I am delighted to report that the 14th PASCAL Conference has opened in Pretoria with an invigorating introduction from the Vice-Chancellor of the Belgian Campus, Enrico Jacobs.

Invoking Immanuel Kant he reminded us that ‘optimism is a moral duty’. And if we remember that Karl Popper using the same quote argued that the most compelling reason for doing so is that ‘the world is beautiful’. We are certainly in a beautiful place but one with many challenges for our cities, rural areas and universities.

We will consider these challenges over the next few days, and our first keynote speaker, Peter Kearns, has already set us on that path.

Enrico Jacobs (left) and Peter Kearns (right) at the PASCAL 2017 Conference in Pretoria