PASCAL was delighted to be able to support Cities for the Future - Learning from the Global to the Local, an EcCoWell event organised by the City of Cork Council on 26 and 27 September 2013. The event with some 260 people registered was opened by the Lord Mayor, Cllr. Catherine Clancy, and there followed an introduction to EcCoWell by Denise Cahill, Healthy Cities Cork Co-ordinator. 

Minister Sean Sherlock, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Department of Education and Skills with responsibility for Research and Innovation for the government of Ireland gave a response to intial keynotes by Professor Michael Osborne, PASCAL Director, University of Glasgow and Joan Devlin of the World Health Organisation Secretariat for Healthy Cities. Other speakers were Jose Ignacio Arriba from Vitoria Gasteiz in Spain, European Green Capital for 2012 and Professor Michael Parkinson, Director of the European Institute for Urban Affairs at Liverpool Moores University.

After an excellent set of afternoon open networking events, day one concluded with closing remarks from Pat Ledwidge, Director of Strategic Planning and Economic Development at Cork City. Day two, following a reception in City Chambers, hosted by the mayor, involved a variety of Site Visits in Cork.

PASCAL is very grateful to all concerned in Cork for so vigourously promoting the EcCoWell concept, especially Denis Barrett, Tina Neylon, Denise Cahill and Bernie Connolly. We look forward to meeting a number of these colleagues at our own Cities Learning Together conference in Hong Kong, and the UNESCO IPLC event in Beijing.