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Is our society sustainable?


The overriding imperative for our society is economic growth. The engine of this growth is innovation, the creation of new kinds of artifacts.

But the increasing threatens of environmental, social and economic crises urge us to pose a question: is “the innovation society” sustainable?

We in INSITE are investigating whether Western society's innovation processes and its dependence on them might lie at the root of the sustainability crises.

And if so – what can be done about it?


READ OUR MANIFESTO

  • How can innovation be focused and directed?

    Can its direction be provided by civil society rather than the market?

  • If models can't predict the Future, what role they might have?

  • Is the innovation society sustainable?

  • A complex system perspective to sustainability and innovation

Events

INSITE regularly organizes workshops, seminars, lectures, etc. to confront with others, stimulate the dialogue and cultivate its community. These events may be held in Venice or in other European locations when organized by one of INSITE's partners and friends. Please check our events calendar and availability.

Read our papers

INSITE's network of scholars constantly write academic papers on Innovation, Sustainability, Technology and other relevant themes.

Contact us

INSITE is an open community: if you want to publish an article or you have any idea or project you would like to share, please contact us.

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/// What is INSITE

INSITE is a coordination action sponsored by the European Union program DG connect on The innovation society, sustainability and ICT.

INSITE’s principle purpose is to contribute to a sustainable future for society and the environment: our consortium includes scientists and practitioners from a varied range of disciplines and organizations.

/// From the blog

  • P2P Food Lab project awarded @ OuiShare Fest

    Author: Insite Staff Comments: 0 Date: 24 May 2013
    P2P Food Lab project won the 2013 edition of OuiShare Awards in Paris (http://ouisharefest.com) in the P2P category. The competition was really challenging and P2P Food Lab project (proposed by the University of Barcelona, OKNO Belgium, the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris, ECLT at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and Libelium Communicaciones Distribuidas) was up [...]

  • Final CROSSOVER Conference in Policy Making 2.0

    Author: Francesco Mureddu Comments: 0 Date: 10 May 2013
    Join us in Dublin to explore the emerging technologies and trends that are changing the way policy is made. The FP7 Crossover Conference will be held directly before the Digital Agenda Assembly on 17th & 18th June at Trinity College What will be discussed? Open and big data Visual analytics Modelling and simulation Collaborative Governance [...]

  • Restart-Up! goes to Brussels

    Author: Insite Staff Comments: 0 Date: 07 May 2013
    Restart Up!, the project developed by Stefania Sardo and Alberto Lusoli from the European Centre for Living Technology has been chosen as finalist of the Social Innovation Competition, launched by the European Commission. In the final round of the Competition, that will take place the 28th of May in Brussels, the 10 finalists will compete [...]

/// Mobilizing civil society and ICT

Read the latest news about ICT tools and social innovations designed to mobilize civil society.


/// Latest articles

  • Is the Innovation Society Sustainable?

    Author: Sander van der Leeuw Comments: 0 Date: 29 Aug 2012
    From the perspective of the archaeologist/historian and anthropologist we can compare the ups and downs of many civilizations and societies at different timescales, in different natural environments, both in the present and the past. Whether one looks at the Roman, Sassanian, Spanish, British, or American Empires, or at small-scale societies in Africa or Papua New Guinea such as the Huli, in each case a group of people constructs a way of living together, exploits it and grows in size and footprint to a full-scale society with many institutions, and ultimately disintegrates. Disintegration entails the dispersal of people, throwing them back on fending for themselves rather than depending on their group synergies for their survival. There may then follow a phase of reconstruction so that another society emerges, organized differently, with different means of subsistence and a different organization and institutions. Of course, people have been aware of this for a very long time – Gibbon, Spencer and countless others have described the rise and fall of civilizations.
    Read More

  • Loser and Sfigato

    Author: Michele Zappia Comments: 0 Date: 21 Aug 2012
    Some months ago the Italian vice minister of labor and social policy, Michel Martone, said that “Anyone who hasn’t graduated by the age of 28 is a sfigato”. “Sfigato” means loser.
    Read More

  • That’s democracy, baby!

    Author: Michele Zappia Comments: 0 Date: 20 Aug 2012
    A selected passage from “AMERICAN ADVERTISING”, by Herbert Marshall McLuhan, in “Horizon”, October 1947 A few months ago an American army officer wrote for Printer’s Ink from Italy. He noted with misgiving that Italians could tell you the names of cabinet ministers but not the names of commodities preferred by Italian celebrities. Furthermore, the wall space of Italian cities was given over to political rather than commercial slogans. Finally, he predicted that there was small hope that Italians would ever achieve any sort of domestic prosperity or calm until they began to worry about the rival claims of cornflakes or cigarettes rather than the capacities of public men. In fact, he went so far as to say that democratic freedom very largely consists in ignoring politics and worrying about the means of defeating under-arm odour, scaly scalp, hairy legs, dull complexion, unruly hair, borderline anemia, athlete’s foot, and sluggish bowels, not to mention ferro-nutritional deficiency of the blood, wash-day blues, saggy breasts, receding gums, shiny pants, greying hair, and excess weight.
    Read More

/// Our perspective

INSITE project is based upon some fundamental assumptions:

  • The way in which our society is organized has become more and more dependent on innovation, simply intended as the ability to constantly generate new artifacts.
  • The social, cultural and technological aspects of innovation processes are inextricably linked through a positive feedback dynamic.
  • This positive feedback dynamic generates inherently unpredictable externalities that can threaten the sustainability of the environment and social organization itself.
  • The only way society can respond to this is by changing the way in which it monitors, evaluates and engages in the processes through which it transforms its own organization.

In order to achieve this, a deeper mobilization of civil society through its active engagement in participatory policy projects is needed. Read more »

Contents published under Creative Common Attribution 3.0 license