The discussion, which took place in Stockholm on 2 June 1989, underlined the need for pragmatic approaches to the growing gaps between the technologically advanced and the disadvantaged regions of the world. Modern biotechnology was singled out for special attention, because it was obviously part of both the problem and of its solution.
The Sven and Dagmar Salen Foundation had paved the way for the Stockholm event by supporting a year-long international computer conference on the need to generate entrepreneurship in developing countries. That conference had noted that this required inputs both from the private sector and from academia and that a biological resource development corporation might provide the best channel for such inputs.
Because the participants in the Stockholm symposium felt that the World Academy of Art and Science should vigorously pursue this idea, the philanthropist, Christer Salen, made a donation that supported a 3-year pilot phase aimed at building a solid foundation for a viable corporation.
A project office was established in the Old Observatory, a historic building
that had seen the birth of science in Sweden. An agreement was made with the
"Diffusion of Biotechnology" program of the international Federation
of Institutes for Advanced Study to conclude the pilot phase with an external
review
The main actors in the computer conference in August of 1990 met with other
experts at the Havreholm Castle in Denmark. They recommended that,
as a first step, the World Academy of Art and Science should establish
an independent, nonprofit foundation. A Board, supported by an interim Executive
Committee, and electronically linked to a transdisciplinary Council and a panel
of Experts was proposed
After the formulation of an Action Planthe legal site was subsequently changed to Sweden and a study of alternative names and locations for a foundation, the Executive Committee of the Academy, on 1 December 1990, decided that the legal site for the new structure should be in the Netherlands and that it should