Pune hosts summer school on sustainable habitats

The three-week-long ‘Summer School on sustainable habitats’ will be held in four cities in India, including Pune, from September 5-23. The Summer School is being jointly organised by German International Cooperation (GIZ) and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

The issue of sanitation, low-cost housing and energy efficiency will be discussed at the event under the topic of urban sustainability concepts and national urban policy framework.

The event will be held at the Institute of Environment Education and Research at Bharati Vidyapeeth University in Pune.

Indian PhD students and junior professionals from any disciplinary background working on the outlined topics can participate in the programme.

Through its innovative learning approach, the GIZ-DAAD Summer School aims at introducing participants from all over India, neighbouring countries and Germany to the concept of sustainable development, its approach and implementation in urban contexts.

This years’ Summer School in India will be the seventh within this framework after Vietnam, Egypt, Brazil, Peru and India.

It will again focus on strengthening sustainable links between researchers, businessmen, policy-makers and development practitioners from the countries involved.

By introducing new teaching and educational methods based on peer and action-learning and interdisciplinary training for participants with different cultural and technical backgrounds, the Summer School meets the requirements of the current labour market and responds to India’s needs for creative and decisive intellectuals, future decision-makers and representatives of the country.

Earlier, two successful summer schools were held in India in May 2009 in Hyderabad and Delhi and in April 2011 in Mumbai.

The Summer School aims to contribute towards sustainable development in India through bridging the communication gap within research and its implementation at policy level. Through improved communication and networking the mutual benefits could be achieved at different levels with relatively small efforts.

The Summer School intends to introduce to PhD students, junior researchers, junior experts and professionals that whatever subject they study and whatever field they work in, their activities are a contribution to the overall sustainable development of their country.

During the programme, the political framework, state-of-the-art methods and peer-learning techniques will be practised with the participants. The working groups will travel to different research sites, will carry out action research tasks in the framework of their local research partners in Pune, Bangalore, Mysore and Kochi.

During the third and final week, participants will interact with leading German scientists.