2021 has been a year heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, STI has remained active, working around the obstacles to celebrate the following meetings:
Human Flourishing: Neuroscience and Health, Organizations and Arts
Online | January 14-15, 2021
Flourishing has been variously defined as “a combination of feeling good and functioning effectively, and the experience that life is going well,” or “living within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience,” among others. How can humans achieve this “flourishing?”
Digital Humanism. A Human-centric Approach to Digital Technologies
Online | April and May 2021
Under the academic leadership of Marta Bertolaso, Luca Capone and Carlos Rodriguez-Lluesma, these discussion sessions supported the forthcoming publication of the same name.
Can Benevolence Change the World?
Online | Thursday, July 1st, 2021
Benevolence, understood as the willingness to help or to do good unto others, is not frequently considered in business, although it can affect central aspects of business activity at several levels.
Boards of Directors and Corporate Strategy in an Uncertain Context
Madrid, Spain and Online | October 4-5, 2021
In a climate of increasing uncertainty, Boards of Directors are challenged to inform and structure themselves so as to make productive corporate strategy decisions.
Accessing the Public Space through Intercultural Mediation: Challenges in a Changing World
Online | November 29-30, 2021
In our globalized world, spaces for new contact, transfer and interaction are rapidly generated and (re)shaped: large-scale mobility phenomena and the increasing speed of communications lead to unprecedented forms of inter- and multicultural coexistence that are subject to reflexive negotiation. Yet this intense flux of people and ideas often not only does not help to solve or mitigate already existing sociopolitical conflicts but rather gives rise to new forms of individual and societal disputes and asymmetries.
Challenging Modernity: Robert Bellah’s Vision and Beyond
Barcelona, Spain | December 1-2, 2021
Four scholars who collaborated with the late Robert Bellah invited select colleagues from various disciplines to this Experts Meeting to examine and debate Bellah’s ideas and to add their own work to addressing important cultural aspects of the crises of our time.
Additionally, three books, a research report and a specialized journal issue were published this year based on pre-pandemic STI projects and meetings:
The Home in the Digital Age
Routledge. Antonio Argandoña, Joy Malala, Richard Peatfield, editors.
Product of the joint STI-Home Renaissance Foundation Experts Meeting of the same name, The Home in the Digital Age is a set of multidisciplinary studies exploring the impact of digital technologies in the home, with a shift of emphasis from technology to the people living and using technology in their homes in numerous ways.
More Work, Fewer Babies: What Does Workism Have to Do with Falling Fertility?
The Institute for Family Studies. Laurie DeRose and Lyman Stone, editors.
Birth rates have reached extremely low levels in many countries around the world, including virtually all high-income countries. The causes of this decline and the solutions to it are of great interest to policymakers. People’s attitudes toward work —specifically the elevation of career advancement to a very high place in individual values— may influence fertility. The rise of “work-focused” value sets and life courses means that achieving work-family balance isn’t just about employment norms adjusting to the growing complexity of individual aspirations; it can also mean that many men and women find their preferred balance to be more work and less family.
Can Purpose Deliver Better Corporate Governance?
Journal of Applied Corporate Finance: Sustainable Financial Management. Volume 33, Number 2
Columbia Business School’s Journal of Applied Corporate Finance (JACF) has included the complete program of presentations and roundtable discussions from the STI-funded “Can Purpose Deliver Better Corporate Governance?” meeting in an issue dedicated to ESG (Environmental, social and corporate governance).
Engaged Fatherhood for Men, Families and Gender Equality
Springer. Marc Grau, Mireia las Heras and Hannah Riley Bowles, editors.
The evidence is clear: the degree to which fathers engage in their role as fathers has far-reaching implications. These extend beyond their own, their children’s and their partners’ health and wellbeing to effect work and social environments at the individual and broader societal levels.
Global Governance in a World of Change
Cambridge University Press. Michael N. Barnett, Jon C. W. Pevehouse, Kal Raustiala, editors.
Global governance has come under increasing pressure since the end of the Cold War. In some issue areas, these pressures have led to significant changes in the architecture of governance institutions. In others, institutions have resisted pressures for change.
