UNESCO celebrates 30 years of UNESCO Chairs - Carinthia University of Applied Sciences was there.

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„Austrian UNESCO chairholder and representatives of the Austrian embassy in Paris" und Vertreter*innen der österreichischen Botschaft in Paris: from left to right: Michael Jungmeier, Michael Shamiyeh (UNESCO Chair in Participatory Techniques and Future Design, University of Arts Linz), Anna-Maria Baumgartner and Lisa Unterlerchner (Austrian representatives at UNESCO) and Hans Karl Peterlini (UNESCO Chair on Global Citizenship Education, University Klagenfurt)

‘Building bridges, breaking down walls’. UNESCO Chairs are research and educational institutions dedicated to important humanity issues.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the UNESCO Chair Programme, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convened a conference in Paris. Under the motto ‘Transforming knowledge for just and sustainable futures’, UNESCO chairholders from all over the world met at the beginning of the conference. Together with other representatives from Austria, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences was represented at the conference by Michael Jungmeier, Professor for Nature Conservation and Sustainability and UNESCO chairholder for ‘Sustainable Management of Conservation Areas’ at CUAS.

‘It is a great recognition to be able to represent our University of Applied Sciences in this impressive group of leading scientists’, reports Michael Jungmeier. ‘Numerous workshops and a plenary session were held to reflect on what science and education systems should look like in the future’.

The UNESCO Chair was established in 2020 at CUAS. The research group around Prof Jungmeier shall implement excellent research and provide inspiring learning experiences for nature conservation in the 21st century and thus ‘support individuals, institutions and societies in the management of protected areas’. The chair's activities are based on an interdisciplinary, holistic, and integrated understanding of nature conservation and protected areas, as exemplified by UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, UNESCO World Heritage Sites and UNESCO Geoparks. In this way, the protection of biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development goals (SDGs) are supported. The activities of the research group are presented on the webpage www.cuas.at/unesco-chair.