World Student Community for Sustainable Development

by Elizaveta Perova, Kostya Vasiliev

How a paper towards a Bachelor’s degree could lead to Japan, and about the benefits of Sustainable Development.

The news that I will be able to present my Bachelor’s paper, translated into English, at the University of Tokyo, a year ago I would have considered a game of morbid imagination. Nevertheless, only several months later an e-mail message containing such news appeared in my mail.ru mail-box. The WSC Annual Meeting Committee informed me about its concern for my abstracts (about stipends as a means of regulating labor market) and invited me to make a report at the conference devoted to Sustainable Development. A bit later another unusually nice message arrived — an offer to pay for my return ticket to Japan and for my stay there.

A chance to step onto the land of the rising sun was becoming more and more realizable. The perspective of Kostya Vasilievâ€^TMs (my classmate) trip to Japan went through the same transformation — the ravings of a madman, hazy chance, an urgency to run to get a plane ticket. His paper about the peaceful conflict resolution based on the application of the methods of systems analysis was also chosen by the WSC Annual Meeting Committee and the given grant almost totally covered the travel expenses. Here I need to stop the natural sequence of the story to proudly announce that Kostyaâ€^TMs paper was considered the best in the Social Diversity section, and now the xerocopy of his certificate, written half in Japanese, half in English decorates our Department.

After a long and tiring flight, we passed through Aka-mon (the Red gates) of the University of Tokyo, to enter the Japanese office of the World Student Community for Sustainable Development (WSC-SD). WSC-SD is an organization that unites students from several universities from all over the world, among which are such schools as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Lausanne and Zurich, and Chalmers — one of the most famous universities of Sweden. The common thing that unites students from all over the world is their interest in the concept of sustainable development and motivation to put fundamental principles of the concept to practice.

What is it — a sustainable development? According to the UNâ€^TMs definition, “this is a development which implies that satisfaction of the needs of today does not threat the possibility of satisfaction of the needs of the future generations†. In the concept, three constituents stand out: economic, ecological and social. Only a thorough attention to all these aspects may provide a successful realization of the concept into reality.

Sustainable Development is a practical philosophy, which, if followed, may increase the chances of the human kind of survival. Practically, the concept is realized in the form of a variety of projects, that aim to make fulfillment of infinitely growing populationâ€^TMs needs more friendly towards the environment. Among them are such projects as preservation of biodiversity, development of the means of decreasing of the volumes of industrial waste products, town-planning, increase of literacy.

The field of application of the concept of sustainable development is rarely wide, and this was reflected in the diversity of papers presented in Tokyo: the usage of geo-materials for optimization of the means of harvest storing in Cote dâ€^TMIvoire, the tools of irrigative management, the influence of religion on the concept of sustainable development. Nevertheless, the breadth of themes did not create the effect of communication in several languages: conference consisted of 5 sections, each uniting the papers of one field. Thus, the participants had a chance not only join to other fields of science, but also to exchange views on their own scientific field. The entertainment program of the conference which we – the participants of the conference – were developing upon the completion of everyday lectures and presentations, could compare well with the thoroughly developed official program: in 4 days that the conference lasted I learnt how to prepare “the dish of sumo wrestlers†, was a bit less successful in absorbtion of my own concoction with the help of chopsticks, went sightseeing in Tokyo from visiting Asaksa — the oldest temple — to having fun in Shibuya — the place were Tokyo teenagers hang out, and also learned to dance salsa in Roppongi — a Mecca for clubbers.

Nevertheless, despite the magnificent speeches by teachers from the most famous universities of the world and memorable parties in our international community, an unpleasantly obtrusive question started to keep on follow me: why there are only two of us, the Politechnics? You just only have to have a fleeting glance at the proceedings of the Week of Science in the Politechnical University so that to make sure that lots of papers presented at the inter-university conference touch upon the concept of sustainable development in one way or another. A more attentive reading gives hope that some of the papers may compete with papers done by the Swiss, Americans, Japanese and apologists of sustainable development of other nationalities. The only thing that needs to be done is to translate these papers into English.

Sorrowful meditations on the lost opportunities are fraught with deep depression, if not to rush after them immediately. We created another ‘student communityâ€^TM in our Alma Mater. This student community will be a link between the Politechnics, whose scientific interests relate to the concept of sustainable development.

Students, if you are interested in the concept of sustainable development, through the prism of which you can view many economic, social and ecological problems and if an opportunity of attending international conferences and exchanging experience with foreign colleagues attracts you – write at studentcommunity@mail.ru, or what is better — come to our presentation, which will take place in the Third Building of the University, Room 402 on May the 16th lasting from noon till 1.30 pm.

In the next year the conference will take place in Sweden. In a year probably in Switzerland. The theme of the conference will be announced in the fall, the deadline for abstract submission — December. Good luck!

Written by Elizaveta Perova, the student of the Department of Economics and Management in May, 2003.

Published in St. Petersburg State Politechnical Universityâ€^TMs newspaper “Politechnic†N 13 (3262) of Wednesday, May, the 14th, 2003.

Translated into English and provided with pictures by Kostya Vasiliev, the postgraduate student of the Department of Economics and Management in October, 2003.