Peter Kearns's blog

A PIE stimulus paper on New York, "A City of Neighbourhoods" is now available on the PIE web site. The paper was written by Peter Kearns, the Co-director of PIE, based on research and discussions during a visit to New York in April to stay with family who live in one of the historic neighbourhoods of New York.

Limerick has become the second Irish city to participate in PIE, joining Cork. Both Limerick and Cork are notable as active Cities of Learning which conduct successful Lifelong Learning Festivals as one of the ways of promoting lifelong learning throughout the city. The Limerick Festival is now in its third year. Limerick has been innovative in responding to disadvantage identified in the Fitzgerald Report on Social Exclusion in Limerick (2006) with an active City of Learning Steering Group complementing measures such as the establishment of two regeneration agencies.

Seoul has become the second Korean city to participate in the PIE exchanges. Korea, with China, has been one of the leaders in the rapid expansion of learning cities in East Asia in the last decade so that the addition of Seoul to the PIE exchanges will add much value in demonstrating the features that have driven learning city development in Korea.

PASCAL welcomes Gwang Myeong to the PIE exchanges. There has been substantial learning city development in Korea, aided by a strong government interest in this. Gwang Myeong as the first Korean city in PIE is particularly welcome.  It was also the first city chosen as a Korean learning city in 2001 so that its experience has influenced Korean learning city development. 

Dr Jin Yang (UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning [UIL]) led this seminar at the Dumfries University of Glasgow Crichton Campus in the CR&DALL Seminar Series 2012/13 with Peter Kearns and Dr Roberta Piazza (University of Catania) as respondents.