London: Cultural Capital - Realising the potential of a world class city

Launched in April 2004, the City of London Mayor's Culture Strategy 'London: Cultural Capital - Realising the potential of a world class city' is a ten-year plan to develop London as a centre of cultural excellence and creativity which includes arts, sport, heritage and creative industries in London. The Culture Strategy has four key objectives focused on: excellence, creativity, access and value. Underpinning each of these objectives is the principle of diversity. The recognition that the excellence and quality of culture in London will only be achieved by ensuring that London’s diverse communities are reflected, and active, in the cultural life of the city.

Culture Strategy highlights PDF here.
Full Strategy here.
Other documentation here.

Creative Tampere

Creative Tampere is the City of Tampere's business development policy programme, for implementation in 2006–2011. The practical implementation of the Creative Tampere programme is performed in three selected theme areas: the cultural industry, service innovations, and creative structures. The programme has three central targets, which support one another. These goals are based on the selected theme areas: strengthening the cultural industry; creating new service innovations; and improving the pillars on which creativity is built.

More information here.

New issue of the journal 'Higher Education Research & Development'

The Journal of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia 'Higher Education Research & Development''s Volume 26 Issue 4 is now available for paying subscribers at the Informaworld website. The new issue contains the following articles:

• A quantitative approach to assessment of work-based learning outcomes: an urban planning application
• Lifelong learning: beyond the rhetoric of retention
• Deconstructing the skills training debate in doctoral education
• Commonly known, commonly not known, totally unknown: a framework for students becoming researchers
• Negotiating the university research culture: collaborative voices of new academics
• Show me the money! An empirical analysis of mentoring outcomes for women in academia

Access the issue's table of contents here.

C3P and NASA Technical Workshop "Partnering for Energy and Environmental Stewardship", November 7,8 & 9, 2007, Peniche Portugal

The Centro Para Prevenção da Poluição (C3P) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are hosting their 5th annual workshop on the environment and energy, "Energy and Environmental Stewardship", to be held in November 7,8 & 9, 2007, in Peniche, Portugal. The three-day workshop will provide up-to-date information on environmental and energy concerns that are common to Portuguese, European and U.S. Industries, as well as information on ongoing and future projects. Of particular emphasis will be an entire day devoted to the planned environmental and energy improvements planned for the Berlengas Island. This workshop will be free to attendees, but space is limited.

More information and agenda here.
Registration here.

How do you feel about European policy toward the outermost regions?

As announced when the Commission’s “Strategy for the Outermost Regions: Achievements and Future Prospects” communication was adopted last September, a public consultation has been opened on the Inforegio website. It is intended for European institutions, Member States, the regions and all other parties interested in the future of the outermost regions (local players, association representatives, unions, academics and researchers…). The consultation will close on 31 March 2008.

Take part in the debate here.

2nd Call for Abstracts for PECSRL Conference “Landscapes, Identities and Development”

The 2^nd Call for Abstracts for PECSRL Conference “Landscapes, Identities and Development”, to be held from the 1st to the 5th September 2008, in Lisbon and Óbidos , Portugal , has been posted at the TERCUD - Territory, Culture and Development Research Centre's website.

More information on abstract submission, programme and registration here.

U.S. Green Building Council

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a non-profit organization composed of leaders from every sector of the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. Amongst other, membership of the council offers discounts on different resources, such as the References Guides for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System and other publications, and educational programs and resources related to green building. Without membership, one can also access a list of LEED® Initiatives in Governments and Schools in US or a summary of Government LEED Incentives.

Provisional dates for call for proposals in Environment Programme of FP7

If all goes according to planned, the second FP7 call for proposals in the Environment programme is expect to be published in the Official Journal on November 30th. The deadline for receipt of proposals will likely be February 25th 2008, but it may be a week earlier. Evaluations are currently scheduled to start on March 10th. These are provisional dates subject to change, but they may work as pointers for those planning on applying for FP7 funding.

More information on FP7 here.

Conference "Telling the story: Communicating Cohesion Policy together", Brussels 26-27 November

Registration is open for the conference "Telling the story: Communicating Cohesion Policy together" to be held on 26-27 November in Brussels. The conferences’s goal is to initiate a discussion on forms of communication around European Regional Funds. Communication officers from national and regional managing authorities, representatives of news agencies covering Europe and the media are invited to register online. Under the new European regulation, citizens must be better informed about the Funds’ activities everywhere in Europe.

More information and registration here.
Draft programme here.

Recruitment of PhD candidates at ITC: Using spatial information infrastructure in urban governance networks

The Dept of Planning and Geo-information Management, at the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) in the Netherlands is looking for candidates for 2 still vacant PhD positions at ITC for a research program titled: Using spatial information infrastructure in urban governance networks: reducing urban deprivations in Indian cities? The program is funded by the Dutch Science Foundation & ITC and funds a total of 3 PhDs and one post-doc. Deadline for for submission of applications is November 15, 2007.

The two PhD vacancies are advertised here.

International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy

The International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (ICELE) aims at providing best practice advice, support and practical solutions to help local authorities increase national eParticipation rates. Amongst a numerous resources included in the centre's website, one can find some interesting documents, namely:

• 'Reach out with Local eDemocracy' is an easy-to-follow guide for local authorities focusing on how to promote democtaic participation through ICT tools;
• 'VOICE Local Authority Administrators’ Guidebook' is a guide which explains how VOICE (a national web service offered by ICELE, primarily aimed at Local Authorities. It is based on a bespoke software development by the DCLG for community groups and the third sectores) works, how to set-up a portal and describes each of the system functions and features.

Regional Studies Association Conference "City Regions: Balancing Growth with Sustainability", Manchester 6th December

Registrations are open for the Regional Studies Association Conference "City Regions: Balancing Growth with Sustainability", to be held Thursday 6th December at the University of Manchester, UK. This conference brings together some of the leading experts, academics, researchers and practitioners to discuss how city-regions should be managed and what actions need to be undertaken to balance growing prosperity with sustainable development.

More information here.
Register here.

Biomass Program Multi-Year Program Plan

The US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has released earler this month its Biomass Program Multi-Year Program Plan, which aims at developing cost-competitive biomass technologies to enable the production of biofuels nationwide and reduce dependence on oil through the creation of a new domestic bioindustry, thus supporting President Bush’s goal to reduce gasoline use 20 percent by 2017. With an holistic perspective, the programme focus both on developing biofuel, bioproduct and biopower technologies which can enhance the economic potential of biomass and on overcoming barriers to end-user appropriation of biomass-based products.

INTERREG IVC Project idea - STRATCULT-REGIO.net

The region of Upper Asutria, is looking for cultural departments of European territorial authorities (especially from the UK, Germany and Baltic States) to be partners in the STRATCULT-REGIO.net project, which aims at fully integrating all cultural development potentials into the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas of the European Union, with a special focus on the related regional and rural development policies in the frame-work of EU Structural Funds. The project's expected outcomes are fourfold: better know-how of administrations involved; more cultural projects implemented in European regions and cities; improvement of dynamic of related discussion on policy level; and the implementation of results of applied research on regional/local level based on Europe wide research results.

More information and contact details here.

The URBAN / URBACT Conference, 4th-6th November, Berlin

Registration is open for the URBAN / URBACT Conference, which will be held from the 4th to the 6th November in Berlin. It represents the final conference of both the URBACT I Programme and the URBAN Programme and the launching event of the new URBACT II programme. The shift of the URBAN Programme to the mainstream and the impact of Regions for Economic Change on the local implementation of the European policy will be among the issues tackled during the conference. The results of both the URBACT and URBAN programmes will be presented and the new call for projects for URBACT II will also be presented by the URBACT Secretariat.

More information and conference programme here.
Register online here.

Enhancing Urban Safety and Security - Global Report on Human Settlements 2007

The United Nations agency responsible for human settlements, UN-Habitat, has launched in September the first in-depth examination of a broad range of urban security issues, focusing on three key aspects of urban safety and security: crime and violence; security of tenure and protection against forced eviction; and natural and human-made disasters. The most alarming parts of the report relate to increasing urban violence and crime, urban redevelopment-related evictions of disadvantaged groups and, above all, the increased vulnerability of cities due to climate change. The report stresses that the number of natural disasters affecting urban populations has risen four-fold since 1975 and is likely to keep rising. A must have for urban planners.

Order the report here.
Foreword and introduction here.

INTERREG IVC project idea - Managing the Industrial territory in the Knowledge Era

The Sociedad para la Promoción y Reconversión Industrial (SPRI), In Spain, is searching for regional authorities and managing bodies of business areas and industrial parks to be partners in their INTERREG IVC project, Managing the Industrial territory in the Knowledge Era. The project aims at designing and testing new models of managing Business Areas and Industrial Parks facing the challenges of the knowledge economy and sustainability demanded by SMEs and its expected outputs are: a new range of proximity knowledge intensive services available for SMEs; increased sustainability of Business Areas and Industrial Parks; and new skills and capacity building for managers of Business Areas and Industrial Parks.

More information and contact details here.

Agreement on the EU Reform Treaty

The leaders of the 27 EU member states have today in Lisbon reached an agreement on the EU Reform Treaty, culminating a process initiated in June, when the 27 members agreed on the main guidelines for the treaty. The final text is to be signed in Lisbon on the 13th December at 11h00 am. As the president of the Council of the European Union, José Sócrates puts it, "The new Treaty of Lisbon was born today. This is a European victory".

More information here.
Draft Reform Treaty here.

Lisbon Informal Summit / Session of the Intergovernmental Conference, Lisbon 18-19 November

Today and tomorrow, delegations - including heads of state and government - from 27 member countries of the European Union will be gathering in Lisbon mainly to discuss the project of the Reform Treaty and attempt to further advance the European integration process. Although some of the Draft Reform Treaty's points are questionable and doubts have been raised by some European countries, such as Poland and Italy, the institutional and legislative reform is a necessary step to further advance the European project. The Portuguese Presidency has show its resolve in being the host of the final agreement and reach a win-win situation for all member countries and respective populations.

More on the meeting here.
More on the Draft Reform Treaty here.

Europe's environment — The fourth assessment

The latest in a series of assessments of the pan-European environment published over the past 15 years by the European Environment Agency, the report 'Europe's environment — The fourth assessment' evaluates environmental progress in 53 countries from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), South Eastern Europe (SEE), as well as Western and Central Europe (WCE). The report analyses trends in different areas, such as: environment-related health concerns (issues related to air quality, inland waters, soil, hazardous chemicals); climate change; biodiversity loss; overuse of marine resources; the current patterns of production and consumption; and pressures caused by economic activities (agriculture, tourism, transport, energy).

Full report and executive summaries in different languages here.
Presentation with the key messages here.

Social capital and job creation in rural Europe, 8 - 9 November 2007, Lisbon, Portugal

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in cooperation with the European Commission’s Leader+ Observatory; the Leader+ Portuguese Network; and the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is organisaing the conference 'Social capital and job creation in rural Europe', to be held in lisbon, Portugal on the 8th and 9th November 2007. The aim of the conference is to identify strategies or job creation in rural Europe through social capital initiatives. Practitioners, researchers and policy-makers will participate in the conference and participation is by invitation only.

Draft programme here.

Innovation to Connect the Lisbon Strategy to People: Launch of the 2nd wave of the European Network of Living Labs - Brussels 17th October

In a Portuguese Presidency event, to be held October 17 in Brussels, the European Network of Living Labs announces the enrollment of 32 new members, expanding the network from from 19 to 51 members. Living Lab is a new concept for R&D and innovation to boost the Lisbon strategy for jobs and growth in Europe, engaging the stakeholders in the innovation process, including companies, citizens, researchers and public institutions. Through this engagement, open innovation is possible, resulting from the interaction between, for instance, the needs of consumers and the development of new technical possibilities. Small and medium enterprises are engaged in these communities, as well as large corporations, such as Nokia, IBM and SAP.

Press release and programme here.
More on the European Network of Living Labs here.

The World Food Day - numbers and facts

We are celebrating today the World Food Day, with 150 countries around the world organizing special events, conferences, contests, sports activities and a global candlelight vigil on this year's theme, “The Right to Food”. However, some numbers and some facts demonstrate how nutrition and food are still a great challenge (source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations):

- our planet produces enough food to feed its entire population, but there are still 854 million undernourished people in the world, of which 820 million in developing countries, 25 million in countries in transition and 9 million in industrialized countries;
- of these people, 400 million of them are hungry children whose lives will be forever blighted by lack of nutrition in their first months;
- fifty-five percent of the 12 million child deaths each year are related to malnutrition;
- to reach the World Food Summit goal of reducing hunger by half by 2015, the number of hungry people needs to fall by 22 million a year. Currently it is falling by only 6 million a year;

More information on the World Food Day here.
The FAO Hunger Map here.

INTERREG IVC Project idea - Wine Tourism

The Municipiality of Ribadavia, in Spain, is looking for wine routes associations or municipalities who which to be partners in the INTERREG IVC project Wine Tourism. The project aims at creating new tourism-related enterprises in wine routes and the expected outcomes are: standard management quality system for creating enterprises; trainers and counsellings in enterprises skills courses standard business plan; and an established enterprise incubator.

More information and contact details here.

Bourse Nationale d'Opportunités Artisanales (BNOA)

The Bourse Nationale d'Opportunités Artisanales (BNOA) is a French national virtual marketplace for buyers and sellers of enterprises in the craft industry, which was created by the French Chambers of Trade with the support of the European Social Fund. Many entrepreneurs prefer starting a firm rather than taking over one, despite the obvious advantages of taking over an established firm, such as an existing production structure, a customer network and an established name. At the same time, the chances of survival for transfers are higher than for start-ups. As so, the facilitation of SMEs transfer should be a continuous effort of national and regional policy-makers. The advisers of the chambers of trade network make an evaluation (check-up) of the companies of the sellers. The offers are then disseminated on the national enterprise exchange for craft enterprises BNOA (www.bnoa.net). The advisers of the network organise the first meeting between buyers and sellers, provide support, and accompany the transition phase and follow-up through the transfer process.

INTERREG IVC Project idea - Campus Entrepreneurship

The Lahti University of Applied Sciences in Finlend is searching for European partners involved in entrepreneurship promotion for the Campus Entrepreneurship project. The project aims at promoting entrepreneurship and raising the entrepreneurial spirit in Higher Eduction Institutions, thus utilising their full entrepreneurial potential. Increased amount of entrepreneurs and increased amount of students becoming entrepreneurs are the project's expected outcome.

More information and contact details here.

Feed me Better School Dinners

In 2005, British chef Jamie Olivier has launched the Feed me Better School Dinners campaign to ban the junk in school meals and get kids eating fresh, tasty nutritious food instead. The campaign manifesto asked for five things: Guarantee that children receive a proper, nutritionally balanced meal on their plates; Introduce nutritional standards and ban junk food from school meals; Invest in dinner ladies: give them better kitchens more hours and loads of support and training to get them cooking again; Teach kids about food and get cookery back on the curriculum; Commit long-term funding to improve school food. The consequent web petition had, after four weeks, over 270,000 signatures. PM Tony Blair then announced he was taking immediate action to set up a School Food Trust and pledged £280 million to improve school meals. Since then, school meals have to contain a basic level of nutrients and schools are forbidden to sell junk food. A grass-roots campaign with a big impact on pupils health!!

More info on the campaign here.

ENTRE project - transition towards entrepreneurship Closing Seminar, Aveiro 17th October

The ENTRE project - transition towards entrepreneurship - started in September 2005 and has for objective to advance the professional insertion of most vulnerable people in the labour market through small business creation. The project closing seminar - entitled entrepreneurial support for starters - will be held in the University of Aveiro, Portugal, on the 17th October and will discuss national and transnational projects dealing with business creation and entrepreneurship support in less-favoured areas, rural areas and academic world.

Full programme here.
More information on the ENTRE project here.

European Week of Regions and Cities-OPEN DAYS 2007 speaker presentations

You can now access in the Inforegio website to the European Week of Regions and Cities-OPEN DAYS 2007 speaker presentations. These are grouped into 6 themes:

- Attracting investors: Regions and cities show how it works
- Proximity matters: Clusters and regional development
- Spending it wisely: Public-private partnerships and financial engineering
- Crossing borders: Networking and best practice supporting growth and jobs
- Checking delivery: How the new programmes are implemented
- The International Dimension of Regional Policy (for the first time ever, the OPEN DAYS seminars welcomed delegations from China, Russia and Brazil, who have expressed an interest in European Cohesion Policy).

CIDA City Campus

In 2000 Mr. Taddy Blecher and three partners formed the CIDA City CAmpus, a Johannesburg-based almost-free business school for students who cannot afford mainstream higher education. Charging students only a 21$ a month fee, CIDA now collects income from notable sponsors, such as Dell, JPMorgan, Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey. Students help to run the school and many teachers offer their services for free. Students are also required to volunteer for community work when they go back home during the holidays. In a country where good education is still an illusion for most poor South Africans, this is the kind of initiative that can have profound positive impacts on the communities and Mr. Blecher is now a local heroe.

More information on the CIDA here.

6th European Round Table on Poverty and Social Exclusion - Ponta Delgada, 16th and 17th October

The Portuguese Presidency of the European Union is organising the 6th European Round Table on Poverty and Social Exclusion, to be held in Ponta Delgada, Azores, on the 16th and 17th October. This discussion forum, which will be open to national and local public authorities, European institutions, NGO's and academics, will discuss the importance of minimum social standards as a key element of strategies for overcoming poverty and exclusion, bearing in mind the need to adapt it to the realities and options of each country. Poverty combat and social exclusion is another controversial issue in the European Union, to which major differences in both national policies and inequality levels at local and national levels have to be considered. It is, however, a a fundamental policy area if we are to promote full European integration.

More information here.
Programme here.

Peer-to-Patent Project

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Britain's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and the European Patent Office have launched the pilot scheme Peer-toPatent, a radical approach to reforming the complex international patent system. The scheme will open 250 pending patent applications in Computer Architecture, Software, and Information Security to internet-based collaboration, soliciting comments and applying a system of peer review, in contrast to the one-examiner-per-patent process approach. The efficency of a patent system is critical to innovation, but there is still fierce debate surrounding the patenting of software, businesses processes and especially human and animal genes. The outcomes of the project are uncertain, but it can also show the way for other kind of e-Democracy projects.

More info on the porject here.

INTERREG IVC Project idea - Local authorities for businesses

The Agency for Economy of the Flemish Government is looking for regional development agencies platform organisations of local authorities and intermediary business organisations to be partners in the 'Local authorities for businesses' project. The project has a three-fold objective: create a business friendly environment; create a business friendly mindset within local authorities; and strengthen links between businesses and local authorities. Benchmark, best practices and scoreboard of entrepreneurship friendliness of local authorities are some of the expected outcomes.

More information and contact details here.

INTERREG IVC Project idea - Developing Rural Entrepreneurship

As the first INTERREG IVC call for proposals are open by now and the deadline for project submission is 15th January 2008, I will be posting some project ideas which one can access in the INTERREG IVC Project idea database and which seem interesting.

ProAgria Kainuu, the leading agricultural expert organisation in Finland, is searching for partners from the Rural & Business Development sector with experience of interregional EU-projects for the 'Developing Rural Entrepreneurship' project. The project aims at diversifying rural economy and introduce knowledge-based business approaches and at finding innovative ways of utilizing local nature resources and enhance technology transfer to small business. The project is a follow-up for the TOOLS-project, financed by the Interreg IIIC for the years of 2005-2007.

Details and contact information here.

Microcredit Summit Campaign

The Microcredit Summit Campaign is a 2006 re-launched campaign which objective is two-fold: to ensure that 175 million of the world's poorest families can have access to credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the end of 2015; and that 100 million families rise above the US$1 a day threshold, between 1990 and 2015. The original campaign was launched in 1999 and reach is 9 years-goal by 2006. The campaign website has numerous resources for those involved in microcredit. However, the 2006 State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report is a must-read, as are some of the papers commissioned by the Microcredit Summit Campaign in 2006.

Campaign to Protect Rural England

The Campaign for Rural England (CPRE) has been campaigning for 80 years for a sustainable future for the English countryside, a vital but undervalued environmental, economic and social asset to the English nation. In the Campaigns section one can confirm the dynamic of this lobby group and the Library section provides resources on different themes, such as development, planning, farming and food and environment.

Seminar ''The Cultural and Creative Sector – Lisbon Agenda'' - Lisbon, October 31st - November 1st

Building on the KEA Report “The Economy of Culture in Europe”, the seminar ''The Cultural and Creative Sector – Lisbon Agenda'', to be held in Lisbon on October 31st and November 1st, aims at creating research and policy agendas for the sector, capable of being efficiently articulated; exploring new employment opportunities, either offered by the sector or being offered to the sector; and reflecting on how the sector can grow into a sustainable development factor in the different EU countries.

More information here.
Provisional programme (in Portuguese) here.
The Economy of Culture in Europe report here.

Conference on «Employment in Europe: Prospects and Priorities» Lisbon 8-9 October

The Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union is the two day conference on «Employment in Europe: Prospects and Priorities» which will discuss a decade of implementation of the European Employment Strategy, launched in the Luxembourg Jobs Summit in November 1997. The aniversary should be a critical time for Europe to reflect and evaluate the instruments and policy approaches and their contribution to human development. It is also an opportunity to look ahead and consider the challenges employment policy will face, such as an ageing society and further deepening of global integration.

More on the conference here.
Conference programme here.
More on the European Employment Strategy here.

Swiss cheese and the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy

Switzerland has in its premium cheeses Gruyère and Emmental an example for the European Union on how agricultural-related activities can compete globally by focusing production on quality, heritage and new markets, decoupling subsidies from production, thus shifting from subsidising production to direct payment for looking after the countryside, and reducing import barriers on foreign products. A good example for the urgent reform of the CAP.

Read the full story here.

Text of the EU Reform Treaty available

The project of the Reform Treaty resulting from technical negotiations is now available on the Portuguese Presidency of the EU website.

Imagine a Toronto... Strategies for a Creative City

The "Imagine a Toronto... Strategies for a Creative City" research projects aimed at developing a strategy that addresses the current needs of Toronto's creative economy, The project built on empirical evidence from 6 six: Toronto, New York, San Francisco, London, Barcelona and Berlin (coming soon). For the purposes of the report, the research team has grouped the areas of study into five broad categories (people, enterprise, space, connectivity and vision & voice) and analyzed Toronto’s strengths and weaknesses in each of the first four categories above, identifying strategic opportunities for action and sugesting policy actions for those four areas.

Full report here.

Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities

The Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities is a cultural research and development centre based at Simon Fraser University’s Vancouver campus and it conducts research and brings together academia, policy, and practice in four areas: the state of cultural infrastructure in Canadian cities and communities; culture as the fourth pillar of community sustainability; culture in communities: cultural systems and local planning; the impacts of cultural infrastructure and activity in cities and communities. The Publications and Bibliographies sections include valuable resources on these themes. The Culture and Cities Research Directory contains links to research projects and the Cultural Indicators Research Directory includes some initiatives relevant to Cultural Indicators.

High Level Conference on Business & Biodiversity, Lisbon 12-13 November

The Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council and European Commission will organise the High Level Conference on Business & Biodiversity on the 12-12 November in Lisbon. Business leaders, biodiversity experts, NGOs and policy makers, will gather in Lisbon to explore how European business can improve performance through biodiversity responsibility. The conference aims at contributing to an improved understanding of the competitive advantages gained from conserving biodiversity and using biiological resources sustainably and, more importantly, it is expected that the conference will provide guidance to the European Commission’s new initiative on business and biodiversity.

Conference programme here.
Conference brochure here.

Speeches of the Fourth European Cohesion Forum

Some of the speeches of the Fourth European Cohesion Forum are already available on the forum website. Some of these speeches are in French, but most of them are in English. Don't miss the European Commission President's speech on the future of cohesion policy and the concluding remarks by Commissioner Danuta Hubner.

Debate on the future of regional policy - Public consultation

The public consultation on the future of EU cohesion policy, launched by Commissioner Danuta Hübner on 27 September 2007 during the "Fourth European Forum on Cohesion", aims at collecting ideas and contributions on the question of how the Union's cohesion policy should adapt to new challenges and how its delivery can be improved in order to maximise its impact in the future. The consultation is open until 31 January 2008 and should be based on a number of questions which were published in the European Commission's Fourth Report on Economic and Social Cohesion and which are listed here. A report on this consultation will be presented in spring 2008, together with the Fifth Progress Report on Economic and Social Cohesion. This is another chance - but also a duty - for European citizens to participate in the European construction.

Policy Research Initiative

The Policy Research Initiative conducts research in support of the Government of Canada’s medium term agenda on emerging horizontal issues such as population aging, poverty and exclusion, sustainable development, multicultural Canada and youth. the Publications sections include numerous working papers, reports, briefings and journals on these issues and more.

The Intercultural City - planning for diversity advantage

The Intercultural City project aims at investigating to what urban cultural diversity is a source of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship which brings advantage to cities and at providing advice and practical tools for cities seeking to benefit from the diversity dividends. The research themes include changes in conceptual and policy aspects of cultural diversity, individuals or groups who are intercultural innovators and the development of new practical indicators. The case studies are structured around three areas of research: city case studies, thematic studies and intercultural innovators. Some research documents are freely for download.

CLOE - A European Network of Excellence for Cluster Experience, Management, Matching and Promotion

The Interreg III C Project Clusters Linked Over Europe - CLOE is a co-operation project between seven European regions which aims at exchanging experience and information concerning the management and development of successful clusters. The project website serves as a competence platform giving access to information on the competences of cluster companies and participating regions, as well as being the main information source concerning all CLOE activities. The Cluster Competecence Finder provides the opportunity to search for competences, products and services within the CLOE-network and its more than 25 connected clusters and the Cluster Links section provides links to sector-based clusters. The Cluster Management Guide is a must-read document for those interested in cluster-based innovation policy.

Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming

Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming represents around 100 national public interest organisations working at international, national, regional and local level and advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity. The Projects and Campaigns section and the searchable Publications section provide some interesting resources for those interested in sustainable food production and consumption. The alliance also produces a number of quarterly magazines.