Nov. 21 – Siena University joins the global effort towards education for sustainable development. The Tuscan university was in Japan on the occasion of the UNESCO “World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development”. The Japanese city of Nagoya hosted the event, welcoming last week university representatives from all continents. The conference is part of the 10-year 2005-2014 UN program tat seeks to integrate sustainable development principles, values and practices into all aspects of education and learning. The event – organized by UNESCO with the support of the Japanese government – reaffirmed the essential role of universities worldwide in giving substance to the concepts of development and sustainability. The “World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development” saw the direct involvement of the International Association of Universities (IAU), for which the University of Siena will host the annual meeting in October of next year. “Higher education – said the Dean of the University of Siena, Angelo Riccaboni, who attended the conference in Japan as head of the Working Group on Sustainable Development IAU – can and should be a leader in the dissemination process of the idea and the implementation of sustainable development in all regions of the globe. The International Association of Universities is working on two fronts: enhancing the role of research to achieve tangible results in the near future and promoting sustainability as a key concept for higher education.” (red)
