News

The BRIDGES Coalition are delighted to announce that we are partnering with the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) on its 6th International Conference on Future Education, with a focus on Education for Human Security, taking place 7-9 March 2023.

Click here to learn more about our two featured events

As noted by the primary organizers of the conference, WAAS, the 6th International Conference on Future Education is being conducted in support of HS4A, a global campaign to generate awareness and elicit active support and participation from all major sectors and sections of global society in an unprecedented effort to release and mobilize the untapped energies and capacities of humanity in pursuit of human security for all.

Other international partners in the WAAS conference focused this year on Education for Human Security include the the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, the World University Consortium, the Jena Declaration, the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, the Black Sea Universities Network and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for Europe.

Visit the conference website through the link below for additional information and details on how to register. The conference is free and can be followed entirely online.

The BRIDGES Coalition was delighted to come aboard the LearningPlanet Festival as a partner this year. With over 600 events worldwide, the 4th edition of the festival gathered close to 60,000 online participants from 191 countries. Our coalition organised and co-/sponsored a number of these online events, together with the The Club of Rome, Future Earth, People&Planet, UNESCO and numerous BRIDGES member organisations, key partners and hubs.

The Coalition is already beginning to explore how we can build on these valued partnerships, working along with Learning Planet Institute and the LearningPlanet Alliance and our many partners and member organizations at the intersections of science and community co-production of knowledge and education for planetary health and wellbeing. Read more about the festival and its outcomes on the blog from the organizers of the LearningPlanet Festival!

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.

The UK Hub of the UNESCO BRIDGES Coalition at University of Wales Trinity Saint David launched  in an event that brought together academia, community projects, art, gaming, and indigenous knowledge.

The launch event, entitled E(e)arth, took place in The Reading Room of the Alex Building in Swansea, Wales on the 2nd of November 2022.

The launch introduced the aims, values and opportunities of the UK Hub by showcasing projects that use the strengths of the Humanities to generate innovation in thinking and action.

The launch was not a passive affair. It was active, informal and required the audience’s engagement. If we are to move into new ways of understanding, we need bold action. The launch responded to that call.

E(e)arth

The projects presented at the launch demonstrate different approaches and methods of knowing the Earth (and earth).

1. Munekan Masha: Reviving Water in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

The first project was devised and is led, by a group of indigenous people from Colombia who decided to teach conventional environmental scientists their previously unrecorded methods of land regeneration. This project is presented by Prof. Alan Ereira, UWTSD, the Tairona Heritage Trust (THT) and a representative of the Kogi people, Jose Manuel Mamatacan who was trained as emissary by his people to be able to join the launch event.

2. What it is to be there

The second project presented is an interdisciplinary collaboration with a Welsh artist, Helen Acklam, who asks questions about being in the earth and uses the arts to work with the soil and explore relationships with the taken for granted lives underfoot.

3. Serious Gaming: can games save the world?

The third project, presented by GamEngage, demonstrates the imaginative and creative power of playing games to seek solutions to environmental issues. Games encourage positivity and allow players to collaborate to harness tensions and frustrations to untangle complex problems around sustainability and climate solutions.