Organisations in the UK benefit by generating £90 million per year through the UK's membership of UNESCO. These finances, which include investment, tourism revenue and project grants, have contributed to regeneration, community development and conservation across the UK.

Given our excellent relationship in Pascal with UNESCO's Institute for Lifelong Learning, subscribers will be interested in this report.

I was delighted to have been invited to the Formal Launch of the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education at the University of Victoria on 4 March. This event took place in the Ceremonial Hall of First People's House at the University of Victoria.

During the PASCAL 2012 Conference in October in Brest, Brittany, France delegates to the Conference, including PASCAL Chair Josef Konvitz, met with representatives of the Conference of Atlantic Arc Cities (CAAC). By simple coincidence the CAAC was in Brest at the same time as PASCAL for their annual conference! A meeting was arranged between Alan Foster, PASCAL Executive Officer, and Tamara Guirao-Espiñeira, CAAC Co-ordinator, in order to explore issues of common interest.

10th PASCAL Conference - a happy delegate at the dinner. Better than being the dinner!

    Click the image to enlarge...

I was reminded of the Cape Town statement recently by Jin Yang of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning in Hamburg. It was developed at the conference on Lifelong Learning, Higher Education and Active Citizenship held from the 10 - 12 October 2000 in Cape Town, co-hosted by University of Western Cape, the UNESCO Institute for Education and the Adult Education Research Group of the Danish National University of Education. I attach it here for us to reflect on how in the past decade universities have progressed in relation to the criteria laid out in the statement.