Blogs

This paper draws on insights from the stimulus papers prepared for cities participating in the PASCAL International Exchanges that relate to the main themes of the PASCAL Cities Learning Together Hong Kong conference.

I have attached a preliminary report of our collective intelligence wellbeing conference workshop, where we focused on the design of a new national wellbeing index for Ireland.  I have also attached a report of our collective intelligence work from last year, where the lack of a national wellbeing index was identified as a significant barrier to wellbeing in Ireland.

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.

Given the interests of PIE in Healthy Cities and the emphasis that Peter Kearns has made concerning this facet of the learning city within the EcCoWell model, and the strand of interest that we are trying to develop for the 11th PASCAL Conference in Hong Kong, this event in Glasgow may be of considerable interest to subscribers. We invite you to take a look at City Health 2013 in Glasgow from 4-5 November, which has many overlaps with the interests of PASCAL. 

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.