Policy Coherence for Development in the EU Council: Strategies for the Way Forward. CEPS Paperbacks. July 2006

In recognition of the fact that EU policies in non-development areas, such as trade, energy and migration, can also profoundly affect the poor in developing countries, the EU has affirmed ‘Policy Coherence for Development’ as an important principle for achieving more effective development cooperation. This new CEPS study analyses whether policy-making processes in the EU Council provide sufficient scope for development inputs to be made in 12 key policy areas: trade, environment, climate change, security, agriculture, fisheries, social dimension of globalisation, employment and decent work, migration, research and innovation, information society, transport and energy. The study also includes coverage of the policy-making processes in the European Commission as it initiates and defends most of the policies being discussed in the EU Council. Its findings point to the highly segregated character of EU policy-making and provide interesting insights into the internal challenges the EU will need to address in order to fulfil its goal of achieving greater coherency in its (external) policy-making. To strengthen the potential for PCD the study suggests six proposals for structural reform as well as a set of specific recommendations

OPAL Community Environment Report

The Open Air Laboratories network, or OPAL, as it quickly became known, was launched in 2007 following a successful application to the Big Lottery Fund It was the first time that Big Lottery funding on this scale had been awarded to academic institutions. The University of Central Lancashire led by Dr Mark Toogood was responsible for understanding public engagement with OPAL. The Open Air Laboratories (OPAL)network is a nationwide partnership comprising of ten universities and five organisations with grants awarded totalling £14.4 million. • Over half a million people have participated in the OPAL programme. OPAL activities are carried out by people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, including 10,000 people in ‘hard to reach’ communities. • OPAL opens people’s eyes to the natural world. Nearly half (44%) of OPAL survey participants said that this was the first time that they had carried out a nature survey. 90% of participants have learnt something new. • OPAL has the ability to change people’s behaviour. Almost half (43%) of respondents said OPAL had changed the way they thought about the environment and more than a third (37%) said they will change their behaviour towards it. • In addition to raising environmental awareness, OPAL also improves personal well-being by motivating people to spend time outdoors doing something positive, while connecting with people and nature

National environmental scan of South African scholarly publishing

Undertaken as part of the OpeningScholarship project at the University of Cape Town (UCT), this position paper reviews the national environment for the use of ICTs for research dissemination and publication in the South African higher education sector. Taking UCT as a case study, the paper reviews the use of ICTs for scholarly communications for research, teaching and learning, and community engagement in the university against the background of international developments and best practice