em anate issue2

ISSUE 02emanateThe Magazine of the Erasmus Mundus

Students and Alumni Association

F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 9

Changing Climates

EMA to Organize its First Thematic Conference

Life after Global ‘Mundus’ Warming

Photo-CompetitionCapturing Changing Climates

Perspectives of Erasmus Mundus Students and Alumni

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Many Perspectives on ’Changing Climates’

The theme of this second edition of Emanate is ’Changing Climates’. Last year the EMA Magazine Team invited all mem-bers of the Erasmus Mundus Students and Alumni Association (EMA) to make their personal interpretation of the theme and send in articles and photos which they would like to share with the EMA community. The team is very grateful for all the interest and the numerous contributions – and we hope you, as reader of this magazine, will enjoy diving into the many different perspectives on ‘Changing Climates’ presented in this edition. We feel this issue truly refl ects the diversity of Erasmus Mundus students and alumni – not only because of the many ways of approaching the theme, but also because of the numerous nationalities and disciplines that the authors represent. Many contributors have chosen to refl ect on climate change and its serious consequences for the environment and hu-manity. Climate change is high on the agenda – also in the minds and professional lives of Erasmus Mundus students and alumni. On February 26th and 27th 2009 many EMA members will gather in Budapest to attend the very fi rst EMA confer-ence. This major event will address the role of higher educa-tion institutions in addressing climate change questions, and the potential of multidisciplinary solutions. In Budapest the debate launched in this issue of Emanate will continue.

We hope you will enjoy reading the second edition of Emanate!

The EMA Magazine Team

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Introduction

Erasmus Mundus Changing

In its own unique way Erasmus Mundus is all about ’Changing Cli-mates’ – just as this edition of Ema-nate is. The rare opportunity to live and study in several European coun-tries within one master programme is certainly an example of students changing climates; not only with re-spect to weather and temperature, but also with respect to cultures and learning environments. The Erasmus Mundus experience challenges the cultural and intellectual skills of its students and produces unique graduates with amazing abilities to adapt to very different cultural and professional circumstances.

The Erasmus Mundus concept itself is going through a change of climate. Next year a new round of Erasmus Mun-dus (2009-2013) will begin. Novelties in the second round will include scholarships for Europeans, doctorate pro-grammes and more cooperation with universities in third countries. The EMA is looking forward to a new chapter of Erasmus Mundus beginning next year.

The Emanate Team are (from left to right):Magazine Team Coordinator Rikke Skovgaard Andersen, Denmark | Karel Van Acoleyen, Belgium | Michael Eshiemokhai, Nigeria Jasmine Kang, India | Gregor Lichtfuss, Germany | Amber Parker, New Zealand | Zachary Rothstein, US Natasha Sardzoska, Macedonia | Valentina Villoria, Venezuela | Luca Zanaica, Italy

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Table of Contents

and Climates

The theme of this edition is – obvi-ously – also about one of humanity’s greatest challenges: climate change. On the 26th and 27th of February, Er-asmus Mundus students and alumni will gather at the Central European Univer-sity in Budapest to discuss how higher education can provide a response to cli-mate change. This is the fi rst major EMA conference, with a highly salient topic. Nowadays most academic disciplines are, in one way or another, concerned with climate change and the “Erasmus Mundus Conference – Higher Education and Climate Change” will be a meeting place for EMA members of many differ-ent backgrounds.I hope you will enjoy reading this sec-ond edition of Emanate.

H A N N E K E A . L U T HPresidentErasmus Mundus Students and Alumni Association (EMA)

News from EMA 2nd General Assembly in Italy: The EMA Keeps Growing .................................................4Feedback is Crucial – Student Survey from the EMA General Assembly .....................5Dancing Samba Together ..........................................................................................................6Mexican Alumnus is New Vice-President of the EMA ......................................................7Together in Jakarta ......................................................................................................................8Does Erasmus Mundus Make a Difference? .........................................................................9The Key to a Technologically Advanced Future .................................................................10EMA at the Far End of the World .......................................................................................... 11

Climate Change EMA to Organize its First Thematic Conference ...............................................................12Harvesting the Crops.................................................................................................................13Climate Change in the Arctic ................................................................................................14Climate Change in India – a Need for a Rights-Based Approach ................................15Is Climate Change more Important than Environment? ................................................16Fruitful Future? Great Grapes to Wonderful Wine ...........................................................18Experience in the Field: Internships at the UN Institutions ..........................................20Climates of the Mundus ...........................................................................................................21Life after Global (“Mundus”) Warming ................................................................................22

Higher Education NewsErasmus Mundus Round 2 – In Action! ...............................................................................23

Photo CompetitionThe EMA Photo Competition ..................................................................................................24

Your SayGlobal Citizenship: Benefi ts and Challenges ......................................................................26India, the next Superpower: Myth or Reality? ...................................................................28International Health from within Germany ......................................................................30

Table of Contents

Welcome to EMA Regional Chapters

The event in Perugia proved to be an excellent example of the fact that the EMA keeps growing. EMA China and EMA Latin America (EMA-LA) Chapters and the Erasmus Mundus Association of India (EMAI) introduced themselves and shared their activities planned for the next year. Furthermore, some enthusiastic EMA members decided to start building pro-chapter teams in order to create new chapters. These teams were: Africa, Community of Independent States (CIS), and North America. All of them are glad to welcome new people to their networks.

A New Round of Erasmus Mundus

Another big theme for the two days in Perugia was the sec-ond round of Erasmus Mundus which is scheduled to begin in 2009. Among the speakers was Member of the European Parliament, Allesandro Battilocchio (Italy), who has been writing a report on the proposal for the new Erasmus Mun-dus programme for the European Parliament’s Committee on Development. Mr. Battilocchio presented some of his conclu-sions and discussed the programme with the students and alumni present.

2nd General Assembly in Italy: The EMA Keeps Growing

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The 2nd EMA General Assembly...

and the 4th Erasmus Mundus Student Seminar were held in Perugia, Italy on the 6th and 7th of June 2008. More than 150 Erasmus Mundus students and alumni - delegates of courses, EMA serv-ice team representatives, regional chap-ter representatives and observers - made the journey to Perugia, Italy, to attend the most important EMA event in 2008. On the kind invitation of the University

for Foreigners in Perugia the 2nd EMA General Assembly (hosted by EMA) and 4th Student Seminar (hosted by the Eu-ropean Commission) took place in Italy. The major Erasmus Mundus event coin-cided with ‘Studybox’, the 1st European Forum on the right to university study and was part of the local university’s celebration of the European Year of In-tercultural Dialogue. For Erasmus Mun-dus students and alumni it were two days of serious debates, lots of fun and networking with old and new friends.

emanate | ISSUE 02

News from EMA

b y R I K K E S K O V G A A R D A N D E R S E N ,E M A M a g a z i n e T e a m C o o r d i n a t o r

Contact the EMA regional chapters and associations

EMA China Mengmeng Cui [email protected] Latin America Tahia Devisscher | [email protected] African Chapter Karen Basiye [email protected] of IndiaVijita Aggarwal [email protected]

Contact the pro-chapter teams

North AmericaRyan Bushek | [email protected] of Independent StatesDenis Popov | [email protected] Southeast AsiaIqbal Akbar / Chaidarun Iamphak [email protected]

Contact the regional networks

OceaniaGregor Lichtfuss | [email protected]

A new round of Erasmus Mundus, the launch of EMA regional chap-ters, Brazilian samba and a photo exhibition – these were just a few of the ingredients for this year’s biggest EMA event

Delegates of Erasmus Mundus Master Courses at the 2nd EMA General Assembly.

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News from EMA

Feedback is CrucialStudent Survey Results from the EMA General Assembly in Perugia

At the EMA General Assembly in Pe-rugia in June 2008, student and alumni representatives were asked to complete a survey evaluating their experiences at each university they attended within their Erasmus Mundus (EM) consortium. The questions asked respondents to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 = Poor, 3 = Satisfactory and 5 = Excellent) their experiences on Arrival and Settling, Local Culture, University Experience & Courses and the adequacy of the EM Scholarship. Student and alumni repre-sentatives were also asked to answer a series of open questions relating to their overall experiences. The EMA received 59 survey responses and is pleased with the overall positive feedback.

The average rating for Arrival and Set-tling was 3.6 with most respondents reporting positive experiences relating to their welcoming from the host uni-versity. The price of student housing and assistance from the university in secur-ing appropriate housing (particularly for students with families), were the areas of greatest concern identifi ed in the survey and written feedback. On expe-rience with Local Culture the average response was 3.3 with most students reporting positively on integrating with local culture, but having greater diffi -culties learning the local language and interacting with local students.

Most students rated highly the aca-demic opportunities in their master’s course with University Experience & Courses receiving an average rating of 3.7. In particular, experiences were very positive regarding student-professor relations, academic quality and overall academic experience. The survey found the EM Scholarship to be broadly ad-equate, receiving an average rating of 3.3. This rating however varied greatly among survey respondents, notably

some students in EM master’s courses with high tuition fees found the schol-arship to be grossly inadequate.

Many prospective students have had diffi culty fi nding information on stu-dent experiences in specifi c EM master’s courses. While there is ample evidence from the EMA survey and others which indicates that Erasmus Mundus is work-ing well overall, it is less clear whether this general experience is true for all EM master’s courses and all universi-ties within them. As the EMA survey evaluated student experiences at each university, the most interesting fi nding was the variation in ratings given by re-spondents across different universities within their consortium.

This initial survey was designed by the EMA Policy Team as a fi rst step towards the involvement of the EMA into course quality and student feedback. The EMA will continue to work closely with the European Commission to develop an online survey and feedback system for the EMA website, which will provide prospective students with more courses and university specifi c information. The EMA has an important role to play in gathering honest, accurate and objec-tive feedback directly from its members and would like to thank everyone who took the time to provide critical feed-back in Perugia.

Between Cultures in Photos… and Samba!

Next to the debates on regional chap-ters and the new Erasmus Mundus programme the trip to Perugia also included plenty of social and cultural events. Among other things there was an exhibition of 10 photos from the fi rst EMA photo competition which provided some insight into the rich multicultural life of Erasmus Mundus. Another suc-cessful social event was a concert with Brazilian singer Selma Hernandez who inspired a room full of Erasmus Mundus students to dance samba! A big thanks to the University of For-eigners and the Project Erasmus Perugia for their help and hospitality.

Would you like to know more about the conclusions from Perugia? Please visit www.em-a.eu for minutes of the General Assembly and results of the statute voting.

Making new friends in Perugia.

About the authors:Peter Bentley is a student in the European

Master’s Programme in Higher Education.

6 emanate | ISSUE 02

News from EMA

Dancing

Samba Together How can a Samba dance be compared with the feel-ing of “we can change the world”? It might be a matter of rhythm, at least if you can follow it. Or maybe it is not the samba, but being together with Erasmus Mundus friends that gives you the powerful feeling

It is a usual cliché that when one comes out of the university, one stops experimenting with life. Experiments which enable us to deviate from norms and embark on the path we are happy with. We somehow make ourselves believe that after education, we are entering a real world which will not tol-erate our happy-go-lucky nature and would not accept the changes we propose. We will have to fi t in the system. Hence we stop trying anything new and just go with the fl ow losing the capacity for changes.

More than one year has passed since I fi nished my Erasmus Mundus Master programme and I came back to reality. I have been no different, until my trip to Perugia for EMA General Assembly. There I felt that energy inside me again. Energy that makes me feel things can change and I can be part of that change again. The energy that once made me feel that I can change myself. It was the EMA event that refi lled me with energy and reignited my creativity. Now I felt it again, that things can change. I met people that will accompany me and give me strength and energy to keep following the plans for a future. Now I am more aware of things that were preventing me; I was afraid of heights, speaking in front of the people, fearing nobody would agree with me and was getting used to agreeing with anything that life gave me. But the push that I received from my peers during the event gave me hope, as the audience was broad and open-minded to others’ opin-ions and different points of view. It is the magic of Erasmus, of both Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus programmes, that one

Ricardo Chávez Medellín

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News from EMA

Mexican Alumnus is New

Vice-President of the EMA

Chapters, course associations and networking with other student and academic organizations are on the agenda of the newly elected Vice-President of the EMA: Ricardo Chávez Medellínfrom Mexico

b y R I K K E S K O V G A A R D A N D E R S E N , E M A M a g a z i n e T e a m C o o r d i n a t o r

One of the outcomes of the 2008 EMA General Assembly was a decision to in-vite motivated EMA members to apply for the position as Vice-President of the EMA. In October last year the EMA Steering Committee selected Ricardo Chávez Medellín, a Mexican alumnus from the Joint European Masters in Materials Science, as the association’s new Vice-President. Ricardo is currently a Ph.D. student at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. We had the chance to ask Ricardo a few questions about his background and visions for the EMA:

What inspired you to run for the position as Vice-President of the EMA?

Chávez: There were actually two main reasons. Firstly, I had the chance to see the process that led to the formation of EMA. Since its beginning, the EMA has shown a lot of potential and this deeply impressed me. Therefore, I decided to contribute as much as possible to its further development. Secondly, I had the chance to serve as the Vice-presi-dent of the Latin American Chapter. In this position, I got some experience of the development of regional chapters and their interaction with third-party institutions and I would like to share this experience with the rest of the EMA community.

What will be your three top priori-ties as Vice-President?

Chávez: First of all I want to consoli-date and to further develop the Region-al Chapters within the EMA structure. Then, secondly, I would like to promote the interaction between Course Repre-sentatives and EMA Steering Committee. Lastly, it is my goal to create stronger ties between the EMA and other student and academic organizations.

Where do you see the EMA in 10 years?

Chávez: I see EMA in 10 years as a dy-namic and well-known organization with world-wide presence in which all its members contribute with their en-thusiasm and ideas to its further devel-opment.

can be accepted with less prejudgement because everybody understands that we all are different and everybody comes with good intentions.

Once a friend told me that there are turning points in life when everything looks very fragile, however those can become important if you take advan-tage. For me, one of these points was Erasmus Mundus. It was fragile because I found an alternative way to live my life, a moment where everything was possible because we started believing in change and living a dream that the world now belonged to us. Within the event, I saw new ideas being accepted, discussed, speculated, supported and pushed … It was fragile because I don’t see it everyday, not since I came back home to reality as I used to say, after the Masters programme.

A samba concert at the impressive Aula Magna of the University of Peru-gia also taught me something. At the beginning we all sat on our seats and listened. But little after, there were some people who started to move their feet. They were not afraid of looking ri-diculous while moving with the rhythm. Many were moving in their own cultur-al style. I couldn’t help myself and also did some fl amenco steps, luckily oth-ers started following me, which made me even stronger. We were moving together at the same rhythm with joy and „allegria“ - the word that often is used in samba songs. The scene was peculiar and beautiful because it came form our energy inside.

It was a moment in life that took my dark side away and gave me a ray of light that would change my life.

About the authors:Andrea Piehl Harms is an alumna of the

Joint Master in Water and Coastal Man-

agement Programme.

8

Together in

Jakarta

On 1–2 November 2008, EMA held its 3rd networking event, coinciding with the European Higher Education Fair (EHEF) in Jakarta. 14 EMA members from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, plus one EMA Steering Committee member came to Jakarta for this purpose. The fair was attended by 88 education institutions from 20 countries, plus 1 booth from European Union. In the EU booth, EMA work hand-in-hand with the local European Commission (EC) delegation to introduce Erasmus Mundus (EM), answer questions from pro-spective students and parents, and share experiences of study-ing in Europe. EC’s support was excellent. They provided a vari-ety of promotional materials and were continuously monitoring

the adequacy of the materials around the booth. EM also had a scheduled 55-minute presentation, given by Mr. Koen Nomden (Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, Brussels) and Ms. Jennifer Lenhart (EMA promotions team).

The networking event was held on the fi rst day and included a short city trip and dinner in the evening. During the city trip, alumni explored the Old Batavia which refers to the old name of Jakarta. The journey began with a little tour of museum Bank Mandiri, which was an old Dutch trading company, built with art-nouveau architecture that was once famous in the early 20th century. To get more acquainted with the fi ne details of this architecture, a black-and-white movie made in 1941 was shown. Afterwards, the alumni went on a half-hour biking trip around the center of Old Batavia. These joyful mo-ments indeed brought friendship among the alumni and an opportunity for shar-

emanate | ISSUE 02

News from EMA

ing intercultural experiences in a more local sense. From the city trip, alumni went for dinner at a famous Indone-sian ethnic restaurant, Lara Djonggrang. During this occasion, alumni discussed various key issues and agreed to launch the EMA Southeast Asia (SEA) chapter. This new chapter has several goals such as to enhance EM promotion to new students and employers; trigger coop-eration between alumni and EU in vari-ous local projects; and provide feedback to EMMC coordinators about the pro-gram. The participants agreed that the launching of SEA chapter will bring es-sential benefi t not only to the regional community but also to the EMA com-munity as a whole.

Working as a team with fellow alumni was fun. Although the members had never met before, the studies in Europe certainly brought them together as a solid team. Being from different courses was a great advantage because inquiries for particular programs can be referred to fellow alumni. The whole event was exhilarating and had an incredible turnout. The allocat-ed 1 seminar room was never enough; hence we utilized both seminar rooms. In addition, we also held an extra pres-entation session on day 2. The seminar rooms were packed during each session. The visitor count reached 15,000 (from expected of 4,000) for the two days – a smashing success on all counts.

About the authors:Yansen Darmaputra is an alumnus of

the Joint European Master’s Programme

in Clinical Linguistics, Abigail Yao is an

alumna from the CoMundus Programme

and Iqbal Akbar is an alumnus from the

European Masters in Nuclear Fusion Sci-

ence & Engineering Physics.

Biking trip around the center of Old Batavia

Fifteen Erasmus Mundus alumni visited the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to pro-mote the programme and lay the foun-dations for the establishment of EMA Southeast Asian chapter

EMA members in Batik (traditional cloth from Indonesia)

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News from EMA

Does Erasmus MundusMake a Difference?

Overview of the Results of the Graduate Impact Survey

On request of the European Commis-sion ICUnet.AG, the service provider for EMA, has been conducting both quali-tative and quantitative studies during 2007-2008 among fi rst-year students and alumni with the scope to evalu-ate the impact of Erasmus Mundus on its graduates. Overall 817 participants took part in the survey representing 92 countries.The results provided us with important insights into students and graduates level of satisfaction with the EM, im-pact of the programme on their career and personality, as well as attitudes towards Europe and the EU.

Among motives for application Eras-mus Mundus the factor of scholarship has been chosen by more than 50% of students. The “academic level of EMMC universities” also seems to be impor-tant to the students, especially in the case of non-EU country students and graduates. For the students who are EU citizens, such categories as “joint or multiple degree” and “availability of the subject” represent the most im-portant motivation criteria. We plan to look into the motivational factors even more deeply in the next upcoming Graduate Impact Survey, which would help the European Commission to in-fl uence the processes of the future EM programme more precisely and react adequately to the existing challenges. When it comes to impact of the Eras-mus Mundus programme on the grad-uates, the categories “career” and “at-titude towards the EU” were preferred by most respondents. We can conclude that the EM programme represents a very important milestone and a solid basis for successful career develop-ment, be it academic or industrial.According to the survey results, the

employment rate tendency among Erasmus Mundus gradu-ates is overall satisfying: 59% of graduates of September-De-cember 2007 have found a job or a PhD position, even though the Survey was conducted shortly after the graduation or even before the offi cial end of the programme; 79% of earlier graduates have a job or a PhD position. Another exciting fi nding that we were able to observe is the fact that Erasmus Mundus graduates earn considerably more than fi rst year students earned before starting the EM pro-gramme, which signifi es that the Erasmus Mundus has a sig-nifi cant impact on participants’ income.

When asked to which extent the knowledge acquired during Erasmus Mundus studies is relevant for the present job, 78% of respondents state that it was very or quite relevant. There also seems to be a strong impact of the EM programme on the improvement of subject related competences among the alumni. When choosing which additional skills gained during the EM programme are the most relevant for their present oc-cupation, the majority of graduates named intercultural com-petence, communication abilities and language skills. Many survey participants state that the impact of the Eras-mus Mundus programme on their personality is strong or very strong. Upon choosing two areas where the programme had the most impact on their personality, most Erasmus Mundus

students and graduates lean towards intercultural competence, followed by communication competence and self-confi dence.

Attitude towards Europe, which be-comes a home for Erasmus Mundus stu-dents for a signifi cant time period, was also in focus of the survey. According to the obtained results the majority of students and graduates perceive the EU in a positive way. Last, but not least, the impact of the EM programme on students’ social life seems to be quite considerable. Not only have many Erasmus Mundus stu-dents found a lot of friends from all over the world, but 26% of the graduates also found a partner during the Erasmus Mundus times.

We will continue exploring the impact of Erasmus Mundus in the following Graduate Impact research in 2008-2009.

How has your attitude towards Europe and the EU changed due to your Erasmus Mundus experience? (In percent)

49,00

in a very positive way

in a fairly positive way

no changes

30,50

in a fairly negative way

in a very negative way

17,00

2,50 1,00

50

40

30

20

10

0

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The Key to a Technologically Advanced Future 1st Erasmus Mundus Materials Science Workshop


News from EMA

Materials Science is an interdiscipli-nary fi eld involving the properties of matter as well as its applications to var-ious areas of science and engineering. It is within this science that the relation-ship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties are investigated. It embraces elements of applied chem-istry and physics, as well as mechanical, chemical, civil and electrical engineer-ing. This is an on-growing natural sci-ence that has faced several challenges at the beginning of the 21st Century. The fi rst main challenge is to convince the industry, the public, and politicians of the importance of materials science in driving modern technological devel-

opment. As there is frequently a considerable time lag be-tween a scientifi c discovery and its useful application, people often forget the important link that connects fundamental research and future prosperity. It is only with continued in-vestment that the discoveries of today and the highly trained experts necessary to develop and exploit them will also be available for the innovative products of the future.

Within the fi eld of Materials Science, the barriers that divide academia, government institutions, and the industry must be reduced if not completely eliminated. Only in this way will it be possible to turn fundamental discoveries into practical ap-plications for the benefi t of Europe. Promoting links between researchers, theoreticians, industrial scientists, and managers through collaborative schemes and joint research institutes is an obvious solution. For this reason a thematic chapter in the area of Materials Science was created, fundamentally for the prosperity of Europe and its High Education and more specifi -cally within the Erasmus Mundus programme.EMMSSA, a students’ wing of the EMMS (Joint European Masters in Material Science) hosts an Annual Workshop with a poster and oral section for students, professors and indus-try interaction. The success of this workshop is proven by the continuance of this project over the years.

Progress is the vital word for Erasmus Mundus and based on that, expansion was the next step. Therefore, collabora-tion between related Erasmus Mundus Master courses EMMS and AMASE (Advanced Materials Science and Engineering) was formed and the 3rd EMMS & 1st Erasmus Mundus Ma-terials Science Workshop entitled “Materials Science: The Key to a Technologically Advanced Future” was created. This project is equally benefi cial for EMMS/AMASE students and alumni, for the EMMS/AMASE professors and for the over-all EMA community. With this project it is possible to create a great networking opportunity between fellow students as well as professors from both consortiums. The publicity of this event within the 7 Universities (University of Aveiro, Portugal; Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, Germany; Aalborg Universitet, Denmark; Universität des Saarlandes, Germany;

Institut National Polytechnique de Lor-raine, France; Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain and Luleå Tekniska Universitet, Sweden) as well as within several industries will certainly raise awareness of Erasmus Mundus Master courses.

It was with some fi nancial support from the EMA Thematic Conference Events Funds that EMA became part of this project. The EMA Thematic Con-ference Events Funds was initiated by Conferences and Events Team on be-half of the European Commission with the main idea to facilitate the internal and external communication as well as networking among Erasmus Mundus Students. Aveiro, one of Portugal’s most beauti-ful cities, had the honor to be the host of this event. Three enriching days with around 60 participants, including EM students and alumni (EMMS, AMASE and FAME) and course coordinators expressed themselves among others. EMMSSA also had the honor to invite speakers from the Erasmus Mundus Se-lection Board, the Portuguese Erasmus Mundus representative, the Portuguese National Structure as well as guests from University of Aveiro.The Erasmus Mundus National Struc-tures are contacts and information points in each of the European coun-tries participating in Erasmus Mundus. Leonor Santa Clara, the representative of the Portuguese National Structure said “It was with great pleasure that we participated in the 3rd EMMS & 1st

Concentrating on the technologically advanced future

The participants of the Erasmus Mundus Materials Science Workshop

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News from EMA

Erasmus Mundus Materials Workshop that took place in September at the University of Aveiro. This was the occa-sion to see the evolution of one of our pioneer EMMC especially through the contact with the students and the un-derstanding of their experiences. This is both useful and motivating for National Structures. Congratulations! “The main objectives of this event were to facilitate the dissemination of knowl-edge and promote interdisciplinary dis-cussions regarding material science

About the author:Sonia Pinho is an alumna of the Joint

European Masters in Material Science

Programme.

The Pacifi c region is not only home to numerous Erasmus Mundus students, but also the home of EM course insti-tutions and an exciting destination for research activities across study fi elds.

Based in Australia, the regional ini-tiative ‘ErasmOz’ for the Pacifi c region aims to lay the foundation for a regional home for Erasmus Mundus Students, alumni, lecturers, friends and interested people. ErasmOz aims to provide resident or vis-

iting EMA members with local professional and social support. At the same time information on Erasmus Mundus and study-ing in Europe can be provided and promoted to interested stu-dents and educational and research institutions.

As the Pacifi c region is somewhat uncharted territory in the EMA world, a primary aim of ErasmOz is an appraisal within the EMA community to evaluate interest. If the country you are coming from, you are currently living in, you are going to live in or you are going to study/work in enclosed by the circle from Tokyo to Hobart to Christchurch to Clipperton Island to Hawaii, this call is for you.Please take part in a short online survey on the EMApac web-

site and let us know what you think of a regional base, whether you would like to actively or passively participate and what you would expect of such an ini-tiative.

You will fi nd the short questionnaire here: http://www.EMApac.eu/ and you can also join the ErasmOz/EMApac Fa-cebook group. Don’t hesitate to contact us anytime with questions or sugges-tions or if you would like to get involved in the process!

EMA at the Far End of the World

ErasmOz - an Initiative for EMApac, the EMA Pacifi c Region Networkb y G R E G O R L I C H T F U S S

throughout and beyond Erasmus Mundus. As stated by Juliano Soyama, an EMMS student who just started his masters : „This workshop was a great opportunity to meet my fellow students from Erasmus Mundus and to have an overview on what they have been developing. It was also important for me to realize the extension of our EMMS program concerning its interna-tional character and post-activities.“

The organization of the 1st Erasmus Mundus Materials Sci-ence workshop should be considered as a milestone in the story of the Materials Science EMMC programme. Since net-working among EM students, who are future researchers, the-oreticians, future industrial scientists, and future managers

may provide the solution in order to re-duce the considerable time lag between a scientifi c discovery and its useful ap-plication. Therefore, in this way we are trying to promote future collaborative schemes and joint research institutes.


Climate Change

Mundus Master Courses (EMMCs), embraces a great national and cultural diversity of people in different fi elds of study: from agricultural and forestry sciences to architecture, ur-ban and regional planning, business studies, communication and information sciences, geography, environmental studies, health and humanities, engineering, technology, law and so-cial sciences. This diversity has substantial potential to offer a variety of multidisciplinary solutions in addressing the issues of climate change.

Recognizing the challenge and the potential contribution towards climate change, and with support from the European Commission, the EMA is going to organize its fi rst thematic conference on higher education and climate change. This Erasmus Mundus Conference will bring together students, alumni and scholars mainly from the EMMCs to discuss what role higher education can play in front of the changing climate today. It offers a communication and networking platform for the students and alumni and the EMMC faculty members to broaden their knowledge and insight on climate change issues beyond their own fi elds of study and to utilize different angles for meeting the challenges climate change poses to human society. This conference will also involve experts and profes-sionals in the emerging climate change sector, which will be an excellent opportunity for EM students and alumni to es-tablish connections with climate change professionals and to deepen their commitment to professional development in the fi eld of climate change.

The two-day conference intends to accumulate valuable ex-perience and to create a model project for the preparation and organization of future EMA conferences. It will consist of a plenary session delivered by internationally recognised experts specialising in higher education and/or climate change, as well as parallel workshops focusing on different subjects contributed by EMA members. The participating Er-asmus Mundus students and alumni have the opportunity to bring issues from their fi eld of study associated with climate change. They also get a possibility to interact with one an-other in order to fi nd ways of addressing such points through the course of higher education. The conference will also seek to establish an Erasmus Mundus Forum on Climate Change to continue the dialogue and networking in the climate change fi eld among the interested EMA members.

EMA to Organize its First Thematic Conference Higher Education and Climate Change, on 26-27 February 2009 in Budapest, Hungary

Climate change is the most pressing threat to the world‘s environment, al-ready contributing to a visible effect on human health, food security, economic activity, water and other natural re-sources and physical infrastructure. Ris-ing concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions into the earth’s atmosphere, brought about by human activities, are leading to changes in the climate, and the result of this will impact on all areas of human activities.

The scale and long-term potential of the impact of climate change has drawn enormous attention from policy-mak-ers and academics to media and citi-zens from countries around the world. Higher education institutions as the knowledge centre of mankind assume a crucial role in fi nding the means to respond to climate change and to train the future leaders to tackle it with a holistic approach. The Erasmus Mundus Programme, consisting of all Erasmus

The EMA Climate Change Confer-ence is organized by the Conference & Events Team. The Team currently con-sists of 32 members and its mission is to assist the Association in constructing a strong community with ever-lasting inter-personal relationships among its members, through the organization of EMA-supported conferences and events. To achieve this goal, the fi rst General Assembly of the EMA in October 2007 (held in Brussels, Belgium) has defi ned threefold roles and responsibilities for the team: fi rst, to create a platform for the communication and cooperation among the EM students and alumni body via the implementation of EMA supported conferences and events; second, to pro-mote networking among EMA members and contribute to the establishment of a united community through the provision of various means of support for different events; and third, to promote Europe as a centre of excellence in international higher education on all EMA organized conferences and events, in close coop-eration with other EMA teams (esp. the Promotion Team).

About the author: Chunyu Liang is Coordinator of the EMA

Conferences and Events Team and an

alumnus of the Master’s Programme

in Environmental Sciences, Policy and

Management.

Chunyu on his way to a hydropower project site on the eastern Tibetan Plateau.

13

Climate Change

Harvesting the CropsHow Changing Climate can Affect Agriculture in Developing Countries

Global warming is infl uencing our climate. It could get drier or wetter, warmer or colder. We are able to fi ght against these changes by taking off clothes or adding more... But what about plants and especially food crops that are cultivated by 80% of the world population in order to feed themselves?In Europe, we observe the effect of climate change on the delay of seasons and the changing temperatures but as we are living in temperate climates the impact on our lives and especially our agriculture is not really important. Contrarily, in Asia, Africa or Latin America, the impact of cli-mate change is more important because the variability be-tween the seasons in those tropical and arid areas is extreme. Cyclones and heavy rains are intensifying the precipitation level during the wet seasons; heat waves and droughts are increasing temperatures during the dry season, which induces water stress. In these countries, the majority of the popula-tion consists of farmers with small surfaces to cultivate with

archaic methods, bad quality or absence of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, irrigation). Moreover, the land they use is some-times infertile or eroded. Added to these fragile conditions of production, there are extreme climatic conditions, which induce more soil erosion and loss of fer-tility and lower yields. From the green hills of Burundi cultivated with cassava, sweet potatoes and beans to the arid valleys of Yemen full of watermelon and maize, farmers can watch, in one day, all their production disappear, which rep-resents several months of food for their family. In some countries of Africa, this kind of event has forced parents to feed their childrens with mud pancakes.

According to the Study, carried out by the US journal Science in 2007, climate change could cause severe crop losses in developing countries over the next 20 years. Its results demonstrate that “by 2030 southern Africa could lose more than 30% of its main crop, maize and South Asia 10% of rice, millet and maize crops”. As these crops represent the main food of those populations, it could be catastrophic. Another study,

realized by the United Nations Devel-opment Program in 2007-2008, shows in the fi gure below strongly developing countries could have their agricultural output potential affected by climate change in 2080.

Solutions have to be found to al-low the agriculture of these regions to adapt and fi ght against climate change effects. European farmers are generally protected by their government in case of climatic catastrophe; for example in the south of France where there are many orchards, farmers can be insured against frost damage. Developing coun-tries’ governments have to implement structures that can support vulnerable farmers when they are touched by bad climatic conditions. Moreover, as their economy depends mostly on agriculture, it is inevitable to fi nd adaptations to ag-ricultural policy.

Province of Mwaro, Burundi, 2007. On the left side, cultivated valleys of vegetable crops and on the right, the same area after a heavy rain, all the crops are lost.

Source: Human Development Report 2007-2008: “Fighting climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world”, UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).

Change in agricultural output potential (2080s as % of 2000 potential)

-20 -10 0 10 20

Industrial countries

World

Developing Countries

Asia

Middle East and North Africa

Latin America

Africa

About the author: Julie Mayans is a student in the Agris

Mundus Master’s Programme in Sus-

tainable Development in Agriculture.


Climate Change

Climate Change in the

b y A N D R E A P I E H L

These are times of change in the environment. The Arctic is an area where this change has scientifi cally already been observed for some time. I can consider myself fortunate to have been there before it was too late, but especially to have taken part in a scientifi c expedition that contributed towards the understanding of the main driving-forces that infl uence the whole ecosystem of a fjord. My master thesis took place in the remote island archipelago of Svalbard, located 79ºN within a Norwegian-founded research project, in the fjord of Kongsfjorden where a community of international bases of scientists work together in what is called the “the World Northernmost community”, the population of which varies from 100 in summer to about 10 scientists during winter.

My background in Marine Science and the Joint Erasmus Mundus Master in Water and Coastal Management gave me the unique opportunity as a Spanish citizen to go to the Arc-tic and study the oceanographical characteristics of the fjord. Basically, local Arctic cold and fresh water masses in the fjord are being increasingly infl uenced by the intrusion of warmer and more saline water masses from the northernmost exten-sion of the Gulf Stream. The result of this intrusion is an unstable change in the whole ecosystem. My Master thesis project task was to develop a tool to identify the short-term changes in water masses that would allow scientists to fore-cast a consequent change in the long term of the whole eco-

system. This master thesis project was part of a broader project which studied how the species of Arctic water, such as plankton are the food elements for cod and local sea birds and consequently larger marine mammals like seals (i.e. the whole food chain), are being af-fected by the intrusion of warmer and more saline Atlantic water masses. This is what science can do.

The Momentum

But other advances, as well as setbacks, have arisen recently. Thanks to some key public actors and initiatives, cli-mate change has been put top of the international agenda. Some of these ad-vances have created a momentum that has inspired many important political initiatives. The fi rst I remember, back in 2006, was the so-called “Stern Report”, a report ordered by the UK Government which concluded that ignoring climate change would be economically more ex-pensive than putting in place measures to halt it. At the same time, Al Gore, the former vice-president of the USA,

released his movie “The Inconvenient Truth”, raising awareness and surprising audiences, including me. The IPCC also did a remarkable job, being a scientifi c organization working together to give a sound basis to what had previously been only treated as a theory. I defi nitely agree that both IPCC (Intergovernmen-tal Panel on Climate Change) and Al Gore deserved the Peace Nobel price for what they achieved in raising to the top of the international agenda the prob-lem that Climate Change may cause the world and humankind. I would have to congratulate also the German presiden-cy of the European Union for setting the target of reducing the emissions of CO2 in Europe by 20%, by 2020. I feel proud of the EU for taking the lead on Climate Change issues. Nevertheless, nowadays all these advances are being severely threatened by the world economic cri-sis. Unfortunately, the environment has traditionally been regarded as the last priority, as a “luxury” asset.

There is a very special initiative tak-ing place at the moment that I would like to highlight. The International Polar

The Arctic is a hotspot for climate change research. A Spanish Erasmus Mundus alumna reports from a research trip to Svalbard

Arctic

15

Climate Change

About the author: Buddhadeb Halder is an alumnus of the

Human Rights Practice Master’s Pro-

gramme.

Year (IPY) is an enormous research ef-fort taking place for the 4th time be-tween March 2007 and March 2009. This initiative promoted by the World Meteorological Organization has given the polar scientifi c community the op-portunity to study in a coordinated and detailed way the polar environment and socio-economy, at the same time. It must be said that this time-frame em-braces the two summer seasons of both poles, the most suitable season to take samples in these extreme environments. I will be very excited to see the outcome of this considerable research effort.

New Dangers

However, there are some concerns - the Arctic has remained one of the last frontiers on Earth and now, with the International Polar Year, another spe-cial issue has arisen. The sea ice in the Arctic cap is in fact retreating and for some key economic sectors this is seen as an advantage. For example, drilling for fossil fuels in the area will increase due to their accessibility, which will cause serious damage to an environ-ment already changing and, as is occur-ring now, an international discussion about the ownership of underwater mineral resources. Maritime traffi c will also increase after the retreat of the ice cap. So a vessel travelling from Rotter-dam will reach Asia saving 40% of the time. All these new topical issues will need international regulation as well as sound research to understand and pre-vent further problems.

Climate change has been put on the international agenda, and I think we will have to congratulate these people for at least raising the public profi le of an ecological concern that will make us all work for the earth to be a bet-ter place. I wish this could also be done with other issues such as the loss of biodiversity which urgently needs our public attention, as well as many others. However, in the meantime I am happy that people are at least changing their behaviour to some degree for one eco-logical reason. This will make the path easier for further ecological needs that we have been putting aside and that are of a concern to us all before we destroy the planet we are living on.

Climate Change in India

A Need for a Rights-Based Approach

franchised and so there is a high pos-sibility of arising internal confl ict over the natural resources and agricultural products like water and food grains.Now, let us examine the standpoint of the Indian Government in regard to deal-ing with the impact of climate change? Mr. Pradipto Ghosh, Ex-Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forest, has said: ‘‘India is certainly not responsible for the mess. We are, in fact, victims of it. So why expect us to tighten our belts?‘‘ Thus, the position of Indian Gov-ernment on the issue of climate change is easily understandable. The govern-ment‘s argument is not entirely rational because the global climate cannot dif-ferentiate between borders. And here lies the main question: is it possible for the government to guarantee ‘Right to Development‘‘ to the Indian population after having such a position on this very particular issue?

Apart from this, the other concerns are on the issue of ecological displacement, different diseases, food insecurity and the growing poor population in India. Recently, in June 2008, the Government of India launched the National Action Plan on Climate Change. Though the intellectuals have described this action plan as incorporating the country‘s vi-sion of sustainable development, it was business-as-usual it seemed. It has already been proven that most of the victims would be the poor and the mar-ginalised group of society, whose rights have always been neglected, so there is a real need to introduce a human rights-based approach to different action and development plans to deal with the is-sue of climate change in India.

Climate Change presents a real chal-lenge and danger for India. A developing country like India will face huge human and environmental problems in coming years due to climate change. Geographi-cally, India is a tropical country with a long coastline and having a large number of poor and rural population, India is highly vulnerable to climatic changes which will dramatically affect human rights, either directly or indirectly. India‘s emissions are now rising and projected to be among the top three in less than a decade. As India has 7500 km coast and 50 million people at risk of sea level rise, so these large num-bers of people will be displaced from the coastal zone and will move inwards. Seven of the world‘s major river basins originate in the Himalayan and Tibetan plateaus which are the source of water for the population of China, India, Ne-pal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Climate change will also cause fl ooding in low-lying regions and the deltas will turn infertile. Agricultural productivity will decline; so hunger and food inse-curity will increase rapidly. This climate change will damage economic assets and the infrastructure of India. Thus, the impacts of climate change on hu-man lives will be felt not just in years, but over generations.

We have already seen the impact of climate change across South Asia. In 2007, 20 million were diplaced due to “wild weather” in South Asia. Climate change will affect the identity and the culture amongst India‘s tribal and in-digenous communities. These commu-nities will be obliged to change their food habit, cultural identity and so on. Diseases such as malaria, dengue, and cholera have increased already in the region. Its greatest victims will be the poor, the marginalised and the disen-

b y B U D D H A D E B H A L D E R


Climate Change

Is Climate Change more

Important than Environment?For decades, environmental protection has been overlooked,but the fi ght against climate change might provide a golden opportunity for change

No doubt about it, climate change has received a lot of attention in the last cou-ple of years within the international po-litical arena, media and even EMAnate has drawn attention to it as its second theme. In fact, it could be argued that, among other mistakes made by President Bush, his timid response to act on climate change has played a role in the low ratings. Indeed, in the present United State’s elections, the candidates’ pledg-es to address this issue have certainly been an important point in the debate. On the other side of the Atlantic, cli-mate change seems to have become a great concern for EU citizens.

According to two of the latest updates of the Eurobarometer surveys, ‘Attitudes of European citizens towards the environ-ment‘ and ‘Attitudes of European citizens towards climate change‘, 75% of EU citizens believe that climate change is a very serious problem, 62% consider climate change as the most serious problem the world is currently facing (higher that international terrorism with 53%) and 57% mentioned it as a top concern among their top fi ve [global] environmental concerns.

Ecological Debt

However, there are still some climate change sceptics. Some believe that the discourse has been exaggerated, others think that the science behind it is misleading and there are those

that challenge the responsibility of hu-mans in bringing about changes in the climate. While it is true that it is an extremely complicated subject and the impacts are far from understood, it also seems clear that we humans are living beyond our natural means. According to the latest WWF’s Living Planet Report 2008 “more than three quarters of the world’s people live in nations that are ecological debtors – their national con-sumption has outstripped their coun-try’s biocapacity”. For my work at the European Commis-sion, I was asked to assess which projects funded by the external cooperation of-

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Climate Change

75 % of EU citizens believe that climate change is a very serious problem, 62% consider climate change as the most serious problem the world is currently facing.

fi ce (EuropeAid) of the Commission were actually related to climate change. As it turns out, due to the complexity of eco-systems and the factors driving climate change, the issue of climate change (the mitigation strategies and the adaptation to ‚change‘) is a cross-cutting concern covering a very broad range of topics: biodiversity, energy effi ciency, air pollu-tion, recycling, transport, deforestation, human health, disaster preparedness, diversifi cation of energy sources (energy security), sustainable consumption and food security, among many others.

For instance, one of the many examples of the links between climate change and other environmental issues is for-ests. As far-fetched as it might seem to you now, what you eat affects forests, by encouraging the conversion of for-est areas into cattle grazing land or crop land. Moreover, as you surely know, by reading this article online instead of a printed version on paper you are con-tributing to a reduction in the exploita-tion of forests. Nowadays, even trans-portation is linked to forests: trees are being cut down to produce agrofuels, which are used to power vehicles. By now, it is well known that deforestation

is an important cause of global warming. According to the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change released in 2006 by economist Lord Stern of Brentford for the Brit-ish government, deforestation is responsible for more than 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than the transport sector. At the same time, forests, and especially tropical forests (paradoxically, tropical forests are being lost the fastest), host an immense number of species making them essential for preserving biodiversity. Besides that, they also protect soil and water quality along with a number of other benefi ts for the environment and society. In conclusion, curb-ing deforestation is not only good for tackling global warm-ing, but for many other things such as preserving biodiversity and water quality.

Development and Adaptation

Many believe that promoting good development polices will make those most affected by climate change less vulnerable. As the Stern Review report stated, “development itself is key to adaptation” by building resilience to cope with the inevita-ble impact of climate change. It is as simple as this: if you live in a shanty town without a proper health care system there is a higher risk of not surviving and not recovering from a climate-related natural hazard, such as a hurricane or a fl ood. On the other hand, if you are better off, you will be less vulnerable when facing a heat or a cold wave. Furthermore, in general, economies of developing coun-tries depend on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, to a much larger extent than those of the developed states.

Environmentalists have fought for many decades to protect the environment, to halt biodiversity loss, to stop the deple-tion of natural resources, among many other environmentally related issues. Some of them may agree that the fact that climate change has become a top priority on the international agenda has opened many doors either to infl uence environmental policies or channel more - but not enough - economic resources to environmentally related projects... or development. If climate change has become more im-portant than environment and both are clearly linked, then why shouldn‘t we take advantage of this as a starting point for infl uencing politicians and advocat-ing for changes in people‘s behaviour? If it is genuinely good for fi ghting cli-mate change (and scientifi cally-based), it should be good for the environment and societies around the world.

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About the author: Valentina Villoria is an alumna of the

Joint Master in Water and Coastal Man-

agement Programme.


Climate Change

Fruitful Future? Great Grapes to Wonderful Wine

There are several main climate chang-es and predicted changes affecting ag-riculture described by the Inter-govern-mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) by the IPCC in 2007 (Table 1)¹.Even without considering the effects of human activity, which to a large extent drives these climate changes, tempera-tures will continue to increase globally in the future. So we might be happy with warmer weather as we head to the beach, but what are the effects go-ing to be on agriculture in the future? Are crops going to grow out of control, shrivel up, or no longer be grown in re-gions that they are grown today? Will England become the new Italy, France or Spain for growing grapes for exam-ple??!!

Grapes are grown across the world for consumption and wine-making. 15 of the top 20 producing countries (in hec-tolitres) are in Europe with Italy, France

and Spain being the fi rst, second and third largest producers (in hectolitres) worldwide. Grapes are grown across the continent of Europe with thousands of varieties found in different regions: from Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon in Bordeaux, Nero d’Avola in Sicilia, Agiorgitiko in Greece to the Gruner Veltliner in Austria.

Rising Temperatures

So what will happen to this crop and the quality of wine that will result if the climate continues to change as pre-dicted? Development of the grapevine is dependent on local conditions and most importantly the temperature, as well as being dependent on how quickly a va-riety undergoes its physiological devel-opment (for example Chardonnay ripens before Merlot). Due to the climate and varietal interactions different grape va-rieties have been historically planted in different regions that allow the pro-

duction of grapes at an optimal qual-ity for each variety. When the growth and ripening period of a variety is well-adapted, great grapes can be obtained to make wonderful wine.

This balance will be disturbed by the climate changes that have been predict-ed. The increase in temperature, espe-cially minimal temperatures are crucial to grape ripening. The change in the an-nual precipitation cycles and CO² have all been predicted to play a role. Stud-ies have already shown that the average temperature of viticultural regions have increased by 1.3°C during the growing season over the last 50 years. Further-more, between 1950 and 1999, 17 out of 27 viticultural regions tested indicat-ed an increase of temperatures during the growing season. These regions cor-responded to: 7 in France, 1 in Spain, 4 in the USA, 2 in Australia, 2 in Portugal and 1 in Italy. The climate changes have been seen to affect worldwide grape production!² The harvest time which

19

can estimate the ripeness of the variety has been observed to mirror that of the temperature changes; a study of Pinot Noir between 1370-2003 showed that the harvest date was as good as other temperature reconstruction methods (for example tree ring measurements)³. Therefore, we can already see that in-creasing temperatures are causing ear-lier ripening of grapes on a global level.

The changing climate is going to drive changes in the viticulture world, notably varieties that are suited to one region and its climate today may no longer be suitable in the future. We can turn back the clock, and let history teach us about the geographical distribution of grapes. During the period “Little Opti-mum” between 900-1200 A.D the aver-age temperature in Europe was approxi-mately 1°C higher than it is today. And yes, grapes were grown in England and also on the Baltic Sea coasts. Winding the clock forward a bit to the “Little Ice Age” (1550-1850), these more northern vineyards disappeared due to the de-crease in temperature.

So a 1°C difference can have a serious impact on the grape distribution! Grape growers are going to need to have a bet-ter understanding of their local climate to ensure future production of great grapes and the possibility of adapting grapes that ripen later than the current ones that are planted.What does this all mean for the wine? One of the great diffi culties in the fi eld is to quantify the effect of adapting a variety that ripens well in the local conditions and therefore can produce a quality wine. The temperature af-fects the development of the sugar and acid in grapes, the colour compounds and the fl avour components. If grapes ripen too quickly due to the increased temperatures, these compounds could

become unbalanced resulting in lesser quality wines. Establishing relationships between the ‘vintage ratings’ of well-renowned wine tasting guides and ex-perts on one side and the temperature increase on the other side has already been done with some success, but this is still not easy to quantify. There have been optimum temperatures suggested above which current varieties in the re-gions should not pass if a quality wine is desired.

A Helping Hand

So science needs to give us a helping hand to ensure that grapes will con-tinue to ripen as desired. Grapes rep-resent only one agricultural crop. Given the effects already seen, measured and predicted for this crop, one can only im-agine the impact that current climate change will have on other crops. Grapes for wine production do not represent a staple crop for human nutrition like

wheat, potato, rice etc. Hence, the ef-fects of climate change on these crops need to be well-explored. However, economically, grapes represent an im-portant part of agricultural production especially in Europe and an important part of history and culture. Changing climates do not need to change this historical and cultural importance, but an understanding of these changes will ensure great grapes for wonderful wine in the future.

Climate Change

Change observed

Increase of greenhouse gases by 1.5ppm CO² between 1980 and 2000

A temperature increase of 0.2°C between 1990-2000 with this pe-riod being one of the most hottest to be recorded in history

An increase of the average global temperature by 0.6°C during the 20th century, and of 0.15°C each decade since the 1970s

A change in precipitation cycles with an increase in evapo-transpi-ration

Forecasted changes (predictions from the 40 different scenarios proposed)

CO² will vary between 490-1260 ppm

A continual temperature increase of 1.4-5.8°C from 1990 to 2100

An increase in average tempera-ture of 0.2°C during the next two decades (a average value obtained from the 40 different scenarios)

An increase in extreme daily rain-fall even when the overall rainfall levels are predicted to decrease

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About the author: Amber Parker is a student in the Interna-

tional Master “Vintage”, Vine, Wine and

Terroir Management.

¹ For further details on the impact of climate change and the SSRES see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/index.htm² Jones, G.V., White, M.A., Cooper, O.R., Storchmann, K. (2005). Climate Change and Global Wine Quality. Climate Change. 73, 319- 343.³ Chuine, I., Yiou, P., Viovy, N., Seguin, B., Daux, V., Le Roy Ladurie, E. (2004). Grape harvest dates and temperature variations in eastern France since 1370. Nature. 432, 289-290.


Climate Change

Experience in the Field:

Internships at the UN Institutions

As the above quote of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon expressively and bluntly states, climate change is the defi ning issue of our time, requiring a variety of responses at different levels. Climate change proves that environmental thinking and related polices can no longer be an afterthought. It touches and will continue to impact every element of our daily life. Current and future impacts include a rising sea-level, chang-ing land rights and property damage; water scarcity, which is affecting agriculture, rural livelihoods and customs; increased fl ooding, endangering sub-standard housing, as well as ex-treme weather events which are predicted to severely affect global biodiversity loss, as natural species are unable to cope with rapid changes.

The United Nations – in its varied activities, goals and pro-grammes – is in the process of attempting to streamline all related climate change activities. Inherently different institu-tions can tackle different elements of the equation by having a clear focus as how to best mitigate (prevent future contri-butions) and adapt (coping with current and future impacts) to climate change.

UN-Habitat, (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) for example, has recently started a new initiative: The Cities in Climate Change Initiative (CCCI). This initiative will try to ad-dress how cities – which contain 50% of our population and contribute an equal or greater portion of greenhouse gases – can help to reduce their emissions (via public transport, en-ergy-effi ciency in supply and infrastructure and planning com-pact cities) as well as to adapt to climate change (green space in cities, urban storm-water and upgrading urban slums).UNEP, as the UN’s Environmental Programme focuses on cli-mate change in all its work programmes; UNIDO (UN Industrial Development Organization) addresses energy provision and access and how to “green” energy op-tions in rural communities;

WHO (World Health Organization) ad-dresses how climate change will impact health vulnerability, including psycho-logical health and how to cope with extreme heat and cold;UNICEF (UN International Children’s Fund) examines how climate change will infl uence youth and young persons;UNIFEM addresses how climate change will infl uence gender equality – as many of the pending burdens will be dispro-portionately experienced by women, including longer distances to gather water and fi rewood. Inherently then, these and other UN institutions have now started to address climate change in a targeted fashion based on a particular organization’s in-ternal strength.

In a similar fashion, Erasmus Mundus proves a like platform to address cli-mate change from various academic perspectives. Climate change mitiga-tion/adaptation strategies will require new technological solutions, of which EM technical programmes can assist. It will require a new addressing of human rights and humanitarian assistance. It will require new economic models, new reporting from journalists and a new approach to urban planning, forestry and agricultural management as well as attention to fresh and saltwater sourc-es. In one sense, small or large, climate change is a part of nearly all of our EM academic disciplines, meaning EM is a small part of a potential solution. EM students and graduates study globally relevant degrees with direct application in the real world. Beyond our academic discipline, we learn to interact and adapt

to a globally changing environment. It is in such a sense, that EM graduates are aptly suited to work within various UN fi elds. Whether for an internship, or for proper employment, EM prepares us for the international climate change discourse.

A UN internship would compliment most EM programmes and includes a dimension of learning (what is globally relevant) as well as contributing to the ongoing workings of UN agencies (directly applying your education and informing others about new academic knowledge). In essence, it is about ex-change.

After recently completing a UN intern-ship myself, I would sincerely recom-mend it to any interested EM student. UN internships last between three and six months and can suitably compli-ment a summer holiday or thesis period. Whether or not your want to work with a UN institution after graduation, the experience will prove worthwhile, and help wandering souls (like myself) fi nd a career direction. Such an experience looks great on a CV and for a reason: at the UN you get to be part of a spe-cifi c task and learn to understand the overarching linkages between climate change and related environment/de-velopment/policy and technical issues. Climate change is not the only environ-ment/social issue that needs to be ad-dressed, but it is a hot topic involving various perspectives. After 6 months in Nairobi, Kenya work-ing with UN-Habitat’s new initiative, CCCI, I have learned to value my EM education for what I have learned and how to apply it to globally relevant is-sues. And while this Nairobi adventure is over, my time as a UN intern has opened many doors and opportunities – and has even interested employers. And what happens next? As for myself, I will hap-pily let you know in a few months!

About the author: Jennifer Lenhart is an alumna of the

Master’s Programme in Environmental

Sciences, Policy and Management. She

is the coordinator of EMA Promotion

Team.

”Addiction is a terrible thing. It consumes and controls us, makes us deny important truths and blinds us to the consequences of our actions. Our society is in the grips of a dangerous greenhouse gas habit…”

21

Climate Change

I never thought I was adventurous. I guess I was just another city boy from a crowded place that is New Delhi, where summers see temperatures soar to 45 degrees, where monsoons bring rain and where winters are short and never so in-tense. This was the climate I had grown up in and I had not seen any other faces of it.

It all changed when I decided to study with Erasmus Mundus. As was ex-pected, each and every member of my large family chipped in with their advice about handling the ‘extreme’ winter of my fi rst destination, England – ‘wear this big jacket, it should cover you from head to toe’, ‘eat these dry fruits’, ‘drink some brandy or some wine but not too much!’. If it wasn’t for the limit on bag-gage, they would have prepared me well for a trip to Iceland (which they thought was sheer ice unlike Green-land, which was green!). Nevertheless, although the three months of October, November and December were not that easy, they weren’t that diffi cult either. I was so busy and excited meeting new people, exploring England and learning how to be on my own that I almost for-got about the cold. But then, December came and it started to get chilly. I got a feel of ‘real British weather’ when it began to get dark at four in the evening with rain that never seemed to stop. To top it all, there were all those exams and assignments to fi nish. All together, it was starting to look like one gloomy month. Then came Christmas with all its fes-tive spirit and excitement that I had only heard and read about. There were lights, music, shops open till late, loads of people on the streets - nothing short of what I had hoped for from a Christ-mas in a Christian country. And soon after in January, it was time to fl y away

to a new home, Greece! Never having seen snowfall in my life, it was a big disappointment after reaching Greece to learn that it was snowing back in England! Anyway, I was quite hopeful that I would see lots of snow in Thessaloniki (the city we were to study in) for our course mates from previous year saw plenty.

Though initially a bit disappointed to reach a place not as modern or developed as the UK, I slowly knew that Greece held its own charm. The scenic beauty, the warmth and the relaxed nature of Greek people, delicious Greek food, Greek music and dance and above all, the revered Sun God was eve-rything that I had missed in England. It was so much like back home! But alas, winter was coming to a close and I still had not seen a snowfall. April came and it was time to move to the Land of Toros – Spain. I had heard so much about the Spanish summer that there could be no better time to be in Madrid. It was time to slip into shorts and sneakers, sit in the sun, sip some sangria and have an occasional siesta on a hot summer weekend. Af-ter all the cold that I had braved, the Spanish summer couldn’t have been more welcoming. The three months in Spain fl ew thick and fast and soon home beckoned. It was a time to meet family, narrate stories, present souvenirs and see their ‘But, you look the same!’ expressions. But inside me, I knew I had changed, that I had learned from each of those experiences and that I would never be the same as earlier. After the stint at home, I headed back to Spain for my six month dissertation. Lured by the cheap tickets offered by airlines, in November we decided to travel to Norway. In fact after all this travel, if there is anywhere I have ever felt the coldest in my life, where the chill seemed to ‘penetrate my bones’ and no matter how many clothes I wrapped around me, I couldn’t be outdoors for more than a few hours at a stretch, it was in Norway. However, my endurance did pay off in the end and I got to see my fi rst snowfall there!

Over Christmas, my friends and I headed back to Greece to meet friends that we had made earlier and to see how Christ-mas is celebrated typically. We stayed with our friend’s fam-ily, enjoyed the Christmas feast, went to lots of parties and entered the New Year together. After returning to Madrid, it was time to work hard on the dissertation. Months passed and soon, the course was nearing its end. Each of us would head in our own directions, some back home, some would stay in Ma-drid and some would move to England or elsewhere. In all this time of being together, saying goodbye was the hardest part.

Climates of the MundusA fun-fi lled story of an ordinary Erasmus Mundus student as he leaves his sheltered life at home and discovers the many shades of climate

Looking ahead into the future.

Climate shows it vivid hues at dusk in Oslo.

At a beach with friends in Greece.

Rain in Spain.

Braving the snow in Switzerland.

About the author: Paras Mehta from India is an alumnus

of the Network and e-Business Centred

Computing Programme.


Climate Change

Life after Global (“Mundus”) Warming

I’m approaching home – back from Southern France to North-Western Rus-sia. Boundless snow-covered fi elds… no, this is not snow, for it’s July, these are sleeping clouds and the rising sun is awakening them with its golden touch. ‘Today’ has become yesterday, memories disappearing in the wing mirror. I don’t know what I will do once back home: lately I have been answering this ques-tion so often that I feel lost in my future and tired of it. As it is approaching I re-alise that I’m scared of the uncertainty though it appeared so certain being far away.

It is hard to ‘change climates’, it is hard to come back and change a famil-iar life to the one which is supposed to be familiar and used to be so but which is not anymore. I’m happy to be with my friends again and even strangely glad to be in this indifferent crowd of strangers who are my compatriots. However it is not easy. What is most diffi cult is not to know who you are. You know who you used to be before leaving but you have changed; you are not the one you have just been abroad either because you are not in that setting anymore with those people and activities. You don’t know what your status is. Even though your ex-work colleagues, ex-classmates, ex-sports team-mates are excited to see you, you no longer belong to any group because you lost your membership at

the moment when you decided to leave. Suddenly you’re ex-whatever and no one at present. You have to create yourself a future in order to become someone again. This is also hard: not because you can fail but because you are not sure what you want. Because you feel lost - lost in the city, which is so strange even though it’s your own, lost in your apartment full of irrelevant things from your past self, lost in yourself.

Our northern summer is indeed a caricature of southern win-ters, as the poet Pushkin called it. I feel cold and everybody thinks I’m just pretending. They don’t seem to understand that the organism does get used to the climate it lives in, even though temporarily. Similarly it was annoying when after hav-ing lived abroad for months I would meet remarks of friends from my county of origin like ‘okay, you got up at 8 am but it’s not so early, it’s 10 am our time!’ Gradually local habits become yours as well: when the initial ‘jet lag’ (i.e. culture shock) passes, you start considering new features of life as ‘normal’ and getting more alienated from home, almost with-out noticing, or not noticing at all. I know some people who

would perceive themselves as different while living abroad, yet when they came back home afterwards they found out that they were so changed that they no longer belonged to ‘their’ culture either. They got lost between the two worlds; some even don’t speak any language without an accent anymore…

I miss my Mundus friends who live so far away that they seem almost imag-ined. Without them, without my way of life abroad I feel deprived of something important - something inside myself, a new part of myself that I acquired and would even perceive as my whole new self (together with semi-mythical rep-resentations of who I had been before leaving). I feel I have to make an effort to stay as changed as I became during the Mundus programme when every-thing here has remained the same way and I‘m even offered the same job as I had before. It‘s hard to imagine staying here, I feel like going travelling again – just because I am used to being dynamic whereas everything here seems static…… Months have passed; I arranged my life back home and thus became a ‘le-gitimate’ part of this society anew. Nevertheless I feel that the intricate in-terlacing of my Mundus friends’ person-alities and cultures are now entwined in my own identity which infl uences my attitude to others: I can recognise my-self in the immigrants in my home city, I perceive differently people in other countries, so that for me the atmos-phere of my year abroad made a ‘mun-dus’ i.e. global warming possible.

About the author: Natalya Bichurina is an alumna of the

Crossways in European Humanities Pro-

gramme.

b y N A T A L Y A B I C H U R I N A

I am between glimmering constellations of European cit-ies in cloud gaps and a blue-blue sea with a single star. My Mundus is over. Every cloud that I’m leaving behind is irreversibly turning my present into the past. I have just been surrounded by people from all over the world, free to do nothing but communicate, under the Mediterranean sun. Now it is time to change the climate back, isn’t it?

Flying home

Member of the European Parliament Marielle De Sarnez tells about her impressions of the new Erasmus Mundus programme

The European Commission‘s proposal for a second round of the Erasmus Mundus Programme (2009 – 13) was voted upon by the European Parliament in October 2008. Member of the European Parliament Marielle de Sarnez, from the Committee on Education and Culture, has been in charge of drafting the Parliament‘s opin-ion on Erasmus Mundus II. Emanate got the chance to talk to her about Erasmus Mundus and the Parliament’s decision.

The proposal from the Commission and the report from the European Parliament provide for new opportunities and challenges: Erasmus Mundus visas, linguistic diver-sity, structural co-operation between universities from third countries, access for minorities: as the draftsperson, what are your impressions?

First of all, it was a great contentment to achieve the sat-isfactory agreement during the fi rst reading of the report for the realisation of the second generation programme. The programme brings many changes for the students from third countries, for whom a particular effort is going to be made in order to make the administrative procedures, especially, re-garding the visas, easier, as well as for the European students, who will take advantage of the scholarships. I truly believe that this news will allow the interested students to access the European academic education.

With Erasmus Mundus II we are facing a strategy for the promotion of joint doctoral studies. How could Eras-mus Mundus students use these modalities considering the fact that there are more and more Erasmus Mundus

students that wish to do their doc-toral researches within European universities?

The students that are doing their EM masters could continue their EM doc-toral studies. Universities from at least three different European countries will propose an EM doctoral programme and this will allow the students to have the possibility to work on various sub-jects of research and to have access to more documentation through different libraries.

How many scholarships will be available for the students that are EU citizens and what is their amount approximately?

A European student, on average per year, for mobility exclusively in Europe will receive a scholarship of 9 000 euros. There is also a foreseen period of mobil-ity in a third country, where a scholar-ship will be 11 000 euros per year, on av-erage. Approximately 4000 scholarships for European students will be awarded between 2009 and 2013 according to the expectation of the European Com-mission.

Erasmus Mundus coincide with the Lisbon Strategy (i.e. EU), which po-litical dimension includes the edu-cation of future generations from emerging countries; in a worldwide vision Europe nowadays represents one competitive, savant and eco-nomic context with authentic ref-erence d‘excellence with regard to the phenomenon of „brain drain“?

The goal of this programme is absolutely not the promotion of brain drain, which is the reason why particular attention is given to the overall evolution of the programme. The students and the re-searchers will be encouraged, if they want to, to apply all their knowledge regarding the development of their countries, but also if they are willing to complete their education in Europe and work on their doctoral studies they can do it too.

Erasmus Mundus is an excellent tool for the promotion of cultural exchanges, co-operation and dia-logue. In short, how does this Er-asmus Mundus notion establish and strengthen the idea of Europe and make it more open to different kind of knowledge?

The educational programmes proposed by different joint university consortia will allow the students to have a „cross-world“ approach to their study fi eld and subjects. Europe is rich in its diversity; education is one of the materials that could not be enriched otherwise if not open toward the rest of the world. The network of universities offers truly ex-traordinary opportunities for the stu-dents.

Marielle de Sarnez, member of the European Parliament

Erasmus Mundus Round 2 In Action!

b y N A T A S H A S A R D Z O S K A

23

Higher Education News

“Education is one of the materials that could not be enriched otherwise if not open towards the rest of the world.”


Ure dolupta tincing


The EMAPhoto Competition

The Photo Competition wa

s announced

last year on the EMA web

site with a

gift certifi cate for an online book

-

store being the fi rst prize.

We are

very grateful for the in

terest in the

competition and for all

the photos

that we have received. O

n the follow-

ing pages are the select

ed six best

photos, that we thought

refl ect the

topic of changing climat

es in the

most creative way.

The winner of the compet

ition will be

chosen by you, dear read

er. Please go

to www.em-a.eu before Ma

rch 27, 2009

and vote for your favour

ite photo.

Yours,EMA Magazine

Team

Daniel Abreu Mejía Dominican Republic, Public Poli-cy (Mundus MAPP)A diffi cult balance: Humanity faces a challenge of unprec-edented complexity: balancing the steps forward to improve the quality of life while reducing harmful impacts on our environ-mental systems... a luminous or apocalyptic future relies on this diffi cult balance.

Alexander Thornton USA, Master in Management and Engineering of the Environment and Energy (ME3)The person in the photo is star-ing straight into the storm clouds ahead with resolve, just as humanity must do with our current climate change situa-tion.

25

Mia Lafontaine Canada, Master in Management and Engineering in Environment and Energy (ME3)The world is ever changing. But we must not be careless. Protect what is important to you and show your commitment.

Farah Ahamed

Kenya, Lifelong Learni

ng (MA LLL)

Our future on its knee

s? The photograph was

taken outside a school

in Northern Uganda, A

rua

District, in 2007. The

onlookers are governm

ent

school inspectors and

offi cials, who have drive

n

up in their car to ins

pect the school. They

were

greeted at the entranc

e by a naked baby craw

ling

in the barren sand. Th

e baby has parked her

lit-

tle wooden toy car in

front of them - what w

ill

her future hold? The i

mpact of climate chang

es

are felt by all, and e

ven more so, by those

we

will never have a chan

ce to say how their fu

-

tures were impacted by

our decisions and cho

ic-

es.

Bilal Aurang Zeb Pakistan, Public Policy (Mundus

MAPP)Time fl ies by and we‘ve seen these

waves rising with us. This photo was

taken at Scheveningen, The Hague in

the Netherlands. It shows an old

couple sitting on the beach facing

the ocean. This depicts the climatic

change over time.

Anuradha Choudry India, Crossways in European Humanities.Francesco Nullo‘s statue stands witness to„changing climates“. His robes and hands are dark with pollution. The trees are bare. Values, for which people gave up their lives, have changed and so has the world. Only pi-geons appreciate his presence now - but what happens when they also are gone?

Global Citizenship: Benefi ts and ChallengesWe All Have an Obligation to Reason and Act as World Citizens

Our generation, more than any other before, is faced by the realities of what it means to be a citizen of the world, and these realities bring with them a host of changes and new demands, large and small. The issues of global poverty and social justice are, to my mind, the cen-tral challenges today for humanity. They present daily threats, opportunities, and dilemmas for all of us. What can and should we be doing about it?

Global citizenship has become a popu-lar phrase. The philosophy of global citi-zenship is based on the awareness that the stimulating experience of meeting people from different cultures and living in foreign countries help us develop as people. As we clarify our understanding of ourselves and our world, we improve the quality of our lives.This term creates an awareness of the existence of a whole category of inter-nationally-oriented people who derive satisfaction by discovering the world. Ideally, global citizens are open-minded individuals from any culture who are in-terested in the world at large and are passionate about living fulfi lling lives.Being a global citizen has nothing to do with travel. It means honouring the calling to be your true self - wherever you live in the world. When we are true to ourselves, we can generate positive change not only in our own lives, but also in our communities, families, busi-nesses and professions - leading to bet-ter communication and cooperation on a global scale between nations, govern-

ments and people at all levels. As we become aware of com-mon concerns and work together on shared issues, regardless of our geographical location, we are unconsciously building and helping to make the world a better place.

With technology we can communicate instantly across the globe and explore almost any topic. I am sure you marvel at the power of the internet and educational tools we could scarcely imagine 20 years ago. Never before have so many people had opportunities to develop their skills and talents and to savour so much of what the world has to offer.However, the two sides of globalization, prosperity and mis-ery versus opportunity and abundance, epitomize many of the challenges and dilemmas we face today as a human family. We have a world of enormous opportunity, creativity and di-verse prospects; but we also have billions of people who are not benefi ting from this plentiful situation.

The Global Village

In the context of globalisation, thinking and acting as global citizens is immensely important and can bring real benefi ts. Global citizenship is about the responsibility we take for each other. In a village where people know, support and help each other, they can share their lives, they can rejoice with each other and cry with one another. Being a global citizen is not a rejection of our own nationality, race, religion, or anything else that makes you who you are. Each of us has a unique background and unique perspectives on the world and it is from that position that we engage with the rest of the world. The idea is to develop a personal and unique vision about a worldwide network going beyond bor-ders, cultures and nations. The very notion of global citizenship is a challenge: it suggests big responsibilities in a small world. It commands optimism in the face of the certain knowledge that the human rights of people are being violated - politically and socially. And being a global citizen means one is willing to think beyond boundaries

of place, identity and category, and rec-ognise all human beings as equals while respecting humanity’s inherent diversi-ty. Within their own sphere of infl uence, global citizens seek to imagine and work towards a better world. Being an effective global citizen is all about how you view the world and in-teract with it. Interacting with it is no longer an option, it is a daily reality. The world is no longer “out there”. It is right here in our backyards. We are con-nected to each other in many ways. Our challenge is to understand and manage these connections.

Global citizenship cannot remain as merely vacuous rhetoric, and it is not based on a pronouncement from na-tional governments. It must be driven by a wide awareness of the world’s in-terconnectedness, worldwide values of responsibility, and a widespread will to act.We are now realizing that all people on this planet are affected, though not nec-essarily with the same result, by global systems. It is our fate to share because we live on the same planet.Some global systems such as weather patterns are bio-physical, some are pri-marily human such as cultural diffusion, trade arrangements, terrorist attacks and geopolitical strife. Many bridge the two such as the systems creating cli-mate change, resource destruction, and new diseases.Issues like the Asian tsunami, the sub-prime crisis, earthquakes in Peru, Ja-


Your Say

27

Your Say

pan or Iran, September 11th, the Bes-lan Massacre in Russia, the Rwandan Genocide, Darfur, Hurricane Katrina, the elections in Zimbabwe, Human and Drug Traffi cking in Venezuela and Co-lombia, but also around the world have sharpened awareness in the countries of the Global North that they are no longer isolated from the Global South. They are no longer protected from their pain and daily suffering. The concept of global citizenship lies in growing universal awareness of the need for people to see themselves as having responsibili-ties and rights that transcend national borders.The idea that an individual can com-mit to making a difference by being a “global citizen” presents an antidote to the pessimism, and indeed cynicism, engendered by much of the corporate media and scholarly analysis. One feels less helpless in facing global challeng-es when one knows that one is facing them with others who feel, by reading this magazine, as global citizens, a re-sponsibility to act.

A New Philosophy

Becoming global citizens does not only mean that we can act, but that we can learn to act in ways that mitigate com-plex problems. Individuals who know they do not have answers to the world’s problems can still feel empowered if they have developed a philosophy of ac-tion and learning that simultaneously

promotes humility and confi dence in approaching problems. Through such a philosophy, awareness of daunting chal-lenges becomes recognized as the fi rst step not the end point of inquiry.What must I do? What can I do? What will I do? Whose job is it? These are the critical questions that must be on eve-ryone’s mind as we move forward. Each one of us must take responsibility.Of course, these are all contested ques-tions with vast ramifi cations, and are concepts that can be studied in depth. They help us to think about the personal behaviour dimension of being a good global citizen, as well as its political di-mension. The most important thing that we have to remember in enhancing our ability and being global citizens is that every detail makes a difference, because we are all part of this globalized world.

We need to confront with vision, cour-age and persistence the deep-seated practical and ethical dilemmas that are part of the international development challenge. These are deeply rooted in cultures and differences in religions, tra-ditions, and values.Today, we face a global challenge where every country, region and community has a unique history and character, yet is bound to each other in ways we could not envisage before. Today, no problem stays dormant in any geographic area.We have an individual and collective re-sponsibility for leadership in translating this potential for global citizenship into

actions that effectively build a better world. To do this, you need not only the equipment and technology, but also skills, passion and knowledge. You also need to have a keen awareness of the ethical and cultural issues that constantly shape views and actions across the globe.

Part of the solution consists of striving for a new level of un-derstanding about the complexity of the web of connections among issues, cultures, and countries, part in harnessing the power of technology, experience, energy and ideas that we know exists. But it is also important to work towards a strong-er global dialogue, a compassionate, open, and demanding quest, with more appreciation of the complexities and dilem-mas that face us and more respect and humility in the face of differences, intolerance, racism and such diffi culties. We must go beyond the confi nes of a country, a discipline, an argument if we are to fi nd solutions. We do not have all the answers and we all have much to learn. There is not one “globalization” solution, and what appears simple one mo-ment may raise the most complex problems in reality on the ground.We all have an obligation to reason and act as world citizens. Therefore, it is necessary that all of us equip ourselves with necessary skills to deal with the global world economy - such as foreign language fl uency, an open-minded mentality to-wards other cultures and cross-cultural communication skills. We all face the challenge of a lifetime of learning, stretching us to understand new cultures and disciplines, and to adapt to new realities.

About the author: Jorge Marcano from Venezuela is a student in the European

Master’s Programme on Work, Organizational and Personnel

Psychology.

Email: [email protected]


Your Say

India, the next Superpower:

Myth or Reality? A Look at the Journey Towards a Holistic Social and Human Approach to Life

to contend with the developed econo-mies of USA or Europe or fast develop-ing economies like China and others. In the fi eld of economics India is thought to refl ect tremendous results. Indeed India has come a long way. There are amazing improvements in the fi eld of science and technology, in the IT sector major strides have been taken forward. Many other instances can be cited to show that India is really moving forward in certain sectors of life. Cases may be illustrated from our day-to-day lives to show that the advancement in the area of science and technology is no longer the preserve of a small segment of so-ciety. Today even the hawkers selling

their product in the trains, buses; the auto rickshaw drivers; the fi shermen; the cooks - all carry mobile phones with them. And it is no more considered to be a luxury item; people are increasingly coming to a situation where they can-not really afford to work without it. This is, indeed, a big leap forward. If this can be called advancement then there is no hesitation in saying that India has made considerable progress.

In the present international scenar-io China and India are being seen as economies with enormous potential. Their incomes have been growing at remarkably high rates over the last two decades following a period of liberali-zation of their economies to a relative extent. India as well as China are be-ginning to attract the attention of the multinational corporations in view of the relative stagnation of the econo-mies of USA and Europe. Due to their large populations, their growing military strength, economic potential and infl u-ence in international affairs these two countries are being cited as having the capacity to infl uence the future course of action in world politics thereby hav-ing the potential to reach the status of superpower. Whatever the reasons for enlisting them as ‘Asian giants’ in the category of superpower, attention should be paid towards the actual posi-tion to see whether they are real ‘giants’ or not. This would mean that the mere setting up of shopping malls in any and every corner of the city will not solve the problem. In reality, shopping malls cater to a very small segment of the popu-lation. Care should be taken to provide basic amenities to the masses in view of the situation that an inequality be-

Currently India is being visualized as a superpower in the making. And it is in this context that a vital question can be raised: can India be a superpower? To better understand the position of India in the international arena, let us begin with the dictionary meaning of the term ‘superpower’. The term ‘su-perpower’ implies a powerful and infl uential nation, especially a nuclear power that dominates its allies or client states in an international power bloc. In its generic sense, those few states with power may be referred to as superpowers where a combination of a series of variables are considered to be essential for transcending the rest of the states in the inter-national arena. These variables include the size of the popu-lation, economic wealth and military strength, besides other requirements. All these factors contribute to make a nation developed.With the booming Information Technology (IT) sector India is being visualized as an upcoming country competent enough

India should direct its attention towards improving the lives of its citizens.

tion, these facts are of vital importance to a country’s growth and progress. India has a population of more than a billion and it has the world’s eleventh largest economy. Although it aspires to become a superpower, one should also be aware of the fact that more than a quarter of the world’s poorest people reside in this portion of the world. Today widespread poverty has become a remarkable trademark of India. Poverty is also the cause of many other problems like child labour, unemployment, health and other issues. Even after more than 50 years of independence it is a shame that the world’s largest number of poor people reside in India. It is estimated that of its nearly one billion inhabitants, 260.3 million are below the poverty line of which 193.2 million are in the rural areas and 67.1 million are in urban areas.

Although reduction of poverty has been a declared goal of the development planning of the Indian government since the 1970s it may be said that much has not been achieved yet. One of the reasons for this state of affairs can be attributed to

Your Say

tween the rural and urban populations has been growing at an alarming rate, resulting in unrest among the impover-ished majority of the population.

Being very positive about India’s abil-ity to become a developed nation, it could be argued that the development paradigm is to be shifted away from mere economic development. The aim should rather be towards developing a more holistic social and human ap-proach to life. This implies that devel-opment should be much more than just achieving high rates of gross domestic product (GDP). Development, in order to be effective, should focus on all round development of the nation rather than just measurement of development in terms of GDP alone. A country’s level of human development is to be linked with the issue of a well-developed and prosperous economy. The human devel-opment index (HDI) denotes much more than high income or productivity of a country. HDI emphasizes the process of how high income or productivity is turned into education and health op-portunities and consequently into high-er levels of human development. It may be pointed out here that HDI includes three basic dimensions. They are life ex-pectancy at birth as an index of popu-lation health and longevity; knowledge and education, which are measured by adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio; and the standard of living measured by GDP per capita. In short, it denotes a means of measuring standard wellbeing. Needless to men-

the lack of transparency and account-ability at all levels of administration. And although it has more than 250 Uni-versities, still the fact remains that 39% of adult Indians are unable to read or write. The adult literacy rate is 61% and this rate is behind the literacy scenario of Rwanda and barely ahead of Sudan. This could be arguably overstated, since people who are considered literate sometimes can hardly do anything more than sign their names.The enrolment rate of children in schools is another problem area. The enrolment of 6-15 year olds in schools is showing signs of decline and it is being seen that about 40 million children who are sup-posed to be in school are not. It is equally unfortunate to fi nd out that more than a quarter of India’s population live on less than a dollar a day. If we turn our atten-tion to the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report we will see that In-dia ranks 128th in terms of human health and welfare out of 177 countries.

There can be no doubt about the great potential of countries like India and Chi-na but at the same time one must also be aware of the severe structural and institutional lacunae existing here at all levels of functioning. And with such acute problems the hype about Indian economy in the world of affairs seems to me somewhat premature. India, in order to become a signifi cant player in the international economic scene on a sustained basis has to overcome these pitfalls and roadblocks. It should direct its attention towards improving the lives of its citizens. Experience in India shows that it has a long way to go in order to feed millions of its citizens, provide pure drinking water, electricity, education, paid employment and such other basic amenities of life. It goes without saying that when these requirements are ful-fi lled, India, or for that matter any other developing country, will be able to raise itself to the status of superpower.

About the author: Aktar Ali from India is a student in the

European Master’s Programme in Life-

long Learning: Policy & Management.

29

There are major differences between urban and rural life in India.

“India, in order to become a signifi cant player in the inter-national economic

scene on a sustained basis has to over-come these pitfalls and roadblocks.“

The transition of the workplace for an International Health expert:

Top row: Scenes of the clinical training course Advanced Management of biological Threats AMBIT, developed to train clinical personnel and public health offi cials in the management of highly contagious diseases.

Middle: The Guesthouse of the Federal Foreign Offi ce, the ‘Villa Borsig’, venue of the 2008 G8 AMBIT LEPH, a G8 workshop on forensic epidemiology, where the Public Health sector met the Law Enforcement sector to discuss and train national and international cooperation in the dealing with crime involving bio-logical agents.

Lower row: Scenes of LEPH (Law Enforcement and Public Health) coopera-tion, which has many aspects: Joint tactical operations include set-up and man-agement of ‘mobile towns’ that include tents and containers for coordination, communication, decontamination and medical treatment; Special-ops, aided and advised by biologists and medical doctors; Border posts at airports, which comprise the fi rst opportunity to detect the importation of diseases by travelers that are manned by trained federal police offi cers.


Your Say

Berlin, June 14, 2008 – Virchow Science - Biotech Park

“I am counting down: three … two … one … fl ashbang, fl ashbang, fl ashbang!”

The door blew open, six police Special Forces offi cers wearing armour, weapons and respirators stormed into the laboratory. There, a person in a yellow Tyvek overall, wearing a mask and goggles, was mixing solutions in front of an animal cage. He was taken by utter surprise. Stunned by the speed of the ac-tion the subject in the protective suit was wrestled down and hand-cuffed without any resistance.

“German police! You are under arrest! Do you understand?”

A faint ‘yes’ could be heard distorted by heavy breathing un-der his mask. 25 seconds after the door fl ew open, the labora-tory was secured, the subject in custody. He was brought out and relocated to the mobile decontamination facility. Out-side of the view from the laboratory complex a small mobile tent-city had been put up just an hour earlier. Between the erection of tents and the hectic set-up of container-based facilities, a combined task force of Police and Public Health forces prepared for the takedown. Offi cers from the Federal Police, Federal Criminal Offi ce and the Robert Koch-Institut were working together to develop the best tactical approach, necessary protective equipment, medical treatment options and discussed the strategy on how to best investigate the sus-pected terror laboratory and how to make sure that neither evidence nor specimens were compromised.

Berlin, Robert Koch-Institut

One and a half years earlier

During the last two years I studied In-ternational Health as an EM TropEd stu-dent and I was introduced to its many different aspects: from tropical diseases and sexual health through public health and epidemiology to health economics.

All these were united by mainly one fea-ture: most happened in the context of Africa or rural Asian settings. Still, my new offi ce was as far away from the next malaria case as it could be: I found myself spending some time in Berlin at Germany’s federal public health depart-ment, the Robert Koch-Institut. From the perspective of the Federal Government (Health is generally a re-

International Health from within Germany

How Tropical Medicine can Become a lot of Fun Outside the Tropics

31

Your Say

sponsibility of Germany’s federal states), next to crunching of nation-wide health data, there are two special circumstanc-es when a degree in public health comes in handy: a state-spanning outbreak or the threat of such an outbreak by the importation of infectious diseases by travelers. A particular case of ‘impor-tation’ could also be the intentional release of a biological agent referred to as bio-terrorism. As many of these diseases originally come from exotic places, knowledge of tropical diseases is a valuable add-on. By chance, I landed in such a convergence zone: the federal coordination center for biological emer-gencies. Besides a multitude of other responsibilities my new workgroup had developed a practical training course for medical fi rst responders on the man-agement of highly contagious diseases: Advanced Management of Biological Threats – or, in short – AMBIT. My fi rst task was to help to internationalize AM-

BIT for a special audience: the Global Health Security Initiative, a multi-na-tion network dealing with all aspects of health emergencies. I realized: this was my fi rst act of international health from WITHIN Germany. The course’s success seeded even a more interesting project: the organization of a G8 conference on Forensic Epidemiology.Forensic Epidemiology in this context basically describes the cooperation of the public health and law enforcement sectors in prevention and investigation of crime involving biological agents. To-gether with the German Federal Foreign Offi ce and our US partners, the Depart-ment of State, the Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Bureau of In-vestigation, we developed a 3-day pro-gram, in the course of which we decided to try an interactive and PowerPoint-light AMBIT approach for one day.

Berlin, June 12, 2008

A Scenario unfolds

Representatives from the G8 public health and law enforce-ment sectors were meeting at the guesthouse of the Foreign Offi ce in Berlin. A discussion on protective equipment was interrupted by the ringing of the phone in the conference room: A detective of the Federal Criminal Offi ce reported the receiving a video-threat message at the Federal Chancellery depicting a man in protective gear, diseased animals, a labo-ratory and pictures of diseased patients in a rural hospital. The message was immediately relayed into the conference room and a joint investigative task force was formed.Over the course of the day participants had to face numerous situations which needed to be solved by public health and law enforcement sides. Together it was established that the received message posed a credible threat as reports emerged of a smallpox-like disease carried by travelers in Italy and the UK at the same time. Finally, a sick and suspicious passenger was picked-up by boarder security offi cers at Berlin’s airport and needed to be interrogated although being contagious and in serious medical condition. A real-life interrogation revealed the possible location of the laboratory and a developed joint strategy for the takedown which climaxed in “German po-lice! You are under arrest!”, ending not only the career of the man in the protective suit, but also, for the time being, my own at the Robert Koch Institute, which I left soon after the G8 conference to embark on a PhD in Australia; dealing with health-only issues again.

Beyond G8

International terrorism became a constant topic on the agenda of the yearly G8 summit. In the case of bio-terrorism, where detection, investigation into the source of disease and containment are critical components, efforts in international capacity building can be rewarding beyond national security, by the accelerated identifi cation of the source, improved in-ternational cooperation in disease surveillance and informa-tion exchange on infectious diseases; all integral elements necessary to prevent global epidemics of diseases. Besides individual out-reach initiatives to other countries by the G8 nations, the G8 AMBIT was observed with interest by rep-resentatives of the European Union, Interpol and the World Health Organization and in this way hopefully contributed to make knowledge and expertise also available beyond the cir-cle of the G8.

About the author: Gregor Lichtfuss is an alumnus of the TropEd Programme.

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