2019 is the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, the definitive Renaissance man.  Museums, the media - will there be a movie? - will explore learning and creativity, imagination and enigma, faith and politics. And PASCAL will hold its XVIth Conference.

The 15th PASCAL Conference, to be held in Korea on 30 August - 1 September 2018 has an updated title and sub-themes. The venue is the city of Suwon, part of metropolitan Seoul, Korea. The co-organiser is the GyeonggiDo Provincial Institute of Lifelong Learning (GILL).  The main theme of this first East Asia PASCAL Conference is "Learning Cities, Learning Societies: Connecting Research, Policy and Practice to Meet Local and Global Challenges”.  

The year 2016 gives one pause. The attacks of January 2015 in Paris were directed against free speech and religious tolerance; they failed: Charlie Hebdo sales are up, and opinion polls show that overwhelmingly, the French have positive views of Muslims, Jews and Europe. The attacks of November 2015 in Paris and July 2016 in Nice however succeeded in destablising through fear: people changed their daily routines or vacation plans. The elections in the UK and US are more difficult to characterize because this time, in the West, fantasy defeated fact, emotion triumphed over reason.

Dear Friends,

As the new Chair of PASCAL, I want to wish each of you a happy holiday season - be it in the darker and wetter north or the warmer and sunnier south. The new year  brings with it  great prospects for our collaboration.  There is a vacuum for PASCAL to fill.  The 2012 conference in Brest was demonstration, if proof were needed, that our mission is timely, evidence-based, and forward-loooking. Tragically, Jarl Bengtsson died just at the time when we could celebrate the ten years of leadership he has given PASCAL. (An obituary will appear on the website soon). His wise counsel and good humor will be missed, but his values - our values - endure.  In some ways 2013 could be more difficult, globally, than 2012: the geo-political situation along the 30th parallel North is even more fraught with risk, and the long-term social consequences of the crisis will become more apparent.  Let's  bring the expertise and enthusiasm of PASCAL as a global network to bear on policy and practice, to develop the  Observatory and generate new projects.   

May you and your families enjoy continued good health.  With best wishes,

Josef Konvitz