Third International RCE Conference in Barcelona

The Third International RCE Conference was convened in Barcelona, Spain from 2-4 July 2008, and was hosted by RCE Barcelona at theTechnical University of Catalonia (UPC). More than 130 participants discussed issues related to RCE development, such as evaluation and communication, and six thematic areas — sustainable production and consumption, biodiversity, e-learning, health, youth and teacher training, over the three days.

Participants at the conference were representatives of acknowledged RCEs, RCE candidates and experts.

 

The conference was designed to give participants ample opportunities to participate in intensive discussions leading to concrete actions. The entire second day was devoted to the discussion of six thematic areas in concurrent working sessions to design inter-RCE joint activities. In the morning of the final day RCE representatives were divided into groups according to their continent to facilitate the sharing of experiences and discussion of future strategies among RCEs from the same world region.

 

A highlight of the conference was the ESD Dialogue: Dialogue4 Sustainability on the first day, where Bernard Combes of UNESCO, Donna Goodman of UNICEF, and Rene van Berkel from UNIDO discussed potential synergies between their work and that of the RCEs’. An interactive poster session held on the second day proved to be a popular feature too. The awards for the best poster went to RCE Chubu (Japan) and RCE Kwa Zulu Natal.  

 

The International RCE Conference has been held annually to exchange information and experiences among RCEs and RCE candidates, since the launch of the first group of seven RCEs in June 2005 in Nagoya. The First International Conference on RCEs was held in Yokohama, Japan, in April 2006, and the Second Conference was held in Penang, Malaysia in August 2007 hosted by RCE Penang at the University of Science Malaysia (USM).

 

There are fifty-five RCEs around the world as of July 2008. 

Download a full report of the conference (pdf file, 204 KB)

Download minutes of the Asia-Pacific meeting (pdf file, 76 KB)

 

For more information

Nami Akimoto
Programme Assistant
UNU-IAS
akimoto@ias.unu.edu