Versión de HTML Básico
Semanario de la UAM
04 06 2012
15
In the 21st century humanity faces huge challenges. We
live in a world threatened by shrinking natural resources
and an ever increasing economic exploitation for the
great majority of people. Global warming, food shorta-
ges and wars will be the reality of our children´s lives
unless the current course of civilization is changed.
The economic, environmental, social and energy
crises closely interlink, with each crisis intensifying the
next. The World Advanced Research Project WARP is a
collective endeavor by researchers both to understand
this World and to work out how it can be changed in a
way that will benefit the great majority of humanity.
We intend to bring to this task skills and knowled-
ge from a variety of disciplines: political economy,
mathematics, complexity theory, information theory,
biology/environmental, network theory, political and
military science. To enable interdisciplinary exchange
and cooperation we will establish common sources
of knowledge and internet based courses. We aim to
run as a virtual college of researchers, working in the
same way as the open source community, embracing
the values of openness, and the voluntary contribution
of time and expertise for the public good.
We are appealing to researchers who share our values
and aims of a sustainable democratic world civilization
free fromwant and exploitation, to join us in the research.
We aim to construct networks of collaborative work, that
will look at the major questions of today. We produce
reports and policy proposals that will be a resource for
social movements and progressive governments.
By working together in a collective endeavor with
a decentralized division of labour we can harness the
hive intelligence of the progressive scientific commu-
nity to achieve more than we could do as individuals.
1. Literature database
It is important for WARP to have common knowledge
and understanding about some areas relevant to our
research and political work. We will therefore establish
a collection of texts and e-learning tools in several lan-
guages which also can be used as a base for study cir-
cles and seminars.
2. Proposed research projects
What we give below is an initial proposed group of
research projects, we anticipate that participants will
propose additional projects.
2.1. Unified econometric models
The aim of this is to apply initially to other European
countries and then possibly to China, the highly so-
phisticated model that Klaus Barsch has developed for
Germany. This is currently used by the Trades Union
movement in Germany to investigate the implications
of policy changes on the living conditions of their
members. A schema model is available that can be pa-
rameterised to other capitalist countries where it could
be used to challenge policy proposals put forward by
business interests.
2.2. Questions of Money and Monetary
Crises
This working group will look at the crisis in the Euro,
proposals for international monetary reform and issues
of sovereign debt.
2.3. Scientific studies of revolutions,
database of them
This group will investigate different revolutions and
revolutionary processes basing on the complexity
theory framework and analyse factors for success and
failure with help of muldidimensional machine lear-
ning tools.
2.4. Class structure during transitional
periods
Xizu Lu to lead
2.5. Role of new technolgy and the media
in social and revolutionary movements
Michel Bauwens to lead
2.6. The role of peer production and
intellectual property issues
Michel Bauwens to lead
2.7. Issues of agronomy and food security
and genetic engineering
Salvador Vega y León and Manuel Limonta to lead
2.8. The military question in times of
transition
Professor Heinz Dieterich to lead
2.9. The energy question assessment of the
implication of nuclear and wind power
2.10. Population based studies
This group will investigate ideas, understandings and
opinions of population samples with help of qualitati-
ve methods like interviews within the grounded theory
framework. The purpose is to enable WARP to later
carry out surveys to determine the level of support for
alternative forms of economy and society.
3. How we propose to work
We will form small working groups on research pro-
jects with at least 3 people per group. The first phase
of each project will be to formulate on a wiki a set of
theoretical and empirical questions to be investigates.
We will use wiki type media to coordinate and initially
draft internal working papers which will be available
for comment by the whole research community. Final
publication will be in paper and online reports.
If you are willing to help please write to us at the above
email address and discuss how you want to participate.
The World Advanced Research Project Appeal
WARP: