In this page you will find news related to the PARTICIPIA project, such as activities that strengthen cooperation between project partner institutions, additional funding for project-related activities, and dissemination at conferences and workshops.
NUST's MSES now registered on the National Qualification Framework (NQF) (May 2018)
The Namibia Qualification Authority (NQA) has registered the Master in Sustainable Energy Systems of the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) on the National Qualification Framework (NQF) as Qualification Q0992!
The UAB team launches its massive open on-line course (MOOC) on Coursera, 3 July 2017
On Monday 3 July, the UAB team launched its MOOC Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems: the Nexus between Water, Energy and Food on the platform Coursera. Several sessions of the course are specifically designed to support the PARTICIPIA Master modules. The course is open to the public and, apart from an optional Coursera certificate, free of charge.
Presentation drawing on experiences in PARTICIPIA South Africa case study at 2017 AAG Annual Meeting, Boston, April 5-9, 2017
On 9 April 2017, Zora Kovacic (UAB team) will make a presentation at the 2017 American Association of Geographers' Annual Meeting in Boston on “The exacerbation of social exclusion through slum upgrading” drawing on her experiences from the PARTICIPIA case study in Stellenbosch, South Africa and earlier work in favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The presentation is featured in the session “Spaces of Informality and the Governing of Slums” (co-organized by Zora Kovacic) under the theme “Mainstreaming Human Rights in Geography and the AAG”.
PARTICIPIA presents three posters at the VII Congreso Universidad y Cooperación al Desarrollo, UAM, 29-31 March 2017
The PARTICIPIA team from associate partner Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) presented three posters at the VII Congreso Universidad y Cooperación al Desarrollo (Madrid, 29-31 March 2017) on the work done by Miguel Castro Gómez, María Soriano Embid, and Angela Mª Zapata for the Namibia and Botswana case studies, in fulfillment of their Bachelor thesis at the UAM. Abstracts of the poster presentations are available on the conference website (poster numbers 87, 88 and 90).
PARTICIPIA presents Master's program and case studies at SASEI-IREC Conference, Gaborone, 26-28 October 2016
PARTICIPIA consortium members Cheddi Kiravu (University of Botswana), Gideon Gope (Namibia University of Science and Technology), and Suzanne Smit (Stellenbosch University) presented the PARTICIPIA Master's program and guiding case studies in a special session on "Capacity Building for Increasing Energy Access and Efficiency & Networking" at the SASEI-International Renewable Energy Conference (IREC) in Gaborone (Botswana), on 28 October 2016. The presentations included: Participatory integrated assessment of energy systems to promote energy access and energy efficiency (Cheddi Kiravu, Lapologang Magole, Anna Mandu Jeffrey, Mario Giampietro); The metabolic pattern of rural villages: Botswana’s Mokolodi case study (Cheddi Kiravu, Lapologang Magole, Anna Mandu Jeffrey, Mario Giampietro); An integrated accounting approach to energy supply and end-use in Namibia (Gideon Gope, Maduako Okorie); An investigation into energy flows in urban slums in an African context (Suzanne Smit, Josephine K Musango, Zora Kovacic, Alan C Brent). PARTICIPIA and SASEI, both funded under the EDULINK II programme, share the common objective of promoting energy access and sustainable energy systems in Southern Africa.
Suzanne Smit, Cheddi Kiravu, Josephine Musango and Gideon Gope at SASEI-IREC conference 26-28 October 2016
Cheddi Kiravu (UB) presents PARTICIPIA Masters Program at AfricaPES 2016 Conference, Gaborone, 5-7 September 2016
Cheddi Kiravu of the University of Botswana (UB) presented the newly-developed PARTICIPIA Masters Program (MPIES-Masters in Participatory Integrated Analysis of Energy Systems) at the 6th African Conference of the International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED) on Energy and Power Systems (AfricaPES2016), on 7 September 2016 in Gaborone, Botswana, to a wide audience of local energy and environmental experts. The MPIES program is currently in the process of accreditation at the University of Botswana.
Cheddi Kiravu presents MPIES Master Program at AfricaPES 2016
PARTICIPIA presents case studies at ISDRS2016 Conference, Lisbon, 13-15 July 2016
PARTICIPIA's ACP partners presented the three case studies of the PARTICIPIA Masters Program at the 22nd Annual Conference of The International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS2016), 13-15 July 2016, in Lisbon, Portugal. The Botswana case study -Scarcity in abundance: The challenges of promoting sustainable energy access in rural village communities in Botswana, Southern Africa- was presented by Cheddi Kiravu (University of Botswana) in the session "Adaptive sustainability policies and models in changing contexts. The Namibia case study -Curbing the Paradox: The challenges of achieving sustainable energy access in Namibia, Southern Africa- was presented by Gideon Gope (Namibia University of Science and Technology) in the session "Mitigating climate change: Renewable energy and energy efficiency". The South Africa case study -Conceptualising slum in an urban African context- was presented by Suzanne Smit (Stellenbosch University) in the session “Sustainable cities and regions”.
ISDRS2016 conference dinner, 14 July 2016
PARTICIPIA display at workshop “Renewable Energy: Creating Our Sustainable Future”, Windhoek, Namibia, 12 June 2016
In the occasion of the 31st session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, 13-15 June 2016, in Windhoek, Namibia, NUST hosted a workshop on 12 June under the theme, “Renewable Energy: Creating Our Sustainable Future,” in which the PARTICIPIA project was displayed (poster) along with the other EDULINK projects in which NUST is involved. The workshop was attended by a large number of parliamentarians of the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP)–European Union (EU) Joint Parliamentarian Assembly (JPA). More details on the event here.
Zora Kovacic presents South Africa case study at AAG Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 29 March 2016
Zora Kovacic (UAB) presented the South Africa case study of the PARTICIPIA Masters Program ("Exploring energy demand in informal urban settlements: A case from South Africa") at the 2016 American Association of Geographers' (AAG) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA, March 29 - April 2, 2016.
March 2016: PARTICIPIA officially unleashes Promo Video!
PARTICIPIA proudly presents its Promo Video. The video summarizes the content and scope of the Masters Program and is aimed at facilitating the accreditation process at the participating HEIs in Southern Africa, capturing the attention of potential sponsors, and publicizing the MS Program among potential students.
UB and UiB Team speak at Workshop on New Currents in Science: The Challenges of Quality, Ispra (Italy), 3-4 March 2016
Lapologang Magole (University of Botswana), Matthias Kaiser, Silvio Funtowicz and Bruna De Marchi (University of Bergen) presented their work on challenges to quality assurance in science at the Workshop on New Currents in Science: The Challenges of Quality, organized by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, Ispra, Italy, 03-04 March 2016. "Quality of Science for Policy" is the subject of one of the PARTICIPIA Masters modules and a recurrent theme in the entire PARTICIPIA Masters Program.
Gideon Gope presents PARTICIPIA at IRES Symposium, Windhoek, Namibia, 29-30 October 2015
Gideon Gope (NUST team) presented PARTICIPIA at the first International Renewable Energy Symposium (IRES) in Windhoek, Namibia, 29-30 October 2015, organized by NUST. His presentation, entitled “Participatory Integrated Assessment of Energy Systems”, was made in session 2.3 Training and Capacity Building for Renewable Energy on 29 October, alongside presentations of EDULINK projects SASEI and PEESA, and the ACP S&T project NEED. More details can be found in the conference program.
ACP partners teach special course in ICTA Masters Program, 28 Sept-2 Oct 2015
With the financial support of the Fons de Solidaritat de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Fundació Autònoma Solidària - FAS), ACP PARTICIPIA partners Zivayi Chiguvare (Polytechnic of Namibia), Lapologang Magole (University of Botswana), and Cheddi Kiravu (University of Botswana) visited the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) from 28 September to 2 October 2015 to give guest lectures in the ICTA Master in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability. Lectures were organized around the special theme "Integrated, participatory assessment procedures to promote energy access and environmental sustainability: The case of Southern Africa". PARTICIPIA UAB team members Mario Giampietro, François Diaz Maurin and Zora Kovacic also contributed with lectures to this special course. About 50 Master students with a wide variety of academic backgrounds attended the lectures and interacted with the guest speakers. A public mini-symposium on the same topic, open to ICTA Master students and the wider public, was organized on Wednesday 30 September. ACP partners also met with the UAB Vice-rector for International Relations, Lluís Quintana Trias, and ICTA director Jordina Belmonte, to discuss ways for strengthening academic collaboration.
Zivayi Chiguvare Lecturing in ICTA Master 29-09-2015
Mini Symposium Panel Discussion 30-09-2015
Travel grant for UAM volunteer students to go to University of Botswana
19 May 2015: The International Volunteer Program of the Public Universities of the Community of Madrid has awarded a travel grant to UAM students Eduardo García Bendito and Verónica Redón Sánchez to do volunteer work at the Okavango Research Institute of the University of Botswana within the project "Participative evaluation of environmental changes and impact in the natural reserve of the delta of the Okavango river in Botswana through the use of Geographical Information Systems" (see official publication). The program activities, defined in the Terms of Reference of the project, will be carried out in Botswana during the months of June till December 2015.
Fundació Autònoma Solidària awards grant to ICTA-UAB
18 May 2015: Fundació Autònoma Solidària (FAS) has awarded a grant (UAB Solidarity Fund) to PARTICIPIA coordinator Mario Giampietro and ICTA colleagues to have PARTICIPIA ACP project partners teach in the ICTA Master's Program Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability, and to give a public seminar on campus. We are pleased to be able to share the expertise and experience of our ACP partners in the fields of sustainable energy and natural resource management with ICTA students and the larger UAB community. This initiative contributes to the PARTICIPIA objective of strenghtening academic collaboration among partner institutions.
