Meeting of the BRIDGES Interim Executive Committee at UNESCO headquarters, 20 January 2023

The Interim Executive Group of the BRIDGES Coalition met at UNESCO headquarters on Friday 20 January in the office of UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, Gabriela Ramos. The purpose of the meeting was to work through final provisions of the the coalition’s longer term governance structures, as reflected in the BRIDGES Rules of Procedure.

Attending this meeting, in addition to ADG Ramos, were Luiz Oosterbeek, President of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH); Steven Hartman, Executive Director of BRIDGES and officer of the Humanities for the Environment (HfE) global observatory network; Mariagrazia Squicciarini, Chief of the Executive Office and Acting Director of Division for Social Policies; Pedro Monreal Gonzalez, Acting Chief of Section for Management of Social Transformations and Foresight; and Iulia Sevciuc of the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) intergovernmental programme secretariat.

Key agreements were reached among the BRIDGES founding partners (UNESCO, CIPSH and HfE) in consultation with the MOST secretariat and the UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Executive Office, setting the stage for endorsement of the BRIDGES Rules of Procedure in the coming weeks in the Interim Executive Group. Among other things, this will set in motion the convening of a permanent Governing Council for the BRIDGES Coalition.