Basarab Eftimie Nicolescu (b. March 25, 1942, Ploieşti

Ploiesti

Ploiești is the county seat of Prahova County and lies in the historical region of Wallachia in Romania. The city is located north of Bucharest....

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

) is a theoretical physicist at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Centre national de la recherche scientifique

The National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....

 (CNRS), Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. He is also a Professor at the Babeş-Bolyai University

Babes-Bolyai University

The Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca is an university in Romania. With almost 50,000 students, the university offers 105 specialisations, of which there are 105 in Romanian, 67 in Hungarian, 17 in German, and 5 in English...

, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 and Docteur ès-Sciences Physiques (PhD), 1972, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris.

He is the president and founder of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies (CIRET), a non-profit organization (163 members from 26 countries).

In addition, he is the co-founder, with René Berger, of the Study Group on Transdisciplinarity

Transdisciplinarity

Transdisciplinarity connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. It applies to research efforts focused on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines, such as research on effective information systems for biomedical...

 at UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 (1992) and the founder and Director of the "Transdisciplinarity" Series, Rocher Editions, Monaco and of the "Romanians of Paris", Oxus Editions, Paris.

He is also a specialist in the theory of elementary particles. Basarab Nicolescu is the author of more than one hundred thirty articles in leading international scientific journals, has made numerous contributions to science anthologies and participated in several dozens French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 radio and multimedia documentaries on science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

.

Basarab Nicolescu is a major advocate of the transdisciplinary reconciliation between science and the humanities. He has published many articles on the role of science in contemporary culture in journals in France, Romania, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and in the USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Biographical profile

• Romanians in Western Science and Culture, American-Romanian Academy Publications, USA, 1992

Awards and prizes

• Member of the Romanian Academy, 2001
• Doctor Honoris Causa of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iaşi, Romania, 2000, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, 2008 and "George Bacovia" University of Bacau, Romania, 2008.
• Great Officer, Faithful Service Order, Romania, 2002
• Honorary citizenship of the cities of Cluj-Napoca, Iaşi and Ploieşti, Romania
• Prize of the Union of Writers of Romania, 1993
• Opera Omnia Prize, Nichita Stănescu International Festival, Romania
• Benjamin Franklin Award for Best History Book, USA, 1992, for the book Science, Meaning and Evolution - The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme
• Silver Medal of the French Academy, 1986, for the book Nous, la particule et le monde. The same book has been selected by "Universalia 1986", Encyclopaedia Universalis Editions
• Gold Medal at the First International Olympiad of Mathematics, Braşov, Romania, 1959

Books and texts in English

• Transdisciplinarity - Theory and Practice (Ed.), Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ, USA, 2008.
• Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, State University of New York (SUNY) Press, New York, 2002, translated from the French by Karen-Claire Voss.
• Science, Meaning and Evolution - The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme, with selected texts by Jacob Boehme, translated from the French by Rob Baker, foreword by Joscelyn Godwin, afterword by Antoine Faivre, Parabola Books
  Parabola (magazine)
  Parabola: Where Spiritual Traditions Meet, whose founder and editor was D.M. Dooling, began publishing in 1976 as a quarterly magazine on the subjects of mythology and the world's religious and cultural traditions. It is published by The Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition, a not-for-profit...
  
  , New York, 1991.
• "A New Vision of the World - Transdisciplinarity", in The Design and Delivery of Inter- and Pluridisciplinary Research, Proceedings of the Muscipoli Workshop Two, The Danish Institute for Studies in Research and Research Policy, Denmark, 2002, pp. 108-111.
• "In vitro and in vivo knowledge", in Unità del sapere e del fare: una soluzione transdisciplinare?, Istituto per Ricerche ed Attività Educative, Napoli, Italie, 2001, pp. 81-100, sous la direction de Ezio Mariani.
• "Transdisciplinarity and Complexity: Levels of Reality as Source of Indeterminacy", in Determinismo e Complessità, Armando Editore, Roma, 2000, pp. 127-142, edited by F. Tito Arecchi.
• "Hylemorphism, Quantum Physics and Levels of Reality", in Aristotle and Contemporary Science, Vol. I, Peter Lang, New York, 2000, pp. 173-184, edited by Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou, introduction by Hilary Putnam.
• "Gödelian Aspects of Nature and Knowledge", in Systems - New Paradigms for the Human Sciences, De Gruyter, Berlin, 1998, translation from French by Karen-Claire Voss, pp. 385-403, edited by Gabriel Altmann and Walter A. Koch.
• "Levels of Representation and Levels of Reality: Towards an Ontology of Science", in The Concept of Nature in Science and Theology (part II), in collaboration with Michel Camus, Thierry Magnin et Karen-Claire Voss, Éditions Labor et Fides, Genève, 1998, pp. 94-103, edited by Niels H. Gregersen, Michael W.S. Parsons and Christoph Wassermann.
• "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought", in Contemporary Theater Review, Vol.7, Part 1, 1997, Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, translated from the French by David Williams (translated also into Japanese).
• "In the Valley of Astonishment, an interview with Basarab Nicolescu" by Jean Biès
  Jean Biès
  Jean Biès is a French philosopher and author. He is the recipient of the High Prize of the Society of French Poets , Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor , and a prolific modern proponent of the Traditionalist School...
  
  , in Parabola
  Parabola (magazine)
  Parabola: Where Spiritual Traditions Meet, whose founder and editor was D.M. Dooling, began publishing in 1976 as a quarterly magazine on the subjects of mythology and the world's religious and cultural traditions. It is published by The Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition, a not-for-profit...
  
  , Vol.XXII, No.4, Winter 1997, New York.
• "Levels of Complexity and Levels of Reality", in The Emergence of Complexity in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, Proceedings of the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 27-31 October 1992, Casina Pio IV, Vatican, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum Editions, Vatican City, 1996 (distributed by Princeton University Press).
• "Science as Testimony", in Science and the Boundaries of Knowledge, Proceedings of the Venice Symposium, UNESCO Editions, Paris, 1986 (translated into Spanish and many other languages)

Editor of collective works

• Transdisciplinarity - Theory and Practice, Hampton Press, USA (in press)

External links

• Basarab Nicolescu : Biobibliography The complete biobibliography of Basarab Nicolescu.
• International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies The site of Centre International de Recherches et Etudes Transdisciplinaires (CIRET). The only existent site dedicated, in its totality, to transdisciplinarity. E-zine "Transdisciplinary Encounters".