Prof. Michel Ricard, ESD UNESCO Chair at Bordeaux INP (Institut National Polytechnique), France, invited CA President Anne Zimmermann to present the COPERNICUS Alliance at the 3rd International Conference of the chair, entitled “Education for Sustainable Development, a Transition Lever for our Societies”. This was an opportunity to establish contacts with some higher education institutions in France and present to them the COPERNICUS Alliance’s new Vision, Mission, and Action Plan.
The rectors and presidents in charge of French-speaking higher education institutions from 22 countries, all members of the UNITWIN network, met in Bordeaux from 27-29 May 2019 to take stock of education, training, and research activities on sustainable development during the three years since the March 2016 conference and to define the 2019-2022 strategy of the chair in association with its different private and public partners. In addition, the conference organizers invited the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), the International Association of Universities (IAU), and the COPERNICUS Alliance to present their networks and their new initiatives to foster ESD in higher education institutions. Participants were also offered a choice of six interesting workshops, with presenters from the academic, economic, political, and civil society worlds. Let us hope that CA’s presence at the conference will lead to new collaborations with universities in France, where important ESD work is being conducted, also in cooperation with French-speaking universities worldwide.