Disaster Resilience Education and Research Roadmap for Europe 2030 : ANDROID Report

A disaster resilience education and research roadmap for Europe 2030 has been launched. This roadmap represents an important output of the ANDROID disaster resilience network, bringing together existing literature in the field, as well as the results of various analysis and study projects undertaken by project partners.The roadmap sets out five key challenges and opportunities in moving from 2015 to 2030 and aimed at addressing the challenges of the recently announced Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. This roadmap was developed as part of the ANDROID Disaster Resilience Network, led by Professor Richard Haigh of the Global Disaster Resilience Centre (www.hud.ac.uk/gdrc ) at the School of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Huddersfield, UK. The ANDROID consortium of applied, human, social and natural scientists, supported by international organisations and a stakeholder board, worked together to map the field in disaster resilience education, pool their results and findings, develop interdisciplinary explanations, develop capacity, move forward innovative education agendas, discuss methods, and inform policy development. Further information on ANDROID Disaster Resilience network is available at: http://www.disaster-resilience.netAn ANDROID Disaster Resilience Network ReportANDROI

Policy Issues of e-Commerce Technology Diffusion in Southeast Nigeria: The Case of Small Scale Agribusiness

The benefits brought about by the emergence of e-commerce, e-business and other Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) applications have not been fully explored in the developing economies of the world. The less developed economies are still struggling to catch up with ICT application as opposed to its heavy deployment in the developed economies. Empirical evidence suggests that ICTs and other related technologies are increasingly emerging in the communities of the developing economies such as Nigeria. Rural actors engaged in the Agricultural industries (Agribusiness) feel that the implementation of ICTs can influence the development of new business processes and the way existing processes are organised. In the Southeast of Nigeria, which is a typical example of a less developed community, the impact of e-business technologies has yet to be determined. This paper identifies two classical traditional agribusiness supply chains and hence reports on the impact of e-commerce technology diffusion along the equilibrium of the supply chains, focusing on the elimination of intermediary actors from the chain. It provides an assessment of the Governments’ policies and strategies on e-commerce adoption for the sustainability of small-scale agricultural businesses. The paper examines the politics surrounding ICT implementations by actors engaged in the agribusiness sector. This research has motivated The South East State Government, in collaboration with the Federal Government, to give closer attention to their earlier policy of making Nigeria an ICT-enabled country

Soil Governance: Accessing Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives

Soil provides the foundation for agricultural and environmental systems, and are subject to a complex governance regime of property rights and secondary impacts from industry and domestic land use. Complex natural resource management issues require approaches to governance that acknowledge uncertainty and complexity. Theories of next generation environmental governance assume that inclusion of diverse perspectives will improve reform directions and encourage behaviour change. This paper reports on a qualitative survey of an international workshop that brought together cross-disciplinary perspectives to address the challenges of soil governance. Results reveal the challenges of communicating effectively across disciplines. The findings suggest that strategies for improved soils governance must focus on increasing communications with community stakeholders and engaging land managers in designing shared governance regimes. The need for more conscious articulation of the challenges of cross-disciplinary environments is discussed and strategies for increasing research collaboration in soils governance are suggested. The identified need for more systematic approaches to cross-disciplinary learning, including reporting back of cross-disciplinary initiatives to help practitioners learn from past experience, forms part of the rationale for this paper

Learning for change : Cross-disciplinary postgraduate programmes in sustainability

Through connecting the local and global, higher education institutions play a vital role in addressing social, environmental and economic challenges and ultimately achieving a sustainable future. New Horizons: Responding to the Challenges of the 21st Century (Scottish Government, 2008), outlines the contributions which Scottish universities should make to the economy, culture and society, and to the political priorities of the Scottish Government. Learning for Change: Scotland’s Action Plan for the Second Half of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (Scottish Government, 2010) examines progress to date and sets out the actions that higher education institutions have committed to undertaking in the second half of the decade and beyond. These two important documents provide the context for work that has taken place at the University of Strathclyde in response to the challenges set out within them. The University of Strathclyde has been ranked first in the Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Observatory Report 2008 and plans to build on this success. The challenges presented by Sustainable Development are inherently holistic, demanding equal responses from all disciplines and this requires the development of a framework for University-wide, cross disciplinary teaching. This paper describes work that has taken place within the University to develop a new university-wide, multi-disciplinary, Strathclyde Masters programme in Sustainability (SMS) aimed at articulating a framework for integrating flagship postgraduate courses & classes, sustainability literacy, skills training workshops and subsequent continuing professional development courses. Conclusions are presented from the three main bodies of work involved: a review of current thinking in ESD; a multi-stakeholder consultation process involving students, academic and professional services staff within the university, and external stakeholders, and the creation of a Sustainability Map detailing current postgraduate provision of ESD at the University