RIO WORLD SCIENCE FORUM 2013 OPENS WITH URGENT CALL TO END GLOBAL INEQUALITIES IN SCIENCE RECOMMENDATIONS SET TO INFLUENCE NEW MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS 24.11.2013
Professor Jacob Palis, President of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and Professor József Pálinkás, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences today opened the World Science Forum in Rio de Janeiro with a call to delegates to end inequalities in science globally. Organised by the Brazilian Academy in partnership with UNESCO, the International Council for Science, AAAS and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the WSF is for the first time being held in a developing country and has attracted a unique combination of scientists. educationalists, research funders, leaders from culture and industry and policy makers from over 100 countries.
In his opening address Professor Palis noted that although the world is more than ever being shaped by science, societies are still characterised by sharp disparities rates of progress, „ Being held for the first time in a developing country, this meeting has a focus on Science for Global Sustainability. We the participants collectively have the challenge and the responsibility to discuss not only how Science can help to shape a better world, but also how Science can contribute to reduce regional inequalities.”
This call was echoed by UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova, herself the first woman to lead the organisation:” The role of science, education and technology in achieving sustainability is critical.and the WSF has become a reference point for scientific thinking on topic. I look forward to taking the recommendations from this Rio meeting to the United Nations in December to feed into policy makers as they start to formulate the new set of post-2015 Millennium Development Goals.”
Professor József Pálinkás, President of WSF and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences agreed: “Our world is tragically divided to the ones who have, and to those who have not.” The need of economic and social development presents quite different challenges in the different parts of the world. Scientific achievements coexist with strong inequalities in the access to natural resources, water and food supplies, economic and human capital, health care, education, research infrastructure, and in general, in the access to the benefits of science. Science was and still is the main contributor to development. But we have to be honest, science contributed also to the accumulation of social and economic divide. It is time now to contribute to narrowing this divide.
The opening ceremony was concluded by the welcoming speech of Brazilian Vice-President Michel Temer and the video message of János Áder, President of Hungary, who in his speech warned the participants with the word of Hungarian Nobel laureate Dénes Gábor “Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature.”