The postgraduate studies in Technology of Solving Development Problems
are organized and conducted by the European Center for Peace and
Development (ECPD).
The basic information concerning the establishment, mission, status,
financing, resources and scope of activity of this educational and
research organization within the broader UN system is given in
continuation.
The Elements and Aim of Studies
During the period 1986-1991, the ECPD organized and successfully
conducted thepostgraduate studies at the master’s level - “Technology of
Problem Solving” - in Sarajevo,Zagreb, Athens and Heidelberg. The
evaluations of the quality of these postgraduatestudies made by the
students (about one hundred), as well as by the ECPDmanagement and
professional bodies imposed a need for and justified the resumptionof
such postgraduate studies, including necessary innovations.
More than ten years have elapsed since the organization of the above
mentioned postgraduatestudies. This is not a long period but in the
meantime the complexity, delicacy,significance and urgency of solving
numerous problems in all facets of life, workand development increased
noticeably. During that period, the entire world embarkedon the
so-called process of transition: from one socio-economic system to
another; from the vanishing global technological system to the emerging
one; from mutuallydestructive and competitive structures to competitive
and cooperative ones; from largersystems to their fragmentation and vice
versa; from conflicts to cooperation; from thecurrent understanding of
the world to a new one; from the prevailing material economyto the
predominantly service one; from quantity to quality as the prevailing
value; from a bureaucratically hierarchized structure to an organic,
corporative one; from specialized to multidisciplinary problems; from
simple to multidimensional interdependent and tightly connected life and
the world – to mention only some of the ongoing processes of
transition.