Issue #58: May 2016

CE Logo

Issue 58: May 2016

 

Message from the Global RCE Service Centre:

 

Dear colleagues and friends,

Summer Greetings from Tokyo! We are very excited to announce that the dates for the 10th Global RCE Conference have finally been confirmed as 23-25 November, 2016 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. RCE Yogyakarta will host the conference and is hoping to see many of you there. Mark your calendar and watch this space as we will post more information soon!

RCE Logo Policy

This is a gentle reminder to check our RCE Logo Policy when using the official UNU-IAS/RCE Logo on any materials and to promote events. Since the RCE logo includes the UN logo as an integral part, UNU-IAS was required to obtain approval from the UN Legal Office in New York to use it. The approval has the following two conditions:

(1) The RCE logo should be used as an integral logo and its components are not to be used separately.

(2) The UNU-IAS should ensure that the RCE logo is to be used in accordance with UN rules and regulations.

Keeping this in mind and out of respect for everyone in the RCE Community, we kindly ask ALL RCE members to follow the RCE Logo Guidelines when using the logo. You can find our RCE Logo Policy here.

Sincerely,

The Global RCE Service Centre

 

Upcoming Events

 

Mark your calendar for the 10th Global RCE Conference!

23-25 November 2016, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

European RCE Meeting

23-24 June, 2016, London, UK

Participants will focus on finding synergies in the European RCE community and how thematic challenges under COP21, SDGs, and TTIP can be tackled. Identifying key priority areas within the GAP, where RCEs can collaborate as well as TVET and migration issues are also on the agenda. Read more

6th African RCE Conference / TICAD VI

24-25 August, Nairobi, Kenya

Mark your calendar! We are delighted to announce that the 6th African RCE Conference will take place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 24-25 August, hosted by RCE Greater Nairobi. The conference will be held back to back with the the 6th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI) held 27-28 August also in Nairobi. The Global RCE Service Centre is planning to organize a side event on 26 August. More details will be shared soon on the RCE Portal.

Agendas for the Asia Pacific RCE Meeting and the IPBES workshop are now online!

9th Asia Pacific RCEs Meeting

27 June -2 July 2016, Cha-am, Thailand

RCEs will also participate in the International Conference on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on 27-29 June before the 9th Asia-Pacific RCE Meeting on 30 June. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Capacity Building Workshop on policy support tools and methodologies will be held thereafter on 1-2 July. Registrations are now closed. More information can be found here.

RCE West Sweden Summer Seminars, Gothenburg, Sweden

19 – 20 of June: Open Space with focus on Agenda 2030
20 – 22 of June: RCE- workshop ‘Learning for Change’

A decade ago the annual Summer Seminars on the overarching theme ’’Sustainability and Interculturality’ were brought to life. Join this year's summer seminars organized by RCE West Sweden. Read more

Connecting education and environment mobilizing sustainability in education policy, practice, and research

10-11 June, Saskatchewan, Canada

The event will focus on land, place, environment, and sustainability and connections to education policy, practice, and research. It included four concurrent strands of interactive sessions in K-12 education, higher education, community education, and Indigenous education. Read more

ProSPER.Net Forum on Sustainability in Higher Education

Higher Education and the SDGs

10 July, 2016, UNU Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan

This year’s ProSPER.Net Forum, to be held on 10 July, will take place back to back with ISAP2016. ProSPER.Net one of UNU-IAS flagship projects, is a network of universities committed to the Promotion for Sustainability in Postgraduate Education and Research in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Forum will showcase some of UNU-IAS’ contributions to the SDGs, highlighting how higher education initiatives can be used as a mechanism for sustainable development, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. As one of the largest and most diverse regions, HEIs in Asia-Pacific have considerable potential to innovate and collaborate on how their teaching and research can advance sustainability. Researchers will present on how their cross-institutional research projects address a number of SDGs, such as health and nutrition, climate change, urbanization, and energy. More details on the Forum can be found on ProsPER.Net.

International Forum for Sustainable Asia and the Pacific (ISAP) 2016

12-13 July, Yokohama, Japan

The Forum, which is co-organized by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and UNU-IAS provides a platform for discussions on how the international community can ensure effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement at the international, national and local/community levels, under the theme of “Translating Knowledge into Actions towards 2030 and beyond”. Registrations are open until 30 June. Read more

18th UNESCO-APEID International Conference, In Pursuit of Quality Education: The Past, Present and Future

26-28 October, Bangkok, Thailand

The event aims to facilitate leading-edge discussions about the quality of education, and to identify gaps where more research and efforts are needed to achieve inclusive and quality education by 2030. Read more

World Symposium on Sustainability Science and Research: Implementing the SDGs

5 -7 April, 2017, Manchester, UK

The symposium will provide a platform to discuss the contribution of Sustainability Science and Research towards the implementation of the SDGs. Outcomes of the event will be documented in the multi-volume peer-reviewed publication “Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research”. Read more

For more events visit our ESD calendar.

 

Open Calls

 

ESD Okayama Award 2016

Run by Okayama City and the ESD Okayama Award Steering Committee, the Award will reward outstanding ESD practices in local communities around the world to showcase ESD and to support organizations carrying out ESD activities. Deadline for application is 29 July 2016. For more details check their website.

Grants in Agriculture and Medicine

Since 1999, Ekhagastiftelsen has awarded more than 113 million Swedish Krona to different research projects in agriculture and medicine. Check their website on how you can apply for their grants. Read more

Norway’s Research Council offers KLIMAFORSK Grants

Norway's Research Council’s large-scale Climate Programme KLIMAFORSK is a 10-year initiative for climate research (2014-2023). With an annual budget of 140 mio NOK, they accept applications from universities, institutes and other research groups also in industry and the NGO sector. Read more

Green Gown Awards

The Green Gown Awards recognise the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities and colleges across the world. Deadline is 8 June. Read more

Carnegie Africa Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP)

CADFP is currently accepting Project Requests until July 5, 2016. A Project can be conducted in the African host country for between 14 and 90 days, with one visit by an African-born scholar who lives in the United States or Canada. Read more

Climate Resilient Cities in Latin America Research Call

With a total budget of US$1.5 million, the Climate Resilient Cities in Latin America research call focuses on climate resilience in urban contexts, and specifically on small and medium cities in Latin America with rapid growth. Expressions of interest can be submitted until 13 June. Read more

More open calls and vacancies can be found in the CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT section on the RCE portal.

 

Latest News

 

UNU-IAS expands its cooperation with ASEAN in ESD

During the review of the ASEAN Environmental Education Action Plan (2014-2018) held in conjunction with the 8th Meeting of the ASEAN Working Group on Environmental Education in Singapore on 11-12 April 2016, UNU-IAS attended in a consultative role. In addition to UNU-IAS’ contribution since 2008, particularly in the offering of the ASEAN+3 Leadership Programme on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), two further potential areas of collaboration were identified:

(1) The ASEAN green higher education programme, where ASEAN plans to review the state of green campuses across higher education institutions in its Member States. Here UNU-IAS could potentially assist ASEAN by sharing ProSPER.Net joint project outputs and collaborate in certain activities such as piloting of sustainability-oriented curricula, capacity building and influencing policymaking.

(2) Empowering youth in promoting environmental protection. Here ASEAN intends to collaborate with UNU-IAS’ RCEs in the region. The RCE youth network for example could be instrumental in supporting regional youth initiatives such as the ASEAN Youth Environment Forum, and in developing a recognition scheme for youth eco-champions. The Global RCE Service Centre and the Asia-Pacific RCE Coordinating Committee are expected to further explore potential contributions of RCEs with ASEAN. Read more

Video: Inter-university competition leads to integrated Water Resources Management proposal

Since June 2014, around 500 youth champions from 75 teams presented action-oriented, practicable and community participative proposals to address water and sanitation problems. Watch the video on 'Strengthening Water and Sanitation in Urban Settings: Inter-University Competition on Water Resources Management'. This project by the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and TERI University has helped develop a multi-stakeholder, evidence-based, participative and practically implementable Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) proposal.

Webcast on Localizing the SDGs: How Cities Can Help Achieve the 2030 Agenda

The discussion organized by the Habitat III U.S. National Committee together with the Wilson Center, Urban Institute, and USAID to examine local strategies for realizing the 2030 Agenda can be seen here.

Green Olympiad

Participate in the Green Olympiad organised by TERI to increase environment awareness of students age 14 and above. Any school can participate. Examinations are on 30 August and 22 November 2016. Read more

Syrian Unfairy Tales

According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 13.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance, 4.8 million Syrians have fled the country, and 6.6 million have been internally displaced by violence. The UN estimates that 1.5 million children have been forced to flee their country. So how do you help make this story something that is both factual and urgent for people? Well, for centuries people have been doing it through fairy tales. Read more

Youth Employment in Latin America

Youth employment is an ‘absolute priority’ in Latin America says the UN labour chief Guy Rider. Innovative solutions with a concrete action plan are crucial to tackle youth employment challenge in Latin America. Read more

The Global Skills Gap: preparing young people for the global economy

Teaching children about global issues and encouraging them to see the world through other eyes is of huge importance. This view is supported by evidence from an ICM survey of UK business leaders carried out for a report by the British Council and Think Global. The report reveals that when recruiting new staff, employers rate knowledge and awareness of the wider world as more important than a candidate's degree classification or A-level results. Read more

School with Net-Zero Energy

In September 2015, New York City’s most environmentally sustainable school opened its doors. Named the Kathleen Grimm School for Leadership and Sustainability at Sandy Ground, or P.S. 62, it is designed and built to meet an ambitious goal — net-zero energy — by generating as much energy each year as it consumes. Read more

 

ESD Books, Publications and Other

 

UN issues new Urban Agenda

The New Urban Agenda will be the outcome document agreed upon at the Habitat III cities conference in October 2016. In turn, it will guide the efforts around urbanization of a wide range of actors — nation states, city and regional leaders, international development funders, UN programmes and civil society — for the next 20 years. Read more

UN Habitat World Cities Report 2016

The report clearly demonstrates that the current urbanization model is unsustainable. It conveys a clear message that the pattern of urbanization needs to change in order to better respond to the challenges of our time, such as inequality, climate change, informality, insecurity, and the unsustainable forms of urban expansion. Read more

 

This is a publication of UNU-IAS RCE Global Service Centre.

If you wish to contribute to the monthly bulletin or have news, upcoming events, or publications, you would like to share, please use this form. You can mail it to the Global RCE Service Centre: rceservicecentre@unu.edu. Submissions must be made by the 15th of every month. In addition, we encourage you to continue using the RCE Portal to exchange ideas, share expertise and resources and deliberate emerging sustainability issues towards ESD implementation at a global level.

Please send your comments, suggestions and materials to rceservicecentre@unu.edu.