The main purpose of this Newsletter is to bring to subscribers' attention some of the recent developments that you can read more about or engage with in some active way on the Observatory website.

The Observatory Website has now been completely rebuilt. You will find it much easier to use, and offering an increasingly wide range of materials, links and contacts. Please use it as regularly and actively as you can. Mary Serafim, the website manager (mary.serafim@rmit.edu.au), be pleased to receive your comments and suggestions on its operation. If you have suggestions which are more of a policy nature then Peter Welsh (peter.welsh@kent.gov.au), a member of the Pascal Board and Executive, will be pleased to hear from you. Now that we have a better and more user-friendly architecture the Website should become more interactive, hosting discussion not only of the periodic Hot Topics but also of other policy subjects of common interest. In Victoria, Australia, a foundation regional member which was largely responsible for our opening emphasis on place management, the current buzz-word to reflect priorities is liveability. Does this have resonance also in other places?

The Website is able to host both open and restricted access forum billboards, and will welcome approaches from Associates, Members and others to create such a facility in areas of relevance and importance. We also welcome the opportunity to profile your initiatives in our fields of interest and to announce events on our behalf.

Recent Hot Topics have been provided by Henrik Zipsane (Sweden) (no.19) on Heritage Learning; Margaret Steinberg and others (Queensland) (no.18) on the New Demography of Older Populations, and by Joe Lo Bianco (no.17) on Language, Place and Learning, following those by Aune Valk (no.16) on Identity and David Adams (no.15) on Virtual Communities earlier in the year.

This month will also see the Hot Topic by David Charles of Newcastle in England (no.20) on the subject of Universities and Engagement with Cities, Regions and Local Communities, preceded as usual by a trailer, this time by John Douglass of Berkeley, California.

Early next year we will provide a Hot Topic on the vital subject global warming, governance and learning.

The Website will lead you to the wealth of material generated by the recent (September) Conference, hosted by the University of Pecs in Hungary and managed by Professor Balazs Nemeth. It will also point you to our 6th international conference at Limerick in Ireland scheduled for 28-30 May 2008. The theme is Learning Regions’ Role in Regional Development and Regeneration and you may also find details at http://www.ul.ie/dllo/conference/. The deadline for receipt of abstracts around themes of regional development, social capital, regeneration and learning regions is 8 February 2008. We advise early booking of flights to Shannon airport, near Limerick to take advantage of the very low fares within Europe offered by the low-cost airline, Ryanair (http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/).

This conference will combine the culmination of the PENR3L (PASCAL European Network of Lifelong Regions) (www.penr3l.feek.pte.hu) project with a focus on the work of the OECD on the contribution of higher education to regional development (www.oecd.org/edu/higher/regionaldevelopment), kicked off by Richard Yelland, Head of the OECD Institutional Management in Higher Education Programme.

The 7th PASCAL Observatory International Conference - Regional Development: Sustainable Coastal Futures, hosted by Kent County Council will be held in Folkstone from 21-23 September 2008. More details will soon be available on the website. Pascal has recently become an Associate Member of CITNET (www.citynet-ap.org), being admitted at the November meeting of the CITYNET Executive Committee at Makati in the Philippines, thereby strengthening its links with a wide range of leading learning-oriented cities across many regions of the world.

In January 2008 PASCAL will be co-sponsoring two events in the Italian regions of Sicily and Puglia. Our chair Dr Jarl Bengtsson, co-director, Professor Michael Osborne and associate Professor Norman Longworth are speaking at these conferences in Catania (10 January, Lifelong Learning and Democracy) and Bari (12 January, Learning Regions, Learning Cities for the Information Society and for Economic Development). We are particularly pleased to announce that both the University of Catania and Universus Bari (representing all four business schools in Puglia) have become PASCAL subscribers. Details of arrangements for membership are found on the site at http://www.obs-pascal.com/node/727.

The Pascal Northern Node has hitherto been the University of Stirling. Stirling has just honoured Dr Jarl Bengtsson, the Chair of the Observatory Board and former Director of OECD's CERI, with an honorary degree. Stirling has given great and much appreciates support to Pascal in its formative years. With the appointment of Pascal Co-Director Mike Osborne to a Chair at the University of Glasgow, this Northern Node will pass from the 1 February 2008 to Glasgow. The strong links with Stirling will continue by means of the several Pascal Associates based there.