Message from the Global RCE Service Centre:

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

First RCE Thematic Conference: Towards Achieving the SDGs

5-7 December 2017, Okayama, Japan

This first Thematic Conference will delve deeper into given areas of ESD, allowing us to focus the discussion on certain topics. During this event, with the help of other international frameworks, we will deliver training workshops and capacity building sessions, to address the specific needs of our network members in one overarching theme.

This RCE Thematic Conference, hosted by RCE Okayama, will focus on three topics:

(1) Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

(2) Climate Change

(3) Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)

Hopefully the conference will lead to more unity and cohesion between the different RCEs working in similar areas. Read more

Final Deadline to Register for the 10th Asia Pacific RCE Meeting

2-4 November 2017, Delhi, India

Deadline is 30th September 2017. Read more

7th African Meeting - African RCEs Make Formal Recommendations for Curricula Change, Policy Dialogue, and Youth Engagement

African RCEs met for the 7th African RCE Conference in Lusaka, Zambia on 2-4 August 2017, to discuss capacity development initiatives and more coherent approaches to implement Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Africa. RCE Lusaka kindly hosted the conference. This year’s conference focused on spelling out future milestones for the African RCE network to meet the sustainable development agenda through education. The 7th African RCE Conference was particularly significant, as it offered openings for increasing sustainability knowledge and capacities within and across disciplines. Notably, deliberate efforts were made to empower Youth as important stakeholders and change agents of ESD. In a closed African RCE meeting delegates deliberated ways of strengthening African RCEs as multi-stakeholder partnerships for scaling up innovation, resources and action to deliver the SDGs in local and regional contexts. Read more

6th RCE Americas Meeting - RCEs Focus on Sharing of Assets and Expertise

The latest Americas Meeting ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities: Exploring the Role of ESD in the Development of a Green Culture’ was held on 13-15 September 2017, in Vancouver, Canada. Presentations and summaries have now been uploaded on the portal. Two of the major outcomes were the decision to build an expert database for RCEs in the region. RCEs and other international organisations could access the full spectrum of experts working in each region. RCEs also expressed interest in mapping the SDGs onto both experts in the region as well as to projects. Possible joint project ventures discussed included a podcast on the SDGs as well as creating more open source curricula to share among the region’s RCEs. Read more

Sincerely,

The Global RCE Service Centre

Upcoming Events

National Youth Conference on ESD in Nigeria

3 October 2017, Kano, Nigeria

RCE Kano, Bayero University Kano (BUK), the National Commission for Mass Literacy Adult, and Non-Formal Education, and the Centre for Renewable Energy and Action on Climate Change (CREACC) are organising the National Youth Conference on ESD on 3rd October 2017, at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. The conference will witness the inauguration of Environmental Sustainability Campus Ambassadors as well as the flagship project of a Campus Garden at the Faculty of Law of the university. Read more

5th Asia-Pacific Expert Meeting on ESD and 1st Asia-Pacific International Colloquium

11-14 October 2017, Beijing, China

The event, organised by the Chinese National Working Committee for UNESCO on Education for Sustainable Development (CNWCESD), will take place under the theme of ‘school development and learning innovation towards sustainable development’. Registration fees will be waived for selected participants. Read more

AASHE 2017

15-18 October, San Antonio, USA

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) is organising its annual conference in October. Read more

UNESCO MGIEP Ed-Tech Conference – Digital Pedagogies for Building Peaceful and Sustainable Societies

16-18 December, Visakhapatnam, India

TECH 2017 aims to highlight the world’s best digital pedagogies for enhancing 21st century skills to build peaceful and sustainable societies. The conference will bring together 1,200 international experts, learners, researchers, decision-makers, and policy-makers to discuss, debate, and share their knowledge and innovations. Read more

For more events visit our ESD calendar.

Open Calls

Transdisciplinary Learning in Migration – RCE Graz-Styria

“Think globally – act locally” - one of the ESD mottos to deal with current challenges facing humanity. RCE Graz-Styria is analysing need-based solutions for inclusive coexistence of refugees and the host society and needs input. The abstract is in English. Read more

Survey on Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for Impactful Sustainability Research and Education at the Community level

Isabel Franco, a JSPS Research Postdoctoral Fellow at Keio University and UNU-IAS, is conducting an online survey to understand stakeholders’ perceptions about how universities collaborate with local communities on impactful sustainability education and research. Your feedback will help to build knowledge about pressing challenges and opportunities in a multi-stakeholder collaborative environment. Read more

UNU-IAS and UN ESCAP Guidelines on Multistakeholder Partnerships

UNU-IAS and UN ESCAP are developing guidelines on multistakeholder partnerships for the Agenda 2030 in Asia Pacific. To produce them, they need your input. Submit this questionnaire until October 6th. Read more

Trust and Social Media for Disaster/Emergency Management Questionnaire

The survey by the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at the University of Hawaii is about your experience with social media during a natural disaster or an emergency. It only takes 20 min. to complete. Read more

Campus Eco Challenge 2017

The 2nd Campus EcoChallenge will launch for the 2017-18 semester. The challenges and actions will be relevant for students living on or off campus. Join to make a real difference and inspire change on campus or in the classroom. Read more

Wege Prize 2017

Join the Wege student design competition and collaborate across institutional, disciplinary, and cultural boundaries. You can win up to $30,000 (USD). Read more

U.LAB – MOCC Leading from the Emerging Future

Livestream and recorded sessions from the MIT Sloan School of Management on different hotspots of social innovation around the world. Read more

Latest News

Transforming Together: RCEs Respond to the SDGs in the United Kingdom

26 participants from six RCEs in the UK met at the University of Edinburgh on 20-21 June 2017. The event was hosted by RCE Scotland. This was the first meeting of the UK RCEs since June 2013, and was held as a follow-up to the European RCE meeting in London in 2016. Read more

Decentralised Energy Interventions in China, India, and Thailand – Success Factors and Policy Recommendations

This ProSPER.Net project was led by TERI University, as a collaboration between the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), and Tongji University. It showed a detailed assessment of the policy and regulatory interventions, more specifically, the fiscal and financial instruments shaping the development of decentralised energy systems in China, India, and Thailand. The analysis showed that the larger economic and political settings of the countries govern the decentralised renewable energy sector to a significant extent. Read more on ProSPER.Net’s analysis and policy recommendations. Read more

Sustainable and Social Entrepreneurship – A Curriculum

ProSPER.Net outlines how to build a modular course

Launched in 2010, the Sustainable Business and Social Responsibility Course Development project has delivered a useful and practical framework to develop course materials and case studies in its respective fields. A key element of the initiative was the development of educational materials for both short courses and degree programmes, in sustainable business and social responsibility. Aligning these closely with the UN Global Compact – a strategic policy initiative of the UN for businesses committed to ten universally accepted principles in human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption – was also a major part of the project. Read more

UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD 2017

Winners of the UNESCO-Japan Prize on ESD are Zikra for Popular Learning (Jordan), the Hard Rain Project (UK and NI), and Sihlengeni Primary School (Zimbabwe). Read more

The Sustainable Everyday Project

Do you know SEP? The Sustainable Everyday Project is an open web platform to stimulate social conversation on possible sustainable futures. It is available in English and French. Read more

Training in ESD Reaches 400 Teachers in Myanmar

In the schools surrounding Myanmar’s Bagan Archaeological Area, 400 teachers joined trainings on teaching materials to integrate ESD into basic education. This training was part of the project “Strengthening Schools for Education for Sustainable Development”. Read more

ESD Books, Publications and Other

UNESCO Working Paper on Lifelong Learning (LLL) from a Social Justice Perspective

The paper concludes that the globally converging discourse of LLL tends to serve the interests of the market ahead of those of the community. It argues that an alternative approach of LLL, anchored in social justice, is needed especially in light of SDG 4 – download the paper here.

Declaration on Integration of Cities and Culture

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network Mayors’ Forum concludes with Declaration calling on Cities to further integrate culture into their overall political agenda. Read more

UNESCO GAP Report -Learning to Live Sustainably in Cities in Latin America and the Caribbean

Ideas to promote the learning city initiative in Latin America and the Caribbean were explored, and how lifelong learning can help tackle social, economic and environmental challenges in cities. Read more