Date Added: 2004-06-04 3:15 pm
Date Modified: 2004-07-19 3:04 pm
Following the debates, the participants at the conference want to call the attention of the Director-General of UNESCO to the following suggestions and recommendations:
1. Within its hosting institution, the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Development shall play the role of a transgressive institutional modality dedicated to bringing together teams of teachers and researchers from universities and other organisations of different countries (North-South and South-South).
2. Hence, UNESCO Chairs on Sustainable Development are projects of academic co-operation and social intervention which endeavour to link inter-university networks at national and especially regional and international levels. UNESCO shall support these networks by encouraging the transfer of knowledge and by strengthening local research and training capacities of members with a view to achieving the networks’ excellence and relevance in dealing with sustainable development.
3. In a truly interdisciplinary perspective, the constituted teams of trainers and researchers shall co-operate within the framework of clear-cut training and research programmes. They shall contribute to the construction of new development paradigms which integrate society-nature interactions and pay equal attention to the future of human beings and of the environment they live in.
4. Thriving on high-level university programmes, but also by assuming the role of a platform of exchange and dissemination of knowledge to all social actors involved, these Chairs shall develop the autonomous capacity of perception of the individual and participate actively in the clarification of stakes of all orders brought forth by the utilisation of nature for different and often contradictory social interests.
5. Development of ethical science and communication between the different social actors shall constitute a specific mandate of the Chairs which thus shall contribute to the transformation of knowledge into democratic tools, to the development of negotiation techniques and to a culture of peace.
6. Such UNESCO Chairs shall supply post-graduate training programmes to university graduates as well as professionals. The Chairs shall encourage mutual learning experiences among students, by mobilising scientific competence and professional knowledge within the framework of research and action-research carried out in teams. Students shall thus acquire interdisciplinary working methods.
7. The UNESCO Chairs shall progressively constitute networks composed by their former students and resource persons. The networks shall constitute important systems of exchange of information and experiences. For instance, by carrying out periodical seminars, these networks shall update the academic teams on training and research needs emerging in the field.
8. UNESCO shall use its links with national and international institutions providing support to interdisciplinary research teams, with a view to fostering pertinent evaluation of projects dealing with sustainable development.
9. Actions of support and valorization of interdisciplinary teams working in the field of environment and development aim at:
the creation of an anthology of texts on selected topics dealing with environment and development, entitled UNESCO Forum on Sustainable Development;
the selection of an annual topic underlining the social component of sustainable development, within the framework of the U.N. system’s preparation for the World Summit on Social Development;
the launching of a competition of doctoral theses on this topic, of which the best shall receive a UNESCO prize of US$ 3000;
Organization of in-depth seminars and of series of regional conferences by internationally recognized scientific experts.
The compiling and dissemination of a list of resource persons with whom UNESCO shall maintain permanent contacts;
the compiling of a list of most relevant programmes (within their respective centres of excellence), by outlining their research and training foci;
the compiling of a list of existing networks, specifying their specialities and their geographical location;
the mutual strengthening of projects by encouraging their integration into existing networks, by supporting the networks’ functioning and the creation of new networks in response to emerging needs;
the achievement of electronic interconnectivity of the network by e-mail.
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