Ron Faris writes about a powerful way of learning that can take place beyond the walls of formal education and leave a lasting legacy. 

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it what I can." G.B. Shaw

"The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life." Jane Addams

Please see article attached.

The Pascal European Network of Learning Regions (PENR3L) with the aid of the European Commission Socrates Programme held the first Workshop for European Learning Cities and Regions entitled: MEETING MINDS, SHARING EXPERIENCES, ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT IN LEARNING CITIES AND REGIONS The Kaunas workshop 7/8 December 2007.  The workshop was attended by 44 participants with 18 different nationalities. All of the participants brought expertise from their own countries and their own experience of developing learning regions and cities. Active solution groups worked on the themes of the workshop and contributed a series of action points to be taken forward. Please see attachment to read the full report. The PowerPoint presentations from the Keynote speakers are also available on the PENR3L website at: http://www.penr3l.feek.pte.hu/

The OECD through its programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education has recently published the final report of its study on Supporting the Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to Regional Development. This study involved work in 14 regions across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia and was partly supported by the participating regions and countries and the UK Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Learning Cities and Regions are complex places in which organisations and people work together to create an interactive, interdependent and mutually supportive learning society. They are not easily created. The LILARA project takes as its mantra the TQM notion, expressed in the opening quotation, that comprehensive change will not happen unless everyone in the administration of a city or region knows about, and concerns themselves with, assisting the progress of the learning city/region strategy. At the same time the partners are aware that knowledge of learning cities and regions is in short supply. The challenge therefore was to develop a tool that would simultaneously provide both understanding and new knowledge, while gathering personal observations, raising curiosity and encouraging further learning.

The overall aim of the initiative is to promote better understanding of the key economic and social impacts generated by UK higher education institutions on their host regions and on other regions of the UK. 

The initiative runs for 3 years from 2007- 2010.

The initiative is being supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in partnership with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) in Northern Ireland, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW.)

For more information please see: http://ewds.strath.ac.uk/Default.aspx?alias=ewds.strath.ac.uk/impact

Click here to view a progress report. 

Most developing countries currently have to cope with a wide range of health problems that interfere with their future economic development. Public health is a major priority, especially continuing high levels of maternal and child mortality, the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and common infectious diseases, as well as the emergence of chronic disease epidemics.

A trained workforce of health professionals is essential, both for the populations themselves and to help deal with global threats to public health. Local universities offering public health education may be oversubscribed for face to face courses and fees for overseas universities, including e-learning distance programmes, are higher than can be afforded by most potential students in these countries. Internet-based e-learning has the exciting potential to deliver high quality learning resources anytime and anywhere, and although access is by no means universal it is improving quickly. 

PASCAL associate, Professor Duncan Timms together with Dr Sara Ferlander of the Stockholm Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (SCOHOST)
at Sodertorn University College have recently published a new article on 'Social Capital and Community Building through the internet' in Sociological Research Online.

For full text go to http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/8.html

This briefing by Vimi Goorah concerns the work of the National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) of Mauritius and details projects that are being considered in the field of Lifelong Learning. It follows visits by PASCAL Associate, Professor Erik Wallin and by PASCAL Co-director, Professor Michael Osborne.

This project is a contribution to on-going analytical work in the Scottish Executive to underpin elements of the regeneration strategy, People and Place, published in February 2006.   The Scottish Executive is interested in better understanding ‘neighbourhood effects’, and the factors and processes that produce them.   A particular aspect of this relates to the complex impacts of neighbourhoods on schools within them, and conversely of schools on the neighbourhoods in which they are situated.   PASCAL associates co-ordinated by John Tibbitt have reviewed the knowledge-base relating to these issues and have just provided a ‘state-of –the art’ report to the Executive. It is envisaged that the full report will be made available more widely at a future point.