On 4th February, 2016, Sherwan Taha Ameen, PASCAL coordinator in Iraqi Kurdistan, organised an open seminar about PASCAL International Observatory and the 13th PASCAL International Conference in Glasgow, taking place 3-5 June, 2016 in preparation for this Conference as 6 delegates will attend the conference from Duhok city.

The open seminar was sponsored by University of Duhok and VTO local NGO and held at the Cultural and Social Centre of Duhok University. There were more than 50 participants in the seminar; chancellors of universities, vice chancellors, deans of schools and senior managers of University of Duhok, University of Zakho, American University Kurdistan, Cihan University-Duhok and University of Nawroz. In addition, representatives of Duhok Governorate, some local NGOs, MPs and other related people from the media; TV, radio and local newspapers, also attended.

The seminar lasted nearly 2 hours. To start the seminar, the Acting Dean of the School of Basic Education, Dr. Alan J. Ibrahim, delivered a welcome speech and then the manager of VTO, Mr Amer Ageed, gave a brief talk about their activities. Then Mr Sherwan Taha Ameen gave a presentation about PASCAL International Observatory and the Learning Cities Networks (LCN), together with a report on last year's PASCAL Conference in Catania, Italy.

Mr Ameen in his slides focused on the upcoming Glasgow Conference and its significance. Then, Professor Michael Osborne joined the seminar through Skype from Prague. He gave an overview of PASCAL, beginning with its establishment in 2002 to extend the path-finding work on learning regions and cities of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Then Professor Osborne talked about the guiding themes and the core activities of PASCAL, and the themes of the last PASCAL Conference in Catania, Italy. At the end, he focused on the coming Conference in Glasgow.

After that, some participants asked some questions and also gave some suggestions in the fields of higher education, economics, social capital, the Iraqi Kurdistan culture, helping IDPs and refugees in Duhok city, stopping migration, awareness programs and other issues. After that, Professor Osborne finished talking and the participants gave their opinions and also asked some questions; they also requested some individual meetings with Mr Ameen to make other links with PASCAL in different ways.

Overall, the seminar was considered as very successful, receiving positive feedback from the participants. It is also anticipated that there will be a similar seminar in Erbil soon!

Sherwan Taha Ameen, Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan
February 6th, 2016

Images from the Seminar

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