The International Background and Partners

Einstein is an international collaborative program. The success of the program is entirely dependant on its ability to mobilise this collaboration in many places. Below please find brief introductions to the groups that are preently actively invovled in moving these concepts ahead in actual concrete field situations. Further information is immediately available on each via their respective WWW sites which are identified below.

Learning Without Frontiers (UNESCO)
The Global Laboratory Curriculum (NSF & TERC)
EcoPlan - The Network for Technology & Social Systems
For Einstein in the Basque Country & Spain
Short Biographical Notes on Cooperating Individuals

Learning Without Frontiers (UNESCO)

Einstein is a partner project which is linking to some of the most outstanding project and programs in the ‘new learning’ sphere in many places around the world. One of these privileged links is with UNESCO’s award-winning Learning Without Frontiers (LWF) program. LWF’s emphasis on linked but independent partnership projects is unusual. The program aims at using these partnerships to open up the learning environment for all and lower the barriers that relate to space, time, age and circumstance.

The UNESCO link is an interesting and useful one for Einstein in many ways. From their perspective Einstein serves as a useful testing ground for a number of new learning concepts, in addtion to those which are being directly pioneered by their own program. Einstein in turn benefits from this informal but continuing association in several ways.

Perhaps above all, we appreciate the consistent pressure from LWF to ensure that all partner projects are, as quickly as prudently possible, extended beyond the school classroom and into the surrounding community. We see this as an especially important goal in situations where the community has social or economic disadvantages. The LWF premise is that our schools are only part of the broader learning systems which we should all be trying to develop. We here at Einstein are in full agreement. Beyond this the LWF link provides important international visibility for Einstein’s accomplishments, which brings with it, of course, an even stronger commitment to excellence. The LWF program also is a means for developing global links and school and community partnerships which build further on our own experiments and accomplishments in the Basque Country.

In the initial pilot phase in the Basque Country (through July 1997) the program will concentrate the limited resources on building a successful base of accomplishment within the school environment. In the expanded 1997/98 program, however, we anticipate making efforts in the cooperating schools to extend at least some parts of the program into the surrounding communities. This of course will bring with it a number of major challenges of their own

If you wish to take direct contact with LWF, your best starting point will be the program’s director, who is also on the Board of Governors of Einstein.

Dr. Jan Visser, Director
Learning Without Frontiers
UNESCO, 7 Place de Fontenoy
75007 Paris, France

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TERC

TERC is a a nonprofit research and development organization committed to improving mathematics and science learning and teaching. Founded in 1965 TERC is internationally recognized for creating innovative curricula, pioneering creative uses of technology in education, contributing to educators' understanding of learning and teaching, and developing opportunities for underserved learners. TERC's mission is pursued through project work. TERC currently has over forty-four projects funded by government agencies, foundations, and industry. The projects form clusters in which the work of one informs and builds on the work of others. Among the current clusters we would note:

TERC’s association with Einstein in the Basque Country in this first phase centers specifically around the Global Lab Curriculum. Further background on TERC is available though WWW at Dr. Boris Berenfeld, Senior Scientist Global Lab Project (TERC) 2067 Massachusetts Avenue 02140 Cambridge - MA, USA

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EcoPlan is a non-profit institution under the French Associations’ Law of 1901, founded to provide a working platform for long term collaboration by scientists, social scientists and others concerned with the challenge of anticipating and managing technological change as it affects people in their daily lives. EcoPlan's interests and capabilities are both cross-disciplinary and international.

Since 1966 our overriding concern has been to work to improve our collective understanding and control of the opportunities and pitfalls that surround technology change. To this end the group has taken as its mission not research per se, but rather the challenge of bringing attention, knowledge and resources to bear on "change opportunities" of technology and society in order to improve the quality of the policy decisions, institutions and the practices that shape our daily lives, and in particular the lives of the less favored members of society.

A particular concern of the group has been the search for breakthrough strategies: practical ways of shifting the balance away from stalemate and debate, toward practical applications and virtuous spirals of learning and continuing improvement. At the core of this has been the push to devising and supporting demonstration projects that can show the way in concrete and visible terms for all to see and build on.

Virtually all EcoPlan projects are carried out on a partnership basis. We have taken great care over the years in building creative long term relationships with exceptionally thoughtful and committed people. These alliances regularly result in new ideas, projects, contacts, and occasionally in new sources of funding and support. As a result of the experience, contacts and background gathered over this period of high level international activity in its several areas of specialization, EcoPlan has been able to initiate and contribute to a considerable range of projects and programs in more than twenty countries in Europe and elsewhere.

The key to a successful EcoPlan project has always been our ability to mobilize intellectual and other resources around a crucial problem or opportunity in a convincing manner. We have found that two things are needed to generate support for a strong project: a clear articulation of the problem area in its full dimensions and systemic complexity, and a credible proposal for a path of inquiry and action that can elucidate and address the issues. Einstein is one example of this approach.

For further background on the Einstein international program, EcoPlan and the Network for Technology and Social Systems, you are invited to take direct contact through:

F. E. K. Britton
EcoPlan - The Network for Technology & Systems Studies
10, rue Joseph Bara
F-75006 Paris, France

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Einstein in the Basque Country & Spain

Details on the Basque team will be made available in the coming weeks.

Mrs. Carmen Sanz, Director
Apartado 79
48930 Las Arenas
Bizkaia, Spain

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Short Biographical Notes on Cooperating Individuals

[This section to follow shortly.]

Einstein is looking to establish working relationships with schools and others who care about the issues that we are trying to get at. Groups active in these areas, individuals who wish to contribute time or resources, concerned public sector agencies, and foundations are invited to contact the following for further information and to discuss their ideas, questions and eventual contributions. Tap here to send email direct

Go to Einstein Home Page


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