Call for Contributions - Cities Learning Together - 11th PASCAL International Observatory Conference

A set of Conference Readings or Precedings will be prepared to support the work of this Conference. The Planning Group invites short Contributions relevant to the main themes and panel sessions. These will be distributed electronically to participants in advance of the Conference, and also made available for use at registration.

This Call is for Contributions to the work of the Conference, rather than for abstracts of academic paper. The Conference will be a closely connected-up event drawing together issues that are too often treated in isolation. Much will be handled through open panel dialogue, both in plenary sessions and around the several core themes. .

Wherever possible, contributors to the Precedings will be invited to join appropriate panel sessions and engage in moderated discussion of a theme. 

There will be an opportunity to revise and extend contributions into publishable papers after the Conference, with a view to inclusion in a volume in a Hong Kong based book series produced by Springer. You are welcome to say whether you might want to do this later.

• The maximum length for Contributions is 2,000 words but there is no need to write at this length. Brief notes, key arguments, and points for attention relating to a particular theme and session, may be even more useful. For many people a page or so, say 500 words, may be sufficient.
• The Precedings will be organised in sections that match the themes and work of the Conference. The deadline for Contributions to the Precedings is July 31^st.
• It will however help the detailed planning of sessions and choice of who takes part in which panel exchanges to know as soon as possible if you wish to contribute. 

Please let us know as soon as you can if you wish to contribute in this way, and send your short contribution to [email protected] [1] as soon as you can.

Indications of intent and full contributions by the end of April will give good time to prepare and integrate the different strands, and to look elsewhere for what is missing.

If you are not keen to contribute yourself but know others who would be good, please share this invitation with them.

Inquiries and contributions should relate clearly to a theme and even a session. Please show where you see yourself contributing within the Conference framework. 

The following note provides a current Conference Concept Outline. I have numbered the elements for which Contributions are invited. Precedings will be similarly though not necessarily identically ordered.   

Conference Concept Outline to Inform Contributions

This shows how the different essential elements of healthy city governance, development and living are approached and connected in the Conference.

This schematic note offers a concept framework with which to choose what contribution you can best make.

A - Core Theme Areas

There are four dominant themes – the Core Theme Areas - designated A1 through A4.

These are ‘real-world’ areas of policy and practice critical for high quality urban and big city development and living. They are:

A1 - Green  

A2 - Health 

A3 - Social Dimensions  

A4 - Economic Dimensions.

B - Partners and Agents of Development

Cutting across these are (at least) four main ‘players’ who can together see to it that things happen. These are the Partners and Agents of Development designated B1 through B4:

B1 - City planners and administrators   

B2 - NGOs and civil society

B3 - higher education  

B4 - the private sector.

C - Overarching Questions

Encompassing this four-by-four frame we have (at least) four areas of difficulty or ambiguity for getting things clear and right, or Overarching Questions, designated C1 through C4...

The Overarching Questions are:

C1 - Neighbourhood, community and city  

C2 - The learning city - past, present, what future?   

C3 - Integration in governance   

C4 - Sustainability and big-city living

Contributions should be coded with one or more of the A-C 1-4 codes above. 

Please note that we want to explore how the different agents can and do work together to tackle important real-world challenges in ways that reinforce good development, rather than having one initiative contradict or undermine another.

We therefore especially welcome Contributions which take account of cross-boundary and inter-agency collaboration. Examples of non-cooperation and ‘silo’ practices can also be helpful in pointing out lessons to be learned.

Because the strands are interwoven you may wish to use more than one code.

For example:

• A Contribution on NGOs and Civil Society in Green (Environmental) matters would be A1, B2.
• Something on what the Private Sector can do in the social sector (Social Dimensions) at local level would be A3, B4, C1.
• City Planners and Administrators in Health might also address Integration in Governance – B1, A2, C3.

Please address queries and send contributions to Chris Duke: [email protected] [1] 

Chris Duke, Convenor, on behalf of the Conference Planning Group.  25 March 2013

Conference details and a downloadable copy of this Call are featured below, please visit the Conference website [2] for further information