Complexity and Sustainable Development

The predominant approach in Science and Technology is exhibiting major shortcomings while it is becoming clear that in a significant number of cases the very success of compartmentalized scientific approaches has led to the aggravation of the environmental and development problems they set out to resolve. Sustainable development is the name given to the quest for a solution in which development is understood to be the genesis and unfolding of qualitative potential –not just the pursuit of quantitative growth– and sustainability covers the ecological economic and social dimensions. The new knowledge production model proposed here to face the challenge of such complexity is that of transdisciplinarity which shall be made up of theoretical structures research methods and practical procedures that cannot be found in the current disciplinary or interdisciplinary maps. This development can only be achieved if we raise the citizenship itself as Knowledge Producers.