Rio+20 Regional Science and Technology Workshop for Europe
The Rio+20 Regional Science and Technology Workshop for Europe was held 12-14 October 2011 in Helsinki, Finland. It was part of the regional workshop series that were organized prior to the intergovernmental Rio+20 preparatory meetings. Regional workshops gave each region's scientific and technological community the opportunity to prepare concerted inputs for the regional preparatory processes, and to discuss their views with policy makers and other key actors. In this way, region-specific scientific knowledge, issues and concerns can be integrated to the Rio+20 Conference to be held 4-6 June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Helsinki Workshop brought together prestigious natural scientists, social scientists and engineers from across Europe to discuss the main themes of the Rio+20 conference from the point of view of the European scientific and technological community. There was also representation from North America, and from the other main stakeholder groups of society (Major Groups), along with high-level policy makers.
The main outcome of the workshop is a joint statement that expresses key issues and concerns from the European scientific and technological community regarding the main themes of Rio+20 conference:
- green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable development
- the institutional framework for sustainable development
- new and emerging challenges
In the workshop there were three thematic working groups, each focusing on one of these themes.
The workshop was organized by the Group of the European members of ICSU, in cooperation with ICSU and UNESCO. The local organizer of the Workshop, the Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters, hosts the newly founded Secretariat for the European members.
The Rio+20 Regional Workshop for Europe was also supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, the Aalto University, and the Finnish National Commission for UNESCO. The President of the Republic of Finland Ms. Tarja Halonen was the patron of the Regional Science and Technology Workshop for Europe.
Please learn more about the regional science and technology workshop series from the website of ICSU and more on the Ri0+20 process from the official UN Rio+20 website.