Ioan Negrutiu

This is the preparatory document to the IUF Conference "Les ressources", May 2011, Lyon

After a century during which two resources – petrol and finance – have been major contributors to the radical transformation of the relationships between man 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” (Chollet M, Le Monde Diplomatique, Sept. 2009, p. 23). Michel Serres calls for a third revolution on Earth and Joseph Stiglitz sets out on a quest for “Another World”. [1]
The time has come for us to reconsider our relationships to the problematique of resources as a whole as well as our relationships 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 disciplines. The new ENS de Lyon intends to make a strong commitment to developing and exploiting its interdisciplinary potential.

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