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Edu-BioMed project has worked to strengthen, foster and upgrade academic activity at four Moroccan and Lebanese universities in the context of Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves.
Learning about Biosphere Reserves is equivalent thus to learn about matters of sustainability: environmental protection, territorial management, sustainable development.
Understanding a Biosphere Reserve is to understand issues in socio-ecological studies.
Managing a Biosphere Reserve requires a particular set of soft and hard skills.
Besides being an object of study, Biosphere Reserves are also tools for learning, ‘living laboratories’. That is why learning should be context-based, exploiting the territory as a teaching environment.
We, the partners of the Edu-BioMed project – Capacity Building for Education and Applied Research in Mediterranean UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserves, call for an alliance among the Higher Education Institutions and the Biosphere Reserves (BRs) of the Mediterranean region through a collaboration that can lead to:
– strengthening bonds between Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves and universities in the context of the newly created Mediterranean MAB UNESCO network,
– build common paths for research that take into account both parts’ agendas and needs, through the creation of an informal “scientific committee”,
– develop and apply for joint projects that support the management of BRs and sustainable development in BRs,
– allow mobility periods for study, research and training for students, taking into account both parts’ agendas and needs, through the informal “scientific committee”,
– allow mobility periods for research and training for academics, taking into account both parts’ agendas and needs, through the informal “scientific committee”,
– define proposals for Joint Master Degrees, Double Degrees aiming at strengthening the students’ perspectives on the study and analysis of the Biosphere Reserves, and of the natural and social environment and sustainable development,
– stress the importance of cooperation among biosphere reserves and Universities on a local, national and international dimension,
– share the knowledge and resources useful for both Academia and Biosphere Reserves.
