International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility

INES is an Organisation of Scientists and Engineers That Promotes Global Responsibility for Peace and Sustainability.

INES Goals

  • Abolition of nuclear weapons
  • Promoting the responsible and sustainable use of science and technology
  • Implementing ethical principles in the education of scientists and engineers
  • Promoting disarmament for sustainable development

 

INES Mission Statement

The International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES) is a multidisciplinary independent professional non-profit organization dedicated to fostering peace and sustainability. It represents scientists and engineers worldwide, either as individual members or through its member organizations.

The primary aims of INES are to facilitate discussions, organize and support campaigns, organize conferences, run projects and offer critical, fact-based evidence in support of international peace and security, sustainability and – as a crucial element of it – intra- and international justice.

INES

  • Lobbies for nuclear disarmament.
  • Campaigns for disarmament for sustainable development.
  • Campaigns for the committment of universities to peace and for the reduction of military spending.
  • Promotes the awareness of ethical principles and the specific responsibility of engineers and scientists.
  • Participates in “whistleblowing“ campaigns to support those who have been victimised for altruistically speaking up against illegal, unfair or otherwise ethically doubtful practices that they heard of or experienced in the course of their professional or public duties.
  • Encourages and facilitates public discourse and international communication among concerned scientists.
  • Organises international conferences and regional workshops.
  • Raises public awareness.
  • Promotes environmentally sound technologies.
  • Supports publishing books, e.g., Einstein, Peace Now!; Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace.

INES

is a member of the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and closely cooperates with IPB as well as the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the international network No to war – no to NATO (No to NATO).

INES actively participates in the Middle Powers Initiative and has been present at the European Social Forums since 2000 and at the World Social Forums. INES is co-initiator of a Science and Democracy World Forum.

INES was founded in 1991

in Berlin at the international congress “Challenges – Science and Peace in a Rapidly Changing Environment“ and has become a network of over 160 organisations and individual members.

Challenges for Scientists and Engineers

Rapid changes in our environment and our societies are forcing us to become ever more conscious of our role in the world. Science and technology are employed in a worldwide competition for military and economic power. The impacts of this competition have global implications. We have entered a phase in which global developments are in conflict with basic requirements for human survival. Large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, the overexploitation of limited common resources, and a heavily unbalanced world economy provide fundamental challenges to human civilisation and may even threaten its existence.

Engineers and scientists play a key role, both in developing new knowledge that might threaten international security and in providing positive solutions for the future. They are as much a part of the problem as they can be a part of the solution.

Innovative Reorganisation

A thorough reorientation of science and technology is necessarily based on integrated system approaches and the acceptance that science cannot provide by itself solutions to today’s challenges. Only through innovative reorganisation and public accountability can the scientific and engineering communities meet their obligation to contribute to a sustainable future.