Title: Regional Colloquium on Innovative Techniques for Teaching the United Nations

22 November 2008, 11:00 - 17:00, Diplomatic Academy, Vienna, Austria

followed by a UNSA meeting to continue our dialogue on a joint concept of UN Studies, scheduled to take place on November 23, 2008, at the Juridicum: For the results, click here.

Draft programme (as of November 14, 2008): download here.

Presentations

Henrike Paepcke: "Wiki-based social networks – Introducing the UN Studies Portal"

Click here for download.

Organisers and partners

Organisers:

• Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS)
• Diplomatic Academy of Vienna
• Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office (ASO) Ljubljana
• Central and Eastern European International Studies Association CEEISA

in cooperation with:

• Academic Forum on Foreign Affairs, Vienna (AFA)
• Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations Office Vienna
• International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis IIASA Laxenburg
• Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
• Austrian National Commission for UNESCO
• United Nations Information Service, Vienna (UNIS)
• European Training Center for Human Rights, Graz
• Moscow State Institute of International Relations (to be confirmed)
• United Nations Studies Association
• University of Graz Institute of International Law
• University of Vienna, Institutes of Criminal Law and International Law
• World Federation of United Nations Associations

Rationale and Objectives

As Global Issues become more and more topical on the political agenda of any country in the world and as the United Nations system is within the existing global system of international relations the central mechanism for global governance responses to global challenges (like e.g. the ongoing UNFCCC climate change negotiations as the process to coordinate globally climate change mitigation and adaptation measures or the Millennium Development Goals as a shared global vision for development agreed upon in the UN Millennium Declaration, etc.), it is important that there are developed appropriate human capacities in each country with the knowledge on the functioning of the UN system in order to enable all relevant stakeholders to contribute to the success of efforts of the international community to address global challenges and in order to enable countries to defend their interests according to the rules of play. In this context higher/tertiary education plays a key role and obviously there are huge potentials for mutual learning in addressing these human resources development issues in an international/regional setting.

Therefore, with this colloquium the organizers want to

• get a glimpse of who is doing what in the field of teaching on the United Nations system in Tertiary education in Central, East and Southeast Europe
• identify and discuss innovative initiatives on teaching about the UN system
• contribute to regional cooperation

Expected concrete outcomes of the colloquium are

• a compendium/handbook on “Innovative Techniques/Approaches in Teaching about the UN System” that should published in the book series of Diplomatic Academy in Vienna (to be confirmed))
• project initiatives for regional cooperation in UN related human resources development Expected number of participants: 30

Travel grants: The Austrian Science and Research Liaison office Ljubljana will offer travel grants for up to 10 participants from SEE countries (for details contact please Mr. Miroslav Polzer polzer@zsi.at, www.aso.zsi.at)