15 participants - representing ACUNS, the University of Vienna ( various faculties) , the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the University of Montenegro, the European University in Skopje, and the Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office Ljubljana - met at the Juridicum (Law School Building) on Sunday, November 23, for an informal discussion about UNSA's collaborative effort to develop a joint concept of UN Studies. 

They developed a tentative work agenda for 2009, including:

- a summer school for the ne(x)t generation, training / using new media

- a UNSA meeting prior to the ACUNS 2009 annual meeting in Trinidad and Tobago to connect with potential partners from the Caribbean who might have an interest in UN Studies.

- continued UNSA dialogues to get to know people from other regions and their perspectives (to follow-up on the colloqium's theme)

- continued UNSA Discussion via discussion papers and wiki portal to further advance our joint work on UN Studies concept, including theory-building, with the opportunity to publish results in the Journal on International Organization Studies .

Thanks to all who participated in this meeting!

Results of our discussion 

Kick-off: Reviewing the UNSA Dialogues

• Too ambitious?
• Too many features?
• Technological problems?
• Too complicated?
• Too abstract topics
• Suggestions for future topics -> more issue-related discussion
• Issues were missing in yesterday's discussion

Key concern: How to better promote the need for UN Studies?

• address diverse audiences
• get in the voices of the region
• have phone conferences and featured presenter (15 minutes)
• initial presentations / thoughts posted on the wiki portal - well in advance
• the issue discussion is over, then what? How to integrate results into our work?

Proposed solution: Combination of three, complimentary tracks of action:

I. Online conversation to get to learn new views / members' & pracitioners' views - with a focus on (practical) experiences, case studies, issues

II. wiki portal-facilitated (more academic, theoretical, philosophical) exchange: covering main thoughts of mission statement incl. theoretical aspects of UN Studies -> can be deepened in face-to-face meetings / workshops; try to synthesize / generalize practical experiences

III. Build knowledge-base of syllabi as input -> provides further food for thought

Related issues / questions raised:

Challenge: build bridge between practice and theory

• Does this work in the suggested, three-fold proceeding?
• Who does the connecting / reflecting? Who places the individual experiences and views in the wider theoretical framework?

How to tackle the wide scope of UN Studies?

• different UN organizations with specific strategy to communicate their message and reach out to youth, for instance
• invite members of UNESCO to speak on a specific issue
• translate this input into discussion papers
• enhance multilingual, multi-cultural dialogue across all disciplines

Learning aspects

• interest in learning more about different understandings of certain general concepts
• bring students, practitioners and academics together to learn about different views (on the UN system, various related aspects), different problem understanding
• think about methodology used in classes, mixture about theoretical and practical approaches
• importance of awareness-raising, reach out to more regions
• building a knowledge-base about global governance -> UN system critical part in this effort

engage and empower the regions

• teaching in a region with almost no infrastructure -> biggest challenge to act as facilitator / transmitter / (sole) connection between local (students) and international level
• interested in more cooperation and dialogue, support of all kinds

enhance communication and discourse in general

• feedback channels of students doing internships at the UN -> empower students, help them speak up
• install podcasts as new feature, in addition to bookmarks / tagging
• motivate people to put more resources and links, syllabi compendium online -> add more content
• phone conferences covering the entire world -> accommodate people in all time zones
• record lectures, put audio/video files online and organize discussion around this initial, already existing content

Possible follow-up

• Regional network
• Make use of UN infrastructure, in Vienna
• Build Knowledge-base, use UN's work on terminology
  • -> add links to portal, based on provided list
  • -> add value: multilingual, offer criticism / rating / feedback / comments on link lists, could also be done with syllabi
  • -> ask users for feedback: is this helpful

• Incorporate philosophical, linguistic dimension -> see track II

Ne(x)t Generation project 2009

• organize interactive experiment/ prototype to learn from, share experiences with wider ACUNS and UNSA membership
• connect with the net generation
• start with face-to-face meeting (Spring / Summer 2009), continued online (dual approach)
• work on specific issue, facilitated by new media
• Which students? Which teachers? They should learn from each other
• we should also include practitioners
• perhaps back to back to UNESCO Summer School in early July
• apply for grant in 2010. So start smaller in 2009.
• incorporate results of the ACUNS annual meeting in summer school idea.
• have December 4 online discussion on this topic - how to best prepare for Trinidad / the workshop?

see also: Vienna Summer School

Trinidad

• Caribbean countries offer practical experience
• offer academic contributions
• such substantive issues fit best into the ACUNS meeting agenda
• local university tries to gather regional UNAs

Separate UNSA meeting / workshop

• continue philosophical / theoretical discussion on UN Studies?
• use opportunity to network - who is who, and who aspires / does what in regard to UN Studies? Go beyond UNAs, however, and broaden outreach to human rights experts, etc.
• ensure engagement of participants who cannot attend in person. Use new media wisely, chose technologies that really work (no crackling sound, or disrupted videostreaming). A blog or podcast might work, will be offered by relaunched ACUNS website, and could be used during annual meeting.
• general meeting focus on regions: Regional initiatives? Role of regional networks? Role models? What defines regional power? How is power distributed?
• use the discussion papers for a more substantial exploration of UN Studies