Following several UN climate-related conferences that intend to mitigate the impact of climate change while achieving the SGD goals and the UN 2030 agenda, The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) launches its first international research conference. The first UNITAR International Research Conference will take place in Bonn (Germany), hosted at the UN Campus, on the 24th of November, 2023. There will be a research network event on the 23rd of November 2023 on the campus for the researchers to interact with the Bonn research ecosystem. Research contributions (basic and applied research pieces) addressing any aspects of Climate Security are welcome: Peace and Security Consequences of Climate Change. Besides this theme, other papers in the fields of climate change and environmental sciences with a particular reference to security aspects may also be submitted.

The call aims to explore the threats and risks that derivate from climate change and affect the peace and security prospects. Climate security and related risks have global security implications that will influence governance, conflict, and peace in profound ways. Early work on the security facets of climate change focused on the military and national security components of these threats, and later works have focused on the humanitarian consequences, including climate migration and displacement of the human population. Current research interests include diverse intersection and cross-cutting issues of climate change as terrorism or the risks and dangers attached to resources and waste management, amongst others. This conference will address the convergence of these various aspects of climate security.

The research seminar and conference is a joint undertaking between UNITAR (Division for Peace), the Technological University Dublin (Ireland), the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC, Spain), and the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM).

The Research conference is intended to bring together researchers engaged in Security Management, Peace & Development Studies, Economics, Resources, Political Science, Public, Disaster and Emergency Health, and Environmental Sciences doing climate change research. Doctoral students are strongly encouraged to submit papers for consideration. Applied research pieces and case studies coming from professionals and practitioners are as well encouraged to apply.

Over the last two decades, higher education has been subject to significant scrutiny due to increasing pressures to provide a meaningful and relevant learning experience to the student population, and by their strong connection to the functioning of the economic and political systems. By reflecting on the controversies surrounding pedagogy, this paper contributes to the current debate by exploring pedagogy as a circular process where learners grow and develop by taking different roles and identities as they navigate a research-informed learning continuum defined by growing levels of complexity and uncertainty. This study introduces a new pedagogical paradigm for adult education, inspired by the Humboldtian model for higher education and that we have coined as “circular pedagogy” where the role of the teacher, student and researcher are indissoluble. 

 Keywords: Pedagogy, Circular Pedagogy, Humboldt, Higher Education, Teacher, Student, Researcher 

Higher education institutions seem to be engaged in a reactive process when thinking about education for sustainable development, instead of being proactive. A every stage, educational models remain very limited to specific goals and agendas driven by the fad of the moment and without articulating a sustainable educational model that we argue should be uttered within the concepts of intercultural competencies, smart, inclusive, and sustainable education where learners engage on a circular learning process as captured by the circular pedagogy for higher education. If the academic community is serious about driving actions that help us to enact change and impact to develop a more sustainable conscious socio-economic and environmental global society, we need to rethink our education models and pedagogies so that they are attuned with the complexity of our evolving reality. 

 Keywords: Circular Pedagogy, Education, Smart, Technology, Innovation, Sustainable Education, Intercultural Competences 

Symposium: Geo-economics and Geopolitics of Peace and Conflict

Under the guest editorship of Dr. Daniel Rajmil, a researcher in the areas of geopolitics and geo-economics of Conflict and International Relations Professor at the UOC university, and Director of the UOC-UNITAR Master in Conflict, Peace & Security; Dr. Lucía Morales, academic and researcher in the fields of Economics, Finance and Education at Technological University Dublin; and Dr. Jon-Hans Coetzer at UNITAR Division for Peace, Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice invites essays for a special issue on Geoeconomics and Geopolitics of peace and conflict.

We welcome submissions exploring the many forms and realities of new interactions between geopolitical and geo-economic implications in conflict and peace processes. Existing International Relations offer significant evidence of a strong connection between businesses’ activities and political strategy that are falling into a logic of conflict within the geo-economic and political system. Furthermore, the globalization process and the concentration of economic activity and political power among a few players have significantly impacted international and domestic inequalities, leading to increasing levels of instability that have materialized into adverse spillover effects on international cooperation and geopolitics. This special issue intends to explore the geo-economics and geopolitics dimensions of peace and conflict framed around the dynamics of existing and emerging risks. We encourage researchers and practitioners to contribute with their critical insights as we seek to better understand the challenges ahead. The intensifying effects of geopolitics and geo-economics and their impact on international studies, peacebuilding politics, and conflict transformation scenarios are of particular interest. We encourage researchers to develop contributions that disrupt the status quo and offer insights that encourage activist, business, and community level explorations or reconciliation.

General themes that contributors can address in their essays include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Geo-economics of cross-border regionalism
• Role of geopolitics in international conflict
• Peace and geo-economics
• Conflict transformation and geo-economics insights
• Balancing economic sustainability and political power
• Political stability and economic development
• Globalization, growing inequalities, education
• Economic and political reforms and balance of power

TU Dublin and UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research)

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) envision a future of social justice and economic prosperity within environmental limits, with education as an agent for transformation. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is premised on learning being repurposed from one with a primarily economic focus to one encompassing global citizenship, social responsibility and environmental stewardship. SDG 4.7 mandates higher education institutions to prepare graduates for this renewed purpose and is measured by the extent to which ESD is mainstreamed in higher education.

In line with these priorities, this call for papers (including original research articles, reviews, commentaries or reflections) for a special issue of the Irish Journal of Academic Practice is aimed at capturing pedagogical innovations, underpinning institutional strategy and capacity building across higher education that are contributing to SDG 4.7. We are particularly interested in articles that share lessons learned from emergent practices in ESD as well as contrasting views on the future direction of academic scholarship and professional practice, across the disciplines, in this field.

Special Issue Guest Editors

• Cormac MacMahon, cormac.mcmahon@tudublin.ie 
• Lucia Morales, lucia.morales@tudublin.ie 
• Philippe Lemarchand, Philippe.lemarchand@tudublin.ie 
• Jon-Hans Coetzer, Jon-Hans.COETZER@unitar.org

Process and Key Dates

Abstract submission due by 5pm on 27th November 2022, in the first instance. To submit, click on "Submit Article" on this page - you will be prompted to login or to create an account. In the first instance, please submit a 500 word abstract. Colleagues will be notified of decisions by Monday 5th December 2022. Colleagues who have been invited to submit full articles should do so by Friday 31st March 2023, when they will circulated for peer review. Publication of the special issue is expected in Summer 2023.

We are seeking abstracts for the following thematic areas:

• edagogical innovations for SDG 4.7, from sustainability literacy to sustainability leadership;
• embedding equality, diversity and inclusion for learner success;
• sustainability strategy in higher education – what does it look like and how is it manifested in our emerging education models?
• programmatic transformation - team focused approaches to embedding the Sustainable Development Goals in the curriculum
• authentic assessment for sustainable development
• building capacity - competencies for, professional development of, and communities of practice amongst educators for sustainability;
• emergent sectoral and disciplinary issues in areas such as STEM, the humanities; food; tourism; transport and supply chains; business, economics and finance; community development, etc.
• mobilizing young people - promoting behavioural change, activism and responsible citizenship through education experiences;
• integrating circular principles in higher education and its implications for curriculum design, pedagogy, resource allocation and organising
• framing sustainability as super wicked problems and interdisciplinary approaches to solving complex sustainability challenges.
• Reporting and Disclosures ~ navigating the complex sustainability intelligence landscape in higher education

This special issue of Cadmus is issued in support of the HS4A global campaign on Human Security for All launched in January 2023 by the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security and the World Academy of Art and Science. The intention of the report is to foster awareness and understanding of the concept of human security from a multitude of perspectives and different dimensions at the local, national and global level.