2019 is the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, the definitive Renaissance man.  Museums, the media - will there be a movie? - will explore learning and creativity, imagination and enigma, faith and politics. And PASCAL will hold its XVIth Conference.

We ae delighted to welcome Professor Piyushimita (Vonu) Thakuriah to the PASCAL Board. Vonu is a world-renowned expert on sustainable, socially just transport, and on the use of information, especially big data, to solve urban problems. PASCAL can benefit from Vonu's international experience at the cutting edge of research with immediate practical and policy relevance.

I am very pleased to alert you to some developments in relation to the 15th PASCAL Conference will take place on 30 August - 1 September in Suwon. Thanks to the hard work of our directors in Australia and Europe, and our colleagues in Korea, we have a fine programme with a large number of PASCAL academics and practitioners from the United States, South Africa, the Gulf, Australia, Europe, South East Asia, thus bearing out the title of the Conference which our Korean partners have chosen, Global Forum for Lifelong Education. In addition to the usual mix of plenary and thematic sessions, there will be site visits in an area of Korea famous for being at the forefront of technology. 

Dear friends and colleagues,

In the tradition of once-yearly letters which I have followed in recent years, I want to look forward to 2018.  For most of us, in political terms 2017 was a year to put behind us.   Although I often prepare for the worst, my basic outlook is to be optimistic. This is less a contradiction in terms than it may seem. We can create options – indeed, unless we believe in fate, we must; and we can seize opportunities.

Governing In and Against Austerity, a report edited by Jonathan S. Davies at De Montfort University, Leicester, highlights the responses in 8 cities to the impact of the Crisis of 2008.  The cities are Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Greater Dandenong Melbourne, Montreal and Nantes.