The trend towards globalization shows that today knowledge and skills no longer stop at national borders. The worldwide interconnections between science, technology, and society require an understanding of other cultures and ways of thinks. For a long-term safeguarding of the future we need global and multicausal thinking. Multidisciplinary cooperation and internationalization offer enormous opportunities to the individual as well as to society.

Basic and applied research provide the necessary knowledge for future generations and for sustainable development respectively. Science works with models which are used to explain contexts as well as to forecast developments. According the scope of topics at the Brijuni conference, questions of forecasting, modeling, and foresight are discussed for the issues of space, material and life sciences.

But, besides matter and life, the chief ingredients of the 21st century are information and knowledge. Thus, information and communication technologies are the driving forces towards a global knowledge-based society. Global networking is opening up new forms of information and communication as well as changing our world of work, our cultures and behavioral patterns. These trends and their consequences will be the focal points of a global dialogue.
 

References:
K. Mainzer, Thinking in Complexity. The Complex Dynamics of Matter, Mind and Mankind, Springer: 3rd enlarged edition 1997 (Japanese transl.: Tokyo 1997, Chinese transl.: Bejing 1999), Symmetries of Nature, De Gruyter 1996; Matter. From the Origins to Life, C.H. Beck 1996 (Chinese translation: Bejing 2000); Time. From Ancient to Computer Time, C.H. Beck: 3rd edition 1997; Computer Networks and Virtual Reality. Life in Knowldge-based Societies, Springer 1999; Hawking, Herder 2000.