FOOD FOR THOUGHT: increasingly specialised academic teaching today -- a sign of creative diversity, or lack of a systemic approach to the challenges facing society?

One of the obstacles in moving to a more sustainable society are the silo structures of academia, many businesses and public administrations.

A number of initiatives have recently been undertaken to overcome this obstacle, such as the 2015 EU report “JHEB, The Junction of Health, Environment and Bioeconomy: Foresight and Implications for European Research & Innovation Policies”. The report was researched by a group of 12 European experts, chaired by Walter R. Stahel, rapporteur Ozcan Saritas.

The report is available on-line here.

The German weekly “DIE ZEIT” has published a statistic for the silos in academia if you need one. Centuries ago, academia offered ten topics to students: religious studies, juris prudence, medical science and the seven artes liberales. By 2005, German universities offered its students courses on 11’000 different topics. Today this figure has risen to 18’000 topics, of which the article lists 1600.

Is this an opportunity to develop a Babel fish for academics, or to start yet another course on holistic thinking?

Source “DIE ZEIT” of 21 July 2016. Chancen; in BIldung, Wissenschaft und Beruf; pp 65.66.