Peter Kearns's blog

PIE Glasgow Brainstorming Report - Cross-sectoral Approaches to Building Sustainable Opportunity Cities

This brainstorm in the CR&DALL seminar series at the University of Glasgow was held in collaboration with the Adam Smith Research Foundation on 26 March 2013.  Peter Kearns led the session with Dr Roberta Piazza and Professor Norman Longworth as respondents.

Visual harvest of EcCoWell Seminar

One of the interesting innovations adopted at the Cork Seminar on EcCoWell was to commission a firm called Think Visual to produce a set of 'cartoon like' images with key ideas from the seminar as a "visual harvest".

These were done quickly during the presentation and then presented on the screen at the conclusion of the seminar. 

The visual images are attached.  We found this a usual way of encapsulating the key points from the discussios and you will see that 10 tips I gave were summed up also.

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Cairns Institute and social sustainability

Professor Komla, Tropical Leader and Research Professor of Education for Social Sustainability at the Cairns Institute, will deliver an Inaugural Lecture on "Universities engaging communities in research: implications for building healthy, sustainable communities" in Cairns on 17 April. Professor Komla was born and educated in Ghana and has undertaken research in rural Ghana, Indigenous Australia, and Papua New Guinea. He has had a particular interest in health in Indigenous communities.

PASCAL International Exchanges (PIE) Events in 2013

2013 will be a big year for international and local development of directions for learning city. These events include the launch of the UNESCO Global Learning City Network in Beijing in November or December 2013, and the 11th PASCAL International Observatory conference Cities Learning Together in Hong Kong on 18-20 November, focussed on the following theme:

Local Communities in the Sustainable and Healthy Learning City

PASCAL Welcomes Addis Ababa to PIE

The PIE stimulus paper on Addis Ababa, written by Professor Ezana  Amdework, Chair of the Department of Sociology, Addis Ababa University, is the fifth stimulus paper on African cities and joins stimulus papers for Dar es Salaam, Kampala, Dakar, and Gaborone. In their cumulative impact they provide broad insights into the critical challenge of building sustainable learning cities in Africa.

PASCAL Welcomes Shanghai to PIE

The PIE stimulus paper on Shanghai by Professor Jian Huang (School of Education Science, East China Normal University) is appropriately titled Towards a Learning Society Experience and Reflections from Shanghai. The paper traces steps taken by Shanghai from 1999 to set in place a policy framework for a learning society linked to long term planning for education reform.

Beijing Institute for the Learning Society

We are posting today a note from Professor Li Chen, Executive Director of the Beijing Institute for the Learning Society, on the work of the Institute. Beijing is distinctive in establishing a research institute to support its policy to develop as a learning city (see below). The Institute integrates research from around the world in progressing this objective.

Alliance for Healthy Cities Global Conference; Equity assessments in Tehran

I participated briefly in the Alliance Global Conference to give a paper on our EcCowell approach. Several papers were interesting from an equity and integrated planning perspective including one from Tehran on an equity assessment called Urban Heart (Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool) which is now widely applied across Asia, Latin America, parts of Africa and elsewhere, but not in Europe or North America.

Major events for 2013 relevant to the aspirations of PASCAL International Exchanges

Hullo colleagues,

I am contacting you to advise you of some major events that will occur in 2013 relevant to the aspirations of the PASCAL International Exchanges. In their totality, this could be a big year for progressing ideas about good cities that are inclusive, build community and identity, and enhance the quality of life of residents. My hope is that PIE can make a significant contribution.  

World's most liveable cities

The Economist Intelligence Unit has released its rankings of the World's Most Liveable Cities. The rankings use criteria in five areas: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.


The Unit assessed 140 cities with the top eight cities being 1. Melbourne, 2 Vienna, 3. Vancouver, 4 Toronto, 5. Calgary,


5a Adelaide, 7 Sydney, 8. Helsinki.

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