Dia-Logos

Dia-Logos: a GlobLab listening to the world

Global society has begun to emerge as a possible horizon, but remains difficult to comprehend in all its complexity. The major agglomerations, whether in the South or the North, provide extraordinary diversities in a world of continuous movement. Beyond Davos and Porto Alegre, Dia-Logos proposes GlobLab.

This workshop-forum is dialogical, because of its characteristics to promote the exchange of knowledge to formulate and solve problems; hybrid, because of the participation of researchers and non-researchers, understanding the vital role of each group; global, from the magnitude of the issues approached and the size of its networks; local, since it relocates in the large cities of the world to utilize local expertise.

GlobLab: a new mechanism

We therefore establish a new procedure called GlobLab, setting up a hybrid workshop-forum, with both global and local dimensions. The four main thrusts of its activities shall be as follows:

The definition of research topics by a hybrid Orientation Committee (OrC) (with a membership of researchers and non-researchers).

Establishment of an Issue Assessment Council (IssAC), also of hybrid membership, comprising specialists on a given issue, with the task of monitoring the overall research process.

The task of the OrC shall be made easier by the development of a webbased knowledge watch gathering up-to-date information and documentation concerning society’s main challenges, research topics and the stakeholders involved, using resources available on the Internet. This tool will be developed in collaboration with other teams, making use of existing software*.

Qualitative research will also be carried out in Geneva (Geneva Micromega Survey, GeMS), taking advantage of the town’s dual international character (diversity of origins of its inhabitants, and international and transnational organizations).
(* For example, software for data mining, semantic analysis of corpus and network cartography.)
The definition, by IssAC, of a specific research problem within the broad topic already selected; an invitation to tender proposals; and a joint selection process involving both OrC and IssAC to choose the most suitable projects.
Undertaking of research projects by the chosen Research Teams (ReseT), with support from IssAC.
Submission of research papers; a symposium with the participation of the chosen Research Teams, OrC, IssAC, and a group representing local society (Societal Panel, SPan). We will also draw on contributions from the readers’ forums of our partner newspapers, and enjoy the support of a financial partner, committed to taking an active interest in the process. The results of the research and symposium will be presented to the media.

Every year, a new research topic will be announced for a period of two years. Consequently, each part of the process will see two different topics addressed in parallel.

One of the most innovative characteristics of this mechanism is its mobility. Dia-Logos headquarters is based on the campus of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, in Lausanne, Switzerland. However, since it is virtually impossible, for linguistic reasons apart from anything else, to arrange direct interaction between all of the world’s actors, even through representative samples, Dia-Logos will travel to the world’s largest cities to embrace the diversity of societies. Our belief is that large cities offer a concentrated version of the world’s diversity, in the form of unique “cocktails”, in which an openness to difference and to the future tend to be found more commonly than elsewhere. Thus, each topic will be associated with one of the world’s largest cities, situated either in the “North” or the “South”. Through the presence of topic-specific actors (IssAC) and representatives of each city’s diverse inhabitants (SPan), local inhabitants will also be involved in phases 2, 3 and 4. The presentation symposium will also take place in the chosen city. While retaining its base in Switzerland, Dia-Logos will permanently be on the move.

At each stage, the key is to bring researchers together in productive partnership with a wide range of other social actors with contributions to make, in one way or another, to the production of knowledge. The researchers must not only be skilled in their particular fields, but also fully convinced of the value of openness vis-à-vis all those with a direct or indirect link to the context and impact of their work. The nonresearchers must be able to “disturb” the research community in a useful way, while accepting a scientific approach all the same. All those involved need to hold a strong belief that this challenging exchange between people from different backgrounds, this “meeting of minds”, can lead to useful “dialogics” for all sides.

GLOBLAB STRUCTURE TOOLS TEAM PARTNERS Links: Nanopublic CIPAST
	Dia-Logos: a GlobLab listening to the world Global society has begun to emerge as a possible horizon, but remains difficult to comprehend in all its complexity. The major agglomerations, whether in the South or the North, provide extraordinary diversities in a world of continuous movement. Beyond Davos and Porto Alegre, Dia-Logos proposes GlobLab. This workshop-forum is dialogical, because of its characteristics to promote the exchange of knowledge to formulate and solve problems; hybrid, because of the participation of researchers and non-researchers, understanding the vital role of each group; global, from the magnitude of the issues approached and the size of its networks; local, since it relocates in the large cities of the world to utilize local expertise. GlobLab: a new mechanism We therefore establish a new procedure called GlobLab, setting up a hybrid workshop-forum, with both global and local dimensions. The four main thrusts of its activities shall be as follows: The definition of research topics by a hybrid Orientation Committee (OrC) (with a membership of researchers and non-researchers). Establishment of an Issue Assessment Council (IssAC), also of hybrid membership, comprising specialists on a given issue, with the task of monitoring the overall research process. The task of the OrC shall be made easier by the development of a webbased knowledge watch gathering up-to-date information and documentation concerning society’s main challenges, research topics and the stakeholders involved, using resources available on the Internet. This tool will be developed in collaboration with other teams, making use of existing software. Qualitative research will also be carried out in Geneva (Geneva Micromega Survey, GeMS), taking advantage of the town’s dual international character (diversity of origins of its inhabitants, and international and transnational organizations). ( For example, software for data mining, semantic analysis of corpus and network cartography.) The definition, by IssAC, of a specific research problem within the broad topic already selected; an invitation to tender proposals; and a joint selection process involving both OrC and IssAC to choose the most suitable projects. Undertaking of research projects by the chosen Research Teams (ReseT), with support from IssAC. Submission of research papers; a symposium with the participation of the chosen Research Teams, OrC, IssAC, and a group representing local society (Societal Panel, SPan). We will also draw on contributions from the readers’ forums of our partner newspapers, and enjoy the support of a financial partner, committed to taking an active interest in the process. The results of the research and symposium will be presented to the media. Every year, a new research topic will be announced for a period of two years. Consequently, each part of the process will see two different topics addressed in parallel. One of the most innovative characteristics of this mechanism is its mobility. Dia-Logos headquarters is based on the campus of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, in Lausanne, Switzerland. However, since it is virtually impossible, for linguistic reasons apart from anything else, to arrange direct interaction between all of the world’s actors, even through representative samples, Dia-Logos will travel to the world’s largest cities to embrace the diversity of societies. Our belief is that large cities offer a concentrated version of the world’s diversity, in the form of unique “cocktails”, in which an openness to difference and to the future tend to be found more commonly than elsewhere. Thus, each topic will be associated with one of the world’s largest cities, situated either in the “North” or the “South”. Through the presence of topic-specific actors (IssAC) and representatives of each city’s diverse inhabitants (SPan), local inhabitants will also be involved in phases 2, 3 and 4. The presentation symposium will also take place in the chosen city. While retaining its base in Switzerland, Dia-Logos will permanently be on the move. At each stage, the key is to bring researchers together in productive partnership with a wide range of other social actors with contributions to make, in one way or another, to the production of knowledge. The researchers must not only be skilled in their particular fields, but also fully convinced of the value of openness vis-à-vis all those with a direct or indirect link to the context and impact of their work. The nonresearchers must be able to “disturb” the research community in a useful way, while accepting a scientific approach all the same. All those involved need to hold a strong belief that this challenging exchange between people from different backgrounds, this “meeting of minds”, can lead to useful “dialogics” for all sides.