From 15 to 17 June, the President of CIHEAM, Mr Masum Burak, and the Director of the Institute of Zaragoza, Mr Ignacio Romagosa, welcomed more than 80 officials from 5 continents and discussed the main challenges for the Higher Education systems in agriculture.
The CIHEAM-IAM of Zaragoza together with the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), the Union for the Mediterranean, the Association for European Life Science Universities (ICA), the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA), the Centre for Agricultural Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA-ATK) and the with the financial support of the OECD Co-operative Research Programme on Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems has organized in Zaragoza from 15 to 17 June 2015 the International Conference on “Agricultural Higher Education in the 21st century. A global challenge in knowledge transfer to meet world demands for food security and sustainability.”
The goal of this conference was to bring together experts from around the world to carry out a reflection and launch ideas about the growing problems associated with agricultural higher education on a global and local level. This International Conference has been opened by Dr. Masum Burak, President of the CIHEAM Governing Board. In his speech, he said “the main topics of your conference are central and crucial when considering the evolution of an Institution like ours that, in partnership with the main regional institutions and beyond, offers 20 Master programmes every year, in an international and multicultural framework as well as a wide array of specialized advanced training activities in fields such as Food production and quality management, Environment and natural resources management, Economics, management and development policies, Fisheries and aquaculture.” The conference has been attended by more than 80 officials, mainly Rectors, Deans and Directors of Agricultural Colleges and Research Institutions from 27 countries on five continents (Albania, Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Costa Rica, USA, Egypt, Spain, France, Holland, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Malta, Pakistan, oland, Portugal, Romania, United Kingdom, Sweden, Tunisia and Turkey).
Throughout these days, discussion focused mainly on:
− Identification of the main challenges of higher agricultural education both globally and locally
− The changing patterns of education and necessary innovations to be brought in curricula
− Globalization and Partnerships for International Cooperation
The main outcomes of the Conference will be available on http://www.iamz.ciheam.org/educagri2015/
An issue of Options Méditerranéennes will be published with the presentations