched in February this year as a follow-on from DiaBloghi, a previous experiment in collective writing in dialogue form, attempts to bestow theatrical form on the issues that recur on the Foundation’s site. Not full-fledged scenes, but fragments, images that evolve into episodes. The first dialogue published, “Do you know why I am here?”, for example, takes its cue from the thinking of Bruno Latour, from the ideas expounded in “Parliament of Inanimate Objects”; the latest, entitled: “Must I? May I?”, addresses the controversial issue of the precautionary principle.

IN BRIEF

5X1000
The Giannino Bassetti Foundation has been added to the list of income tax 5 per 1,000 beneficiaries. All you have to do is sign in the “Support for Voluntary Work, Non-Profit Organisations of Benefit to Society, Social Solidarity Associations, Associations and Foundations” box on your tax return form and enter the Giannino Bassetti Foundation’s tax code: 97146110156
The Foundation will be grateful if you select it and spread the word.

Giannino Bassetti Foundation Grants
This year too, the FGB has endowed 5 grants for doctoral students and research doctors interested in attending the Exercices de métaphysique empirique (autour des travaux de Bruno Latour) study sessions, to be held from 23 to 30 June 2007at the Cerisy-la-Salle (F) International Cultural Centre.