Converging ideas for building stronger communities

This chapter canvasses from the preceding chapters the steady progress of learning that has emerged over the past six years since PASCAL was formed.

PASCAL developed out of the 2001 Learning Cities and Regions Conference in Australia and reflected a broad church of interest in new ideas around place, social capital and learning regions. In particular there was considerable interest in exploring further the relations between these three core ideas. In this book the nature and importance of those original ideas have become clearer, with a number of key themes - four in all - emerging as significant from practice, from policy development work and from research.

The themes are: (1) Integrated place-based strategies to leverage social and economic growth (2) The importance of local knowledge to research, policy' and practice (3) Therne 3; Civic engagement and networks as new forms of governance and (4) Research/policy/practice collaboration as the key to coproduction of knowledge. In many ways the successful understanding of these themes and how they play out in settings differentiated by history, culture, issue, resources and capability, can potentially lay down the preconditions for successful learning and community development.