Introduction. What Challenges for the Future?

The development of humanity must be rethought by shifting the focus from the traditional elements of competitive advantage to new knowledge-based elements. What matters now is the so-called “knowledge resource”, because the achievement of a benefit comes from the possession of knowledge. Indeed, to know means: a) to participate in the construction of meanings of social and cultural reality in order to transform it in symbolic representation (by activating knowledge structures); b) to attribute “sense” and “meaning” to events, objects or persons on the basis of knowledge, expectations and assumptions; c) to develop in a complex and dynamic way the information that people can gather and turn them into knowledge. Every interaction with objects or with humans, every act of communication, implies a transmission of skills and knowledge: an exchange that becomes a process of integration of the differences – understood as collective wealth in which everyone is recognized – without limitations in the learning paths of each person or prejudices on “expert” and “profane” knowledge.