Attivismo civico & Terzo settore
June 2010
A Vita Europe selection of civil society events around Europe.
Listed events (for further descriptions of events and links scroll down):
31 May-4 June, Brussels, Belgium, Foundation Week – Foundation’s Work
1 June 2010, Bruxelles, Belgium, “Migrations – a challenge for the European Union and for the Christians of Europe”
1-2 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium, Pricing the Earth: How Business Can Protect And Profit From Biodiversity
1-4 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium, Green Week
2 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium, Teaming up for Energy Renewal: Cogeneration and District Heating
3-4 June 2010, Berlin, Germany, Public Procurement for EU Funded Projects
7-12 June 2010, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Italy, Footprint Forum 2010
8 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium, Local and Regional Responses To Poverty and Social Exclusion
8 June 2010, Munich, Germany, Solar Technologies “101”
9 June 2010, Lyon, France, Multiculturalism, Identities, Immigration in Western Europe and the United State : What Can We Compare?
10 June 2010, London, United Kingdom, Tackling Gangs and Serious Youth Violence
14-18 June 2010,Karlstad, Sweden, Next World Summit on Media for Children and Youth
17-20 June 2010, Cluj-Napoca, (Kolozsvar, Klausenburg), Romania,
Minority Politics within the Europe of Regions
31 May-4 June, Brussels, Belgium
Foundation Week – Foundation’s Work
The European Foundation Centre (EFC), a Brussels-based non-profit membership association of foundations and corporate funders, is organising the first-ever Foundation Week. The aim of the Week is to connect foundations with policy and decision makers, NGOs, and other stakeholders (from both civil society and other sectors) to both showcase their work and to discuss issues that matter to Europe and its citizens.
The first part of the Week is the Open Days and the second part of the Week is EFC’s Annual General Assembly (AGA) and Conference.
The Foundation Week Open Days will showcase the work of foundations and offer free admission to a variety of debates on issues that affect the lives of citizens across Europe and globally. The Foundation Week Open Days are open to foundations, EU representatives, civil society actors and the public.
Entitled “Foundations in Europe: A conversation with the institutions”, the EFC 2010 conference will bring together some 500 participants to discuss the role of foundations in the European project, their relations with the institutions, and how to facilitate the further development of the sector for the benefit of Europe and its citizens.
The emphasis of this year’s event is to engage in a conversation with the EU on issues of mutual concern. The conference days offer an exclusive space for foundation representatives, EU policy and decision makers to network and to discuss issues that are of immediate and common interest. The programme will include a total of 20 sessions dealing with some key operational and programmatic topics.
www.efc.be/AgaConference/Pages/AGAandConference.aspx
1 June 2010, Bruxelles, Belgium
“Migrations – a challenge for the European Union and for the Christians of Europe”
This colloquium is organised by Acli (Italian Christian Workers Association), Semaines Sociales de France and Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken (ZdK), all members of the “Initiative of Christians of Europe” (IXE).
The EU is currently building up a Common European Asylum System: migration and asylum policy has gained more and more importance as the EU faces major challenges in the field of legal and irregular migration and integration. Even though migration is a phenomenon which has always existed and freedom of movement is one of the central achievements of the EU, negative connotations all too often prevail over positive effects. Three panels will examine from the academic, practitioners’ and political perspective the progress made over the last years and identify shortcomings and issues that need to be further addressed.
1-2 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium
Pricing the Earth: How Business Can Protect And Profit From Biodiversity
In the context of this year’s Green Week organised by the European Commission’s DG Environment, Friends of Europe will be joining the debate with a European Policy Summit on biodiversity. The Summit will discuss how policy makers and business can protect the ecosystem, and will be structured in three sessions, treating respectively the link between nature and the economy, finding the tools to make business biodiversity neutral, and changing consumer behaviour to protect biodiversity.
1-4 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium
Green Week
Green Week is organised by the European Commission.
This year, the largest annual conference on European environment policy turns the spotlight on biodiversity. Over some 30 sessions, the conference will address the state of biodiversity and nature in Europe and the world, the benefits they bring, present-day pressures on them, and possible solutions to the current rates of loss. The path to be taken by EU policies on biodiversity and nature policies post-2010, the economic dimension of biodiversity, ecosystem services and Natura 2000 will also be investigated.
These are some of the many questions Green Week 2010 will examine in three days of discussion and debate between high-level speakers from Europe and beyond.
Green Week is a unique opportunity for exchanges of experience and good practice.
Some 3 800 participants are expected from EU institutions, business and industry, non-governmental organisations, public authorities, the scientific community and academia.
2 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium
Teaming up for Energy Renewal: Cogeneration and District Heating
The new European Parliament and European Commission face many challenges in energy and climate policy. COGEN Europe and Euroheat & Power will showcase the proven capability and still untapped potential for cogeneration and district heating in this event. The conference gathers the strongest advocates and the most influential thinkers in district heating and cogeneration to highlight the significant role which efficient provision of heat and electricity must play in resolving Europe’s climate and energy challenges today.
3-4 June 2010, Berlin, Germany
Public Procurement for EU Funded Projects
This seminar is organised by the European Academy for Taxes, Economics and Law.
Most irregularities in the applying of European funding are identified in the field of public procurement. Corrections results in cancellations and withdrawals.
EU-fund administrations and private beneficiaries need to be familiar with requirements, actual EU procurement law and exceptions.
The European seminar will teach the participants how to manage their procurement processes, how to implement the current legislation and how to deal with grey zones.
The focus will be on above threshold public contracts and remedies, including European Court of Justice case law. Experts will deal with criteria of selection, awarding contracts, cancellation of contracts, common mistakes and how to avoid pitfalls.
Beside a comprehensive overview of the latest European legislation attendees will participate in case studies on the model of joint procurement and framework agreements.
7-12 June 2010, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Italy
Footprint Forum 2010
The Forum Roundtables are a series of fast-paced, highly interactive conversations on critical topics, designed to move the sustainability agenda forward during a time of increasing resource constraints. The aim of the sessions is to overcome barriers to action, fill gaps in knowledge, and identify strategies that inspire further sustainability investments and bring about systemic change. Footprint Forum will foster the kind of learning and idea-sharing that will support government innovation, strengthen corporate strategy and advance human development.
Attendees will include international leaders in government, non-profits, development agencies and business, sharing the common mission of creating healthy societies where all people can live well, within the means of our planet. The Forum will allow governments to discuss strategies for maintaining a competitive economy during a time of resource scarcity, corporations to gain an understanding of how to build a robust business strategy that will withstand ecological pressures, and development agencies to explore what is needed to make development gains last while preserving natural capital.
www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_forum_the_opportunity_of_limits
8 June 2010, Brussels, Belgium
Local and Regional Responses To Poverty and Social Exclusion
In the context of the ‘European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion’, the Committee of the Regions invites local and regional authorities, organisations and EU institutions to exchange good practice and expertise in the fight against poverty and social exclusion at local level. Against the backdrop of increasing unemployment and public deficits, the knowledge on innovative approaches to social problems will become more important for Europe’s regions and cities.
Contributions and debates will focus on these themes:
* Making local social services more accessible to all.
* Preparing people for integration into the labour market.
* Inclusive citizenship in urban and rural areas.
8 June 2010, Munich, Germany
Solar Technologies “101”
This one-day training course will feature the key technologies driving the solar energy industry. Participants will learn about harnessing the sun’s energy through silicon and thin-film photovoltaic (PV) plus solar thermal collection; including concentrating and utility-scale systems in both cases. Technologies are placed in their relevant business context, ensuring that participants also understand the factors which will decide their commercial success or failure.
The course will be run in an informal manner which allows and encourages time for discussion and questions, ensuring that participants get the most out of their day.
Although scientific and technical principles will be included, no prior knowledge is required, making this course ideal for those in non-engineering roles. (For example, previous events in our “101” series have benefited a wide range of attendees, including those from investment, marketing, legal, management and other commercial roles and backgrounds).
http://www2.greenpowerconferences.co.uk/v8-12/Prospectus/Index.php?sEventCode=TSP1006DE
9 June 2010, Lyon, France
Multiculturalism, Identities, Immigration in Western Europe and the United State : What Can We Compare?
This debate is organised by Ifri.
In both Western Europe and the United States, contemporary immigration has dramatically affected the social construction of ethnic and racial diversity, reshaping political, public, and academic discourses about diversity, citizenship, and common belonging. Surprisingly, the field of Europe/US comparative research on these issues remains loosely organised. Little attention has been paid to systematically comparing these processes of change in both contexts. Moreover, conceptual and methodological issues at stake in such a transatlantic comparison have not been addressed in depth. If transatlantic comparisons will help to overcome the relative insularity of the academic discussions in the US and Europe, a number of methodological and conceptual challenges are also important to analyse and study. Cross-national comparisons involving the United States and Western European countries are complicated by the fact that race and ethnicity are embedded in different historical, ideological, political, and social contexts. Among the questions that arise: Which groups should be compared in Europe and the United States? What are the implications of comparing, for example, Muslims in Europe and African Americans in the United States? Should transatlantic comparisons focus on immigrant groups instead? Other aspects of methods used in comparisons need to be clarified and analysed ranging from multi-sited ethnographic studies to the use of census material on other national datasets.
www.ifri.org/?page=contribution-detail&id=5947&id_provenance=79&provenance_context_id=
10 June 2010, London, United Kingdom
Tackling Gangs and Serious Youth Violence
This conference, organised by Capita, provides delegates with dynamic engagement strategies for the prevention, early identification, enforcement and rehabilitation of gang members.
Participants will learn about:
– Detecting early indications of gang involvement
– The relationship of girls and young women with gangs
– Supporting victims and witnesses of group-led violence
– Mediation, pro-active policing and exit strategies
– Education and providing alternatives to young people at risk or who have already offended
This event brings together social care, crime prevention, the police, prisons, probation, offender management, health, education and all those whose work brings them into contact with children and young people.
14-18 June 2010,Karlstad, Sweden
Next World Summit on Media for Children and Youth
This conference is organised by Nordicom – University of Gothenburg.
The summit will host 2000 delegates from 100 countries preparing with children and youth for a new media world in the 21st century. It will offer great opportunities to network, to be part of debates, to be interactive and to be part of workshops to share perspectives, experiences and expertise.
The summit wants to contribute towards:
* Supporting teachers and recreation instructors so they can progress from an outsider position to involvement in the media and information society.
* Providing a scientific basis for media training.
* Giving the decision-makers access to findings from the world of research as a basis for their decisions.
* Giving the media industry increased knowledge of modern research to be used in developing production and distribution.
* Giving decision-makers insight into the role of the media industry and the prerequisites for producing and distributing high-quality content for children and young people.
* Improving the status and availability of media education.
* Increasing children’s and young people’s involvement in and influence on media content.
* Helping children and young people make demands that will lead to better teaching about and involving the media.
• Create and develop an increased dialogue between the media production and content creation, media education and educators, media research and policy-making and children and youth participation in the media.
www.wskarlstad2010.se/researchforum.php
17-20 June 2010, Cluj-Napoca, (Kolozsvar, Klausenburg), Romania
Minority Politics within the Europe of Regions
This event is organised by The Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities (RIRNM) and by UACES.
Within the European space, issues related to ethno-regionalism and the legal status of national and ethnic minorities are covered by several models, such as federalisation, self-rule and autonomy. In the recent decade these models and their consequences influencing European architecture have been widely studied in all sorts of theoretical and empirical frameworks. After the expansion of the EU with the Central and Eastern European countries in 2004 and 2007, and with the coming integration of the Western Balkans and possibly other states from Eastern Europe, there has been a proliferation of multi-ethnic regions and national and ethnic minority cases within or in the close vicinity of the Union. Researchers and speakers from a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines, including social and political sciences, history, linguistics, law, economy and area studies will be invited to present empirical and theoretical studies on the minority issue in the European space.
