SPbU Will Start Cooperating with the UN-Habitat Program

St Petersburg University held a meeting with Dan Lewis, Chief of the Urban Risk Reduction Unit for UN-Habitat. The parties discussed a cooperation agreement opportunity.

Opening the meeting, Sergey Aplonov, Director of SPbU Institute of Earth Sciences, introduced his colleagues: managers, economists, specialists in international relations and political scientists of the University who are also interested in working together on the UN-Habitat program.

Dan Lewis said that the UN-Habitat agenda was adopted as early as 1996. Building houses was the primary issue then, while today it is definitely urbanisation and urban development.

"The program seeks to bring together specialists in different fields, since the area of urban development is quite new," Dan Lewis said. "The agenda defines the role of the big cities, the positive and negative aspects of climate change as well as the improvement of urban residents' security."

The head of the UN-Habitat program expressed his interest in collaborative research, development of new bachelor programs, master programs and doctoral programs.

The parties agreed to start the preparation of a framework agreement defining the forms of cooperation in the field of research projects and educational programs.