The Canary Islands universities are involved in the Global Sustainability Agents Program in La Palma

The two public universities in the Canary Islands and the Sustainability Laboratory New York is co-organizing the International Training Program for Global Sustainability Agents on the island of La Palma, which will take place in person between July 9 and 30, 2023. With this initiative, a total of 20 young graduates from around the world will participate for three weeks in this international leadership initiative in transformation for sustainability.

This action will be carried out by the UNESCO Chair in Economic Development and Sustainable Tourism and the TIDES Institute of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and by the Ashotel–CajaCanarias Chair of Tourism of the University of La Laguna.

The Global Sustainability Agents program is a training-reflection-action proposal designed to inspire, prepare and mobilize future generations of leaders in order to address the urgent sustainability challenges facing the planet.

This initiative is being carried out in two phases. The first phase is online, beginning June 5th and lasting three weeks. The second phase will be in person on the island of La Palma, from July 9th to 30th. The Los Llanos de Aridane Agricultural Training School will serve as the program's headquarters and residence on the island, where a series of parallel activities will also take place at the Benahoarita Art Museum.

The Global Sustainability Fellows Program is a transdisciplinary program that integrates a sustainability approach across all its specializations. Based on a training and learning design, it adopts theoretical foundations and uses design thinking to generate action proposals from real-world problems, integrating the various dimensions of this sustainability perspective. This design is adapted for on-site application in environments affected by natural or social events related to climate change or natural disasters.

The circumstances arising from the volcano on the island of La Palma have led the promoting group to consider the opportunity and relevance of the island being the venue for this edition, allowing the analysis approach and methodology to be applied there, with a reflection-action proposal that may be useful to the reconstruction process, the actors involved and the entire society of La Palma.

As the culmination of the program, a diagnostic document and action proposal are presented to society to deepen the transformation strategy based on sustainability principles applicable to the island of La Palma.

The call for applications for the selection of young people who wish to participate is open until March 20th, through this web portal. The transformative impact of the Sustainability Lab can be found here.

Carmelo León, director of the UNESCO Chair at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, believes that the development of this program consolidates the relationship between universities in the transfer of know-how in sustainability, which is very useful for the redesign and recovery process underway in La Palma. For his part, Raúl Hernández, director of the CajaCanarias-Ashotel Tourism Chair at the University of La Laguna, believes that the program represents an opportunity to build a network of universities and research and development centers concerned with the transformations taking place in society, and where the Canary Islands serve as a laboratory for these changes.

This initiative is made possible thanks to the involvement of a wide range of institutions and social stakeholders on the island of La Palma and in the Canary Islands. These include the Department of Security, Emergencies, Citizen Participation, Services and Climate Change, together with the Department of Tourism of the Island Council of La Palma, the La Palma World Biosphere Reserve, the Departments of Ecological Transition, Climate Action and Territorial Planning, the Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, the Directorate General of Communication of the Government of the Canary Islands, and the local support of the La Palma branch of the Chamber of Commerce, the Association for Rural Development of the Island of La Palma, and the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics.