2016 UE4SD Conference

Fabrice Millet is the Chief of the ASYCUDA Programme, the largest Technical Assistance Programme of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which has played a major role in the modernization of the Customs Administrations in 100 countries for three decades.

His work focuses on information technology and technological innovations applied to the automation of international trade processes and Customs reform. He has a longstanding involvement in ASYCUDA, playing a leading role in the design and technical development of the third (ASYCUDA++) and fourth (ASYCUDAWorld) generations of the associated software product.

Under his leadership the Programme has promoted trade efficiency through the use of international standards, the development of G2G and G2B solutions for Customs and Other Government Agencies (OGAs). From 2000 to 2010 the Programme has shifted from a north-south cooperation scheme to a south-south model, strongly supporting regional expertise.

Before joining the UNCTAD in 1990, he had worked as an engineer, team leader and consultant for the private sector and international organizations.  

Daniella is Vice-Chancellor and CEO of the University of Gibraltar. She is internationally recognised for her expertise in leadership, learning and institutional change for sustainable development. She is the recipient of several research awards including the Macquarie Innovation Award for Research (Australia 2007) and Marie Curie International Research Fellowship (European Commission 2009). The institutional change efforts she led at the University of Gloucestershire were recognized with a Green Gown Award in 2007, 2011. She was the founder Director of the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustianability (ARIES).

Daniella has assessed strategic higher education initiatives for government agencies in Australia, New Zealand, China, Morocco and Europe. Together with Dr Alex Ryan, she led a large HEFCE QAA funded ‘Leadership, Governance and Management’ project on embedding sustainability into quality assurance processes in higher education (2010-12) and a Higher Education Academy study into flexible learning and new pedagogical ideas (2013).

She was awarded a PhD (University of Cambridge, St Catherine’s College) in the early 1990s. She acted as lead evaluator for projects funded by the European Union, United Nations, World Conservation Union (IUCN), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), British Council, and several government agencies organizations. She chaired the UNESCO Global Monitoring and Evaluation Expert Group on Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). She leads the University Educators for Sustainable Development Project (UE4SD), a project that brings together 53 Universities across Europe, to embed sustainability into teaching and learning.

Focal Point - Education, Training and Public Awareness

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat

Adriana Valenzuela has extensive experience in working with the UN system, government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and youth on education, training and public awareness initiatives, in particular related to education for sustainable development and climate change. In 2013, Ms. Valenzuela joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn. She works at the Action for Climate Empowerment Unit, which supports the implementation of the six elements of Article 6 of the UNFCCC – education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information and international cooperation. Previously, she was a lead negotiator at the climate change conferences on issues related to education and served as Chair of the G/77 and China. She worked with UNITAR, in the implementation of a UN CC:Learn project collaborating closely with UN international partners (33 multilateral organizations), Parties, NGOs, and other relevant organizations. Ms. Valenzuela has experience in initiating, designing and implementing Article 6 related activities at national and local levels, in particular, preparing a national strategy of Colombia on Article 6 of the Convention and a local strategy on climate change education, training and public awareness in Bogota. One achievement was founding a youth movement in Columbia that worked on sustainability issues, which was then mobilized by young people from 22 countries.

Fernando Galván is Full Professor of English since 1990, and currently Rector/President of the University of Alcalá, Madrid (2010-2018). He has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Glasgow (DLitt, 2012), the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in León (2012) and the National University of Villarrica in Paraguay (2014). He has been Visiting Scholar at the Department of Comparative Literature of Harvard University (1993, 1994), Visiting Fellow of Corpus Christi College (Oxford), and Associate Member of the Faculty of English of the University of Oxford (2009). He is a member of IAUPE (International Association of University Professors of English) since 1994, and was appointed in 2003 Corresponding Fellow of The English Association, in the UK.

He has an extensive teaching and research experience, as well as a large publication record. In his capacity as a philologist, he has held important responsibilities at a national and international level: President of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies (AEDEAN: 1996-2002) and President of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE: 2007-2013). He has also held numerous relevant jobs in university administration for more than 30 years. He also chaired the Conference of Rectors of the Universities of Madrid (CRUMA) in 2013. He is now a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP) and President of the Committee for Sustainability of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE).

Professor Heila Lotz-Sisitka holds a Tier 1 South African National Research Foundation Chair in Global Change and Social Learning Systems. She serves as Director of the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University, South Africa. She has served on the UNESCO International Reference Group for the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development, and serves on the international steering committee of the Global Universities Partnership for Environment and Sustainability, a UNEP-led initiative. She is editor of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education. She recently co-edited a Routledge book on ‘Critical Realism, Environmental Learning and Social-Ecological Change’. Her research interests include transformative learning, education and agency in contexts of risk and vulnerability, participation in education, and critical research methodologies.

Professor Nick Foskett is Emeritus Professor of Educational Leadership at Keele University in the UK, and a Consultant in Higher Education leadership, policy and strategy.  From 2010-2015 he was Vice Chancellor (President) and Chief Executive  of Keele University. Prior to his appointment at Keele he had been Dean of the Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Southampton. He began his career as a teacher of Geography and Geology in secondary schools and further education, before taking up a senior administrative post at Aston University. He moved to the University of Southampton in 1989 as a Lecturer in Education, where he progressed to Senior Lecturer and then to Professor of Education, before becoming Head of the School of Education in 2000.

His academic specialism lies in educational policy, leadership and management, with a particular focus on the interaction of policy and practice. His main research contributions have been in the fields of education markets, student choice, the management of institutional partnerships, and processes of internationalisation, particularly in the 14-19 sector and in universities. He also has a long standing interest in the governance of universities.

He retains his passion for geography and the environment and has a strong engagement with sustainability agendas in education. He has promoted a range of national and international projects and initiatives to move universities to engage with sustainability both as organisations and through their curriculum

Rodrigo is an Assistant Professor at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University and from the 1st of January 2016 Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Cleaner Production (impact factor for 2013: 3.58). He was previously programme leader of the BA Environment and Business and lecturer in Corporate Sustainability at the Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, UK. For more than fifteen years Rodrigo has been working towards Sustainability in NGO's, universities, and corporations. His projects have ranged from chemical leasing, indoor-air quality and energy efficiency, to sustainability assessment and reporting, and to organisational change management. He has developed assessment tools such as the GRaphical Assessment of Sustainability Performance (GRASP), the Sustainability Tool for Assessing UNiversities Curricula Holistically (STAUNCH®) (shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Awards in 2008), and the Graphical Assessment for Sustainability in Universities (GASU™). Rodrigo holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering (graduated with honours) from Monterrey Tec, Mexico; a MSc in Environmental Management and Policy, from the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economies (IIIEE) at Lund University, Sweden; and a PhD on organizational change management for Corporate Sustainability at Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK. Rodrigo is also the managing director of Organisational Sustainability Ltd. (http://www.org-sustainability.com ).

Alexander Leicht is Chief of the Section of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education, UNESCO, Paris. Before joining UNESCO in 2011, he was Head of the German Secretariat for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development at the German Commission for UNESCO in Bonn since 2004, where he also led the organizing team for the preparations of the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development in 2009. He also worked three years as a university teacher in Hungary and the United Kingdom and was originally trained as a teacher, with a graduate degree in literature, at the University of Marburg, Germany, and at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. He holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

As Chief of the Section of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education at UNESCO, his current priorities include coordinating the implementation of the Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), the follow-up to the UN Decade of ESD, in its five Priority Action Areas policy, education institutions, educators, youth, and local communities (this includes climate change education, education for disaster risk reduction and education to promote sustainable consumption, among others); and supporting countries to strengthen, mainstream and develop Global Citizenship Education (GCED), including peace and human rights education, and the prevention of violent extremism through education.