The Reinventing Era: Innovation, Polycrisis, and the Scientific Imperative for Human Survival

This session examines the emergence of the “Reinventing Era”: a historical moment in which humanity possesses unprecedented scientific knowledge and technological capacity, yet remains dangerously underprepared for overlapping planetary, social, technological, and geopolitical crises. Climate change, biodiversity loss, ecological overshoot, artificial intelligence disruption, inequality, misinformation, food and water insecurity, and geopolitical instability are no longer isolated challenges. They are interconnected pressures that increasingly shape the conditions of human survival.

From a clinical sociology perspective, this session invites reflection on how societies diagnose, intervene in, and transform systems under stress. Polycrisis requires more than isolated innovation, awareness campaigns, or technical fixes. It requires social reinvention: the redesign of institutions, communities, education systems, technologies, and governance structures so that they become anticipatory, ethical, inclusive, ecologically grounded, and resilient.

The session welcomes papers that examine how education, governance, innovation systems, communities, and public institutions can respond to turbulent times. Contributions may explore climate disruption, planetary boundaries, artificial intelligence, social inequality, sustainability transitions, disaster risk, community resilience, ethical innovation, and the role of science in public decision-making. Particular attention will be given to how institutions can move from awareness to transformation, and from fragmented responses to integrated forms of resilience.

Ultimately, this session asks a moral and sociological question: if humanity already knows enough to act, what prevents meaningful transformation? By bringing together scholars, educators, practitioners, and clinical sociologists, the session seeks to open a critical conversation on how societies can reinvent systems for survival, justice, and collective resilience.