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.

In recent weeks, PASCAL has signed MOUs with the European Museum Academy and with the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning (UK); earlier in 2016, we signed an understanding with UNESCO’s UIL on learning cities, and a sizeable PASCAL delegation attended the Third Global Learning Cities Network Conference in Cork. Peter Kearns’s rethinking of EcCoWell underscores the links with sustainable development goals, and projects out of the University of Glasgow that draw significantly upon PASCAL methods and expertise (“Strengthening Urban Engagement of Universities in Africa and Asia,” supported by the British Academy, and a  ESRC-funded “Global Centre for Sustainable Healthy Learning Cities and Neighborhoods”) have taken PASCAL overseas to Africa, India and Asia to give the SDGs practical effect.  Last February, I spent several days in Israel in workshops and in meetings with senior policy people and parliamentarians to support the learning city network; many thanks to Orna Mager in Modi’in and her staff for this initiative, now in a more advanced stage.

You may have read about, and then forgotten, some of the many things PASCAL has done in 2017; we don’t do a good enough job at putting together the kind of reports that reflect how much is going on; as a result I appeal to each of you to be our ambassador wherever you are – and to provide fresh material for the website, which has over 3500 followers.

The 14^th PASCAL Conference in October 2017 – our second in Africa – highlighted not only the challenges of development, but some of the keys to progress.  The theme of entrepreneurship, and of rural-urban dynamics, emerged out of several papers and case studies.  A book proposal for publication of the Pretoria papers is in the works. And a strong effort will be made to follow up on action points in the Pretoria conference statement, indicating specific examples of what PASCAL is doing.   Enrico Jacobs of the Belgium Campus ITversity, Marius Ventner of the University of Johannesburg, and Jannie Zaaiman, also of the Belgium Campus, deserve our deep appreciation for their efforts to bring the right mix of academics and practitioners together.

Learning Cities provides the link between the 2017 Conference and the 15^th Conference, in Suwon, Korea (30-31 August 2018).  The main theme is “Learning Cities, Learning Societies and the Sustainable Development Goals: Connecting Research, Policy and Practice”.  This theme and the 4 sub-themes are all linked explicitly to UN Sustainable Development Goals.  Our partners, Ajou University and Gyeonggi Do Provincial Institute for Lifelong Learning (GILL), have prepared an agenda which features extensive site visits as well as break-out sessions on four subthemes: sustaining learning city networks, lifelong learning as the key to solving community problems, learning in later life, and big data and public participation.  Anyone interested in submitting a paper proposal should note the January 2018 deadlines that will be shortly be made known; contact Robbie Guevara at RMIT or Mike Osborne at the University of Glasgow.

The Board welcomes RMIT back as a fully-operational PASCAL Centre, with Robbie in charge. A suite of policy briefs, based on a template prepared by John Tibbitt, is being prepared in advance of the Korea conference, in English, Mandarin and Korean.  The first of these is already available at this link. We hope and expect that this conference, the first in East Asia, will lead to an ongoing relationship with partners in that region.

Conferences in Africa and Asia bring us closer to people who live far from Europe, but we also need events in Europe for the many Associates and other scholars and practitioners who have something to contribute, and want to learn from one another.  Thanks to Henrik Zipsane, we are planning a one-day PASCAL event on the theme “Making Learning Happen”, to see how culture(s), and by implication diversity, can enhance rather than diminish cohesion.  This will take place on 25 September 2018 at Östersund in the middle of Sweden, a day ahead of a European Museum Academy event on “heritage in action” as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage; Catherine Hoppers, former PASCAL Director for Africa and Richard Evans, Director of the Beamish Museum in the UK, will be keynote speakers at the EMA event.

This gives me a chance to acknowledge the wonderful service on the Board that Catherine has given these many years, helping first to take PASCAL into Africa, and then to broaden our concepts of formal and informal learning.  Catherine is retiring at the end of 2017, but our partnerships in Africa will continue to grow.

We cannot prevent disasters, but we can help to soften their effects.  2017 provided an abundance of disasters, some political (and avoidable), others natural, but often aggravated by social and political circumstances.  PASCAL’s footprint in North America is barely visible; getting our feet on the ground must be a priority for 2018.  I have shared with PASCAL some of the notes I have written as Research Associate covering resilience for the New Cities Foundation. This is a theme that could easily be woven into some of PASCAL’s activities and core concerns, enhancing our relevance and visibility.   We look ahead with our eyes open.  All too often, the short term takes up most of our time and efforts; PASCAL is about doing the things that will matter a month, a year, a decade from now.

With my best wishes for this season of change,