An ENS initiative

Interdisciplinarity for the long-term, targeting resources

After a cen­tury during which two resour­ces – petrol and finance – have been major contri­bu­tors to the radi­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the rela­tion­ships bet­ween humans and nature, we now find our­sel­ves confron­ted with the phy­si­cal limits of unpre­ce­den­ted eco­no­mic growth asso­cia­ted with social and envi­ron­men­tal dum­ping.

Faced with this mode of linear deve­lop­ment, which pro­vo­kes the rapidly increa­sing scar­city of nume­rous resour­ces, basic reason would require us to ela­bo­rate a more global and col­lec­tive vision of deve­lop­ment using a “non Promethean concep­tion of pro­gress”⁴. Michel Serres calls for a third revo­lu­tion on Earth⁵ and Joseph Stiglitz sets out on a quest for “Another World”⁶.

The time has come for us to reconsi­der our rela­tion­ship to the pro­ble­ma­ti­que of resour­ces as a whole as well as our rela­tion­ship to public goods and ser­vi­ces which the market cannot pro­vide : uni­ver­sal access to common goods and fun­da­men­tal rights (edu­ca­tion, health, qua­lity of life, access to know­ledge / culture, soft­ware, social net­works, etc.). In this approach, scien­tists, in the broa­dest sense, are well placed to sign­post the way since through the very nature of their pro­fes­sion they tend to think on a long-term basis and cross the bor­ders bet­ween sub­ject areas (see, for exam­ple, the ERC Lascaux pro­gram web­site http://www.droit-ali­ments-terre.eu and the blog http://leblog­de­fran­cois­du­tilleul.bl...).

The new ENS de Lyon intends to make a strong com­mit­ment to deve­lo­ping and exploi­ting its inter­dis­ci­pli­nary poten­tial by crea­ting the Interdisciplinary Institute for Resources and Public Goods in order to per­pe­tuate the approach and results of this confe­rence.

In concrete terms, although com­pre­hen­ding and opti­mi­zing all resour­ces repre­sent extre­mely urgent tasks, the imple­men­ta­tion of vast bodies of opti­mi­zed resour­ces in order to ensure their ratio­nal and inte­gra­ted mana­ge­ment cons­ti­tu­tes a real socie­tal chal­lenge. This chal­lenge requi­res a conver­gence of know­ledge and the reci­pro­cal exchange of know-how. The cross-fer­ti­li­za­tion of the concrete and the concep­tual can give rise to new spaces for the rede­fi­ni­tion of the peri­me­ters of public goods, their more glo­bally just attri­bu­tion and the ratio­nal and inte­gra­ted mana­ge­ment of resour­ces in their enti­rety. This is why, in the pre­sent situa­tion, this pro­ble­ma­ti­que should be placed before all the other major issues which it can include and for which it pro­vi­des essen­tial foun­da­tions (bio­di­ver­sity, cli­mate war­ming / dis­tur­bance, energy crisis, etc.).

This mani­festo is an invi­ta­tion for scho­lars from every sub­ject area to join the work­group focu­sing on the vast pro­ble­ma­ti­que of resour­ces with the aim of adap­ting their uses to a more human, more sus­tai­na­ble, less ine­ga­li­ta­rian vision of the world which would show grea­ter res­pect for the envi­ron­ment.

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