Transcultura

The Transcultura International Institute is an international network of universities that was created as an association in 1988 by Alain le Pichon, Umberto Eco and a group of Chinese and African researchers on the occasion of the 9th centenary of Bologna University.

Plans for a European Transcultural Observatory have been outlined in 2001. Its objective is to analyse the key questions arising from the encounter and confrontation between our cultures and non-European cultures. The initiative for this was Franco-German, forming an alliance between Umberto Eco and the Institute of Higher Education at Bologna University, Saarland University, and several French universities - Paris 7, Paris 8, Cergy, coordinated by the CNAM (French institution of higher education and research) - together with the Lycée Louis Le Grand (for students following preparatory courses for the Grandes Ecoles universities).

The network of reciprocal observation between European and non-European cultures that has been set up by Transcultura makes it possible to answer the growing demand for reciprocal knowledge between cultures, one of the major pivots of international cultural action which our two countries wish to promote in the European Union's relations with the major areas of non-European culture. The network is organised around three main pivots:

Euro-Asian:

- China: Tsinghua / Beijing University / Academy of Social Sciences

- India: IIT Bombay, Nehru University in Delhi

- Iran: Teheran University

Euro-Mediterranean: Algiers University, Rabat University

Euro-African: Institute of Human Sciences in Bamako, Mali

The Institute of Law and Informatics at Saarland University, directed by Professor Maximilian Herberger, member of the Scientific Council of the Transcultura Institute, is already actively involved in this programme, in particular through having set up a network of distance education in transcultural methodologies ("Campus Numérique Transcultura").

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