Liam Wegimont, GENE Director, met recently with Emiliano Bosio, editor of the book “Conversations on Global Citizenship Education” (Routledge New York), for an interview and discussed Global Education, why it is now more important than ever and why GENE has launched a process towards a new European Declaration on Global Education to 2050. Watch the full interview here. Or, read more about the new Declaration here.

Why is Global Education relevant to schools and the education system, as a whole? And how to integrate Global Education into teaching and into school subjects? These are some of the questions that were discussed at a teachers' training webinar on 20 December 2021. Co-hosted by GENE and the Greek Institute of Educational Policy, the webinar was held in Greek and presented Global Education concepts, structures and resources. We are very happy that over 1000 teachers attended and enjoyed the learning experience together. The training report is available here.

On 17 November 2021, Ms. Agnieszka Skuratowicz, Head of Unit of INTPA G3 – Directorate-General for International Partnerships - European Commission delivered the opening statement of GENE Roundtable 45, highlighted the importance of the work of GENE and underlined the Commission’s commitment to Global Education as a way to overcome fear and division and increase space for democratic participation across policy areas, with international cooperation, and bringing together the local and global dimensions. Read more.

News of the recent UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) negotiations has tended to focus on the challenges and the limitations, and we have perhaps heard too little of the hard-won gains. The 26th COP ended on 12 November with a memorable international agreement marking greater ambition in the fight to limit global warming, increased speed in the energy transition and greater solidarity with the countries most affected by climate change. One GENE Member State, Luxembourg, took a leadership role in the important field of “loss and damage”. Read more.

At the end of 2021, being the year of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Paulo Freire, and also at a time of the year when, traditionally, for some Angels went about spreading signs and stories of hope, we thought that this recent article re-reading Freire and his concept of pedagogy of hope might be an interesting read for the holidays. The article is by Professor Doug Bourn, Chairperson of the Academic Network on Global Education & Learning (ANGEL) and an old friend of GENE. Enjoy the read.

GENE Roundtable 45 took place online on 17 and 18 November 2021. Hot on the heels of COP 26, one of the main topics on the agenda was the process for a new European Declaration on Global Education to 2050 (including Climate Change Education). The Roundtable provided opportunities for over 50 Ministries and Agencies to consider what this new declaration can mean, how we might build on current priorities and national processes, what the vision behind the declaration might be and how we might create this together. Read more.

On 8 September 2021, in the framework of ECER, GENE organised the session “The State of Global Education in European Countries and the Future of Educational Research”. The recording of the session can be watched here. Mr. Liam Wegimont (GENE Director), Prof. Annette Scheunpflug (University of Bamberg/GENE Chair), Prof. Douglas Bourn (University College London), Prof. Elina Lehtomäki (University of Oulu) and Prof. Massimiliano Tarozzi (University of Bologna) gave an interesting insight into the emerging policy environment for further integration of Global Education in European countries. Read more.

On 14 June 2021, with over 250 global educators and policymakers from across Europe, GENE hosted a high-level political event to launch an 18-month process leading to the development of a new European Declaration on Global Education to 2050. The EU Commissioner for International Partnerships, Ms. Jutta Urpilainen, opened the event, while Ministers of Education, Foreign Affairs and International Development from across Europe engaged in a dialogue on the importance of Global Education to education policy, foreign policy and international cooperation. Read more.

On 19 April 2021, Mr. Liam Wegimont (GENE Director) presented to the Council of the EU Working Party on Development Cooperation (CODEV). The Member States engaged in an exchange of views with GENE and the European Commission on the importance of GE and Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR) to the emerging Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), at the kind invitation of the Portuguese presidency of the EU. Read more.

On 2 December 2021, the Academic Network on Global Education & Learning (ANGEL) hosted a seminar on the evolving narratives in International Development, which explored the transition from Development Education to Global Citizenship Education. The seminar was delivered by Jan Van Ongevalle, research manager at HIVA-KU Leuven. Liam Wegimont (GENE Director) chaired the event and La Salete Coelho (University of Porto & Polytechnic of Viana do Castelo) responded to the topics discussed. Read more.

GENE was delighted to attend the IX National Conference on Global Education "Education for Global Citizenship in the conditions of Covid-19. Common horizons – diverse realities" on 11-12 September 2021 in Sofia, Bulgaria. During this visit, the GENE Secretariat Team also had a series of bilateral meetings with Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Education aiming to strengthen Global Education in Bulgaria. This capital visit also included meetings with the Bulgarian Platform for International Development (BPID) and the Bulgarian National Youth Forum. Looking forward to continuing GENE’s cooperation with Bulgaria in the field of Global Education.

GENE is delighted to announce the seven Quality in Global Education Awardees 2021. The selection was made after Ministries and Agencies from across Europe nominated a broad spectrum of inspiring national exemplars of quality in Global Education, across a variety of educational sectors. The selected initiatives will be awarded €10,000 each, while a GENE publication will gather a wider range of good practices, reflecting various themes and sectors found among the nominated initiatives. Read more.

On 16 September 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland, in cooperation with the Finnish development NGO platform Fingo, organised a multi-stakeholder meeting to discuss policy and strategy around target 4.7 "Education for sustainable development and global citizenship". GENE was invited to offer a comparative European perspective and insights into national strategy creation. Finnish colleagues are currently contemplating whether to create a national strategy to bring together the policies, perspectives and practices in Finland into a common vision for the road ahead.

The launch of the book “Quality and Impact in Global Education”, followed by a debate, was held on 27 May 2021. The book authors, Dr. Claudia Bergmüller and Ms. Susanne Höck, presented key findings from their research, followed by a response by Prof. Joe O’Hara, President of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and Director of EQI: Centre for Evaluation, Quality & Inspection. That was followed by a debate and the launch of "Primal Desires" - a new GENE process on quality, planning and evaluation. Download the book for free here.

The fourth international ANGEL conference, entitled Pedagogy of Hope and Global Social Justice, took place online on 25, 26 and 27 May 2021. During the conference, Global Education researchers and policymakers had the opportunity to discuss the role of global learning and global citizenship education in social change, and global social justice as a pedagogical approach in response to the inequalities in the world, seen as a result of Covid-19. All recorded sessions can be watched here. Read more about the conference here.

From across Europe, North, South, East and West, Global Education (GE) Policymakers from Ministries and Agencies, of Foreign Affairs and Education, came together on 29 and 30 April 2021 at GENE Roundtable 44, to share reports on national situations, identify cross-cutting issues, and learn together for increased and improved GE. Further to that, the roundtable offered an exciting agenda with a number of high-level interventions and workshops. Read more.

Working together with the European Educational Research Association (EERA), GENE co-designed and launched a Global Education Research Award to fund high-quality educational research to inform policy and practice in global education and focus educational researchers’ attention on the possibilities for GE in dealing with emerging and future-oriented educational research issues. Following the evaluation process, 14 research projects, based in 10 different countries, focusing on Global Education, were selected. Read more.

On 31 March 2021, Prof. Annette Scheunpflug (GENE Chair) and Mr. Liam Wegimont (GENE Director) were invited to speak at an online meeting, hosted by the Irish Minister of State for Overseas Development Aid and Diaspora, Colm Brophy TD. The event was an important step in hearing stakeholders’ views and envisioning the future in the process of developing the new Irish Aid Development Education and Global Citizenship Strategy and the new ESD plan. Read more.

On 10 March 2021, Mr. Liam Wegimont (GENE Director) and Ms. Ditta Trindade (GENE Support & Innovation) presented to the UNECE Committee on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). They spoke of the need to move beyond silo-isation to bring together various types of global education with and by young people and their organisations under the umbrella of Global Education and Global Youth Work. Read more.

On 21 January 2021, Mr. Liam Wegimont (GENE Director) presented good practices in the development of national strategies in Global Education in Europe at a meeting, organised by the Bulgarian Platform for International Development (BPID), aiming to develop a Global Education and Awareness-Raising (GE/AR) Programme, arising from the Bulgarian Development Cooperation policy. See the presentation.

In November 2020, GENE, together with the European Educational Research Association (EERA), launched a Funding Scheme that will support new policy research in Global Education. Focused on themes, identified by GENE Ministries and Agencies as crucial to the increase and improvement of GE, the scheme will be led by EERA, which involves circa 30,000 educational researchers in Europe. Read more.

The launch of the Multilingual Global Education DIGEST 2020, a bibliography of research in the field of Global Education, was held on Monday, 9 November 2020. This is the third edition of the DIGEST. For the first time, it is a multilingual edition, bringing together research published in six languages. The Digest is now public and available online, under an open-access license. Read more.

On the 8, 15, and 16 October 2020, over 50 Global Education policymakers gathered for GENE Roundtable 43. High-level representatives from National Ministries and the European Commission participated along with inspiring speakers. Policymakers came together to share national reports, identify common issues, and strategise for increased an improved global education. Read more.

The ANGEL Early Career Researchers Conference was held online on 11-12 June 2020 and was hosted by the University of Oulu, Finland. The conference provided early-career researchers with an inspiring platform for discussing, re-visiting and analysing the complexity of conceptualisations in Global Education. Policymakers and practitioners also participated. Read more.