"Today is the anniversary of CIPSH, which was established in 1949, following an initiative of UNESCO initiated in 1947 and structured, with the collaboration of the International Academic Union, through 1948. Then, the context was the rebuilding of the international relations and the securing of academic freedom, embedded in the awareness of the relevance of human sciences for analysing the processes that had triggered two world wars.
These days, the debate is different, framed by growing concerns on issues like peace and global sustainability, and also contradictory understandings about the role of academic international organizations. There is tremendous pressure from short term anxieties, to import into the academic sphere principles and methods that characterize markets, replacing words like “knowledge”, “research” or “critical reasoning” with other ones, like “efficiency”, “management” or “competition”.
We have not followed such trend. CIPSH faces these debates today, having chosen a path that seats on the side of research and its relation to society, focusing on building main global projects which may contribute to resume the awareness of the contribution of the humanities. It is not an easy path, but the work of the various unions and federations, the World Humanities Conference and the projects CIPSH is now starting to launch, as well as the new relation established with UNESCO, illustrate the effectiveness of the road we chose. On behalf of CIPSH, thank you for engaging in this process."
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