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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Futures Studies in the European Ex-socialist Countries PREFACE FUTURES STUDIES AND THE WFSF IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE MAINLY IN THE PERIOD BETWEEN 1970 AND 1990 Eleonora Barbieri Masini What was called the Second World Conference in Future Research (at that time this was the name of the discipline) took place in Bucharest in September 1972.

It was the first time that scholars and other people interested in futures studies from Western and Central and Eastern Europe had met to discuss and exchange views. I was present at the conference organised by Prof. Hidetoshi Kato in Kyoto in 1970 but not at the very first one in Oslo in 1968 when Johan Galtung and Robert Jungk had invited people such as John McHale from the United States, Hidetoshi Kato from Japan, Igor Bestuzhev-Lada from the USSR and others from Poland.

In this Oslo meeting, Mankind 2000, Galtung and Jungk started the discussion of a possible world federation. The Soviet Union was present at all WFSF meetings with the participation of Bestuzhev-Lada, who was able to give the information on the studies undertaken. Lada ’s personal work was on methods and the use of social indicators in futures studies as well as on terminology on which I also worked with him.

He certainly kept futures studies alive in the USSR and especially in the Russian Republic and published extensively. I would also like to recall Gennady Dobrov , a member of the WFSF till his death, who was for a long time at IIASA in Austria, and in Kiev organized a school for futures studies which I personally visited. Bucharest was a wonderful experience with people from the Romanian group such as Mircea Malitza, Mihai Botez, Pavel Apostol, Viorica Varga and many others actively present.

We must think of the historical moment and what that meant. The group in Romania later took the name International Center of Methodology for Future and Development Studies. The Romanian school was mainly made up of mathematicians, because in that period Romania had an important school in this discipline and was interested in models. In my understanding, the most important present activity is that of Prof. Mircea Malitza, the founder of the University of the Black Sea.

With his knowledge as a mathematician, but also as a great humanist, in a different historical moment and a different manner, he is carrying on the work initiated thirty years ago.