UNU Annual Report, 2005 - United Nations University

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Institutional developmentsThe governing Council of United NationsUniversity formulates the principles andpolicies that govern UNU operations, approvesthe University’s work programme and budget,and makes recommendations on effectivefunctioning. At its 52nd session, in December inTokyo, the Council approved the academicprogramme and budget of UNU for the 2006–2007 biennium, reviewed the University’sfinancial situation, and approved a UNU-widefund-raising strategy. The Council considered areport that evaluated the UNU FinancialAssistance Programme for students fromdeveloping countries and the Rector’s responseto the report’s recommendations, and took noteof progress reports on: (i) the preparation ofstrategic options to increase UNU’s impact inAfrica, (ii) the status of implementation of thestrategic plan for UNU’s follow-up of theWorld Summit on Sustainable Development(WSSD), and (iii) UNU’s initiative on educationfor sustainable development (EfSD). TheCouncil also considered reports on the careerdevelopment of alumni of UNU-INTECH’sPh.D. internship and Ph.D. degree programmes,the strategy for distribution of UNU-INTECH’sTechnology Policy Briefs, and developmentswith regard to the UNU-INWEH initiative fora UN Water Virtual Learning Centre.The Council had previously approved, inprinciple, the proposed integration of activitiesbetween UNU-INTECH and the MaastrichtEconomic Research Centre on Innovation andTechnology (MERIT) to form UNU-MERIT (inJanuary 2006) under the UNU umbrella. Thepreparation for integration of activities began inJanuary 2005, when Prof. Dr. Luc Soete ofMaastricht University assumed the post ofdirector of UNU-INTECH. In April, MERITresearch staff and students relocated to theUNU-INTECH building, marking the beginningof informal exchanges to identify commonresearch interests and develop collaborativeprojects, and in July, the advisory boards of thetwo institutes finalized arrangements for themerger. The intent is to establish UNU-MERITas a world-class centre of academic excellence,a policy think-tank on innovative systems andknowledge policies, and an international postgraduateacademic and policy training centre.In July, the Bureau of the UNU Councilapproved a proposal to designate the GlobalFire Monitoring Centre (GFMC) of the MaxPlanck Society for the Advancement of Sciences(operating within the Max Planck Institute forChemistry at the University of Freiburg,Germany) as a UNU Associated Institution.The formal agreement was signed in October.GFMC, already a member of the UNInternational Strategy for Disaster Reduction,will complement the work of UNU-EHS,especially in capacity development in the areaof wild fire management and research.In 2005, UNU-EHS launched cooperativeventures with the International Institute forGeo-Information Science and Earth Observation(ITC), Enschede, which was designated as aUNU Associated Institution in 2004.In May, UNU and the Nizhny NovgorodState University for Architecture and CivilEngineering (NNSUACE), Russian Federation,signed an agreement to establish a UNU-EHSCooperation Unit at NNSUACE. The agreementcovers an initial period of three years.Through this Cooperation Unit, UNU-EHS willimplement a joint work programme coveringvulnerability assessment field work as well asawareness-raising programmes, and participatein the EU-supported Cooperation Along a BigRiver (CABRI-Volga) international project. Thisengagement of UNU-EHS represents UNU’sfirst-ever project involvement in Russia.The newly established Munich ReFoundation agreed to finance, for an initial fiveyearperiod, a Chair on Social Vulnerability atUNU-EHS. The Chair will be occupied, on arotating basis, by scholars who will conductresearch on the cultural and economic dimensionsof social vulnerability, including institutionaland governance factors.UNU-WIDER celebrated its 20th anniversarywith a two-day conference in June(“WIDER Thinking Ahead: The Future ofDevelopment Economics”) that explored whatthe next 20 years are likely to hold for the fieldof development economics and the economicsof transition. Two special commemorative6UNU ANNUAL REPORT 2005
volumes of UNU-WIDER materials werepublished in 2005.In February, UNU and the University ofNamibia agreed to designate the University ofNamibia’s Marine and Coastal ResourcesResearch Centre (Henties Bay) as an OperatingUnit of UNU-INRA, with the mission ofundertaking research to promote the sustainabledevelopment and utilization of marine andcoastal resources. This new UNU-INRAOperating Unit (UNU-INRA’s fourth) wasformally inaugurated in October.In conjunction with the UN Decade ofEducation for Sustainable Development (DESD,2005–2014), UNU-IAS developed a system ofRegional Centres of Expertise (RCEs) to translatethe DESD’s global objectives into thecontext of local/regional communities. SevenRCEs — in the Pacific, Europe, South-East Asia,and North America — were launched at theUNU/UNESCO Conference on Globalizationand Education for Sustainable Development inNagoya (Japan) in June. By the end of the year,the total number of officially recognized RCEsstood at ten.During the World Conference on DisasterReduction in Kobe (Japan) in January, UNU(represented by UNU-EHS and UNUEnvironment and Sustainable DevelopmentProgramme) was a focal organization ofthematic cluster 2 on “risk identification, assessment,monitoring, and early warning”. UNUco-hosted four sessions, two public forums, andone associated workshop. UNU also partneredwith the International Center for Landslides atKyoto University to develop the InternationalProgramme on Landslides, which waslaunched at the conference.UNU had a significant presence at phasetwo of the World Summit on the InformationSociety (WSIS) held in Tunisia in November.UNU Online Learning and the Office ofCommunications promoted several of theUniversity’s open educational resources anddistance education initiatives. UNU OnlineLearning, UNU-IIST, and UNU-INTECHhosted parallel events on, respectively, openeducational resources, e-government, and theimpact of information and communicationtechnologies on economic development, to publicizetheir online programmes. UNU RectorHans van Ginkel spoke at the first WSISplenary session to advance UNU’s ideas regarding“An Information Society Open to All”.In August, the UNU Global VirtualUniversity (a cooperation project by UNU,UNEP, GRID-Arendal, and Agder UniversityCollege) launched a two-year Master of GlobalEnvironment and Development Studies (GEDS)programme, offered by Agder UniversityCollege (AUC) and funded primarily by theNorwegian Agency for DevelopmentCooperation. The programme brings togetherstudents from Norway and from Africa (recruitedvia UNU-GVU partner universities inEthiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda).Norwegian Prime Minister Bondevik officiallyinaugurated this new programme and met thestudents during the introduction.The long-term success of UNU-GTP wasevidenced by its representation at the 2005World Geothermal Congress, convened by theInternational Geothermal Association in Turkeyin April. Among the 705 refereed paperspresented at this quinquennial conference, 141(20%) were authored or co-authored by 104former UNU-GTP Fellows from 26 developingand transitional countries (representing nearlyone-third of the 318 UNU-GTP trainees graduatingfrom 1979–2004).INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW7
Page 1 and 2: UNITEDNATIONSUNIVERSITYAnnual Repor
Page 3 and 4: Rector’s PrefaceIn 2005, UNU comp
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTSRector’s Preface ........
Page 7: external discussions, as well as on
Page 13 and 14: AFGHANISTAN Kabul — Sitting besid
Page 15 and 16: nance and, in particular, the role
Page 18 and 19: Research ThemesDevelopment andPover
Page 20 and 21: Sharing global prosperityAlthough t
Page 22 and 23: Research ThemesEnvironment andSusta
Page 25 and 26: for Namibian farmers and for the gl
Page 27 and 28: Regional Centres: University of Gha
Page 30 and 31: Research ThemesScience, Technology,
Page 32 and 33: Contributing to the information soc
Page 34 and 35: SelectedCross-Cutting Issues32UNU A
Page 36: legitimacy of a network of mutually
Page 40 and 41: Networking Activities38UNU ANNUAL R
Page 42 and 43: 1,401 networkassociates worked with
Page 44 and 45: PARTNERS IN THE UNITED NATIONS SYST
Page 46 and 47: the first research brief came from
Page 48 and 49: 164UNU discussion andworking papers
Page 50 and 51: Human and FinancialResourcesUNU rec
Page 52 and 53: Selected Titles Published in 2005Ma
Page 54 and 55: Annex 1CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED BY UN
Page 56 and 57: Annex 2MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL OF UN
Page 58 and 59:
Capacity Development Activities - 2
Page 60:
Office of CommunicationsUnited Nati
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UNU Annual Report, 2005 - United Nations University

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