PIE Briefing Paper 3 : Progress to a New Stage

The PASCAL International Exchanges (PIE) project is now well-established with a set of ten quality stimulus papers on the PIE web space and with other cities expected to participate soon. This has provided a rich pool of information and experience and innovative ideas that all participating cities can benefit from.

In order to extend and deepen this dialogue, PIE will now progress to a further stage of development which will involve:

a) re-structuring of the PIE web space on the basis of five Major Themes for the next stage of PIE development; and

b) release of a paper entitled Building Inclusive and Sustainable Learning Cities which provides an overview of key themes and issues from the stimulus papers.

Although the web space will now provide for navigation through the Major Themes, it will still be possible to access the City Stimulus Papers and blog discussion, and further City Stimulus Papers will be posted as additional cities participate in PIE. This will add value to the pool of PIE resources.

The Major Themes

The re-structured PIE web site will provide for papers and blog comments on the following themes, while other important themes may be added later.

• Responding to social change.
• Cultural policy and cultural institutions as arenas for lifelong learning.
• Preserving the environment.
• Mobilising civil society to build successful cities.
• ICT and media as vehicles for an inclusive learning society.

Lead papers for the initial three Major Themes are available on the PIE web space now, so that these thematic areas are already available for your blogs and other contributions. You will be able to blog in these thematic areas in the same way as with the CITY Stimulus Papers. Lead papers for the other two Major Themes will be added to the PIE web site in the next two or three weeks.

These are important themes relevant to building inclusive, cohesive, and sustainable cities, and it is hoped that they will stimulate a lively, productive dialogue. You are most welcome to involve other people and networks in your city that may have a particular interest in any of these subjects. Access to the PIE site for blogging will be provided for any additional participants you wish to nominate. Participating cities have the option of focussing on one or several of the themes, or participating in the dialogue on all themes.

PIE Overview Paper – Building Inclusive and Sustainable Learning Cities

This paper, written by Peter Kearns, Professor Michael Osborne, and Dr Denise Reghenzani-Kearns- provides an overview of key themes and issues from the City Stimulus Papers. The overview shows considerable innovation and partnership development in participating cities, while also pointing to major issues and challenges confronting many cities in a globalised world of escalating change and mobility.

The paper includes links and references to other resources on the PASCAL web site that can be accessed, so that it has been designed to provide a convenient source to information available through PASCAL. You are welcome to circulate this paper to anyone in your city who may be interested in the subjects of the paper. Your comments on the paper are welcome, and may be sent to the authors of the paper.. It is planned to circulate later a further overview paper on insights gained from the new stage of PIE development.

Contact Information

Questions relating to these developments may be taken up with the PIE co-ordinators, Peter Kearns and Bruce Wilson. Your ideas for the further development of PIE after this stage will be most welcome. Contact details are:

            Peter Kearns – [email protected];  tel +61 733780601

            Professor Bruce Wilson – [email protected];   tel + 61 399258214