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Inter-Union Cooperations
ICSU Unions' Initiative "Science for Health and Well-Being"
Meeting in Paris, 10-11 February, 2003
Executive Summary
Minutes of ICSU Unions' Meeting re Initiative
"Science for Health and Well-being"
A meeting of representatives of several ICSU Unions and other ICSU bodies was held in Paris, 10-11 February, 2003, to develop a cross-Union, transdisciplinary initiative. The plan to develop such a partnership resulted from a meeting of Union representatives at the ICSU General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in September, 2002.
The statement of scope and mission for the initiative is:
Science for Health and Well-being
We recognise that the health sciences require the partnership of a broad range of sciences and technologies to advance human health and well-being. The initiative 'Science for Health and Well-being' is a collaborative effort by ICSU Unions and other ICSU bodies to promote the elaboration and utilisation of the scientific information appropriate to understanding human and environmental health and well-being in its many dimensions.
The goals of the initiative are to:
- demonstrate the extent to which a range of science and technology is important to health and well-being,
- educate (at multiple levels) about science and technology using modern means of communication,
- collaborate to identify areas unmet and produce new ideas, science and technology partnerships to look to the future, and
- develop an inventory of ongoing programmes, activities in order to identify unmet needs
in order to
empower the science community, the public and policy-makers and in all countries with the knowledge base to effect their health and well-being.
We prepared the following recommendation, which will be transmitted to ICSU:
The representatives of ICSU Unions and ICSU bodies (IGU, IUBS, IBRO, IUGG, IAHS, IUNS, IUPAC, IUPESM, IUPS, IUPsyS, ISPRS, and SCOPE), assembled 10-11 February 2003 to consider an initiative for multi-Union collaboration, strongly recommend to ICSU that it consider the general topic of the relationships and contributions of science, broadly construed, to maintain and increase the health and wellbeing of humans and all other living species as a primary focus for funding for 2005.
Immediate follow-up activities and plan
- The consortium should develop a strategy to fulfill the mission statement which would include:
(1) Develop core domains for inter-union collaboration (drafts of working papers are appended):
(a) Living Environments
Chair: Professor Ron Abler (IGU)
(b) Connections between water and health
Co-Chairs: Professor Joann Joselyn (IUGG), Professor Ian Dowman (ISPRS)
(c) The Impacts of Technology on Health and Well-being
Co-Chairs: Professor Michel Denis (IUPsyS), Professor Ove Petersen (IUPS)
Advice will be sought on these domains from interested Unions as to how they might generate projects and funding proposals.
(2) Seek Alliances between the ICSU consortium and major international partners in "Science for Health and Well-Being", using the "Core Collaborative Domains" document, especially with:
- (i) WHO
(ii) WMO (World Meteorological Organisation)
(iii) International Social Sciences Council at UNESCO, Paris
(iv) World Medical Association (WMA)
(v) The EU Science/Development Secretariats
as well as
(vi) The Private Sector
(vii) Foundations
(viii) NGOs.
(3)
(i) To promote conjoint events at Union Conferences, particularly in the form of Symposia and Workshops involving 2 or more Unions, with the underlying theme of Science for Health and Well-being, invited speakers, etc.
(ii) An index of Union meetings will be established in a more current and comprehensive fashion on the ICSU web-site and
(iii) Union web-sites will direct to each other's sites for information about their meetings.
(4)
ICSU will compile information on UN Resolutions on Well-being and Sustainable Development, to form a basis for future development of the "Well-Being" agenda.
For further reference, cf.
- Minutes of the wide-ranging discussion during the two days of the meeting
- First drafts of the three working papers mentioned above.
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