RESEARCH, Designing

and

Shaping of Positive Futures

instead of

Predictions

Specialisations: Long-range planning, futures research, ‘science, technology and environmental impact assessment' as well as societal sciences

Research with public as well as private funding (national, EU and inter- or trans- national)

Born 1941, Vienna,

It is not unlikely that the following spectrum of my research will appear as too ambitious because of my “societal” approach (I delineated the respective basic theory in my book “From Social Sciences to Societal Science and on to the Analysis of the Future of the Global Knowledge Society", Shaker Publ., Aachen, 2004, 480 pp, in German). There is no pretention to be an expert in any of these disciplines as they define themselves. What  I offer is expertise in “Interdisciplinary Societal Analysis of Interdependence” (after Sept. 11, many commentators required just that type of analysis):

- Scientific and technological futures, in particular in areas like nanotechnology, biotechnology, ICT, cognitive sciences, transport or medicine (health sciences) and in areas like technology assessment, including environmental impact assess­ment as well as technology transfer (within and between industrialized countries as well as to developing countries) [1] ;

- Political futures (e.g. for Europe, i.e. in particular the question of the French-German cooperation, European identity and new members of the EU; the Transatlantic Union as well as futures of developing countries [2] ).

- Economic futures, in particular for transnational conglomerates and world players, but possible fu­tures for globalisation as well as for agriculture, food or for (world-) trade [3] ;

- Social futures as e.g. distribution of wealth, life expectancy and population policy as well as the fu­ture of human activities and labour, the future of leisure and the future of sport, etc.;

- Cultural futures as e.g. the relationship between individuals and society [4] , the future of values and the future of criminality and corruption, etc.;

- Urban futures, in particular those of megapoles and the question, if they might be able to establish a politically relevant network amongst themselves, thus becoming the 4^th pillar of democracy;

- Futures of peace and security or questions like: How will armament and the military, ABC-weapons and their political proscription, aerospace industry and SDI [5] etc. develop?

- Ecological futures, in particular manmade climate changes, weather doomsdays, water shortages and gen-manipulations of food and the human genome;

- Futures of consumption, marketing and leisure [6] ;

- Futures of the knowledge society (the home sapiens);

- Which conditions would allow world population to decrease to 6, 5 or even 4 billion [7] ?

Conventional cv

Studies at Stuttgart, Frankfurt/M., Göttingen, Paris, London, Tokyo and UC Berkeley, Ph.D. 1974, Habilitation (eli­gibility for full professorships) at Berlin Technical University with a book on the limits of French “planification”, 1979 ☻. Consultancy (till today) to German ministries, ministries of other (also developing) nations, the EU & the UN system, enterprizes, NGOs and INGOs; teaching assignments at many universities in Germany, Europe and overseas. Scientific director of the Brussels/Paris based “Institute for Research on Multinational Corporations” as well as director of the Hamburgian “Institute for Work and Technology”. - So far I authored, co-authored or edited fourteen books (one, “The age of the future”, is in preparation) and I have written 206 scientific/professsional articles and 13 consultant-reports. - I am member of various national and/or international scientific associations, was repeatedly visiting professor, e.g. at the Universidad National Autonoma de México and Turku University of Eco­nomics (Finland) and serve on the advisory council of the Berlin Institute for Futures Research, the German Federation of Scientists, the Mexican economic journal “Problemas del Desarrollo” and of the Namur (Belgium) based PRELUDE (Programme of research and liaison between universities for development); further I am scientific member of the "Union of International Associ­ations", Brussels, president of the board of "Futures Management Group, Ltd., Eltville, Germany and honorary member of the Society For Future Projects and System’s Criticism, Münster, Germany. – In 2002 I co-founded the “Wiesbaden Futures Dialogues” together with the Young Chamber of the Wiesbaden Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Unconventional cv, or How I came to be a futures researcher

In the public school in 1947 in Vienna, we were 44 boys, originated from 16 countries, 6 had German as their mother tongue, 18 knew more than two languages. Our biggest joy was to throw stones at soldiers guarding the Russian war memorial, till they once shot one of us. - When I was a little older I started to grasp why half of our family was gone after WW II had ended, why so many relatives lived somewhere on the globe (to be "anti" is honest, but sometimes a risk). And I learned how to travel (because we visited them) and that I only survived thanks to a fantastically helpful Dutch family. - Consciously, I did not meet my (Hungarian-Roumanian) father before 1955, when he returned from Siberia against all likelihood (but he had been turned into some­body else, like everybody, who was forced to live through comparable hardships). Finally I turned into that Transatlantic and yet European researcher of (world) futures I am today, because I can never forget either my first trip to France, which required, at these times after the war, some twelve permissions, or that the US wanted to send this young immigrant, who had already possessed so many nationalities, almost directly to Viet Nam … I try to work intra-cultural, as e.g., Europe - Ex-Soviet-Union or Europe - Muslim World [8] , whilst I submit that futures research should be defined by the following:

- futures research has to define itself within the dialectics between local and global (and between ecology, economy, politics, tradition-religion-culture and technology & science, etc.);

- Futures research has to ask: which reduction or even better dissolution of conflicts between which parties, relationships or things could be brought about by which means? A brilliant example is the high probability that our globe will be divided into only five blocks by 2070 (China, India, a Muslim Block, South-East Asia under Japanese hegemony and something like a Transatlantic Union, reaching from Cape Horn via Africa and Europe till Vladivostok) - just ask, which problems would result out of non- peaceful and -cooperative relations between them?

- Futures research has to be undertaken by researchers with broad experience in travelling, languages and different cultures (whilst e-media’s teaching still seems to be rather limited) and with maximally possible encyclopaedic knowledge in areas as far apart as natural-, cultural and spiritual sciences, but also science and technology, medicine and esotherics, etc.. They have to be peace-, environmentally and socially oriented as well as (auto-) critical and enlightened and methodologically firm, somewhat following the book Peter H. Mettler & Thomas Baumgartner, “Participation as Aid to Decision Making - PARDIZIPP - a (long-range) Planning and Futures Research Methodology”, Wiesbaden, 1997   [9] .

Pr. Peter H. Mettler, Ph.D., M.A.

Prof (em.) for long-range planning, futures research, ‘science, technology and environmental impact assessment' as well as societal sciences