Geography in the 21st century

The University of Malta is a member of the HERODOT network, a network for geography in higher education. This network is funded by the European Union and seeks to promote activities that bring together geography departments across Europe.

The second round of this network has four new thematic pillars (TP): citizenship, culture, place and identity (TP1), geography for the 21st century (TP2), innovative teaching in and about Europe (TP3) and lifelong learning and employability (TP4).

Dr Maria Attard, lecturer at the Geography Division of the Mediterranean Institute, has taken over the responsibility of managing thematic pillar 2. To this end, a first meeting was held in Malta last month.

A group of 12 geography academics got together to define the objectives of this pillar for the next three-year period, and establish the work plan and timescales for the delivery of the various initiatives.

Among the efforts of the group, there are activities that focus on promoting geography across different levels of society. The first initiative is a student film competition on what students think geography is about.

This initiative is being co-ordinated between HERODOT and EGEA, the European association of geography students. In addition to these activities, the group is looking at creating a toolkit for geographers to promote geography within society.

Initial thoughts look at the creation of a Website-interactive cube that defines the main issues related to geography and what geography is all about. The group will also work on conducting a survey across European universities to analyse what promotion is made, why and how this occurs.

The final report will be published and will show current practices and will identify some best practice examples.

The next meeting of the TP2 group will be in Stockholm at the HERODOT conference, where the proposals of the group will be discussed with a larger number of academics and get the approval to go ahead with the tasks.

More information about the HERODOT network and the work of the thematic pillar is available online at www.herodot.net.