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.