2006 LSI SUPPLEMENTAL GRANT AWARDS

Pari Dialogues on Religion and Science
Pari Center for New Learning
Pari, Grosetto, Italy
Chairperson:  F. David Peat, Ph.D.
http://www.paricenter.com/conferences/lci/lci.php

This society is another independent non-profit educational center.  Maybe it says something that so many of our winners here tonight are “independents,” so to speak. Although the membership of these organizations consists generally of current and former university faculty and researchers, the fact is that these multidisciplinary, relatively young, agile, responsive, energetic, adaptive, visionary organizations have become leaders in this burgeoning field of science and religion.  “Centers of Gravity,” I like to call them, and this winner is certainly playing this sort of role.   This society, nestled away in a quiet hilltop village, might seem at first like it would have an emphasis on the “local.”  But it is the international impact that this society has that helps make it special.  Besides its local meetings, several times a year the society brings in the most creative thinkers in a wide variety of fields to address some of the most fascinating and vexing questions of science and spirit.  And there always seem to be members of LSI groups from around the world participating in the events.  But the LSI global network is not the only web of influence for this society.  In addition, members are active in other international networks, such as the European Forum for Spirituality in Social and Economic Life, Renaissance Europe, ETHOS, the Science and Medical Network, and more.  This center has important ties to such organizations as the California Institute of Integral Studies, the Eranos Foundation, the World Academy of Art and Science, the Fetzer Foundation, the Vatican Observatory, the University of London, major banking concerns, and even the British House of Lords.  This society envisions the flowering of a “network of networks” empowered by and empowering for all who participate.  Come to think of it, this is the natural progression for the Local Societies Initiative:  first create local interdisciplinary groups to re-vivify academic life; then tie the societies, their members, and their host educational institutions together in a transdisciplinary inter-institutional global network for science and religion; then interlace this global network with other regional and global networks in many other facets of social and cultural concern.  This winning society is engaged with the Naples group and others to help develop a Masters Degree in Science and Religion.  They’ve started their own publishing house.  They’ve integrated art with the science-and-spirit quest.  They have a great website—you should check out the audio recordings of some of the leading physicists of our times, such as Heisenberg, Dirac, Wheeler, Penrose, and Bohm.  It is wonderful to hear their voices!   This society offers online courses.  They provide online science and math workbooks that can be used in areas of the world where good quality materials are not always available.  The engage in original research—for instance, at the moment they are exploring the roles of trust, loyalty, and spirituality in business, organizations, and economics.  And not only are they fostering network building, they are studying networks scientifically in terms of organization, epistemology, and ontology.  They have been very successful at attracting funding.  The Monte dei Paschi di Siena Bank donates funds to the society, the Province of Grosseto is supportive, and the local commune donated offices (okay, its not a villa in Napoli, but its pretty nice!), utilities, furniture, office equipment, and more.  They have a number of private donors and have set up a foundation in order to enhance their development capabilities.  They are hoping to develop their wireless and IT infrastructure in order to provide even better tools for global networking.

This is only our third three-time winner of the Local Societies Initiative Supplemental Grant Prize for Excellence—and let me give proper recognition to its predecessors:  The Hazara Society for Science and Religion Dialogue of Mansehra, Pakistan, and the North Central Program for Science and Theology of St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.  Tonight, another outstanding society joins their ranks.