Eurogeo

Contact person:  Karl Donert

eurogeomail [at] yahoo.co.uk

 

is a consultant and education specialist. He is Director of the European Centre of Excellence,  digital-earth.eu, based at Salzburg University, Austria and Director of the Innovative Learning Network.
He is President of EUROGEO (the European Association of Geographers), a UK National Teaching Fellow who worked at Liverpool Hope University. He is Adjunct Professor at the University of Salzburg and was coordinator of the HERODOT Network for Geography in higher education. Current projects include the GeoSkills Plus, GeoCapabilities and the School on the Cloud network.
He is Vice President of the Democracy, Social Cohesion and Global Challenges group at the Council of Europe, an expert to the European Commission in Brussels, an elected member of Academea Europea,  and former Hon. Vice President of the Geographical Association.
He researches and publishes widely on many aspects of geographical education, the use of geo-media and new technologies and on the State of Geography in Europe.

 

 

Description of the smart city learning group operating in the affiliated institution

 

EUROGEO (http://www.eurogeography.eu) was established in 1979 as an Association of national associations, with strong support from the European Commission. National bodies in Europe were networked together, to represent the views and opinions of geography educators in different European countries. They met every two years and published a bulletin called EUROGEO. 
In 1987, in recognition of its activities, the Association was granted official consultative status to the Council of Europe, making it one of the first to be awarded this position. Since 2003 EUROGEO has been a full participant of the Council of Europe, being the voice of geography and geographers there, actively lobbying politicians and their advisors on themes relevant to Smart City Learning, such as sustainable development, open data, ICT developments, human rights and citizenship education.
Following reform in 2009, EUROGEO became a membership organization allowing individuals and institutions with an interest in geography, its theory and methods to become involved. 
The Association is an international non-profit organization (INGO) incorporated under the name EUROGEO: the European Association of Geographers by the provisions of Title III of the Belgian law of June 27, 1921. Within this remit an interest group on the uses of new technologies in education has been established focusing on the use of spatial thinking, geoinformation and geo-media in education and society.

 

 

Competences

 

As a European scientific society, EUROGEO has the competence to develop, support and promote policies and actions designed to advance the status of Geography; establish and promote cross-border cooperation; promote education and training in fields like Smart City Learning from a European perspective and represent nationally and internationally the views of its members. In this respect EUROGEO is involved in education and research projects relating to Smart City Learning and Objectives and provides an outlet for researchers in the domain through its events and its independent peer reviewed international publication, the European Journal of Geography.
The Association supports geographers in their jobs and careers, promoting good practice and co-operating with agencies such as the European Union, Council of Europe, European Commission, UNEP, World Bank and other relevant organizations.
EUROGEO has expertise in project conceptualisation, proposal writing, project management, evaluation and networking. Members have expertise in geotechnologies and geo-media, learning, education and training. EUROGEO regularly runs high quality events and its journal, European Journal of Geography http://www.eurogeographyjournal.eu, is ISI cited and in Scopus.

 

 

Relevant achievements, best practices, products

 

EUROGEO is recognised as a leading European scientific membership society. In 2013 itwas successful in gaining the prestigious Jean Monnet operating grant for European associations. 
In 2014, EUROGEO was given an international award by the GeoSpatial World Forum, in recognition of its capacity building education activities in the digital-earth.eu project.   
EUROGEO has a series of high quality European training courses, iGuess and iGuess 2 (Introductory courses on using GIS in education), Spatial Citizenship (SPACIT), Digital Earth: Using geo-media in learning and teaching, I-Use (use of statistics and data in school education).  See http://www.eurogeography.eu for more information.

 

 

On going challenges

 

The principal challenges that remain are to 

a) connect and network scientists working in the field and 

b) influence Europe 2020 strategy about delivering growth that is smart, sustainable and inclusive through Smart City Learning research and training. 

Policy initiatives need to underline the importance of the engagement of local authorities and citizens and also, the implementation of smart approaches to living and working environments. The Digital Agenda has sought to enhance digital literacy and to define ICT competences. However these European challenges must be especially contextualised in urban areas, which already contains more than 73 % of Europe’s population, generate around 80 % of GDP and consume up to 70 % of the energy in the Union (European Urban Agenda). 
Smart City Learning needs to integrate, in an interdisciplinary way, two big issues: 

i) digital education including digital literacy; and 

ii) education for sustainable development. 

This entails gathering both challenges as they are the illustration of managing living areas with ICT to raise awareness of and improve energy consumption, mobility, environment, resource management, etc.

Emerging technologies need to be united under the umbrella of the Internet of Things, Citizen Science and developments like smart cities. 

 

 

Relevant publications

 

• Donert K (in press, 2015), Digital Earth – Digital World: strategies for geospatial technologies in 21st century education, In Muñiz Solari O, Demirci A, van der Schee J (Eds.), Geospatial Technologies and Geography Education in a Changing World, Netherlands, Springer 

 

• De Miguel. R., & Donert, K. (Eds.), (2014). Learning Geography in Europe: new challenges for the 21st Century. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

 

• Donert K (2014), Digital-Earth.eu – a European network for Digital Earth Education in Geography, European Journal of Geography, volume 4(1), http://www.eurogeographyjournal.eu

 

• Vogler R, Koller A and Donert K (Eds.) (2013), Education for Digital Earth, In Jekel T, Car A, Strobl J and Griesbner G, GI_Forum 2013: Creating the GISociety, 377-477, Berlin, Wichman Verlag,

 

• Donert K (2014), Building Capacity for Digital Earth education in Europe, p11-38, In De Miguel. R., & Donert, K. (Eds.), Learning Geography in Europe: new challenges for the 21st Century. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

 

• Vogler R, Henning S, Jekel T and Donert K (2012), Towards a concept of “Spatially-enabled learning”, p204-211: In Jekel T, Car A, Strobl J and Griesbner M, (eds.) Geovisualisation, Society and Learning, Berlin, Wichman Verlag

 

• Blaschke T, Donert K, Gossette F, Kienberger S, Marani M, Qureshi S and Tiede D (2012), Virtual Globes: Serving Science and Society, Information, 3 (1), 1-20

 

• Blaschke, T., Strobl, J., Donert, K. (2011): Geographic Information Science: building a doctoral programme integrating interdisciplinary concepts and methods. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 21, 139-146.

 

• Donert K, Hay I, Theobald R, Valiunite V & Wakefield K (2011), International Collaboration in Organizations Promoting Geography Education: Exploring Success and Acknowledging Limitations, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 35, No. 3, 1–11

 

• Gryl I, Jekel T and Donert K (2010), Spatial Citizenship, p2-12, In Jekel T, Donert K and Koller A (eds.) Learning with GeoInformation V, Berlin, Wichman Verlag