One of the key results of the program is the development of higher education where the preparation of higher education textbooks with new content is crucial for the education personnel and professional development. Members of the program group published seven higher education textbooks just in the last four years. That will significantly contribute to the quality of study at the Department of Geography, and will also be useful for students of other disciplines. Applied physical geography of Slovenia and the Basics of physical geography of Europe are textbooks in the field of physical geography, where is the largest gap in the relevant academic literature. Especially physical geography of Slovenia textbook includes the research results of both authors and is one of the major scientific achievements.
D.10 Educational activities
COBISS.SI-ID: 244410624EU Committee of Regions awarded Irma Potočnik Slavič´s doctoral thesis »Endogenous Development Potentials of Rural Areas (2009). Academic Selection Board consisted of 35 university professors with international scientific reputation evaluated 82 theses addressing »Local and Regional Authorities in the European Union« from diverse scientific disciplines (law, administrative studies, sociology, economy, geography, etc.).
E.02 International awards
Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, together with the University of Aberystwyth (United Kingdom) organized a two days scientific conference in Murska Sobota titled »Globalization and Rural Regions in Europe: Impacts, Challenges and Lessons«, which was the final event of a three year project DERREG (Developing Europe`s Rural Regions in the Era of Globalization). The project as well as the final conference focused on the scientific and professional discussion and survey of the modern globalization processes which impact the European rural areas and their populations as well as they create new relations, conditions and responses in regions, countries and in a wider spatial context.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
COBISS.SI-ID: 47978850Despite pedagogical orientation of programme members group we started to publish the scientific monograph GeograFF in 2008; where mostly members of programme group publish scientific achievements and results. In four years we published 12 monographs. Since 2010 we edit also e-version of monograph (e-GeograFF); all together we published 6 books where mostly results from the physical geography were published.
C.02 Editorial board of a national monograph
COBISS.SI-ID: 247796992The existing views on sustainability are presented in the introduction of this PhD dissertation. Owing to the vague definitions of sustainability and sustainable development, we almost cannot trace the dimensions of sustainability in the regional and local programmes that we analysed. Among the dimensions of sustainability we exposed the importance of ecosystem approach, integrity, well-being, self-sufficiency and public active participation. Using qualitative analyses and partly quantitative estimations, we prepared the criteria for evaluation of regional and local developent programmes from the aspect of sustainability models. Those models present the status of sustainability achieved in the selected municipal and regional development programmes (from very weak to weak and strong sustainability). We then used the methods of evaluating the influence of measures on sustainability (method of four capitals and method of sustainability flower). With the help of those methods we evaluated the importance of connection among natural, social, human and economical capitals (or systems) in order to achieve sustainability. One-way, sector-based methods do not lead to long-term perspectives, since they do not enable the connections among the activities that are specific locally. They are also called secondary or tertiary activities since they are usually of marginal importance to the state. Those connections should arise from the measures taken in development programmes and should be based on local and regional specifics. Here, the awareness of the fact that only cross-section of development programmes ensures sustainability, is essential. The establishment of multi-layer sustainability is a process that needs to be created constantly. The foundation of sustainability is in the consideration of ecosystem, social, regional and local situation, where a key role is played by the available local and regional resources, especially human resources - people. In times of changed global environmental situation we need to establish an effective protection system for natural resources on local and regional level, for example, with ecoremediations. We need to adjust to climate change, which is also the influence of interfering with ecosystem endurance of our planet, on all fields; from traffic and farming to the use of energy and the multi-purpose use of water bodies. Here, education plays a crucial role since it can contribute to the lowering of environmental impact by establishing the system of values. We suggest for sustainability based local (municipal) and regional agendas to pay more attention to ecosystem content, to their connection on the level of actual measures and to active public paricipation. Ecosystem based approaches, which will connect local-regional specifics and consider public interest, tradition and knowledge, will enable the design of integrated development strategies. Those strategies will be based on our responsibility for nature and people. Only such process of establishing sustainable regions can develop a favourable environment for well-being of people.
D.09 Tutoring for postgraduate students
COBISS.SI-ID: 17760264