Intro

Thinking the future is a defining aspect of the human condition, with science and technology increasingly serving as key propellers to articulate our visions of the future, in public discourse and individual lives alike. The implementation of these visions is becoming ever more rapid, with technoscientific innovation joining other key domains of society on that slope of pervasive acceleration that characterizes our times. [...]

Against this background, taking the time to think and rethink our future, and do so with the necessary depth, appears like an ultimate yet acutely necessary luxury. All the more so once we perceive the breadth of changes that are unfolding in our societies, often along contradictory directions. Well beyond the sociotechnical imaginaries of current biomedicine, with its expansive ambition to reshape health and its very notion, we live at times of radical experimentation in virtually all key domains of our communal life, from the emergence of new political forms and democratic templates to the resurgence of value-laden divisions that cut across the very fabric of humanity. Celebrating the legacy of Umberto Veronesi, in his visionary pursuit of science and politics, the XIIth conference on the Future of Science aims to offer a much needed space for high-profile yet accessible engagement with the key innovations, scientific and societal alike, that are going to shape the lives to come. 

THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE is a cycle of annual international conferences jointly organised by Fondazione Umberto Veronesi, Fondazione Silvio Tronchetti Provera, and Fondazione Giorgio Cini. The aim of the Conferences is to examine the importance of scientific development as a mean of improving the quality of our lives, and to delineate a new role for science in the society of the third millennium.

The idea of these conferences springs from an awareness that the problems and dilemmas generated by unrelenting scientific and technological progress are not being adequately discussed in society as a whole. As science exerts an ever more pervasive influence on our lives, society seems ill-informed about the short and long term implications of scientific advance, and in particular is unaware of the social, economic and cultural consequences of the continuous technological revolution.

Experts of international renown from various spheres and disciplines have been invited to give their points of view on these issues − which are crucial to the destiny of our society − addressing a public of scientists, philosophers, theologians, industrialists, politicians, economists, journalists, students and others interested in the social, economic and political consequences of constant scientific development.