World Academy of Art and Science

The idea of founding the Academy and a set of world scientific and youth scientist and science journalist associations was proposed in an article in Time magazine on 1/10/1938 by philosopher a Etienne Gilson in the 1940s.

The idea was echoed in the 1950s by leading scientists who were concerned about the potential for misuse of scientific discoveries. The Academy was organized in December 1960 with the aim of creating an informal world association of the highest scientific and ethical norms and standards.[3]

Originally established in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1960,[4] in 2011 WAAS incorporated as a non-profit organization in the State of California, USA. The Academy maintains offices in Napa, California; Zagreb, Croatia; Bucharest, Romania; and Pondicherry, India. It has a special division for South Eastern Europe.

• Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Sir John C. Eccles, Nobel laureate in medicine
• Buckminster Fuller, architect and systems theorist
• André Michel Lwoff, Nobel laureate in medicine
• Abraham Maslow, psychologist
• Yehudi Menuhin, violinist
• Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist
• Alva Myrdal, Nobel laureate in economics
• Gunnar Myrdal, Nobel laureate in economics
• Philip Noel-Baker, Nobel peace laureate
• Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate in chemistry and peace
• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, president of India (elected as honorary fellow)
• Jonas Salk, developer of the Salk polio vaccine
• Vikram Sarabhai, chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission
• Arne Tiselius, Nobel laureate in chemistry

Current programs of the Academy include initiatives focusing on:

• Abolition of Nuclear Weapons—formulation of legal, public policy and social strategies for complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
• Global Employment Challenge—strategies to achieve full employment and to evolve a theory and global model for employment.
• New Economic Theory—formulation of a human-centered theory of economics
• Global Higher Education–conceptualization and design of a truly global, world-class system of higher education accessible and affordable to people everywhere.
• Evolution of Individuality—the role of formed individuals in guiding the development of creative intellectual and social processes as evidenced by creative artists, original thinkers, business and social entrepreneurs, discoverers, inventors and political leaders.
• Revolution in Human Affairs—inquiry into the relationship between rising expectations and rising levels of social unrest, violence, fundamentalism and terrorism.
• Limits to Rationality—analysis of limitations in the application of rationality to solve human problems and in the inherent limitations commonly associated with mind's quest for knowledge.
• Ways of Knowing—analysis of the inherent limitations and blindspots implicit in the prevailing fragmentary, rationalist, materialistic, mechanistic approach to understanding and solving human problems, including an exploration of new ways of knowing generated by the emerging sciences of systems theory, complexity, autopoiesis and recent discoveries in the physical, biological and social sciences.

Following an international conference on Global Higher Education organized by the Academy at the University of California at Berkeley in October 2013, the World University Consortium was incorporated in California in collaboration with nine charter members.

• Cadmus Journal: a twice yearly print and electronic journal focusing on issues related to economy, security and global governance.[5]
• Eruditio Journal: a twice yearly electronic journal for examination of ideas and perspectives that fall beyond the purview of traditional academic publications.[6]
• WAAS Papers: Articles, papers and presentations by Fellows of the Academy.[7]
• Reports to the World Academy of Art & Science: Books by WAAS Fellows accepted by the Board of Trustees as official reports to the Academy[8]

The Academy is managed by a 22-member board of trustees and a nine-member Executive Committee. The principal officers are Garry Jacobs, President & Chief Executive Officer, Alberto Zucconi, Chairman of the Board

• The World Academy of Art and Science: History and Manifesto.- J. "CADMUS", Vol. I, Issue 2, 2011, pp. 151–152.

• Official website