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The Vienna team is located at the Vienna University of Technology. Wolfgang Hofkirchner who will play the role of the co-ordinator is deputy head of the Institute of Design and Technology Assessment. This institute is part of the Computer Science Department. Hofkirchner, by education political scientist, has been doing research in the field of science-technology-society. In particular, he has been inquiring into key elements of a unified theory of information which takes account of information generating systems on whatever level of evolution. One key element is the concept of emergence which is still left to be worked out in order to provide a philosophical base for a unification of the manifold approaches to self-organization. Determining emergence on the level of humanity as an evolutionary system on planet Earth will have consequences for how to deal with the global problematique. Thus the Vienna team provides the framework to which the other teams can contribute according to their special knowledge. All of them are familiar with self-organization theories and they complement each other in the expertise in Western and Eastern traditions of philosophy which shall be used as a possible source of heuristic ideas. Christian Fuchs who holds a diploma in computer science and doctorate in technical science and who is expected to deal with self-organization principles and political aspects of the global information society is another member of the Vienna team. Klaus Brunner holds a diploma in buisness informatics and has written a diploma thesis about emergent computing. Bert Klauninger is a student of computer science and writes a diploma thesis about the philosophical foundations of self-organisation. Franz Ofner is professor of sociology and economics at the University of Klagenfurt and in this projects deals works on psychological foundations of evolutionary systems. Günther Ellersdorfer studied biology and ecology and deals with biological aspects of self-organisation. Norbert Fenzl is professor for geochemistry and ecology at the Federal University Pará, Belém, Brasil and works on aspects of sustainable development and physical self-organisation. Gottfried Stockinger is professor for communication theory at Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brasil and deals with aspects of communication and self-organisation. John Collier is a guest researcher in the Vienna team and works on philosophical questions of self-organisation. |