The year 2024 was exceptional.  PASCAL has grown with the adhesion of two new centres.  In New Brunswick, New Jersey USA, Prof. Radha Jagannathan leads a centre at Rutgers University, a key institution in the greater New York metropolitan region.  This centre promises to improve our understanding of youth education (STEM) and employment issues, with a focus on the design and planning of infrastructure, to strengthen connections between universities and the public sector.  Catherine Lido, Glasgow Centre Director, travelled to New Jersey to attend the launch of the Rutgers Centre.

Learning Cities and Communities nurturing Wellbeing and Democracy is the title of our joint research that I have been undertaking with Professor Yukiko Sawano from the Sacred Heart University in Tokyo. We are both members of the ASEM Lifelong Learning Hub, Research Network 6 for Learning Cities and Communities, that promotes research activities on the topic between Asia and Europe.

Congratulations to Prof Marius Venter on receiving an Honorary Fellowship and being a CBE globalisation ambassador questing the United Nations SDGs.

Knowledge Democracy in Higher Education is a five-part learning series focused on understanding the principles of community-university engagement, community-based participatory research, building equitable partnerships, integrating the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and transforming higher education.