The Rectors and delegates of almost 30 Universities members of UNISCAPE participated in the Extraordinary General Assembly and First Meeting of the Rectors of the Network on 23 November 2018, hosted at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
After 10 years since the beginning of the activities of the UNISCAPE Network in support of the principles of the European landscape Convention, the academic institutions at the higher level engaged themselves to start a process leading to the presentation of a common declaration, with the aim to encourage greater attention to the societal importance of Landscape in Higher Education in Europe and to emphasize their firm commitment to a coordinated trans-disciplinary approach to Landscape research and education, to be endorsed by the National Ministries of Higher Education, the Commissioner of Education of the European Commission and the relevant European University Networks.
In recent years, local and regional authorities and civil society have been increasingly demanding that landscape – i.e. landscape as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors (European Landscape Convention) – which is continuously changing as a result of a large range of driving factors, should receive more attention from policy makers, which requires a greater involvement of qualified professionals for the sake of a more balanced future of the European landscape.
The meeting, chaired by The Rector of the ULPGC Prof. Rafael Robaina Romero, resulted in a Statement of Intent unanimously agreed, in which it is defined the process to be shared within the Network, in order to draft and sign the final document to be called the “Las Palmas Declaration”.
The Las Palmas Declaration will be presented at the next statutory meeting of UNISCAPE. Appointment is therefore given to the 2019 meeting of UNISCAPE General Assembly, to be held in A Coruna (Spain) on 20 June.
UNIVERSITIES REPRESENTED
Polytechnic University of Marche / Ancona (IT)
University of Andalusia (ES)
University of Basilicata (ITA)
Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism of Bucarest (RO)
Universidad A Coruna (ES)
University of Florence (IT)
University of Ghent (BE)
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ES)
University of La Laguna (ES)
University of Liège (BE)
Polytechnic of Milan (IT)
University of Milan “Bicocca” (IT)
University of Naples “Federico II” (IT)
University of Nova Gorica (SLO)
University of Padua (IT)
Ecole National Supérieure Architecture Paris La Villette (FR)
University of Rome “La Sapienza” (IT)
University of Reggio Calabria “Mediterranea” (IT)
Polytechnic of Turin (IT)
University of Turin (IT)
University of Trento (IT)
University of Udine (IT)
University IUAV of Venice (IT)
Polytechnic University of Valencia (ES)
University of Wageningen (NL)
Observers
University of Orleans (FR)
Apologised
University of Aalto (FI)
University of Bologna (IT)
University of Copenhagen (DE)
University of Epirus (GR)
University of Galway (IR)
University of Oslo (NO)