'LEARNING' CITY-REGIONS REVISITED: A NEW WAY FORWARD Professor Bruce Wilson, European Union Centre at RMIT Melbourne Knowledge Week, 2012 European Union Centre at RMIT University Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

IMPETUS TO PROMOTE ‘LEARNING’ CITY-REGIONS At least, three kinds of impetus for a focus on learning in place can be identified from the 1990s onwards: an emphasis on lifelong learning, perhaps better described as ‘life cycle learning’,; knowledge could be very important in driving industry restructuring and economic vitality; and new investment to take advantage of new information and communications technologies. Learning, as the generation, comprehension and application of knowledge and insight, matters because of the distinctive role of knowledge in this era. RMIT University©2010 European Union Centre 2

OECD AND EUROPEAN UNION INITIATIVE OECD: Centre for Educational Research and Innovation Institute for Management of Higher Education Public Governance and Territorial Development EUROPEAN UNION TELS PALLACE LILARA RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 3

OTHER GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES Victorian Learning Towns UK network of learning towns and cities German program on Learning Regions – providing support for networks Vancouver Learning City … and then ‘Smart’ Cities… RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 4

‘LEARNING’ OR STUMBLING? … dead as a dodo? Poor understanding about learning and knowledge Confusion about place … Are the collective learning processes similar, irrespective of the scale of place? How does city-regional learning differ from rural regional learning? RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 5

NEW THINKING ABOUT LEARNING REGIONS Rutten and Boekema, Regional Studies 48 1.fuzziness has arisen from two distinct views on the learning region: -policy; -networks. 2.case studies of regions led to an unwarranted presumption that learning networks had to be embedded regionally… strong global connections? 3.regional learning should be seen as the practice of individuals in social contexts which might or might not be spatially embedded; 4.a relational approach towards interaction amongst actors will be more useful: how they are structured and power is exercised, should be the focus of consideration, rather than spatial categories. RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 6

CONTINUING SIGNIFICANCE OF LEARNING AND PLACE Careful discussion about learning city-regions has been undermined by the inherent fuzziness of the key concepts, and about who is doing the learning; The overlap between policy and research is central to our concerns; Interest in learning and place is not an end in itself, but a means.; Learning processes themselves are poorly understood; Regional governance issues remain fundamental problems ; Methodologically, case studies have been very important in illustrating what’s possible but have had little transferability to other regions; The particular role of knowledge centres (universities, for example) in regional learning has been poorly understood, and frequently neglected. … most importantly, learning does matter! … and so, also, does place! RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 7

HOW DOES THIS LOOK FROM THE VANTAGE POINT OF THOSE IN ‘PLACE’? More immediate implications for those working with key stakeholders in city- regions: Strategies and policies to address any challenge will depend on one form or another of collaborative learning; the challenge in any particular instance is to determine how best the learning can be facilitated, building on the advantages of proximity and enabling access to global networks; In other words, a preoccupation with learning alone is overly limited; the question is learning for what? Who speaks to the future? What kind of social or technical infrastructure can support collaborative learning in place, linked with global partners? What contribution can be made by knowledge centres (universities), whether local or elsewhere? And by local government? RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 8