This is our last newsletter for 2015, which has proven to be a productive year for the world’s learning cities. We hope that 2016 will see the continued development of comprehensive lifelong learning policies and programmes, not only at national levels, but also at local levels: in the cities, towns, villages and communities where implementation happens.

*** New Title - Scandinavian Studies ***

Scandinavian countries are generally associated with extensive public services and low levels of poverty. However, reality has changed dramatically over the last three decades, and Scandinavia’s cities now share many of the problems and challenges familiar from other Western cities. How do the welfare states handle these global societal transformations?

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) were agreed by the PASCAL Board as part of a recent review of PASCAL structures in order to give focus to the advice required by the Board in particular areas of its work; PASCAL is therefore now establishing a series of these SIGs.

I am pleased to inform subscribers of PASCAL that the city of Taipei will be sending a delegation of 14 to Glasgow for the upcoming 13th PASCAL International Conference, June 3-5, 2016. We look forward to meeting other cities as well as discovering more about the other learning cities and the Scottish education system.