Posted in News on Sep 10, 2025.
In July 2025, BRIDGES held its General Assembly, in Swansea, Wales, involving an inspiring full public programme on the 16th, at the Dylan Thomas Centre; followed by the third meeting of the BRIDGES Governing Council and second meeting of the BRIDGES General Assembly, on the 17th, at the Innovation Matrix (IM) Conference room, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. These meetings, chaired by Gustavo Merino, Director of Social Policies, UNESCO, gathered our global coalition members, Governing Council members, UNESCO colleagues, and staff from our global BRIDGES Hubs and International Programme Office (IPO).
At the General Assembly Meeting, eight new members from around the world were officially welcomed to the coalition: Climate HUb Forum (Pakistan); University of Raparin (Iraq); The CIPSH Chair of Linguistics and Biodiversity (Ghana); VidyaDeep Foundation (India); New Zealand Centre for Global Studies (NZCGS) (New Zealand); Mapa das Ideias (Portugal); Tropenbos Ghana (Ghana); and the International Association for Regenerative Economics - (IAREC) (Switzerland).
Nine organisations from our coalition membership gave "lightning presentations" on their work, including topics like climate regeneration, sustainable forest management, indigenous knowledge, and global citizenship education.
Inspiring presentations were delivered by Erum Khan, Chairperson of the Climate Hub Forum; Kwame Sekyere from Tropenbos Ghana; Adams Bodomo, the CIPSH Chair of Linguistics and Biodiversity at the University of Ghana; Dr. Deepak Tatpuje from the Vidyadeep Foundation, India; Libby Giles from the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies; Philippe Foret from the Swiss Academic Society for Environmental Research and Ecology; Carole Crumley, Executive Director of the Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE); The Kogi Indigenous Organisation, represented by Kogi Ambassador, Jose Manuel; along with a key BRIDGES strategic partner organisation lightning talk: Michel Spiro, Chair of the Earth Humanity Coalition (EHC) steering group.
In both the Governing Council and General Assembly meetings, a priority initiative was detailed, which expands on the BRIDGES mapping brochure published in 2023, to create an interactive map of humanities-inclusive, community-anchored sustainability projects worldwide.
The Mapping Brochure this work is building on can be viewed here.
Three recently published schemes were also detailed and discussed at both meetings; A call for expressions of interest for new BRIDGES Hubs; a call for new coalition members; and the BRIDGES Validation scheme.
Members of both meetings were also introduced to the draft document detailing the 2025-2028 Medium Term Strategy of BRIDGES, which was discussed and fed into by our Governing Council and Coalition members.
The next meeting of the BRIDGES Governing Council will be held in February 2026.
The next meeting of the BRIDGES General Assembly will be in the summer of 2027.
On behalf of UNESCO-MOST BRIDGES Coalition, the IPO wishes to express gratitude and appreciation to members who attended these important meetings in person and online, for your valued contributions and continuing support of BRIDGES.
