USM - the University of Science Malaysia - is one of Malaysia's top-rated special 'research-led' universities under Malaysia's HE in development policy. USM fittingly hosted this week the second Summit this week of APUCEN, the Asia-Pacific University-Community Engagement Network: fittingly because of USM's long-standing commitment to local civil society as well as to industrial engagement.

Mike Osborne and John Tibbitt make a compelling case in PASCAL Policy Briefing 5 that connecting adult education and place is a vital task of learning cities. They moreover give a useful list of policy drivers for this purpose. However, in looking around it is difficult to see where this is happening so that the need exists to probe the barriers and opportunities further to identify necessary steps in forging this desired nexus.