The Workshop on Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges took place in July 6-8, 2022, in Athens, Greece. International scholars of philosophy, policy science, behavioral science, and other interdisciplinary fields, met at the famed Academy of Athens to explore how ancient philosophy can inform our modern understanding of ethics and well-being, and thereby help to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, shifting geopolitics, and rising inequalities.
As a pre-COP27 (UN Climate Change Conference) event the SDSN Global Climate Hub was launched by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Maria Cortes-Puch, Vice President of SDSN. The Chair of the SDSN Global Climate Hub will be Prof. Phoebe Koundouri, Professor at Athens University of Economics and Business and Denmark Technical University, as well as Director of the Sustainable Development Unit at ATHENA Information Technologies RC and Co-Chair of SDSN Europe. Prof. Yannis Ioannidis, Prof. Christos S. Zerefos and Prof. Andreas Papandreou, will support the Hub as Co-Founders.
This workshop was organized by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, SDSN Europe, SDSN Greece, Alliance of Excellence for Research and Innovation on Αephoria (AE4RIA), Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University , Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) at Athena Research Center Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation and Research Laboratory on Socio-Economic and Environmental Sustainability (ReSEES) at Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) hosted by the Academy of Athens , under the auspices of the Municipality of Athens who was great supporter of the Workshop.
The workshop was supported by Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, a public benefit cultural institution which promotes -in Greece and abroad- the Greek culture and especially Greek letters and historical and nautical research, Sani/Ikos Group, a leader in sustainable hospitality across the Mediterranean and member of the United Nations Global Compact, Alliance of Excellence for Research and Innovation on Αephoria (AE4RIA), an initiative for collaboration between research institutions, innovation accelerators and science- technology-policy interface networks, focused on sustainable development as Gold Sponsors and by Goulandris Natural History Museum (GNHM), the first museum in Greece that launched environmental education in the country and the Municipality of Athens as Silver Sponsors.
This workshop is a continuation of the activities of the Symposium titled “Neo-Classical Economics Reconsidered within Plato’s and Aristotle’s Epistemological and Ethical Framework” which was organized from July 29 to August 2, 2019 by SDSN Greece and hosted at the Historical Library of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation.
Next year, on July 3-7, 2023, the current group of participants will join forces with the Chinesse Academy of Social Sciences and the City of Beijing, while the theme of the workshop will be Aristotelian Philosophy and Confucianism paving solution pathways to Modern Challenges. The “Aristotle-Confucius Symposium” will be held at the Academy of Athens.
Read the Press Release here