In 2012, while still doing my PhD, I attended my first international conference and this was on The role of HE in local and regional social and economic development. The conference took place in Brest, France from 29 – 31 October. I seems to have been one of very few students to have attended the conference whose attendance was highly made up of local authorities, policy makers and high profile academics. Some of the delegates at the conference later contributed profoundly to the success of my PhD on Rethinking university community engagement, these included Professor Hudd Ball, a UNESCO Co-Chair in Community-Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education and Professor Hans Schuetze of UBC. After close to four years of reaping the benefits of the 10th PASCAL Observatory International Conference, I can’t wait to attend the 13th conference as a staff and delegate from Bournemouth University. In addition, I will be presenting a paper titled: The instrumentality of community-based service learning in instigating local transformations: An investigation into the role of community voices.
The 13th PASCAL International Conference – June 3rd to June 5th, 2016 in Glasgow, Scotland – will focus on future directions for Learning Cities at a time of considerable challenge and opportunity for cities, with significant development in the role and contribution of Learning Cities… The Conference builds on PASCAL work on Learning Cities since 2010 through two programs: PASCAL International Exchanges (PIE,2010-2013) and PASCAL Learning Cities Networks (LCN, 2014- ). Important themes emerging from this work have been given shape in the themes of the conference. More information about PASCAL Observatory and the forth coming conference can be accessed here.
Looking forward to this year’s PASCAL International Conference with great excitement.
Marcellus Mbah
