Strategy AV21

The Strategy AV21 (http://av21.avcr.cz) is an initiative launched by the Czech Academy of Sciences in 2015 to support cutting-edge research focused on the problems and challenges facing contemporary society. The Strategy AV21 is based on a set of research programmes using interdisciplinary and interinstitutional synergies to identify the challenges of today and coordinate the research efforts of the Academy of Sciences’ workplaces to address them. In 2016, the original 15 research programmes grew by another three to a total of 18 programs (http://av21.avcr.cz/vyzkumne-programy). The Institute of Philosophy of the CAS has been significantly involved in the Strategy AV21from the very beginning. Three programs are coordinated by IP CAS employees:

1) Forms and Functions of Communication (coordinator Alice Koubová)

The programme is focused on investigating the social, cultural and psychological functions of communication, the conditions of understanding among individuals and social groups, and the sources of communication failures. The subjects of the research include the development of forms of communication and their function in generating, maintaining, and disrupting social structures, the role of communication in shaping personality and its contribution to the emergence of personality disorders, the possibilities of formal analysis and modelling the processes through which linguistic utterances are understood and language is acquired, the nature of communication among scientific disciplines and between the scientific community and society, the communicative functions of art, and the social conditions for their fulfilment. Each of the ten main research topics is conceived as a basis for collaboration among representatives of various disciplines and Academic institutes. The typical outputs are collective monographs, thematic issues of journals, interdisciplinary (and in most cases international) conferences, exhibitions etc.

2) Europe and the State: Between Barbarism and Civilisation (coordinator Petr Sommer)

The programme studies the transformations of both historical and present form of the (Central) European state as a phenomenon. The focus is not on its historical development from primitive to complex types but on the historical oscillation between the positive and negative forms of an organisation that sometimes tyrannises society (barbarism) and other times brings it to humanity and culture (civilisation). The analysis of the role of the state seems to be useful for the public, which needs enough information and arguments to make qualified decisions on its attitude towards the state.

3) Global Conflicts and Local Interactions: Cultural and Social Challenges (coordinator Marek Hrubec)

Research programme focuses on global conflicts and their local interactions which present important cultural and social challenges in the 21st century. It analyses cultural and social transformations with regard to interactions of global and local dynamics in the contemporary and historical development of cultures and societies, especially in Europe, but also in the Americas, Africa and Asia, particularly with respect to interactions with the local processes in the Czech Republic.

However, in 2018 some research teams of the IP CAS were involved in other programs of the AV21 Strategy: Effective Public Policies and Contemporary Society (coordinator Associate Professor Daniel Münich, CERGE-EI) and Memory in the Digital Age (coordinator Prof. Luboš Velek, Masaryk Institute and Archive CAS, v. v. i.).