Russia

Russian – British Conference held in Moscow at
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Faculty of Geography 27 – 29 June 2002

Forty delegates from Russia and Britain met in June in Moscow to share ideas and good practice in education for sustainable development. The conference was hosted by the Faculty of Geography at Moscow State University (MSU), one of the largest communities of geographers and environmental scientists in the world. It comprises over 700 faculty 1000 undergraduate students and 150 post-graduates, based in 14 departments.

The two-day conference was jointly organised by the Learning and Teaching Support Network – National Subject Centre for Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, (LTSN – GEES) University of Plymouth and the Faculty of Geography, MSU.

Key themes included: progress on greening the HE curriculum, curriculum innovation, indicators of sustainable development, roles of NGOs in environmental education, outdoor education for sustainability, radio ecology and sustainability and the professions.

Senior civil servants and members of the State Duma provided an insight into Russian policy on sustainable development. Important policy areas include enhancing human capital through education and training, whilst sustaining the huge areas of natural capital within the Russian Federation. They stressed that regional differences would require different approaches, including different legal and political structures. Delegates were also informed of some of the significant challenges facing Russia, including over 61000 radioactive contaminated sites, many of which are close to cities.

The British delegation included presentations on outdoor education and the role of NGOs. Prof. Martin Haigue from Oxford Brookes University argued that NGOs were lead agencies for change in the UK HE curriculum. Prof. David Eastwood from University of Ulster spoke about an innovative web-based virtual MSc in Education for Sustainable Development which he and his staff have pioneered. Prof. Stephen Martin, vice chair of the Institution for Environmental Sciences, spoke about the role of professionals and education for sustainable development, and introduced the foundation course – Professional Practice for Sustainable Development (PP4SD). There was a great deal of interest in how universities here and in Russia might introduce such programmes into industry and commerce. Other contributions came from Prof Shirley Ali Khan on ESD developments in higher education in the UK and from Prof Bill Scott and Dr Steve Gough on UNESCO initiatives in higher education and Prof Peter Higgins on the key role of outdoor education and education for sustainable development. Professor Brian Chalkley, Director of the LTSN – GEES Network at the University of Plymouth in summarising what further action was needed to strengthen education for sustainable development in universities, suggested that action was needed at five levels:

• a stronger emphasis within environmental sciences programmes
• new degree programmes
• greater emphasis on greening other disciplines
• greater emphasis on greening universities as institutions
• closer links with the professions