Issue 71: July 2017

Message from the Global RCE Service Centre:   Dear Colleagues and Friends, Mark Your Calendar for Below Events! 2017 RCE Award for Innovative Projects on ESD Opens 1st September You can submit your Annual Report as of 1st of June 2017. Awards applications for 2017 can be submitted between 1st of September 2017 and 31st of October 2017. Projects receiving the Outstanding Flagship Award Category will receive a travel grant for each project to join one of the upcoming RCE meetings in 2018. Read more RCE Africa Meeting 2017 2-5 August 2017, Lusaka, Zambia RCE Lusaka is delighted to host the 7th African RCE Conference. More information can be found here. RCE Europe Meeting 2017 – Registration Details Are Now Online 8-9 September 2017, Dortmund, Germany The European RCE Meeting will be held back to back with the Conference Fair Friends, a trade fair for Sustainable Lifestyles, Fair Trade and Social Responsibility, in Dortmund. Possible themes or thematic areas for the conference will be decided by request of the European RCE. Feedback from European RCEs is sought! Tentative overarching topics are Joint Ventures of European RCEs, Refugees and Migration, and Sustainable Consumption and Production. Read more 6th Americas RCE Meeting 13-15 September 2017, Vancouver, Canada RCE British Columbia (Northern Cascades) will be hosting the meeting, which is held back to back with the World Environment Education Congress (WEEC 2017). Registration is now open until 18 August. Read more 10th Asia Pacific RCE Meeting 2-4 November 2017, Delhi, India RCE Delhi is hosting the 10th Asia Pacific RCE Meeting in Delhi, India. The RCE Service Centre is planning to send out the open call during the course of August. More information will soon be available here. Education for the Implementation of the SDGs: Thematic RCE Conference on Biodiversity, Climate Change and SCP (Food Systems) 5-7 December 2017, Japan (exact location TBC) The first thematic RCE Conference on Biodiversity, Climate Change, and Sustainable Consumption and Production – focused on food systems will be held in Japan. RCEs are encouraged to submit summaries of their best practices in these areas. More information will soon be released here. Sincerely, The Global RCE Service Centre   Upcoming Events   Hokkaido Sustainability Weeks July-August 2017, Hokkaido, Japan ProSPER.Net member Hokkaido University is hosting their annual Sustainability Weeks. Several events are held during July and August, corresponding with the Hokkaido Summer Institute (HSI), a programme that brings together more than 130 world leading researchers. Read more GUNI International Conference on SDGs: Actors and Implementation 18-19th September 2017, Barcelona This conference is hosted by the Global University Network for Innovation with the aim to create a permanent and multidisciplinary knowledge network on SDGs implementation. Read more 2017 Asia-Pacific Leadership Programme on Environment for Sustainable Development 18-22 September, 2017, Shanghai, China ProSPER.Net member Tongji University is hosting the programme under the theme of Leading for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (The SDGs). Deadline for application is 10 August. Read more Hamburg Sustainable Development Summit (HSDS) 26-29 September 2017, Hamburg, Germany The Hamburg Sustainable Development Summit (HSDS), held at University Hamburg, is organized by RCE Hamburg together with the Copernicus Alliance. It focuses on aspects of sustainable development at universities and the contribution to the SDGs in education, research, and outreach initiatives. Read more 5th Asia-Pacific Expert Meeting on ESD and 1st Asia-Pacific International Colloquium 11-14 October 2017, Beijing, China The event under the theme of ‘school development and learning innovation towards sustainable development’, is tailored for ESD practitioners and teachers. Deadline is 30 September. Read more 6th UNESCO-APEID Meeting on Entrepreneurship Education 23-25 October 2017, Manila, the Philippines The meeting aims to define a model of an Entrepreneurship Program and Curriculum for ASEAN, East and South, and to develop a consortium to support the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications for ASEAN, East, and South Asia at the tertiary education level. Deadline is 18 August. Read more For more events visit our ESD calendar.   Open Calls   Review for 1st Order Drafts of the Chapters of the IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity Assessment is open 15 June - 15 August 2017. The global assessment will provide vital data to assess progress against the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the SDGs. Read more Call for Assessment of Indigenous and Local Knowledge (IPBES) IPBES is calling for submissions for examples of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) for the IPBES Global Assessment. Anyone with relevant indigenous and local knowledge or involved in projects or publications on ILK and biodiversity can make a contribution. Read more Century Skills, Individual Competences and Personal Capabilities for Sustainability: A Management and Education Perspective Central European Review of Economics and Management (CEREM) has issued a call for papers for a special issue on 21st Century skills. Abstract deadline is 15 September 2017. Read more UNESCO Survey on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Asia Pacific The International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region (ICHCAP) and the UNESCO Office in Bangkok have launched a survey to assess Intangible Cultural Heritage-related programmes in higher education. You can participate until 15 August! Read more SEAMEO-Japan ESD Award 2017 – Theme on Improving Health and Nutrition If your school has implemented activities or programmes to improve health and nutrition of students, you are invited to participate in the ‘2017 SEAMEO-Japan Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Award’ on the theme ‘Improving Health and Nutrition’. Deadline is 5 September. Read more   Latest News   UNU-IAS Signs Letter of Agreement with IPBES Strengthening the Collaboration in Biodiversity On 24 July 2017 UNU-IAS entered a Letter of Agreement (LoA) with the Intergovernmental Science – Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). With the signing of the agreement both partners strive to further facilitate research, education, and training for policy makers and researchers. Read more ProSPER.Net: Community-Based Research Highly Relevant for SDG Implementation At the 4th Annual Asia Research Intelligence Conference on ‘Universities and the Power of Data – Science for a Sustainable Society’ ProSPER.Net delivered a session on ‘International Collaboration: Community-based Research in the Context of the SDGs’. ProSPER.Net, during its session, addressed the issue of research and its contributions to sustainable development, specifically in communities. Universities are at the center of research and education, and hence critical to address current and future development challenges. Read more RCE Munich is Awarded with the Bavarian ESD Quality Seal Once a year, institutions, networks or individuals can receive the official acknowledgement by the Bavarian State, Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection for outstanding work in ESD. Currently 134 institutions and networks carry this Seal. Every year they have organized more than 30,000 ESD events with almost 850,000 participants. The aim of this award is to ensure a high quality and availability of environmental education to the public and beyond. Read more RCE Kitakyushu and Stakeholders – a Story of Successful ESD Promotion Several members of the Global RCE Secretariat attended a meeting with RCE Kitakyushu, its stakeholders and the Kitakyushu ESD Council, including local government officials. The meeting, held in June 2017, allowed for constructive exchange on current projects of RCE Kitakyushu and their plans in the coming year. RCE Kitakyushu is effectively organized around strategic projects and involves the local government as well as the Youth in promoting ESD widely. Read more Strengthening the Link between Biodiversity Conversation and Health The 1st meeting of the Interagency Liaison Group on Biodiversity and Health (organized by the CBD Secretariat and the WHO) in May 2017 aimed to strengthen collaboration and policy coherence at the intersection of human health and biodiversity. Unnikrishnan Payyappallimana represented UNU-IIGH and UNU-IAS showcasing the work of both institutes on ecosystems and health, access to medicines, urban health and education. Read more IPBES Plan on Capacity Building Well Under Way for 2017/2018 The fifth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) Task Force on Capacity-building, was held at the Norwegian Environment Agency, in Trondheim, Norway, on 26-28 April 2017. As a follow-up to the rolling out plan approved earlier this year on IPBES Capacity Building activities, the meeting focused on the implementation of specific capacity building plans for 2017-2018 and on consolidating contributions. Read more UN General Assembly encourages HEIs commitment to ESD The President of the United Nations General Assembly addressed all IAU Members and the broader higher education community to stress the importance of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the key role of higher education and research in achieving that agenda. Read more RCE Srinagar Marks World Environment Day 2017 Across the Himalayas CEE Himalaya with support from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Give2Asia, and RCE Srinagar celebrated World Environment Day 2017 on 5th June across the Indian Himalayan Region. Events at schools, with youngsters and different environmental activities took place across the region. Read more   ESD Books, Publications and Other   UNESCO / CBD Biodiversity Learning Kit Developed by UNESCO and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the ‘Biodiversity Learning Kit, Volume 2, Activities’ aims to help secondary school students and teachers understand the multiple dimensions and complex processes related to biodiversity. Special issue on Professional Development in Higher Education for Sustainable Development This special issue in the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education includes pioneering experiences across the world in the training of higher education academics in ESD. Read more. Textbooks for Sustainable Development: A Guide to Embedding The UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (UNESCO MGIEP) has published a guide ‘Textbooks for Sustainable Development: A Guide to Embedding’ to help authors and publishers to produce a new generation of textbooks that integrate ESD. 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. 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