Think. Debate. Inspire. Richard von Weizs?cker Fellows met in Washington D.C. to discuss global challenges and their solutions.

I want to use the Regional Community Forum of the Robert Bosch Academy to exemplify the way our unique institution works.

The global challenges of our time can only be addressed through inclusive international dialogues and the cooperation of key decision makers, experts, and opinion leaders. A sustained international community of change makers of the highest intellectual caliber is therefore needed to prepare for the turbulent waters ahead: The continuing rise of global inequality needs to be addressed urgently with responses that don’t repeat normative colonial patterns. Technological innovation in biotechnology and quantum computing might require a “new” Helsinki Declaration. And a “new” Marshall Plan for Ukraine can only be successful if it is – as the original plan was – a coordinated set of measures that go beyond mere financial transfers. A vivid discussion on a wide array of topics by fellows on the North American East Coast has sparked out-of-the-box thought among all participants.

Why Robert Bosch Academy?

Today #political and #societal challenges are more globally interconnected, fast paced, and complex than ever before. Meanwhile, traditional forms of decision making are being increasingly questioned – whether due to their historical roots in global injustices (e.g., colonialism) or their (perceived) inability to serve people today. In addition to known challenges like #ClimateChange , #SocialInequality , and #Digitalization , the chances of #blackswan events occurring appear to be increasing in this new global environment.

Meaningful exchanges between old and new actors are more important than ever before to address these challenges. The brightest minds must be brought together to “Think. Debate. Inspire” – the slogan of the Robert Bosch Academy . At the Robert Bosch Academy , we honor the legacy of the founder of the Robert Bosch Stiftung , who often thought ahead of his time and believed in peaceful international cooperation and out-of-the-box ingenuity to better the quality of life for everyone. To do so, we invite leading decision makers, opinion leaders, and experts from across the world to Berlin as Richard von Weizs?cker Fellows to take up in-residence fellowships. (Richard von Weizs?cker being not only one of the most admired German federal presidents, but also a long-standing friend of the Bosch family and member of the board of trustees of the foundation.) We invite them to engage with each other, and to connect with and inspire their peers here in Germany and Europe as well. Additionally, it is of tremendous value to the foundation that they agree to share their valuable perspectives and insights, which help us to do our work with greater impact.

The Community

The community of the Richard von Weizs?cker Fellows has recently welcomed its 100th fellow. The fellows’ connection does not end with the conclusion of the fellowship. In addition to various online formats, the Quarterly Perspective s, and our Podcast , the Richard von Weizs?cker Forum is our annual flagship community event that brings together former, current, and future fellows for a weeklong workshop in Berlin and – each year a different – region within Germany.

To complement the community’s wide array of activities, we tried something for the very first time a few days ago on May 16, 2023:

Regional Community Event in Washington, D.C.

We brought together some of our fellows who currently live in or around Washington, D.C. (We generously defined “around” as including Toronto. ??) ( Doug Saunders , Dennis Shirley , Samantha Gross , J.P. Singh , Rana Dajani , Daniel Hamilton , Ted Piccone - sadly Elsie S. Kanza was pulled away by urgent business)

We co-created a program based on the urgent questions that they wanted to discuss. The topics covered a wide range of issues, spanning from #socialjustice , #humanrights , to the future in the #biocognitive age to a new #MarshallPlanforUkraine .

Inequality and Human Rights

To kick off the first conversation, Ted Piccone and Rana Dajani provided some input for the discussion.

The discussion’s premise was that since the end of the Cold War, there has been a growing acceptance that fundamental rights go beyond political and civil rights to encompass economic and social rights. The right to #education , #housing , #healthcare , and a living wage, for example, are increasingly understood as #essentialcomponents of #humanrights . Significant socioeconomic inequalities persist in many countries around the world – including our host country, the United States of America, one of the richest countries in the world. A very tangible example of this is how people in low-income neighborhoods of D.C. continue to face the persisting challenge of access to affordable food.

In the very lively discussion following the input, the fellows talked about how current methods of measuring and comparing social inequality internationally often rely on outdated metrics that do not reflect the true realities of marginalized communities. For example, income inequality is often measured using average or median income, which does not account for the extreme wealth held by a small percentage of the population. Furthermore, a deficit orientation – which describes the distance to a predefined goal (often defined by people of the industrialized “Global North”) –no longer seems to be the right approach in the world of the 21st century. New experiments like in South America, where the most marginalized are asked directly which aspect of their life they would like to improve, to which level, and how they would like to get there, show a more inclusive and holistic approach. The respondents from those communities then get the resources to help them on their path, and a “Poverty Stoplight ” subsequently measures progress to adjust the goal on the way. Similar approaches exist to review progress on the #SDGs by the most affected people instead of government agencies. Questionnaires are used in 43 languages and illustrated for those who have trouble reading.

A substantial part of the conversation centered around the question of how much community and how much individualism is needed, and who should be the “duty bearer” for ensuring some of the most fundamental social rights and the “freedom from want”. Cultural, social, and philosophical differences between the fellows also highlighted how even supposed universal and objective criteria are rooted in specific values. As one fellow put it, “We need a lot of empathy to get human rights in the 21st century. But there will be power in the way. This power is normally politics. And politics reflect society and culture, hence we’d actually need a cultural shift.” Reaching international consensus on what constitutes universal values will be a challenge in a rapidly changing international landscape.

?The future in a bio cognitive age

Daniel Hamilton and again Rana Dajani started our discussion on emerging technologies that will shape our world.

In biotechnology, particular gene modification methods like CRISPR have the potential to transform human life in unprecedented ways. These new technologies enable scientists to modify genes with greater precision, opening a wide array of possibilities: from curing genetically transmitted diseases and developing new treatments to enhancing agricultural production. However, with these advancements comes the need for increased regulation and ethical considerations, especially as the impact of biotechnological innovations is not limited to the scientific community. They have the potential to disrupt geopolitics, foreign policy, and international cooperation.

One of the most important aspects of this conversation was how neo-colonial patterns persist even in natural sciences. For the longest time, only the genomes of white individuals were sequenced, and norms on when to conduct embryonic research were often defined by white Christian traditions. Even a European-Enlightenment-inspired understanding of humans as individuals rather than as a part of a complex and interwoven ecosystem may sometimes impede critical thought, scientific creativity, and discovery. We must think more openly and try to shed our culturally determined and biased thought barriers.

The biotech revolution is part of a larger trend of technological and digital revolutions that are rapidly transforming society, especially given the increasing intersection of these trends. States are racing to develop and secure technologies as they realize their potential to revolutionize the economy and geopolitical power. Regulatory bodies must therefore work to create frameworks for assessing the risks and benefits of emerging technologies, and to ensure that they are developed and deployed in a way that benefits all members of society while also promoting international cooperation and collaboration.

Of great concern to the fellows was the question of whether scientific developments in the three dominant revolutionary spheres of atoms (nuclear age), bits (digital ages), and genes (age of bioengineering) are advancing at such a pace that legislation, ethics, and human society won’t be able to catch up. An understanding of a world that is centered around nation states might no longer be fit for purpose. The world of the 21st century is looking more like a world of “flows” with networked “nodes.” Artificial national borders matter increasingly less. In this age of disruption, thought patterns inspired by quantum science might provide new insights. Here “entanglement” (two seemingly unrelated events influence each other), for example, or “super-position” (an event changes just because one watches it) could help us to devise an understanding of the world and subsequently diplomacy of the future. This diplomacy might lead us to formulate a “new” Helsinki Declaration of the bio-quantum age. And this will happen hopefully without an equivalent of Hiroshima or the emergence of mutually assured destruction (MAD), given that in the new age asymmetry of power has de facto established a NOMAD-world (non-mutually assured destruction).

Marshall Plan for Ukraine

The invasion of Ukraine has affected the world, and although fighting has not yet ended, the time is ripe to think about the future and what will happen when the war ends – hopefully sooner rather than later.

It was a very special experience to reflect on a “new” Marshall Plan for Ukraine over a dinner (masterfully organized by my colleague Antonio Fox ) in the former private residence of General George C. Marshall in Leesburg, Virginia. Daniel Hamilton , a seasoned American diplomat and J.P. Singh , an Indian-American development economist shared their thoughts on whether the analogy really holds.

The idea of a “Marshall Plan for Ukraine” to rebuild the country after Russia’s war of aggression has recently been a topic of foreign policy debates. The concept draws on the historic Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after the Second World War. The idea of international cooperation and support to rebuild a war-torn country remains relevant, considering Russia’s war against Ukraine. However, simply replicating the plan from 1948 is not possible in today’s context, as a plan for Ukraine would need to be adapted to the needs of the 21st century. Far too often, one misunderstands the plan as financial development investments and forgets that the Marshall Plan was a complex set of coordinated measures that the European countries largely developed themselves. This aspect raises a few questions – not only about how to deal with today’s perpetrator (Russia) after the conflict ends, but also about how to secure international cooperation on these issues. The original Marshall Plan required one country to support many; now the relations would be inverse.

However, critics of such an initiative have been vocal: They point to the unfair distribution of financial support compared to other regions of the world in need of such collaborative action. A “new” Marshall Plan for Africa is also asked for. The accusations include notions of double standards and selectivity in development cooperation, favoring countries that are closer to the West or willing to align themselves with Western interests. These are some of the issues that must be critically discussed and to which solutions must be found if we truly wish to be a part of a “multipolar world.”

This first iteration of a regional community forum was a wonderful success – we facilitated a stimulating debate between intellectuals and leaders in society to address joint challenges together. I can’t wait to do it again in another region on different topics, but again with our amazing Richard von Weizs?cker Fellows.