AC4 Presents on Sustainable Human Development in the Basque Country

In collaboration with the Agirre Lehendakaria Center for Social and Political Studies (ALC), AC⁴ Executive Co-Chair Dr. Peter T. Coleman and Director Dr. Josh Fisher recently discussed their work on sustainable human development and sustainable peace at several seminars in the Basque Country.

On June 15, 2016, Dr. Coleman and Dr. Fisher were featured speakers at a seminar held at the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) in Donostia/ San Sebastián the province of Gipuzkoa. This seminar, organized jointly by the ALC, the DIPC, and the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, was titled “Social and Scientific-Technical Knowledge at the Service of Sustainable Human Development.” The seminar was intended as a space for experts in both the social sciences and physical/technical sciences to discuss the pursuit of sustainable human development across disciplines.

Dr. Coleman presented AC⁴’s Sustainable Peace initiative and presented the causal loop diagram of sustainable peace and related mathematical models developed as part of this project. He also discussed preliminary findings from the project’s participatory stakeholder engagement and verification phase, which is being piloted in the Basque Country in collaboration with the ALC and EHU-Gune at the University of the Basque Country.

Dr. Fisher presented findings from AC⁴’s Sustainable Human Development (SHD) project, which investigates the foundations, drivers, and essential components of SHD as part of a larger collaborative research initiative titled Sustainable Human Development (SHD): The Basque Case. His presentation included a discussion of the theoretical and statistical models of SHD developed over the course of this three-year research program. A project report detailing findings is forthcoming in Fall 2016.

Dr. Fisher also spoke at a subsequent public seminar in Bilbao, organized as part of the ALC’s Open Akademia series. Titled “Future Challenges for Sustainable Human Development in Euskadi (Basque Country)”, the seminar featured brief talks by various local and international experts addressing SHD-related topics as diverse as youth development, gender equality, education, and economic development. It also included a keynote by Dr. Juan Jose Ibarretxe, ALC Director and former President of the Basque Country, discussing the role of culture in SHD.

Read more about recent developments in the SHD Project and about the process of peace mapping here.

Author: Kristen Rucki, AC⁴ SHD Project Coordinator

Photo credit: Agirre Lehendakaria Center